Dr James Arkon's Travel Journal

Last words
Every journey does not start with gathering all the things you need on the road, saying goodbye to family and friends or preparing your home for an extended absence of its owner. A journey always begins with an idea that flashes through your mind during a routine event that you'd love to give up. At first you don't even notice it or instantly forget it, but once you have it, it doesn't go away. It remains smouldering slowly in the corner of your consciousness, waiting for the wind to blow it into a bright flame that will spread to the useless furniture inside your mind and become a raging fire that greedily consumes everything around it.

And so it happened to me. That is why I am now standing in front of a self-made castle erected on the cold peak of a lonely mountain overlooking the lifeless plain of a city whose name I will no longer give. The wind tore at my cloak as I took one last look at the painfully familiar walls and towers, trying to stifle the flood of memories rushing through my mind. How many years and effort had gone into creating what was now so foreign to me, and how quickly would it all turn into nothing more than a miserable pile of stones? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? Either way, there was no point in thinking about it, as the choice had already been made.

I shouldered my backpack, sighed heavily, and stepped through the portal, that instantly took me away from the familiar lands into the realm of heat and horror.