Changing Winds

Nym leaned against her door. Her mind swam with unfinished thoughts as she stared into her dark room. Her heart was racing with anger toward the druids, this Ishmael character, the Lathander priests, the power hungry elf-queen from the dreamworld, the shadowcasters, the dreamworld monks, the red wizards… She felt like a fool for ever having thought good outweighed evil in this world. With an angry gesture, she lit a small candle on a shelf and began pacing the floor. She found she couldn't focus on any one thought. Nym's hands shook and she ground her teeth in blind anger. Having no proper outlet for her anger, she threw her small table across the room where it shattered.

"Now, whatever did you do that for?" cooed a familiar voice in the dark. Nym spun around expecting to see her old friend Rahm behind her. There was no one. "Oh, don't worry, little bird, you're not going mad," the voice of Nym's father soothed from across the room.

Confused and still angry, Nym shouted, "What do you want?" into the dark. For what seemed like a long time, there was no response. Finally, a quiet voice sounding like Druuv the goblin echoed her, "What do you want?" Nym's eyes narrowed. "Have I gone mad?" she wondered. "Perhaps the dream world was too much for my mind... perhaps all this destruction was too much..."

Nym was jarred out of thought by the realization that someone was standing in the room with her. Nym gasped in surprise and demanded again, "What do you want?" The figure stepped forward. Before her stood a half-elf man who for all intents and purposes looked like Illuvaen. Nym blinked at the figure. He almost looked like Illuvaen. The same features, same clothes, hair... but the smile was wrong. And the eyes. This Illuvaen's eyes were dark and there seemed some malice behind them. His smile looked like what Nym imagined a predator would make right before pouncing on helpless prey... Her thoughts were interrupted when this Illuvaen repeated, "What do you want?" as he stepped toward her.

"Who are you?" demanded Nym icily. The figure's smile broadened. "Why, I'm you of course," it replied, taking on Nym's features. Nym blinked slowly as she stared at herself; all except the eyes... and the smile. "I'm part of you here to tell you that you're right to want the druids dead." Nym had backed herself into a corner, "Maybe they were tricked into doing what they did..." she replied weakly. "You know as well as I that that cannot possibly wipe all that blood off their hands..." The smiling mirror-Nym gingerly picked something up from the ruins of the table. It was the little girl's doll Nym had found in Baldur's Gate after it's destruction. Nym stared at the dirty broken doll, overwhelmed with emotion. The figure was now a sad looking little girl with dark eyes. "You fantasized you'd return this to the little girl who lost it... But we both know she was murdered..." "...By the druids..." finished Nym as she took the doll. Tears were forming in her eyes as the reality of all the innocents who died at the hands of the druids at both Baldur's Gate and now Waterdeep. "Now you begin to understand," the figure whispered to Nym, still smiling. Again it looked like Nym. "There can be no good while devils such as these exist." "Yes," agreed Nym. She felt mesmerized by the figure's dark eyes and predatory smile. "You know what you must do then?" it asked. Nym felt light headed. "To restore good, I purge the evil..." "YES," hissed the mirror-Nym. Nym's mind was swimming and her vision was becoming blurry. She realized a dark liquid was running down her chin onto her clothes. She wiped her nose. Blood.

Nym looked back to the figure, which was now blurred in her vision. "Purge the evil..." she muttered as she fell to the floor unconscious. She dreamt of a black starburst behind a skull and the haunting eyes of the figure.