Disclaimer: The Dungeons and Dragons franchise does not belong to me in an capacity, and I am not making any profit off of posting this tale. The setting and basic storyline belong to me as the DM of my group (at the time) and the characters all belong to their respective players. I'm also just the scribe who decided to put this story to paper (or rather, webpage) for other readers'/players' enjoyment.

Prologue: Let the War Fall Away

Xine once asked a scholar how he would define "war." "War is an organized violent conflict of wills between two or more separate groups or classes, in which one of the groups or classes is determined as the winning side" was the answer he was given.

There were not "winners" in his war, Xine decided. Sure, there was a victor, which was his "side" he supposed, but he would not have used the word "winner." Winning implied you got your way, with little to no negative consequences involved. Winning implied that you had managed to walk away with yourself and your soul intact. Winning did not imply feeling a hole in your heart, ready to bring you to your own death, just thinking about those battles.

He was on the victor's side in that war, but Xine was undoubtedly a loser. He knew this even before the final battle, and especially before that fateful moment when he was standing, watching as the final leader of the enemy's army fell.

How many people did he know died in that war? How many people did he not know die?

Randall had been first. A new recruit, the young half-orc (barely considered an adult) did not have the wisdom or experience to know when not to rush to fight. He fell to a ranger's arrow, which had managed to pierce a weak point in his armor, straight into his right lung. Xine hated those kinds of deaths the most. They tended to be slower and more painful.

Tahoe went next, though no one was absolutely sure of the method of his death. The halfling rogue had been sent on a mission to assassinate the high priest of the enemy army, who had been granted the divine favor of their evil deities. Xine and the others had known Tahoe was successful, because a few days later the news of the priest's death reached the ears of their spies, but the price was expectantly high. Tahoe's body had been sent back in a box, contorted and broken, burned in some places and slashed in others, his flesh barely hanging from his bones. "A warning to all halfling insurgents" the note that came with the box read. A warning indeed.

Nioko's death, if it could be called that, had been one of the most overwhelming. The young psion had been in battle against the enemy's chief psychic warrior. They had been locked in mental and physical combat for five days straight, and Nioko was tiring. That "battle" had made Xine feel more useless than he had ever felt before. Psychic combat was something he knew he could do nothing about, but watching Nioko, who was younger than Xine was, fight this fearsome foe was both terrifying and intriguing. Various psychic powers—everything that went right over Xine's head—went back and forth, until Nioko spotted a gap in the psychic warrior's mental armor. To attack it though, he had to leave himself open to a counter. The enemy was defeated, but had managed to hit Nioko with the Crystallize power. He fell from his position, nothing more than a solid green, humanoid crystal. Nioko took a chance and paid for it. If a psion had been defeated like that, what were the chances of anyone else surviving?

Flashes of these memories flew across Xine's vision, forcing him to see images he wished he were blind to and hearing voices he wanted to be deaf to. Aleksei, his party's dwarven fighter, killed by an enemy axe to the stomach…Kazumi, elven bard, his voice shattered and his neck broken by a heavy mace…Camelia, human cleric, charred by a Lightning Bolt spell, her symbol of Selûne still tight in her praying hands…Savion, human barbarian, whose rage had been stopped short by an onslaught of poisonous darts…Mikhail, dwarven monk, head smashed by a warhammer that managed to take him from behind…

Xine held his hands to his ears. Make it stop! Make it stop!

And the final battle came to the front of his mind. He was back in that final battlefield, on the ruins of the enemy capital. The last council member stood above him, at the top of the broken tower that he had just been thrown from. He had landed safely, by some miracle, but his party's gnome illusionist, Estelle, lay at his feet, her heart stilled. She had not been so fortunate.

The tower had been blasted away, exposing the top rooms as the battlegrounds. Celedor, their elven wizard, was focusing all his power on a Wall of Force spell to defend against the Emperor's Bigby's Forceful Hand. He was holding his ground pretty well. The Forceful Hand spell ended, and Wall of Force fell. Celedor cast Magic Missile, hitting the Emperor square in the chest. He howled in pain, clutching his torso. He focused another spell, Cone of Cold, and cast it in Celedor's direction.

The fight went on for a few more minutes as Xine recovered from his fall. The Emperor was distracted enough by the wizard that Xine saw a number of openings for attack. He reached down to his quiver and pulled out an arrow. However, when he gripped his bow from his back and pulled it out, he realized that it had been snapped in half. It must have been broken during his landing. Damn! He had no way to attack!

The Emperor had ceased casting spells by this point and pulled out a whip. He snapped it at Celedor, tipping him and forcing him to the ground. Xine could only watch helplessly as the Emperor was free to cast another spell, this time Meteor Swarm.

Celedor was tossed from the tower, falling to what was certainly his doom. Xine dropped the weapons he was carrying and rushed to catch the elf. He flipped himself, scraping his back across the ground in order to catch the elf when he was closer to the ground. He gave a groan and twisted to place the elf on the ground. Celedor had his eyes shut in pain, his skin burning and blistering horribly from the Meteor Swarm's fire. He opened his eyes, seeing Xine above him calling his name.

The elf pulled a chain from around his neck, revealing the crescent moon pendant that had been passed down in his family. It was the symbol of the Kitori family, and he always wore it, even in battle. Celedor tugged the pendant from his neck and held it up to Xine.

"For my son and his descendants," he gasped. "Promise me you'll get it to him."

"Don't talk like that," Xine hissed, not taking it. "You can give it to him yourself."

"Promise me."

Xine didn't answer. He couldn't do anything about those wounds; he had no healing skills. Celedor was going to die, and he could do nothing. He needed Soraya. Where was she?

He heard the faint sound of someone casting more spells. Glancing to the Emperor still on the tower, Xine cringed. He was chanting again. Xine felt even more powerless. Estelle was dead, Celedor was dying in his arms, he had no long range weapons, no spells, no healing…nothing. The Emperor looked like he was on his last legs, but he had the upper hand.

A number of meters away, just behind the Emperor, Xine spotted a familiar form. It was Soraya. She appeared as haggard as he felt, a long gash going down her leg to just above her ankle. The best thing was though, was that she had pulled an arrow from her quiver and set it in her bow. Xine had never been more relieved to see her fiery hair than at that moment.

It had been Soraya's shot that fell the Emperor. Her victory in that war, no one else's. That was how he saw it, at least.

Xine snapped back into the present, the clay pot on his pottery wheel slumped and misshaped from not being molded properly while he was caught up in his memories. That was not a joyous event, even though his group and his side were victorious in that fight. It only meant more death, more loss. Why did it come to him now, so long after it had ended? Was his soul and sanity affected that much?

He had lost everything in that war: his homeland, his time, his family, and his friends. He had managed to return Celedor's pendant to the Kitori family and get him and Estelle proper burials. But he had no contact with their families. It was as painful to them as it was to him. The only constant in his life immediately after the war had been Soraya, and now she was gone as well, taken by fever following childbirth. That had been beyond his power too. Although, even after that he had a bit of her left, embodied in a red-headed infant that had grown into an adult he was quite proud of.

And, gods help him, he would not let that boy feel that kind of pain. Not if he could help it.