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Gather round, friends, as I share with you some of my forays into the Far Wilds. (If you'll forgive the slight alliteration of a doddering old diplomat.) I say foray because my visits are frequently brief, and punctuated by violent ends, but somehow we all end up back here in Astridia.
Why, just the other day I was here holding court for all who would listen to my stories when before I know it I'm swept up in a bright white light. When the spots cleared from my eyes I stood before a battlefield littered with foes. One of the many lords of Karkzor had called upon my expertise in the mastery of domains in a vicious battle of wits against foes from the underworld. All around me the bodies of valiant craig scouts and putrid zombie bits. Over yonder upon that hill a despicable hellcat whose limb body is still wrapped around it's last lethal meal, a shattered boulder of living rock locked in a last grimace of unearthly pain. This all on just my first night. Even were my body not wracked from the strange flux trip from Astridia, the stench of death alone was enough to slow my step.
When I awoke the next morning I was ordered to hike out with my walking stick and try to penetrate a deep forest. No easy task but my objective was vital. I was hunting for flux wells. A lawn statue, broken to bits but on his last valiant leg, shouted from ahead, claiming to have spotted a vantage in the forest from which I could spot two unoccupied flux wells. Before I could take my first tentative step I heard the unmistakable groan in the distance. A leper no doubt. I steadied my self, took a deep gulp, and walked off into the woods.
I awoke to a shriek of stone. I fear the damned leper finished off the gargoyle. No help seemed to be coming in from behind. I could look out from where I stood and see the precious wells, with not a villain in sight, but the undead are a tricky lot, and you can never tell where the next will come from. With nothing else to do I pondered, as I often do, on the meaning of our existence. As pondering goes it was a fine way to pass the time, but eventually I grew thirsty. I could spot some water, just a few days walk away in this terrain, but my plan was foiled when a huge splash shot into the sky, as if from a geyser. What remained when the water settled was the foulest of the oceanic beasts, the undead octopus.
My mouth dried up further but I was no longer thirsty.
I stood a moment longer pondering just how an octopus comes to be of the legion of the undead, curious as to the who-bites-who aspect, I suppose, when all of the sudden the blood ran out of my legs. I don't mean that as any sort of metaphor, only to say that as I looked down, the feeling quickly rising into my gut, I watched in dawning horror (and a little pride) as my feet and then legs became encased in bronze. I was to be made a hero of the war, and on only my second day. As I looked over my shoulder, proud to be turning the tide, I saw a leprous shambles come out of a dark and putrid swamp. But before I could think one more thing about the whole situation I woke up here. My audience had gone home. Never will get used to that peculiar head exploding sensation of death by lysis.
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bad demon and the good 
life before it? 
i read it with some problems