012 – Saga I – 1066 – PART EIGHT FINAL PART TRANSCRIPT

RECORDER’S NOTE:

I know I keep saying wow a lot, but seriously, wow. All these incredible texts keep being discovered in old ruined churches from all different time periods. The mind boggles. I know, especially during medieval times, churches were the last suppositories of information and books and texts, but still. With all of them being hidden and then found, it’s kind of uncanny. Or perhaps, and I might even say more likely, there’s something else going on here connecting all this together. Whether we get any of those answers from the author or the Conclave, or perhaps through my own research I’ll be conducting remains to be seen. 

I felt that the best three words that sum this all up are: the plot thickens!

SAGA CONTINUES:

I kept that slim volume secret from my family and my friends; my life. And each time the traveling market came around, would peruse the stalls in search of any parchments or books. I would look first for any stalls where there was a monk or any member of the clergy, but alas, this did not occur for some years, and then all the texts they had were of the mundane religious variety. I would search all the other market stalls for the written word and was usually disappointed. Some did have a parchment or two, and one or two even had a book, but nothing of interest to me. This went on for some fifteen years and I did my best not to let it affect me that much, even if deep down inside it did. I still kept my secret from everyone and was never questioned by my wife or children who had big families of their own now, which I was eternally grateful for. To even try to explain why I was so obsessive about this would not have been good for anyone.  

But as that fifteenth year of searching came to a close, I finally admitted to myself that I never would find anything like that slim volume again, and that was going to be alright. I had kept it in very good condition, and about once a year would read it cover to cover. And while I would still continue looking and searching, for I had come to quite enjoy the activity of perusing the market now, even if I had to walk slower and it took me a greater number of days to search every stall due to my age, I had come to realize it was time to do something else: it was time to create my own chronicle. With my advancing years, the chances of an accident befalling me increased almost daily. And while I still felt relatively healthy, I knew my body could suddenly decide to stop working without warning and that would be the end of it all.

So that is what I have been working on these last many months. My family has asked me what I am writing, and I say it is a private collection of my thoughts and philosophies on the life I have lived and what I believe happens to us when we die and pass on into the afterlife. They have of course asked to read it, but I have repeated, adamantly, no. It is a private journal for my eyes only. I have also said they would not enjoy anything I have to say within these pages, and should just put the whole idea out of their heads. Nevertheless, since I have told them, I keep my chronicle on my person at all times to be safe. 

As I look back on it now, I feel both incredibly fortunate and happy with the long life I have been able to enjoy. I have gotten to spend it with my lovely wife as we have grown old. I have been able to enjoy raising children and seeing them grow to adulthood and have children of their own. There is even a great grandchild on the way now. Although I am unsure if I shall live long enough to see the child born. 

So I supposed I should come up with some fitting way to end this chronicle?

It has been many decades now since my life completely changed and was put on a new trajectory that I never could have predicted, but as I have said within these pages before, it has taken me somewhere I’ve wanted to go since I was a child and I have gotten to enjoy an entire lifetime here. I will not say that I forgive the Ostium Network for what was done to me. One could even say it was some sort of tragic accident. But no. With the existence of that other tale from the future, I know what happened to me was an orchestrated event. But I have reached my peace with what befell me. In fact, I reached it long ago and in so doing have very much enjoyed my life because of it.

I have left instructions with a close friend and paid her handsomely for it to package this chronicle and the slim volume together in many layers of animal skin, tied very tight. And a week after my death to bury it in the ruins of the church where the door was supposed to take me back to Ostium.

And to whomever is reading these words right now, I thank you for making it all the way through my entire chronicle. And if by chance you are looking to help in some way, to stop the Ostium Network from treating us as necessary sacrifices, like so much unwanted garbage, then thank you all the more, and I hope that my chronicle was in some way helpful, and i pray you also have the slim volume of the other stranded time traveler.

And as I bring this chronicle to a close, I bid you godspeed, and urge you not to feel sad for my ending. I had a good life and while I had expected things to happen differently, looking back on it now, in full and complete honesty, I would not change any of it.

It has been a very good life, and I am ready for it to come to a close.