Friar Godfrey waved goodbye to the last wagon as it left the market grounds, shouting a blessing, “MELANDIEL GUIDE YOU HOME!” he watched as the wagon turned the corner on the muddy road. Godfrey then started feeling the aches and pains of market weekends. The soles of his feet felt like they had been pounded on a blacksmiths hammer. His hands sore from dishes and carrying others’ loads. His legs like a newborn deers from his many trips to help people. His back was screaming at him from carrying the Brody The Bold to his grave, and giving Good Sister Liora a piggy back ride up to the cursed chapel. His side slashed open from a bandit’s blade, his chest pierced from when a creature of darkness struck him, His shoulder looking like ground beef from where the vampire spawn chewed on him while the town was working on the pillars. He made it to a tree and collapsed, the weight of the weekend driving him into the ground.

he felt his chest and realized that it wasn’t sweat and rain making his chest moist it was the stitching burst open from his helping with the wagons. It must have been that very large and heavy chest. He had had worse injuries in the past and they had always healed up ok and would feel bad to bother people about it. He dabbed at it and drew his fingers into the light, his blood a deep red, the smell of the rain, the fresh mud, the smoke on the air

A memory flooded him.

His long axe on his back, a sack of stolen silver around his waist, and his hands drenched in the blood of the innocent, running away from a burning village laughing and singing with the rest of his band.

A wave of sorrow and sickness hit his mind and soul as a massive wave strikes a small ship

there he laid in the rain and mud completely alone and whispered the only thing he could think of when he suffered

“I walk the Penitent Path”
“I walk the Penitent Path”
“I walk the Penitent Path”