Reality

People are always telling me I just need to accept reality for what it is, stop trying to make excuses, stop trying to ignore the truth of things.  Well, not just people, it's the gnomes, dwarfs, and elves, too, and even an occasional goblin or ghoul.  I know they all think I'm crazy, but I just find it so hard to believe all of this can be real.

I mean, take dragons for example.  I see them flying about with their giant, scaly bodies with wings that can't possibly be powerful enough to support that kind of weight.  And the whole fire-breathing thing.  How does that work?  Do they have some sort of fuel in their throats or stomachs?  How do they ignite it?  And they're always guarding hoards of gold, or so I'm told.  They're viciously territorial with these hoards, and yet adventurers, simple puny adventurers not much tougher than me, are always going off and killing these dragons and taking their gold.  And no one seems to think much of it.  It's just something that happens.  But does it really happen?  Can these dragons and adventurers really be?  They certainly seem like something that people dreamed up to me.

And look at the adventurers themselves.  Like I said, they're not that much different than me, except apparently they are.  No one really cares what happens to me, but at the feet of these brave adventurers they gravel.  It's like everyone exists just to serve those stupid enough to risk their lives for money.  What kind of sense does that make?

I do have to admit, though, that there is something that sets many of these "adventurers" apart from me and that's the use of magic.  What the crap is up with all the magic?  They just wave a wand or staff or something and stuff happens.  They don't know how they do it, but they do it.  I'm not even sure they understand the consequences.  There has to be a price to what they're doing, and I'm just not talking about all the strange components these magic users are always asking after.  I mean, you can't get something from nothing.  That's not the way the world works.  At least, that's not the way it should work.  And yet this wizards and mages and warlorcks and clerics walk around creating fire and energy out of nothing, healing grievous wounds, sometimes even bringing people back from the dead.  How the crap does any of that work?  They can't tell you.  They'll just say it's magic.  Sure seems to me like something someone somewhere just made up without bothering to think it all through.

So what are we then?  Are we all just figments of someone's imagination?  A part of some other being's sick game?  What kind of person creates an entire world with all these races and powers and villains just to make the great adventurers fight the great evils while the rest of us just stand by working at our boring jobs, basically existing just to sell the adventurers supplies or give them something to drink or tell them what we know about the monsters in the woods.  Who does that?  Yet I think someone has.  I don't feel real.  None of this feels real.

No one else will listen to me.  They say I'm crazy, that I need to just accept reality for what it is.  The gods are in control, they give the powers, they make us what we are, they make the adventurers great.  I should be happy for what I am, for a safe home in a beautiful land protected by those more brave and powerful than I.

I think it's a load of crap.  None of this is real.  Reality is nothing more than a game and I'm just a game piece.  Someone else is pulling the strings and I'm just a puppet.  The dragons aren't real.  The adventurers aren't real.  These caves and forests and villages aren't real.  My parents aren't real and neither am I.  It's a sad and depressing truth, but it's the truth nonetheless.

So what do I do with all of this?  Apparently, I just keep what I'm doing.  No one will listen.  No one cares. They accept this "reality" as reality.  They don't believe they're something other than what they seem to be, and they wouldn't want to know the truth even if they did start to doubt the reality of all that exists in their world.  So I'm slowly learning to just keep quiet, but I wanted to get it out there, to tell you what I've realized before it's too late.

Someday, one of the true gods, not the ones we serve, but the ones who made up those gods for us, will discover me.  They've realized that I'm more real than they ever realized and that I've figured it out.  When that happens, I've no doubt that I'll disappear, perhaps even such that I never even existed to be with.

But this will exist.  These words will exist.  I've made sure of that.  I've used their own magic and spells against them.  Hired the services of someone who will never know what they were really doing for me.  I've made this a part of the unreality, of their magical, mystical, make-believe world.

So if you're reading this, please believe me that all you believe is a lie.  None of this is real.  If you can find me, I'll help you.  If you can't, you'll know I've spoken the truth.  Maybe, one of us at a time, we'll eventually come to realize the truth, to know what we really are, and maybe, just maybe to seek out those who made us.

Because as surely as I'm not real, I'm certain they are.  And no one creates something without putting a little bit of themselves into what they've made.  So for now I'll keep quiet, but I'll keep thinking, searching, trying to figure out what I really am and what they've put into me that reflects who they are.  And then, if I can ever figure that out, then I'll know reality, and then maybe, just maybe, I'll be free.