Found:
A new goal.
My jaunt to Evendim was quite the mixed ordeal and my return to Bree doubly so.
For half a year was I gone, or so I am told, though it seemed to be far less time to me. The dark, dank, half-sunken halls of Evendim's ruins no doubt kept my attention from the passage of time for longer than I had thought, but to keep me away for so long? I can only assume it took more time to recuperate from my wound, and the subsequent infectioon, than I had supposed. It matters little now, however. What is done is done and the past cannot be changed.
In my extended absence, Eordion has moved on with his life. It is an unfortunate consequence that I had not seen coming, but surely should have. He had seemed happy enough with my wandering ways, secure in the knowledge that I would always return to his side. Indeed, he had not once uttered a word of discontent or doubt. Hearts and minds can change however. Mine did, after all.
As I lay amongst the tented shanty town of Ost Forod, lucid but still too weak from my illness to continue on my way, I found myself in receipt of a startling revelation; for all my love of adventure and discovery, for all the joy I find in solitary wanderings and the thrills of fighting through the guardians of the ruins and tombs, for all satisfaction inherent in retrieving another trinket previously lost to time, my true heart now lay elsewhere. Back in Bree, there waited a man, black of hair and straight of spine, warm in temperament and great in wit - a man for whom that shriveled, wasted heart of mine had long since begun to beat. I realised that he meant far more to me than any trinket, more still than the ruin over the next horizon. I came to the conclusion that, in spite of myself, I would give it all up in a heartbeat were he ever to ask it of me...
Of course, he didn't. He had turned his sights to another and I can hardly blame him. It hurts, of course it does, but that, I think, is my own fault. I should never have allowed myself to become so attached to him, so smitten that I would consider leaving behind the only life I've known for over two decades.
In light of this, my plans have changed for the better. I am no longer tethered to Bree-land - compelled to return to friends and a lover I had so foolishly indulged in. All that held me here is gone and so I am once again free to go where my fancy takes me. And this time, my fancy is a grand one indeed!
The haul I retrieved from Evendim - that which wasn't used to pay for my treatment anyway - has already shown some good returns here in Bree, and I still have some cash spirited away in Eordion's yard. I'll sneak by when he's absent and retrieve it, sell all that I have gathered on my recent digs and make my preparations. The road ahead will be long, tiring, muddy and bloody, but the gains - both monetary and personal - will be more than worth the effort.
Onwards to death or infamy!
