03/05/03 08:29:24 AM
redchin@sonic.net

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You are adventurer # to sojourn these pages.

"Well, my friends, what brought me Furyondy? Many events led to my arrival in Fort Belvor. I really don't know where to begin. The past ten years of my life have been full of change. I doubt that it will ever be as calm and peaceful as the first ten years of my life. Let me begin my story two years ago. The year of course was 592. It was a frosty day in Sunsebb. I was sipping lavender tea and listening to my mentor Lachlaine recount the story of my birth. 

"Your father," Lachlaine said, "was quite young when he met your mother. He was Suloise. He was journeying with your grandfather through the Welkwood with a new herd of white ponies destined for sale in Dyvers, to the north. Your grandfather was renowned for his horses. People would travel from afar to see his beautiful steeds in Dyvers. After his passing, your fathers' brother continued the trade. Who knows, he may still live there today. He had a good wife. 

But where was I? Oh yes, It was on this trek through the Welkswood that your father happened upon your mother. He told me that he had taken the herd down to drink from the Jewel River, where he found two Celene elf-maids bathing. Your mother said that she saw no horses on this particular day, and that he was spying on the two from amongst the reeds on the rivers bank. Well, I am not sure but I think your mother may have been more accurate in her story. She was such a beautiful woman!" 

Suddenly Lachlaine paused in his story. We both sat frozen. I realized that this wrinkled man who was my mentor had heard the moaning sound as I had. "Do you think they're back?" I whispered fearfully. It had only been four nights since the lifeless creatures had found our last refuge. Their attacks were becoming more frequent and I knew that Lochlaine could not continue living this way. 

"Remember what I told you." He warned me, pointing to the crystal key dangling around my neck. "It is your destiny." "But uncle there must be another." 

The Undead began their mindless assault on our temporary dwelling. Their attack was relentless, and soon I was forced to slip down the secret passage moments before they were flooding into the hovel. Lachlaine had refused to come. I knew somehow that he never had any intentions of moving again. 

We had been on the road for nearly seven years and I could see his health deteriorating more quickly these past few months. I also was aware that the only thing that had kept my old mentor alive these past years was his desire to see me to adulthood. Now I had passed the sacred rites of his order. My order. I was had learned the secret lore of the Druid. 

This must have been the tenth time we had moved in the last two years, and the Undead attacks were coming with more frequency. As I raced down the passage, I thought about the countless times Lochlaine had blessed me with the story of my parents meeting. But despite the fact that I knew the story perfectly well, I wish he could have finished.  I will never forget Lachlaine. 

My parents were quickly married and came to the town of Skorane only months before their first child, my sister, was born. I have always suspected that my mother was exiled from her community after marrying a human. Her people were a xenophobic tribe in the woods of Celene. They hated anyone who was different. Perhaps, I thought as I emerged from the tree-trunk escape tunnel, perhaps they had good reason not to involve themselves with humans. 

Anger burned inside me as I heard Lochlaine scream far behind. I secretly hated the human blood that coarsed though my veins. I ran down to the river. 

The inter-racial couple, who bore me settled in the town of Skorane in the Gnarly Forest where they started their family. Basillikañora Rashaxian (Basil, as they called me) was born early in the morning of the 12th day of Sunflowers (Goodmonth) in the year CY 571. I was the second of three children. I am the only one who is still alive. The day will come when I will avenge my family's death. 

My mother became quite a prominent figure in Skorane when I was a child. She founded a small church to her god. This church became an abbey, and continued to grow until enough funds were raised to erect a large temple to her woodland deity. I remember that even some of her reclusive relatives came to visit the temple. My father ran the home, large farm and estate where the family lived. 

It was in the year 580 cy that I first met the man who would destroy my peaceful world; Koralth Lemnen. I was nine years old when Koralth arrived in Skorane and all too quickly befriended my mother. He had an enigmatic and intriguing way about him that let him quickly enter the temple and begin advancing through it's ranks. Looking back on the numerous evenings when Koralth would dine with my family, I am enraged that I had not seen the deceitful man for what he was. 

By the year 582 Koralth Lemnen had thoroughly immersed himself in the clergy and began to secretly sway many of the temples followers into believing that my mother was deceiving them in their worship. The distrust and miss-aimed accusations were all that was necessary to stall the people of Skorane long enough for the seed of Koralth's pestilence to germinate. I remember the evening in late winter when I assisted my mother in hauling water from the well. I remember how gently she had caressed my head and carefully heated the water over the fire for my bath. I will never forget her sweet smile as I slipped into the bath and began to wash my hair. It was the last time I saw my mother alive. 

This plague was swift. From the moment the first signs of the pestilence (usually a reddening in the whites of the eyes) appeared on a person, through the progress, and finally termination of the disease, barely half an hour had passed. I was underwater when I heard the thud of my mother's body fall onto the stone floor. When I emerged from the water to investigate the sound, she was lying face down. Her blood was so thinned that it escaped though the pores of her skin, and out from her nose, and eyes. She barely had time to hand me the crystal key, before she was dead. I was naked and covered in her blood as I ran out of the house in a panic. I found my father in the field behind our plague infested home, he was cradling Belladonna, my dying older sister, in his arms. She was convulsing wildly as the last throes of the pestilence took her life. My father never let her out of his arms, even as his blood began to seep from the pores of his skin. 

The sun was beginning to set and the whole field took on a crimson color. I fell to my knees, terrified and in tears, and awaited my fate. I don't remember much of what followed on that evening. I know that Lochlaine our tutor was supposed to visit that night. He must have arrived early. I saw his silhouette emerge from the burning sunset. In his arms he carried my younger sister, Lavender. He took us from our home and we passed through Skorane. People were dying everywhere. Blood ran like a river in the streets. It was as if the entire town was engaged in a sort of macabre writhing blood-dance. 

I remember seeing one of my friends, a boy named Talin, look up to Lochlaine in desperation as we passed. But the whites of Talin's eyes were already filled with the scarlet horror. He shed crimson tears as Lochlaine clutched Lavender and me closer to him and steadied his pace past the dying boy. 

We were nearly out of the town when I felt the wetness next to me. I looked up to find that my sister's white dress was wet with blood. She trembled only slightly. She was very brave. Just before the fever overcame her, she managed to smile and say goodbye to me. Lochlaine left Lavender's blood bedewed body, under a beautiful pine tree on the edge of town. I don't know why Lochlaine and I were not affected by Koralth Lemnen's vile pestilence. It had come like a thief in the night over the peaceful town of my youth. 

Even more unsettling was what we discovered a few weeks later. Lochaline had left me in the forest and went back into the town for supplies. He retuned empty handed, and refused to tell me what he had encountered until years later. The entire town was populated with walking-dead. Some he recognized. I asked if Lochlaine had seen my parents as undead and he shook his head, but I suspect that even if he had, my kindly mentor would have lied. 

Lochlaine and I found a nearby cave, just a few miles south of Skorane, and made it our home. But within three months we were on the move again. The undead followed us. They came swiftly in the night and we barely escaped. After their second attack, a few weeks later, we realized that they were somehow following us. 

My mentor and I spent over a year as nomads, before we finally decided to enter the city of Greyhawk. Neither myself nor Lochlaine much liked the idea of dwelling within city walls, but we thought it a safe haven from the tireless creatures that pursued us. We were mistaken. A few months after our arrival, half a dozen zombies and skeletons were pouring into "The Fiddlers Elbow" the tavern, which had been our home. Here however, we took a stand and, with the help of bard whom we had become friends with in the tavern, succeeded in defeating the evil horde. 

This is where we discovered that the creatures were not exactly following us. With a bit of investigating we found that the creatures that attacked us in "The Fiddlers Elbow" had dug out of their graves in a local cemetery and made their way to our dwelling that same night. 

The morning after our discovery, we were passing through the gates of Greyhawk and again on the road to nowhere. Months on the road turned into years wandering and fleeing. Lochlaine continued to tutor me as he had always done. As we traveled the land he schooled me in the proper uses for herbs, and how to befriend animals. He taught me languages and art, and about the Old Gods.