My sole, or rather my most glaring, vice is my
consumption of magical components in pursuit of my
craft. In fact my entire livelihood is so dependent on
them that I am forced at intervals to seek out my
younger brother, Blast Jr, for help in acquiring them.
The few gems and magical items I scrounge from my
surroundings make barely a dent in the cost of my
upkeep and thus I am totally reliant on the good will
of my family and friends. I have contributed a couple
of trinkets which Blast has given to his girlfriend,
Corine, whom I hear is safely squirreled away in a
tower near Yanshi. But this does not adequately
compensate him for his effort on my behalf. This debt
gnaws at me and I feel, as I have always felt, that I
must someday return. However right now I cannot.

I still seek an answer to my riddles and pursue the
standing stones where I believe some clue may be
found. I am committed to seeing my quest through and
finding a voice in this world which is mine. Were I to
return now, I would not be a complete person. Someone
once told me that our purpose in life was to find our
purpose, and were I to return home now, it would be
premature. I would be incomplete. So for now I must
remain a wanderer.

The pull of the wilderness is compelling. I have been
pleasantly surprised by my experience in the
wilderness and I find myself wanting to stay. My
seclusion has brought a certain calm, a certain
satisfaction to all of my activities. The solitude
seems to offer an escape, an answer for all my
questions. For my fear, it offers the best measure of
safety I have yet found. For my curiosity, it offers
up miles of unexplored land with many wonders to
behold and secrets to discover. And my wanderings have
seen my power grow to and a sip of power can corrupt
the purest intentions. In the wilderness survival is
itself something to live for and the absence of a past
or future frees ones mind to live in the present.

And yet as a mage, I am invested in a technology that
will not allow me to escape civilization entirely. I
must travel to the shops of my fellow practitioners
and exchange the currency of the land to purchase the
products of industry that will fuel my way of life. If
I wielded a dagger, perhaps then I could fade into the
fabric of the landscape never to be seen again, lost
from the problems of the world surviving only on my
skills and a piece of forged metal. But, alas, in my
hands a dagger is but a clumsy tool and the lifestyle
I would be unhappy living the lifestyle that my dagger
would afford.

I would not shun civilized company entirely. The other
day I was fortunate enough to take Oberion and Yhun on
as vassals. The two of them have an enthusiasm and
exuberance which makes me feel my age. I am certain
that in no time the two will have exceeded my
abilities and means. Their pledge of loyalty and their
pleasant company served as a happy reminder of
something absent from my life in the hills. Zak has
been kind enough several times to come visit me,
helping to expel my loneliness. Isolation is such that
one doesn't realize how much one misses the company of
people until one is exposed to it again. I had not
realized how much I missed the company of people.

So I must conclude that my escape to the wilderness
can only be a temporary solution for it is but an easy
answer to the problems at hand. A person may not run
from their problems forever and my home, with all its
problems, is Yanshi. At some point I must work up the
fortitude to stick it out there. Right now my path
back to that place is clouded and unclear. I only hope
that my visions may hold the key to making that path
plain.

-Khali