text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, dystopia, grimdark, serious]
  
  Year 65
  
  You get a knock on the door to which causes you to wonder who would be bothering you at this time of night. You're more than a little annoyed since you were sleeping.
  
  "Go away, I ain't getting up." you say from your chair trying to go back to sleep.
  "Open the fuck up, you useless old man!" you hear from outside and it's enough to motivate you to answer it and punch out the fool who said it. When you open it however, an unexpected visitor meets you.
  
  "Ulivik?"
  "Yeah, it's me! Well, aren't you going to invite me in?" he laughs.
  "Yeah sure." You say and the both of you head to your quarters to sit and talk. You still shaking the cobwebs after being awaken from your slumber.
  
  "Were you asleep?"
  "Yeah, what of it?"
  "Nothing! Just sort of surprised, I mean I know it's night, but its still pretty early."
  "Eh, it's been kind of a lazy day today, felt like sleeping for most of it."
  "You didn't teach a class today?"
  "Class? School's been officially closed for about two years now. I mean I get few people that seek me out looking to increase their skills every once in awhile, but nowadays everyone goes to that new military academy they opened up here."
  "Oh, I was wondering what that big new building looming near the edge of town was, so they didn't offer you a job there?"
  "Eh, they did, but I didn't want it. People who I originally trained run it and most of them I didn't even like when I was teaching them, so I'd rather not have to follow whatever silly guidelines they've come up with for that place. Anyway, I sometimes get paid to give speeches on tactics and strategies there. I get by. So where have you been and what brings you back?"
  
  Ulivik mentions he mainly returned to when he heard his father had died and that he's probably going to be around for a while to look after his mother. He then excitedly goes on about his various adventures of exploring ruins, caves and finding treasures and lost trinkets. Not enough to get rich, but he's not in it for that. You enjoy hearing about it all, it's not like you really go anywhere or do as much anymore. And as the years go on, you are finding yourself with less and less to do. You sort of thought your school and teaching would occupy your time and that if you got bored of that you could always break it up with a little mercenary work. But both of those options are pretty much closed off to you at this point, at least in Rask. The place is less wild and more peaceful now than it ever was under the Empire.
  
  You could move you suppose, but it's not such a bad life maybe you should just settle in and enjoy your elderly years in relative peace...
  
  "..and so then I got my head split open and my entrails eaten by the clawbeast and died. Hey! Are you still with me?" Ulivik asks.
  "Huh? Yeah you got your entrails eaten and died." You answer.
  "Well glad to see you're still listening." Ulivik laughs.
  "Sorry, just a little preoccupied. Anyway, go on."
  
  Ulivik knows something's up with you, and he's got a pretty good idea what it is.
  
  "Hey, have you ever thought about leaving Rask and joining your old buddies in the Eternal Dominion?" he asks.
  "Wha...oh I don't think that's for me. Besides I only have two there, dunno if one of them is even still alive and I never really was exactly friends with Edgar. Speaking of which did you have much trouble traveling through the ED? I heard they aren't too fond of svelk there ever since most of your people have been hiring themselves out to the Felkans."
  Well as you once pointed out, we're not really liked anywhere we go, but I never really kept to the populated areas while in the ED so I didn't have too many problems. However, I did find that dropping your name helped me a few times. You're sort of known there."
  "Huh. Dunno, why I would be, not like I was ever part of the place. Guess Edgar really did look up to me. Unexpected."
  "Didn't he offer you a job too one time?"
  "Yeah. Don't think it's still available though. Like I said, my time serving big governments is over with. I wasted more than thirty years of my life doing it. Not going to waste the remaining years I have left even if it's a high position of power. Besides, I'm still not sure that I wouldn't have to kill Edgar if I ever got into an argument with him over something."
  "Surely it would be more interesting than sleeping all day."
  "Hah, probably. I dunno, I just feel like Edgar's Eternal Dominion is just mimicking a lot of the old Empire. Sure it's doing well now, but ultimately it's going to fall just like the Empire did, so what's the point?"
  "Hmm, well you could offer your services to the Felkan Kingdom, I think they could use the help."
  "Yeah, no. I'm not into lost causes. Did that before too and saw the results. The Felkan Kingdom could've won the war if they didn't fight so defensively. There were many times early in the war where they should've pressed an attack and took territory. Their fate is probably sealed at this point. Only a matter of time, assuming the ED keeps with it's policy of total conquest, and doesn't fuck it up. Anyway don't get me started on how I nearly got dragged into serving on both sides of that conflict."
  
  "Okay, but how about another proposal?"
  "I'll bite. What is it?"
  "Well, as you know I'm going to be here awhile looking after my mother, but I need something to do. Rask still has areas of it that are largely unexplored. I sort wondered if you'd like to come with me on an adventure in this very area."
  "Oh? And where would this place be? Most of the places you're speaking of involve mountains, and as bored as I am, I'm not about to go dragging my ass up a fucking mountain."
  "Ha ha, nah not the mountains, though it still might involve a little bit of climbing."
  "Okay, so where?"
  "The Wendigo Hills."
  
  Now there's name that's spoken of in only whispers nowadays in Rask. Everyone knows about it and doesn't speak about it, let alone go near it, from humans to ogres and even the few giants still left. Ever since you wiped them out forty five years ago, there have been little problems from those evil spirits. Years later after you first left Rask you heard the various villages got their holy men together to perform some sort of ritual to make sure none of the spirits managed to ever escape from those cursed hills ever again. Of course every once in a blue moon some unfortunate idiot...usually an adventurer gets himself possessed and no expense is spared in hunting down the creature and destroying it.
  
  Now it looks like Ulivik is intent on being that new unfortunate idiot.
  
  "Have you lost your fucking mind, because if you haven't, then you will if you go there and that's if you're lucky. I went to that blasted place once, I had a company of soldiers with me and I was in my prime. I barely got out of that place alive and you know what happened to the few soldiers that survived with me? Four of them ultimately committed suicide from their nightmares and the other two got discharged and thrown in the asylum for just going batshit insane. No, I'm not going and if you got any sense, you won't either. That place does shit your mind. The spirits there are pure evil, and they are not to be trifled with."
  "No, I have a remedy for that! Look at these!" Ulivik says and produces two amulets with a faint blue glow.
  
  "Let me guess, these things are magical and they're supposed to protect us from getting possessed."
  "Correct! Even when I was little, I heard there was supposed to be great treasure in those hills. Nobody has ever had the skill to go in there and claim it, but I want to be the first because I truly feel like I'm ready now. You're the about the one who has traveled the most in those hills and survived. You would be a great help and we can even share whatever we find! Come on, it'll be like old times!"
  
  "Old" being the key word here. While you were wondering if you were becoming more complacent in your old age, you aren't sure if going to the Wendigo Hills is something you want to do just to prove "you still got it."
  
  > stay home
  Complacent or not, you're really thinking that this is just a bad idea all the way round.
  
  "Ulivik, I'm telling you, this isn't a good idea. I'm not about to place your faith in some amulet that may or may not work and you shouldn't either. I know you're an adventurer and all, but some places are just better left alone."
  "Oh come on! The man I knew wouldn't have backed down from a challenge like this!"
  "The man you knew was twenty years younger, and I still had a purpose for my wandering. I was a merc, remember? Look, if the fact that I won't go traipsing around in wendigo territory looking for ruins that might not even be there and wearing an amulet hoping it'll protect me disappoints you, well I guess I'm just going to have to disappoint you."
  
  Ulivik does indeed look disappointed, but he doesn't argue the point anymore. Instead he just abruptly gathers his belongings and starts to leave.
  
  "Ulivik, I really wish you'd heed my advice on this. Think about it, have I ever lead you wrong?"
  
  He stops for a moment, and thinks, but continues his exit.
  
  "No, maybe you haven't, but just as you have picked your path to become an old man who is content on resting on his laurels now. I still feel the zest for excitement and danger, and I am compelled to do what I must. It's just a shame we couldn't have shared in it together just one more time." Ulivik says and leaves.
  
  Once again you are left by yourself to reflect on your life and Ulivik's words. He might have his own point about resting on your "laurels" but what the hell, it's not like you haven't deserved it. You could go back and forth on such things, but honestly you're a little more concerned about Ulivik and what he's potentially going to get himself into. Still, he's an adult and capable of making his own decisions.
  
  Days pass and you don't hear anything from Ulivik. True he was a little mad at you, but you're pretty sure he'd come back to see you before he left. You begin to fear the worst. You end up going to his mother's house to see if he's been there or shown up, but she says she hasn't seen him. She's worried as well, though she's understandably more upset about it.
  
  Your next move is to go to the militia and make a report, you don't expect anything to be done, but you figure that the "risk" of a possible wendigo possession is more than enough to keep all the towns alert about it. You are nearly tempted to go looking for him in wendigo territory yourself, but you decide that it would only serve in getting you killed as well, and there's no way you'd even be able to track him.
  
  Weeks pass into months and there is still no sign of Ulivik. No wendigo attacks either, so you can only assume that he wasn't possessed, just killed and eaten. Many times you go back and forth in your head wondering if you'd just gone with him that maybe he'd still be alive...or maybe there would be two dead instead of one. Can't second-guess your decisions, you learned that a long time ago, but still you feel saddened by Ulivik's passing. He had a lot of potential and in some odd way he almost felt like a son to you.
  
  Life goes on though, but it feels a little emptier.
  
  Year 73
  
  The rest of your years have been spent mostly going about your life with increasingly less and less for you to do. There are some changes in society, but ultimately you begin to feel the decline of your own will to live. You never thought you'd feel that way, but there it is. You just don't have anything else to keep you motivated anymore.
  
  The thrill of living finally disappears from you entirely and you are found dead by your own hand. While you were not sick and still in relatively good health for a man your age, you decided that you would end it before you might not be in such a condition to do so. A note explaining your suicide is left nearby and the town gives you a proper cremation. Some of your old students turn out for it and say a few words, but in time you are soon forgotten and only brought up as the subject of "tall tales" by drunkards in Rask taverns every once in a blue moon.