There was a lull in Poxig’s mail the following two weeks. He looked in vain for a response to his letter, but he held out hope that he would eventually reach the ear of the king. This started a very dark time in Poxig’s career. He could no longer verify his status as a wayward soldier of fortune. In fact, he was thinking of simply going back to singing as a bard and earning his bread as an entertainer.

It became an issue once he decided that the king’s response was rather unlikely. Ought one to hold on so tightly to one’s dreams when their likelihood of occurring was so slim to none? There are some dreams that dissipate in the air, others that are forgotten after waking, and still others that have yet to be realized. Poxig had the sacred orb, but his mission still eluded him. How he wished for the time when he slew vampires with Lakfi.

He felt that there were fewer options nearer possibility. The king would probably not grant him an audience, and if not, he would have to take action. But he was not yet motivated. His brown study continued into the next week. He would need to gather multi-colored stones to assuage his feelings of failure. Different red, blue, green, and yellow ones were his moods today.

He remembered a bistro that he had eaten in in Proxima across the Sillionage mountain range. He was ready to eat his bologna and cheese sandwich which was his very favorite when a thought occurred to him. What if destiny was simply a feather in the wind, rather than a waterfall coursing into the riverbed? This he thought on his way back from Eyrrf. He had always thought that events led to a penultimate happening, but now he was beginning to doubt that philosophy.

No matter his rhetorical questions, something bothered him. What would he do if he didn’t have a mission from Releven? He would continue to ignore that possibility, and seek his fate among the wicked banshees in the Marsh cave. Perhaps there he would find a purpose beyond his own trivial preoccupations. There were things known only to Releven that he could not decipher with his limited powers of perception.