[ The rush of sensation was almost overwhelming after being so long isolated. To be connected so unwillingly, so intimately... It's almost painful. It didn't help that he could almost smell the rot at the edges of her words; the nightmare chasing after summer's end reminding him of the heavy-handed punishments of his teenage mistakes.

A calm, tight voice finally replied, accompanied with faint under- and overtones of other languages: insectoid chittering in dry throats, slithering shadows rolling off tongues, whispers of the undead promising ancient secrets. ]

Does one necessarily forfeit the other?

My name is Nymnar Gloomstrider. I am as I have been. [ The words are a bit hollow: he's missing something he expected to regain, some piece of his soul he'd lost long before arriving here, and this is what he thinks about. ]

And whom - or what - is it that I am speaking with?