Those were tough times, tough enough to make even the press gangs seem appealing. I found myself in the "army" of one of those western lords whose claims to nobility only went back a few generations, to antecedents that were murky at best. I wasn't a good soldier, but I could march, the food was good, and the beer was cheap.

Then war came, and I began my second life, as a butcher.

War... An overly grand title, for what it really was. The rebellion was started by some peasants who couldn't afford the doubling of the baron's annual taxes. There wasn't even much that you could call a real battle, no knights in shining plate, no mages to call upon fiery magic to smite their enemies. But there was looting, and killing, and worse... and I found that I took to all of it quite eagerly. In my first life I had been just another unskilled, uneducated wretch, but now, now I had power, the power to destroy, and I reveled in it.

With time, no doubt the corruption that had taken root in the ample soil within my soul would have grown to full fruition. But that life came to an abrupt end at a lonely settlement. Our squad had been sent to "requisition" supplies from a group of peasants, the kind we'd gotten used to bullying around, and whom we'd thought had learned to fear us. I never even saw the man who thrust the spear into my side, but I can remember the pain... I'll always remember that. It lasted a long time, lying there in the mud, before I blacked out, fully expecting to wake in Hell.

But when I stirred, the face I saw was not that of a fiend prepared to unleash an eternity of torments upon me, nor the stern visage of judgmental Kelemvor. It was the face of an old man, his gentle face ringed by a white remnant of scattered hair. He helped me to my feet. Around me the settlement was a deserted ruin, the odor of smoke and blood still fresh in the air. I had been healed; the man was a cleric.

"I do not deserve your gift," I told him. "I am a man of evil."

But the cleric only smiled a sad, soft smile. "The gift you received did not come from me," he said. "What you were does not concern me. You have been reborn anew, and again the choice is yours of how you wish to proceed. You may return to the life you led, or you may follow the path that leads to salvation."

Without further discussion he simply turned and started walking away.

After a moment, I followed him.

And so began my third life. I now follow that path of that old cleric, serving Ilmater, the Crying God. Through this service I seek to redress the evils that I perpetuated in my earlier lives. My weapons are the club and the sling, the simple weapons of the peasants and shepherds that I so cruelly oppressed. No longer will I bear a sword, and when I do raise my weapons to do battle, it will be on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves against the evils that lurk still in our world.