(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

I looked him in the eye, that eerie dancing glow flicking in his boundless
sockets, "Then that means you know all the secrets of existence, doesn't it?"
He shook his head, "I know parts of many of them. Without a connection to
my brothers/sisters, I am but a letter. Alone, I am a symbol. Combined, we
are language and power."
"So you don't know the secrets of existence?"
He stood up stiffly, "I did not say that. A letter is still a powerful force, even
on its own. Allow me to show you." He opened his mouth wider, and wider
still. The mask of his face tore around his eyes, mouth, and nose, revealing
that hint of eternity I had glimpsed earlier. I was lost in it, adrift in it... a part
of it. When I returned to my mundane senses - I realized that O has
vanished. Yet somehow, my horizons had expanded. Enlightenment had
brushed me, however briefly, across the brow.
"That was... indescribable."
I staggered. I may be chatting up everyone in this damn bar, but this morsel
of Truth, at least, was more than worth it. Still dizzy, I braced my hands on a
table where an old man sat, contemplating a small cup of tea.
He was old. His dry, yellow skin had the scars of one who had traveled
everywhere and never rested long in any one place. His pinched face was
inhumanly angular, and his ears swept out from his skull, tapering to points.
He wore a loose-fitting orange tunic, and a strange, shimmering blade was
strapped across his back. The blade looked to be a two-pronged glaive,
made of some metal whose surface swirled like a film of oil on a pond.
"Pardon me."
The man turned to me, his eyes like polished coal. He stared through me,
and for a moment, I wondered if he might have been blind. The weapon
suddenly turned a dead, flat black, mirroring the man's eyes.
I blinked, "Are you all right?"
He said nothing for a moment, merely searching my face with his eyes.
"Hail... traveler." His voice was quiet and somber, like a wind whispering
163