My indecision and haunted by dreams

My progress in terms of expanding my personal power has been frustratingly slow and yet I find myself surrounded by a group of mighty... friends? Renaldine seems to be coming out of her shell. The other day she made a joke at my expense and it reminded me of Thelius. Those two will get along great if I can manage to get the two together. I still have not revealed my oath to Thelius to the group. I fear if they learn the complete circumstance surrounding my arrival they may reject my company. Not only am I of a race that has earned contempt, I believe I've also garnered the interest of malicious other worldly forces. I must find a way to open up about it before my secrets get someone hurt or killed.
 
8 fingers has been decent to me but it is not the sort of institution one can plant roots with, quite the opposite if one desires a life free of treachery. This group I travel with gives me hope. Like me they are on a journey to find their place in the world. Like me they face challenges that seem beyond what any one being can overcome. Like me, I believe, they find comfort in a group that accepts them with all their imperfections. I have yet to make any real progress in devising a way to bring my friend to the surface. Once we return I intend to seek out an arcane user more adept than myself. Perhaps with divination magic I can look in on my friend. I'm sure he'll have new scars after the stunt we pulled. He is full blood dark elf and so 3 years is not so many to him. How I miss taking his money and laughing during our games of rollies.
 
Recently I had a dream, I was being assailed by a kaleidoscope of color and emotion. I'm overcome by a cacophony of whispering in a language I don't not understand. I see images of the spider queen smiling. I see the efreeti offering me a way out pointing to a door and when I step through the door I'm suddenly in shackles. I see Thelius's face change expression from consternation to intense agony, I see myself in an ocean of water with nothing around as far as the can see. I feel exhausted as I tread water and slip beneath the surface. Above me a demon hovers offering me its hand grinning wide with delight and malice. I see my new found friends dead all around me. I see myself dead on the stone and my friends abandoning me, they are happy to be rid with me. I feel the sting of the high priestess's snake headed whips as the gouge my skin, my stomach's burning as the venom is soaking in. The pain from the poison is crippling but she doesn't stop whipping me. Over and over and over and over, I awake covered in sweat panting.