Life seems to have taken on a surreal edge. Death is not death at all. I saw Blink and Kestrel fall before my very eyes; yet now they stand, as if nothing of consequence had occurred. Such is the power of the Divine. It is enough to make me momentarily doubt my choice of profession. Could it be that power over life and death renders insignificant all that the Arcane Art can accomplish? Have I chosen wrongly in my life's devotion? What ability beyond the power to restore the dead to the ranks of the living could one wish for? What other power could even matter in the grand scheme of things?

And once more, the feeling of being toyed with returns. This Brute or Burton -- or whatever his name may be -- clearly found us so little a threat that he could not be bothered to engage us. If my ego were just a bit larger, I might comfort myself with the lie that he feared us and meant to flee all along, and that he only wished to seem too powerful to be bothered with us so that we might choose not to pursue him. My instinct tells me otherwise, though. My only hope is that we are increasing in our abilities and skills more quickly than he.

The incident at Burton's camp has made at least one lasting impression upon me: the frontal assault is for the short-lived. We must learn stealth, cunning, and deceit, that is, if we are to remain alive, or alive enough to bring those among us who are dead back to life. The twin fireballs I cast, while efficient in the numbers they dispatched, helped our party little, I fear. Those caught in the inferno were probably of little threat. Their blades would most likely have flailed in vain against our line. Their spellcasters, however, were another matter. A fireball or two in their midst might have left Blink and Kestrel standing at the end of the day. A hard lesson, both costly to the purse and painful to the body. Let us hope we are not found in the future to have been dozing in school.