Drake's Second Message

I had listened to this message prior to facing Grendel the first time, and had intended to post the contents after investigating things, but getting my ass kicked as thoroughly as I did kinda prevented me from posting it immediately. Of course, once I was repaired, I was more focused on getting some payback rather than posting the rantings of this damn madman. But now is a good time, as the Boneswulf story has been told, and in the coruse of it, more has been learned about Drake. Some of this second message actually makes more sense now than when I heard it for the first time.

So, I will now post the contents of his message, without editing it this time-you bastard, I know you’re reading this-and I will now have time to make progress towards getting his next damn love letter. Without further blather on my part, here is the message:

“Ah yes, I see you do desire to learn more about me. I am glad to see that you still have enough vestiges of your humanity to be curious. That is a good sign, a good sign indeed.

“So you know by now that I was a mentor to the man best known as Rasputin. He was one of my pupils, a fast learner he was as well, but alas, he was too interested in the pleasures of the flesh to master the lessons I had to teach. Still, he nearly escaped from the trap that was laid for him.

“But enough of poor dead Grigori, I merely wanted to peak your interest with him. I am sure that even you have surmised by now that there is far more mystery about me than my mere age. For while it is remarkable how long I have been around, it is more remarkable the way in which I have accomplished this over the many centuries of my existence.

“That is the mystery you must unravel, my dear son, if you are ever to discover how to bring about my end. But let us not get ahead of ourselves here.

“Right now, I want to focus not on the How of my immortality, but the Why of it.

“For as long as humans have had the brains to recognize their own mortality and to fear what laid upon the Other Side, there have been those who also had the ability to manipulate matter and energy with what we call magick. In those earliest, primitive groups, those people who had the innate ability to do things with magick were seen as special. Their talents were often seen as useful to the whole group, either in healing the sick, or in foretelling good times to hunt or move the group. These talented people were fairly rare, probably no more common than 1 in 1000 adults, which is a really small percentage when you consider how small most of these groups were, often no more than 10-20 adults per group.

“When someone was discovered to have this talent, they were given special status in the groups, and indeed they would often come to serve more than one group with their skills, as they were seen as too valuable to everyone’s survival for just one group to benefit. Over time, as groups of humans grew in size and some became more sedentary, these kinds of specially talented people became a distinct class of priests or shamans. In some societies these people were elevated to the point that they either ruled directly, or they selected those who ruled in their name.

“But in some societies, these people were cast to the fringes, and their abilities regarded as suspect, as well they should have been. Over time, almost all societies came to recognize the threat that these people represented. You must understand, when a group of people possesses a set of skills that sets them far above other people, those who lacked those skills feared that they would be forced into being the slaves of those who had them, and rightly so, since in many of those ancient societies that were ruled by this priestly class did become enslaved.

“The most successful cultures found ways to identify and either eliminate these ‘sorcerors’ or force them into roles that served the greater good. Organized religion is one such avenue. Even Christianity has evolved from a small cult of followers of a powerful ‘mystic’ to become an organ of control over the masses and the small minority of magically talented people, many of whom become ‘called’ to the ministry.

“But in many cases over the centuries of human civilizations, many of these ‘talented’ individuals escaped into the shadows of society and formed secret groups, cults, or covens where they could learn to practice their talents and use them in secret to gain advantage over those who didn’t possess these skills.

“Now some of these secret groups formed merely to help others of their kind to survive, and some even helped ‘normal’ people in times of need. But most of these groups had secret agendas that envisioned them regaining the power over the masses that they once had back at the dawn of civilization.

“I am sure your mind is beginning to wander, so let me bring you back into focus with this little lecture. I was born a very long time ago to a family of very ‘talented’ people. However, I learned very early on that this ‘talent’ is not always hereditary, as I completely lacked any of the abilities that made my family ‘special’.

“In my youthful naivete, I tried as hard as I could to please my parents through hard work and diligence. But to no avail, to them I was just an extra mouth to feed with no useful skills. I was a burden and a symbol of failure to them, even as my siblings all showed promise and potential. It came as little surprise to me then to be sent packing as a young man, to find my own way in the world with nothing to survive by but my own strength and my wits.

“Yes, I know this hardly sounds like a unique sob story, but it is important if you want to know why I became who I have become and why I have done many of the things I have done.

“I had seen the intimate world of these ‘talented’ people and I saw how my parents were far older than they appeared to be. I saw how they used their ‘talents’ to improve their lives at the expense of others who didn’t have those ‘talents’.

“When I left our family home, I was ashamed of being weak, of being without any ‘talent’ and I was burning with the desire to find my own talent, or to acquire one in some way and return to show my parents the mistake they had made in sending me away.

“I returned many years later, after travelling much of the known world at that time as a soldier, as a seeker, and finally as a man who become more than a man. It was with great relish that I saw the look of horror and surprise on the faces of my former family as I took their power and extended my own life beyond my own wildest dreams.

“Your quest, should you choose to continue it, is to find out where I came from, and what secret I found. When you do that, you will find out how to defeat me.

“That is enough for now. I will be following your progress. When you are ready, I will send you the next message and the next clue to your journey.”

With that, the message ended. What did I tell you? The ravings of a madman.