Gather round, ye children of wonder, and listen to a tale of tales. It is a tale of hardship and risk, of betrayal and reward, of fate and the fated. Our heroes are few, but more than one tale has been spun about one person changing the course of history. Think then, children, what five heroes can do.
I can seem them now. The sorrowful knight, cast from cause and home, she pulls the blanket of brutality about her to ward off the harsh wind of indifference that blows through the world and batters at the fortress of her heart. Is that a draft I feel? Here is the orphaned clown, half one thing, half another; paying rent in two houses yet still no home to call his own. He sings to himself on his travels. I wonder if his mirth is genuine, or if he sings to fill the gaps where friends’ voices are absent. Just beyond is the monstrous monster hunter; at home with no roof he strives for more. He pushes himself to be better, to be braver. Is he pushing towards his destiny, or away from it? The slick skinned huntress skulks in the shadows around her fellows, seeing more than she tells. Is she protecting them from the darkness or herself from the light? Will she find comfort in her own skin or trade it for a life in another? The thunderous blade fumes at the back of the group, a step away but a league apart from his companions. His powers are a burden as much as an addiction. Will his willingness for the Raven Queen’s cold embrace cause him to selfishly leave his party without defense, or lead to a nobler sacrifice for his friends?
Our tale starts with the heroes apart. Each on their own path, yet Fate has weaved them together. It has whispered in their ears that opportunity awaits them, the location: Waterdeep. Each hero has come to the City of Splendors, or arrives this day, thinking it their own idea.
Tremere has taken to the road. He has left the employ of the Duke who for the past months has been his patron. He walks briskly, and if his steps are faster than normal it is only because he does not wish to meet the Duke or his men any time soon. It would seem that the Duchess had no talent for the harp for which part of Tremere’s pay was for her teachings. Tremere soon found that her skills lay with a different instrument. This came as a shock to the Duke when he came to inspect his wife’s progress one day.
So Tremere is once more without a job, but it’s the quick leave which caused him to abandon his horse that upsets him the most. He liked that horse. Still on the cold nights he must go without a fire, at least until he’s out of the area of influence of the Duke, he has the memories, the warm memories, of the Duchess. And of course there are the poems the Duke’s son wrote for Tremere. While the prose are clumsy at times the words never fail to bring a smile, no matter how fleeting, to his face.
Tremere has spent the last month playing things as straight as he can stand. He only works as a bard at way stations and travelers’ rests. The pay is dung, when he is paid at all, and the company worse than dull. But he keeps his ears open for adventure, and catches a rumor about The Great Hunt, this time being held in Waterdeep.
That night he pulls as much information from the alcohol lubricated tongue of the traveller as he can, replenishing his generosity for the rounds of ale by winning at cards. The rumor, he finds out, is a rumor of a rumor. It’s not much to go on, but many a tale begins with only a myth to light the path. This tale starts with a rumor, how much more adventure could that bring?
The next morning he is up early, a new bounce in his step. I wonder, children, if he felt the hand of Fate leading him to Waterdeep, or did he think his actions were his own?
Tremere has no problem entering the city. Waterdeep is not one for denying anyone entry into its cold, yet firm, walled embrace, and the guards had been ordered to relax some in the coming weeks. This was not his first time in Waterdeep, but now his time was his own and he had enough coin to make exploring the city worthwhile. And what does our half-elf bard do with the City of Splendors open before him? Why he heads straight to the Gentle Mermaid, a most famous gambling house.
To one of fair complexion and cunning mind many doors can be opened, and when that same someone also knows song craft and storytelling the possibilities were nigh endless. On the way to the casino he contemplated his angle. Would he try to ply his trade first, accessing the lay of the land, and marking those patrons he might swiftly swindle out of coin later? Or would he chance his luck, falling back on employment only if Tymora did not smile on him?
Upon entering the lobby of the grand building something else caught his keen eye. Eladrin are a rare enough sight, and one frequenting a gambling establishment made Tremere’s ears itch, a sure sign that something was afoot.
Sidling up to the bar, Tremere invited himself to a seat next to the Eladrin. Up close it was easy to tell by the robes, and the alchemical smell wafting from him, that the Eladrin was a wizard. Tremere politely introduced himself and asked why the Eladrin seemed so down, he put on his best smile and charming demeanor in order to break the ice. The Eladrin was used to a certain amount of attention, but something in Tremere’s honeyed voice must have confused him. He wanted to know if Tremere was hitting on him. And Tremere, true to form, asked if that would help. After some verbal fumbling from the Eladrin, Tremere assured him that all he wanted to do was help, if he could, a fellow of the Fey. The Eladrin, introducing himself as Immarel, lamented that he wanted to sponsor a group to participate in the upcoming Great Hunt, but no one wanted to risk their lives so far. Smiling, Tremere volunteered his experience to the cause and implored Immarel to tell him what he had in mind for recruitment.
Let us now look farther into the city. The Field Ward is the newest ward of the city, fenced off from the rest by the north troll wall and the inner wall. Being new, however, does not mean it is better. The Field Ward is part hard working middle class and part slums. It is here that we find Cate Campbell.
It’s been just over eight months since our valiant knight has been drummed out of the guard and flung from her family. In that time her situation and her funds has steadily dwindled. She has not been able to sustain honest employment. Most people believe she is the corrupt guard she has been made out to be, and so will not hire her. When she did find honest employ, guards would hound her and her employer until she was fired. As what little coin she had vanished she has moved to steadily worse wards of the city, finally ending up in the Field Ward.
Cate can almost stand the poverty, and she expected the guards to give her trouble, but what irks her more than she can say are the criminals that now, believing her to be like them, approach her openly, with arrogance, to offer her “help.” Holding to her resolve she has turned all away, some with bruises and broken bones for their trouble. This has left her with no one to call friend.
She puts on a brave face, but the strain is getting to her, both emotionally and financially. With the last dozen or so coppers in her pocket she wonders how long it will take her to become the brigand everyone thinks she is.
A light suddenly appears in the dingy day. Priests of Erathis, a minor god to be sure but gaining prominence in the wake of the chaos of the Spellplague, come to her to ask her aid. They are starting a temple in the Field Ward, to bring a sense of community to the outcasts there, and they want Cate to guard the temple.
Cate accepts the job readily, it is a just cause after all. And if the answers the priests give are a bit curt and flimsy when she asks about the ramshackle building they’ve picked for their temple, perhaps it is the sleepless nights that put a believable veneer on the answers. If patrons regularly bring in loved ones for eight hour burial rights, perhaps the rumbling in her stomach finally quieting with a good day’s work and a solid meal keeps her from digging too deeply into the matter.
Perhaps the slippery slope is no place for our sad noble. Mayhap it is already too late?
While guarding the temple one day a better dressed than normal procession of people comes to the door with their loved one. Was it her depression that dulled her senses, or the coppers paid her, and kept her from questioning the group? Whatever it may have been she allowed them to pass with no delay. After the requisite eight hours they exited carrying their burden. Unfortunately one of the procession tripped, the body was dropped. Shockingly the body itself let out a curse, flailing to catch itself the wrappings tore from its features.
Cate, in mid-stride to help them, stopped. Sitting in the muck of the street, half shrouded was Charlie Windham. Mr. Windham was a notable, but unremarkable, bandit of the city. I say ‘was’, children, because not two days before news traveled through the city that Mr. Windham had taken a guard sword to the gut in a raid and bled out on the back floor of a pub.
Yet here he was staring at Cate staring at him. He didn’t wait for full recognition to blossom on the former guard’s face. He shouted to his men, and they all took off.
Cate quickly shook herself and caught up with them. She tried to shove the last of the group out of the way so she could get to Mr. Windham, but the cohort was too wily. The ruffian kept his feet and swung at Cate with his weapon. Cate skidded to a stop, drawing her own weapon. She would swiftly take this one down and give chase again.
Alas, this was not to be. Had her situation hollowed her will to fight? Did guilt of her culpability in the situation, as realization dawned on her, weigh down her sword hand? Only the dear Ms. Campbell will ever truly know. Though the fight cleared the street not a single decisive blow was struck between the two.
T’was not the ruffian’s intention to win the fight though, but only give his employer the time to escape. Sword held aloft, a quick scan of the street told Cate her quarry had long since passed beyond her grasp. She sheathed her weapon, but not her anger, and left the street tough puffing down the street.
Looking for answers, Cate stalked back to the “temple” and barged in looking for her employers. She demanded to know from the three priests there what the meaning of this place really was. The main priest, as she had come to think of them since, she now realized, she didn’t get their names, tried to calm her. However, one of the other priests was more zealous in his belief she should, “shut the hell up and just do her job.” It is also possible he called her a very bad name.
Cate filled with the latest injustice that had been done to her, drew steel upon the “priests.” The battle was hard fought on the part of the priests. But there was a reason they hired Cate to protect them, and almost as soon as the fight started two of the priests were down. As the head priest bore down on her, a shadow passed into the room with a voice like thunder, throwing Cate and the priest to the ground. Cate’s vision cleared in time for to see the wizard toss a pouch of coins at her. He also informed her she was fired. The mage left, calling the priest with him.
With nothing and no one to quell her rage, Cate picked up the pouch and left herself. Rain came down on her as she left the temple. Within minutes she was soaked through, ankle deep in the muddy road. She wandered more, not bothering about the weather. She wanted to report the mage to the authorities, but she knew they would only want to harass her not listen to her. Besides she knew of operations like that, it would be gone by the time the guards were organized enough to look into the matter.
She settled for finding a meager dinner with her tainted copper. As much as she felt the copper tainted she had to admit the food tasted just as bad that day as it had the day before. Hunger mildly satiated, she headed for the hovel she called home.
The door to the room she rented had no lock to it, which didn’t much matter since everything she had worth stealing she carried on her person. So lost in thought was she that she didn’t notice the light in her room until she was already through the door, until it was already too late.
Coarse, harry hands grabbed her shoulders, spun her towards the wall, shoved her against it, and snatched her sword from her belt. Turning, she found who she expected, Kalrank the half-orc bodyguard of One-eyed Wilk. Wilk himself, sat on her bed, the only piece of furniture in the room, his diminutive form giving him ample room. He smiled at her, staring with his one good eye, the socket of his missing eye gaping at her, swinging his feet. It was almost like Wilk wanted her to comment on the fact he was swinging his feet, like he wanted an excuse to perpetrate violence. Kalrank shrugged and gave her a half-smile. Cate always felt like Kalrank didn’t enjoy beating up on her like he might someone else.
Ignoring Kalrank’s smile as much as Wilk’s swinging legs, she asked him what he wanted. Speaking in the accent of the southern gnome tribes he said he just wanted to come by and see how she was getting along.
You see, children, Wilk and Cate have some history. When she was first relieved of duty from the guards, he came to see her. He wanted to help her out, as long as she helped him out. He wanted to raid the guards’ armory and he wanted her help doing it. Cate, of course, refused. This refusal hadn’t much mattered until Cate’s lack of funds led her to the Field Ward. One-eyed Wilk, as it turns out, controls all the crime in the Field Ward.
Cate scoffed at his mock-sincerity, and asked what he really wanted there. Wilk scoffed at her scoffing and asked how her job with the new temple was doing. Cate is no fool and knew Wilk must know about her situation. But she played along and told him she was no longer in their employ. Wilk said that was too bad, and after he’d recommended her to those priests to begin with. Cate eyes Wilk, then eyed her sword in Kalrank’s hands. If Wilk saw her doing this he didn’t comment, just went on: saying how he liked to help out his friends, and how he wanted to be friends with Cate. Didn’t she want to be friends? Cate, as always, declined. Wilk hopped off the bed, saying that was too bad, and it was too bad she’d lost her job. Before walking out the door he pointedly made mention of trying down at the Public Board. Kalrank made sure his employer was in the hall before setting Cate’s sword against the wall and joining him.
Left in her room to ponder her situation, Cate could not sleep and so grabbed her sword and took to the streets looking for the nearest Public Board. Staring at the jobs tacked to the board, Cate’s frustration grew. She was used to purpose in her life. She was used to duty in her life. The listlessness of her days gave her far too much time to contemplate how she lived now. Reaching for a job, a blur comes out of nowhere in her vision and snatches the piece of paper from the board almost out of her hand.
Turn to see who that was she is greeted by the sight of a robed Eladrin fumbling with some flyers. It is clear he’s having trouble, and so Cate offers him a helping hand. She also inquires about his out of place presence. The Eladrin mentions he’s on the lookout for some able-bodied adventuring types for a job.
Perhaps Cate’s fate is not yet sealed?
Let us now depart the city for the forests. But this is not the pastoral view of our childhoods. No, children, this is the wild and untamed growth of the civilizations lost deep woods. And so it should be only appropriate that we find one just as untamed and wild to lead us through.
Dath’nea has been without her tribe for weeks. When she started this journey she had purpose, and a purpose’s strength, to guide and protect her. However, as each goalless day seeped into dreamless night her resolve weakened. She alternated her days between animal and elven forms, covering league after league, coming into contact with no one.
We have found her on the verge of hopelessness.
Wrapped in a blanket, settled into the crook of trunk and root, her thoughts were not on the animal spirits, as they so often were in her days of learning, but of warmth and community, of friends and laughter. As sleep swaddled her mind one last, stray thought traveled through it: she would give up her powers if when she woke her friends had come to save her.
When she laid down she expected another night of blank, featureless sleep that has become her new normal. However, this night there is a dream. Her point-of-view is central to the dream, though she herself is not present. She is among the ants. Hundreds upon hundreds of ants scurried and pushed and moved around her. It doesn’t take her long to see she is in their colony, but it is not your typical ant colony. This colony is above the ground with mounds that reached feet into the sky. She is swept along with the ants, led to and fro by the insectoid tide. For what seemed like days she is carried like this until she stopped in what is clearly the center of the colony. In the middle of an open space stood a hawk. With a hunter’s keen vision it looked back and forth across the sea of ants, but it does not attack. Instead it sets a hunk of bread held in one of its talons on the ground in front of some ants. As water parts around a stone so too did the ants around the bread. The hawk looks concerned, after a few minutes it picks up the hunk and puts it in front of another cluster of ants. These ants too ignore the bread. Dath’nea watched the hawk do this several times before it looks at her and screeches.
Dath’nea awoke as the sun crested the horizon. She stood and stretched, folded her blanket and stowed, and set off without choosing a direction. For the first time in weeks purpose flowed through her, she was not questioning it. The dream played and replayed in her head. She walked for hours, with the sun directly overhead, she took a step and broke through the coverage out of the woods.
Before her was the largest expanse of non-wooded land she’d ever seen in her life. This is not what caught her attention. What caught her attention was the city on the horizon with buildings that reminded her so much like her dream.
On the road she is joined by a steady flow of wagons, caravans, and lone travelers. Some travel towards the city, some travel away. She avoided most. She has only really interacted with fellow elves, the ones in her tribe, and really more with the animals of the wood than the fellow beings of Faerun. It is not until she arrived at the gates of Waterdeep that anyone took any notice of her.
Her anticipation mounted as she neared the city, and once waiting in front of the massive wall she stood slack jawed that any force outside of nature could build something so huge. It was here that a gate guard demanded she step aside. He pulled her pack from her back, passed it to his partner to search, and asked what business she had in the city. Dath’nea is at first confused by his singling her out. So many people had been waved through with barely a second look. Examining the guard her link to the spirits informs her insight; overlaid on the guard’s features is that of a hyena. Dath’nea realized then why she was here: she was a lone traveler, she looked out of place. Of course this guard was going to stop her. It was in his nature. She does her best to answer his questions as completely and quickly as possible. Eventually even the bully admitted he had no reason to hold her, and it would be too much trouble to come up with one. He sent her on her way, called her a billy goat.
This confused her more. She has been many animals, including her one true animal, but never a billy goat. She realized after several streets he meant it as an insult, a reference to her wild look. It was then that she catches the glimpse of a hand reaching for her belt.
Snatching the hand before it can touch her, she peered at the owner, an unkempt youth, no older than thirteen years of age. Though he age was hard to tell because of his ill-fitting clothing. As soon as Dath’nea’s hand encircled his wrist, the youth cried out, accused her of abuse. As callous as city living makes people they still stopped to examine the situation. Dath’nea did not wish to be caught up in another scene so soon after the gate incident, and so she let go of the youth and continued on her way.
Unfortunately for her the youth was not so easily dissuaded. He followed her down the street. He offered to be a guide for her. He offered to show her the city. He mentioned that pretty woman like her had been attacked and offered to be her body guard. When she ignored him he offered to leave her alone for a couple copper. He swooped around her and screamed and cried, rolled in the street. Dath’nea was about to step around him, when the youth’s features took on a raccoon-ish pallor. She knew that she would never be rid of him. She placed two copper into his outstretched hand. He jumped off and ran into the crowd.
Thus Dath’nea’s first interactions of the city flummoxed her. She fell back to her dream for guidance, and let herself be carried along by the flow of the city. This led her to a meat market. Carcasses much smaller than ones she ate in the wild hung in stalls and stores, and people clamored for them. She followed another group deeper into the Trade Ward. Hawkers belted and bellowed at her. She ignored them all. Her purpose had not fled her, and she determined to ferret it out at all cost.
Lost in purpose as she was, she rounded a corner and slammed into a robed gentleman. The papers he carried scattered. Dath’nea leapt to help him retrieve them. Handing the ones she could catch back to the man she noticed the emblem on his red robe, a gold bird, perhaps a hawk.
Examining a piece of his paper she kept, she saw he is looking for adventures. This could be the purpose the dream pushed her to. But the man is gone, off on his own business, scurried into a shop to hang a flyer in the window. Attention fully on the man she saw the pointed ears, the fair skin, the color of his eyes, an Eladrin. He is another of the elven folk, but ones that consider themselves above the elves themselves. She approached him carefully, as one would approach and animal you didn’t want to spook.
She said she wanted to adventure. The Eladrin took in her heritage and her manner, and assumed she was, well, stupid. He congratulated her on her choice of occupation and continued about his work. She followed and intercepted him again. It was clear he was annoyed by this. She impressed upon him that she wanted to adventure for him. Relieved, he thought she was trouble, he slowly gave her directions on where they could have a chat in a couple days.
Wandering back to the deep woods we must to continue the story. Don’t worry, children, I will protect you.
We look and we find one that is born of dragons in the shape of a man. He breathes lightning and lives off adrenaline. His kin have found a measure of peace and freedom on Toril, but even that life is too constraining for Dramoor. He wanders the wilderness constrained by no walls, responsible for no one but himself. He is king of a kingdom populated by only one subject.
It is this desolation, this lack of other, which draws him to the sound of voices on the day we found him. The sounds of people are not foreign this deep in the wood, but they are rare. It may be the presence of so many voices which piqued his curiosity.
Still he approached carefully, quietly. Waiting for an opportunity like any good hunter he listened. He watched.
The spiders being loaded into the backs of wagons he recognized, the men loading them he did not. They were loud, not so much hunters as capturers, and their noise served them well this day. Their wagons were full. They talked over the ruckus they made. Dramoor missed much of the context of what was said, he’d been in the wild for a long time, but he understood when the head man mentioned the words: ‘Great’ and ‘Hunt.’
If there was to be a great hunt then, Dramoor decided, he would take part, for was he not a great hunter. It was then that he revealed himself to the men, almost taking a blade to the side in doing so, taken for a monster he so often hunted. He declared himself and asked for a ride to the splendid city deep in the water the men spoke of. But the men declined him passage with them, perhaps they were intimidated by one such as he, maybe they were afraid. Unfortunately it was a refusal that would have greater impact on the day than the men would know.
Take heed, children, it is said: in no one does arrogance burn so brightly as in one who is king of their own domain.
As the wagons of the men pulled away, Dramoor decided, nay, knew that he did not need them. He would show them. He would tame a spider of his very own. With much vigor Dramoor plunged into the forest. He found the nest of the spiders, but of course it was emptied. Not deterred, he searched for tracks; the men could not have gotten all the spiders. He searched high and low, long and hard, the day was almost done by the time he found fresh tracks to follow.
Perhaps Dramoor was truly too arrogant to care about sneaking up on the spiders. Mayhap the spiders would cower at the mere sight of him. Perhaps he was just that used to their presence it didn’t occur to him they would hate him, see him as prey. Whatever the reason may be he walked boldly into the spiders’ new home.
There were only half a dozen spiders left, but they were riled by the destruction of their home and the capture of their kin. They descended quickly upon him. Within seconds he was poisoned. Too late he realized what a fool’s errand this had been. He ran. The spiders drew a line in the forest though and they were not letting him escape. Pain pierced Dramoor’s shoulder, first one leg, then the other. One bite ripped at his arm, he only knew he kept his hand when the poison burned his fingers. Dramoor lost consciousness in a sea of legs.
He awoke some time later when the jostling around him banged his battered body enough to rouse him. Laying in the back of a wagon the crooked smile of the head man greeted him. Lucky for him, the head man told him, they had enough room for one more. Turing his head he passed out eye to eye with a giant spider.
The capturers took him with them to Waterdeep for healing. They took most of his coin for the trouble, and the rest went to the healers. Alone and broke in the City of Splendor is not a pleasing prospect, but Dramoor fell back on what he knew: he hunted.
The city is just another environment, information is not any more or less elusive than any animal. The day he felt well enough he took to the streets. It took only half a day to find a den of vipers, once he knew what to look for it wasn’t hard at all to find. The monsters that lurk in the deep wood know no fear, but the same was not true for the human rats he coerced into telling him where to find someone with information about the Great Hunt.
The information led him to the Trade Ward. In the Trade Ward word said Dramoor could find a merchant with the information he sought. Approaching the frail, fair man in the red robes that matched the description given to Dramoor, he made it clear, after several misunderstood attempts on the part of the red robed man, that he was a hunter in the market for a “great hunt.”
Our last hero, but by no means our least, we find in the city for some time already. It is a strange place to find a barbarous half-orc, but his is not a common story even for a tale such as this.
This night finds Kroth, the Stormblade doing what he’s been doing every night for the past two weeks: fighting. He came to Waterdeep as part of a trade caravan, hired as bodyguard, and hasn’t found the caring to leave yet. Kroth being who and what he is he could only find lodging in the Field Ward. As it turned out this was not a descision that went unmarked. He was only in the ward for two days before he was approached by a one-eyed gnome with a proposition.
So Kroth became an underground fighter. He’s fought every night for two weeks. As someone who calls on the primal power of the storm he felt the build to something big. And the night we found him he is in the “main event” of his circuit. He’s fought seven times this night with one more fight to go.
He peered at his reflection in the blade of his falchion. The gray of his skin has turned ashen with the effort to stay on his feet, swelling collapsed one eye to a slit, a couple of his teeth might be chipped but honestly who could tell? The concerned looks his “trainer” gives him were annoying. Growling to the man to grow a pair he laid down his sword. You don’t look good, the trainer said and threw a look over his shoulder. He suggested Kroth not keep fighting.
Nonsense, the southern gnome accent floated through the air. Our boy did fine so far, One-eyed Wilk stepped through the sheet that closed off part of the abandoned warehouse for Kroth’s dressing room. Wilk crossed the distance from the sheet to Kroth, the trainer dodged out of the way, and looked at Kroth appraisingly. After an interminable amount of time he said he thought Kroth might even have a chance in the next fight. It was just too bad he was going to lose. Kroth looked at him confused, he felt fine. He would win with all the strength left in his body. The smile left Wilk’s face, he repeated the commissary about Kroth’s lost. Kroth may not be world savvy, but he could tell something was up. Being just as direct as you’d expect a half-orc barbarian to be he asked Wilk what he meant. Wilk asked Kroth if he liked money, and Kroth affirmed that he did. Wilk informed him that if made sure to lose the fight than Wilk would give him a bunch of money. To Kroth’s memory, which was good, he had never lost a fight on purpose before. Wilk though had been good to him so far, and money helped him buy the ale which dulled the memories of what he had done, so he didn’t see a reason to not agree to lose the fight. Wilk left pleased, and a few minutes later Kroth walked out to the next fight.
The anticipation of the fight had Kroth’s blood boiling, added to that was the roaring of the crowd. Catching sight of his opponent his battle fury swelled. His opponent had gray skin like him, with dark patches that actually made designs on the skin, his opponent was heavily muscled too, about Kroth’s height and Kroth plus another half a Kroth wide. His wish for a good battle solidified. Then his opponent stood up. The gray skinned man towered over Kroth at almost eight feet high. Kroth’s nostrils flared with his desire to fight this huge thing.
The fight started. The fighters closed on one another. Kroth was faster. He threw his fist at the half giant man. Kroth’s knuckles connected with his opponent’s knee with all the force in his body. He felt the gray giant’s bones crumble, memories Kroth worked to bury rose up in him. He called on his rage to push and shove and tackle the memories away, releasing a primal scream of pain, accidentally hitting some spectators. The half giant collapsed to one knee bringing him eye level with Kroth. A fist as big as Kroth’s head connected with his body, he felt ribs break, he spat blood. Stumbling back he shouted at the gray man to do better. Fear sprouted in the man’s eyes. The fight almost ended there. Instead the gray man looked to Wilk who urged him silently to take Kroth down. The man attacked Kroth again. The world darkened for a moment, Kroth felt his body giving up. This is what he wanted. With the last of his energy he lunged for the bigger man, he swung at one of his now four opponents but he hit one of the phantoms his vision produced. Reluctantly the gray man swung again. Kroth didn’t even feel the fist connect, he just plunged into the darkness that followed.
Disappointment flooded him when he felt consciousness come over him. The sight of Wilk’s smiling face greeted his open eyes. Wilk was happy that Kroth had actually lost that fight; the gnome tossed a pouch of silver at Kroth. He told the orc they’d be in touch sooner or later and left. Kroth laid on the covered crates for some time before he felt he could move. The warehouse was deserted by the time he did.
Out on the street I’m sure it was only the sight of the massive sword he carried that kept the low lives away. One person did have the courage to approach him. A man in a red robe stepped out of the shadows and asked Kroth if he wanted to take part in something a hundred times more dangerous than what he’d been doing. Kroth asked if he would die doing this hundred-times-more-dangerous thing. Most certainly the man in the red robe said. Kroth smiled.
This is the beginning of our heroes’ tale. How Fate brought them to the attention of an Eladrin wizard named Immarel. How under his patronage they formed a mercenary band, The Band of the Hawk. How through this association they came to be enrolled in their first adventure together: The Great Hunt.
Band of the Hawk 