I have found it. It is mine.
My jubilation has been tempered, however, by a mild disappointment. I had only just begun to search in the crypt filled caverns that lie beneath the mines themselves when I stumbled upon him. It was almost a shock to me. I had expected to be here weeks, months, perhaps even years in my search. Surely my father was more of a man than this. Surely he would have conquered more of this hate filled place than THIS!?
Ah, but I let my emotions carry me. My father failed in his quest, that much was always certain, but how badly he failed was never clear until now. Just a few levels down into the crypts I stumbled upon his remains. Barely decayed even, the air in this place so dry and clean, the only signs of "life" not even life at all. Animated dead cared not to feast on flesh that was as lifeless as they.
Looking around me, at the destruction I had wrought upon this bridge that I found him on, I had to wonder what he was thinking. What fool would allow themselves to be caught in such an obvious place for a trap? What imbecile would charge unthinking onto such a precarious and unsafe place of battle?
My father. That's who.
My shame consumes me.
Yet my shame is not all-absorbing, for on his body I found it. The thing that I sought for. The thing I never expected to have in my hands so soon. By some quirk of fate, it had not plummeted off this rail-less stone bridge like a few of his other possessions had. By at least SOME measure of sanity he had not stored it in his side-pack, where it could so easily have been lost or destroyed. No, retaining at least a little of the wisdom I had always thought he had possessed (which I now considered a product of my own youthful folly and hero worship) he had kept this one precious thing close to him. Wrapped to his breast under a protecting plate of armor. So it was that it was saved from the fate of his pack, of whatever weapon he may have been carrying (for there were none beside him). So it was that it was now mine.
Mine.
Yet I am not wholly satisfied. For while I was searching the body, I knew I had another task yet ahead of me. A promise of an even greater reward. A reward I could not resist. For another 2 weeks since coming upon his lifeless corpse I have continued into this mountain. Deeper and Deeper. Destroying all in my path. I was not about to fall to my Father's fate. Not I. That weakling's fate was not to be my own! The lady Syl was impressed with my power, I could tell from the way she spoke of me. The way she looked at me. A look that I wanted more of...
... but enough distractions. For I am nearing the end of this particular stage of my journey. I was sent to find out the reasons for the rumbles in the deep. The quakes that threatened to tear the mountain apart... and I have arrived at the last cavern. I can feel it in my bones. It is dark down this final tunnel. So dark. Yet for everything I cannot see, I can feel. I can SMELL. Sulfur and and evil intent so strong. Unlike anything I'd felt before.
This will be a new challenge. Yet I am prepared. I am ready.
A roar. The cavern shakes. There is something alive down there.
I am ready.
- The Final Journal Entry of Bastion Jr. discovered on a rotting corpse.
Bastion Jr. Perished while attempting to destroy the Ember Colossus in the Tu'Tara Caverns. He got trapped on a bridge.
Perhaps there are some destinies we cannot escape.
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