A bard’s true calling lies not in truth, but in weaving beauty from threads of imagination. Even if that means to twist truth to create beauty. The world’s ugliness, its harsh realities, are weights enough without adding more to a man’s heart. Let your tales and songs be a respite from life’s dreariness, a gleam of light in the weary darkness we all must face. While your stories may stray from fact, there lies a deeper truth in the joy they bring. For in lifting spirits, in stirring laughter and hope, you speak to the soul of something greater than mere truth.

  - Attributed to the Bard Darren Kragain.

  The scene dripped with despair and frustration, a shade of helplessness clinging to the air. Not it was no mere shade, it was the smell of slow, lingering death that perfumed incense could not cover.

  I was failing. Forgive me, my friend, I had thought myself beyond mortal folly. I had thought myself unbreakable, untouchable, yet the great man laid low before me was proof of my weakness. Not perfect, not yet. The bitter taste of humility was sharp, unyielding, a reminder of limitations forged by the caprice of the Divines.

  Enkidu lay sprawled on a pillowed bed, his body wasted, pale beneath a sheen of sweat that soaked through the linens. Servants moved around him in a quiet dance, pressing cool cloths to his feverish brow and lifting cups of honeyed water to his cracked lips. He burned, as if some invisible pyre consumed him from within, and my powers, formidable though they were, could not quench the fire. Days had passed in this agonizing vigil, each moment a testament to the insidious reach of the curse of Iasis, which stripped muscle from bone and spirit from soul, hollowing out the giant of a man Kidu once was.

  It was a bleak reminder of my own mortality.

  “Mana potion!” I snapped, steeling myself to cast yet another Greater Heal. The spell’s divine melody could raise his Health, but it was only a fleeting balm.

  “Samasa, with all respect, another potion might be dangerous… You’ve been taking them near constantly…” came the voice of a servant, hesitant and pleading. “Magister Vincenzio advises…”

  My patience frayed, my armored fist flew out to silence the insolence—then froze. A young girl stared back at me, eyes wide with terror, her body shrinking back as if she could sink through the floor itself. I halted my hand, forcing it down, though the anger still pulsed like molten iron in my veins.

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  “Another Mana potion,” I repeated, my voice thin and deadly.

  The girl stumbled back, nearly tripping in her haste to escape, as she scampered off to fulfill my order, leaving me alone with Kidu’s shallow breaths and the bitter truth.

  “You should not mistreat those in service,” came a voice, high and polished, unmistakably noble. Lady Aelayah. Every word from her was oil on the fire of my anger. Women—how they knew exactly where to strike when a man was fraying at the edges.

  “What now?” I snarled, scarcely holding back the bite in my voice.

  She crossed her arms, unamused, annoyed at my tone. “What now?” she echoed, eyes narrowing. “You dare ask that? You’re needed in the Contest of Knives, not sulking here over a man already half lost,” she said, the words sharper than any blade. Cold and cruel. “Have you forgotten your promise, Gilgamesh?”

  People with their wants. People with their demands. I shut her out, tuning her voice to a dull murmur as I turned back to Kidu. Threads of golden light coiled in my hands, a useless balm against a curse that gnawed at him like a starving beast. The magic poured from me, taking much of my Mana. The song I whispered had grown hollow, and the miracle had become a farce. A notification appeared, empty and infuriating—everything in this world reduced to numbers, yet the weight of loss felt achingly real.

  Finally, I turned to Aelayah, the would-be ruler of this sun-beaten city, seeing in her eyes a mixture of frustration and something else. Fear. But was it fear of me, or fear for her own schemes for Al-Lazar?

  “Why should I leave?” I asked, my voice hollow. “My friend needs me here. Do not disturb me unless you have come to help.”

  “Every spell you cast is worth a fortune. An entire merchant family could live on each cast of holy gold.” Her voice softened, almost gentle, but the words cut all the same. “Is it not it enough? Have you not done enough? If this is truly the will of a Divine, then what more can you do but accept it? Nothing good ever comes from defying heaven, Gilgamesh.”

  I laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. “Accept it? Bend? Is that what you’d have me do?” I paused, drawing an impassioned breath. “Would you do the same in your struggle? Lay down your sword, bend the knee? No. That’s how the Divines twist our will, Aelayah, make us weak. It would be so easy to give up… to take the easiest path.”

  Her gaze softened, though the sharp edge never left her. “I see he is a friend you care for.”

  “Ones and zeros,” I muttered, half to myself. “But he was there. A comfort when I needed one. He and…” I trailed off, memories of another lost to me intruding for a moment before disappearing.

  Aelayah’s brow furrowed, ignoring my first words. “A friend you care for,” she repeated, her voice low. “But can you not see that you are only prolonging his suffering? Let him go, Gilgamesh. You are needed out there. Others fight in your stead, struggle for you. Even the elf girl… she fights like a demon to take up your slack! Do not let their sacrifice go to waste. Please, I beg you!”

  “Leave me!” I roared, the words tearing out, hollow as my heart, but carrying enough force that she stepped back. And then, in silence, she turned and went, leaving me to the ragged breaths of a friend slipping into darkness.