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

I stared at the streaks of the remaining poison, expecting the stones to hiss
in agony at the touch of it.
"Gods damn it."
Ignoring the passerby staring at me and the scene I had made, I circled back
around to Elobrande.
"I greet ye once more, scarred one," she said with a polite nod.
"I had some questions, Elobrande..."
"I do not speak of things mundane, scarred one."
"Maybe you'll speak of this, then: I read that scroll, and it was trapped," I
held up my hand, traces of the black venom still coursing sluggishly through
my veins.
Elobrande looked confused. "I... I don't know what to say to ye, scarred
one..."
"You could start by saying how, exactly, you came by the thing."
"As I told ye, scarred one... it was given to me by my mother. A hooded man
had given it to her some fifty years past, paying her well but bidding her to
never read it, whatever the circumstances." Elobrande sighed, looking away
for a moment. "A user of magic, she was, powerful in the Art, but frightened
of this man just the same. She had said his eyes - all she could see of him,
really - hinted at madness, and that the flesh around them was puckered
and gray... like yours. I know nothing more of him."
"That'll have to do, then. Farewell."
Why the hell would one of my past incarnations try to kill me?
~~~~~
Able smiled at my approach. "Ah, good sir, we meet again! You know, I was
thinking..." He began talking at length of his work as a research consultant in
the Hall of Records, giving sentence-by-sentence descriptions of various
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