My Younger Days

Ah yes, my younger days. A period of noble decadence in Evereska
where I developed my skills of language, as well as mannerisms. But, I will
not bore you with the exaggerated details of life as a noble. However, at the
meager age of seventeen (1280), something happened to me that changed my
way of living forever.

I had achieved the title of Most Accomplished Pupil Award in the academy of magical arts, and I was selected to graduate a year early. But the joy of achievement was not to last. On the night before graduation, my half brother Erevain came to me with a scroll he had found posted on the bulletin board of the local tavern. It contained detailed information on the whereabouts of my brother and I, as well as a bounty of eight thousand gold coins for my head. Horrified, we went to the academy for advice on where to seek refuge from these brigands. We decided to speak to High Regent Methyr about the terrible bounty that had been placed upon my head. Much to our surprise when we entered his chambers, we found little more than a battle with him. We stood helpless against one as powerful as he, so there was little we could do, save glare at him as we were bound by his Hold Person spell. As he spoke the last words of his fatal spell, a woman burst into the room, causing winds of great magnitude upon her entry. Methyrs eyes bulged as he looked upon her, and she began shouting in the tongue of the dark ones. She spoke a long forgotten dialect of the dark, so I could decipher only two of her words. Savior and Dale were the two decipherable words that my limited knowledge could deem from her cryptic language of the dark. After hearing her words, I remember feeling very tired, and as my eyes closed I could see my brother fall in slumber beside me.

The next thing we knew, we were aboard a caravan wagon en route to the arid regions of Icewind Dale. We spoke with the master of the caravan, who told us that a sailor paid him to take us to the fishing village of Easthaven, located upon the icy shores of the knucklehead trout filled Lac Dinneshere. Just as we approached our final day of travel, we heard a loud clattering coming from the road up ahead. It was a drow warrior fighting off orcs from near a cavern. He was shouting cries to the Seldarine which was unusual for the drow, so, in sharing our religion, my brother and I leapt from the wagon and decided to join him in glorious battle. As the caravan came closer, more and more orcs poured from the mouth of the cave, becoming too much for us to handle. After exhausting ourselves greatly, we ran from the militia of beasts and shouted for the caravan masters to flee and abandon their wagons. But they did not listen. They fought hard as we watched from a distance, but just as the orcs started to give way, the chashing noise of giant-kin footsteps came bounding from the cave. A massive ogre, apparently leading the force, crashed upon the caravan crew and killed them all with a few crushing blows. As he ordered the remaining orcs to survey the land, we stood from our rest and ran through a small pass. There we had reached the fishing village of Easthaven. Sitting upon the icy shores of Lac Dinneshere, we knew not of what awaited us in this tiny town.

Cold, and feeling shameful for abandoning the caravan, we decided to go to the tavern to have a few tankards to chase away the cold of the Dale. As we sat near the fire, sipping the brew, a large human man approached us and nodded in greetings. Greetings, I am Hrothgar. He said he would have words with us at his home later that night. We agreed to meet him, and rested at Quimbys Inn, a charming little dwelling with rooms fit for a noble. When we awoke, we headed towards Hrothgars home. When we entered, a warm smile greeted us, as it did when we entered many of the buildings in Easthaven. Hrothgar was organizing an expedition to the hamlet of Kuldahar, a small settlement built within the roots of a great druid shrine. He offered us a place among his troupe bound for Kuldahar. Erevain and I thought hard on it, and decided to go with him. Just as we were about to leave, a drow assassin clad in black burst through Hrothgars rear window and threw a crudely fashioned knife at me. Before I could react, Erevain leapt in front of me, catching the knife in his side. He groaned, and suddenly our drow friend Gregori Ashgan bashed through the door and ran the drow through with his greatsword. In agony, Erevain rolled on the ground screaming. I tried my best to comfort him, until a rugged looking priest clad in a tunic of Tempus came to Erevains aid. He cast the simple spell nullify poison eight times on Erevains wound hoping to at least slow the effects of the mauve liquid. Erevains pain began to subside, and the priest told me that he would be interred at the temple until he was in better health. Believing this expedition to be my reason for being sent to Easthaven, Erevain demanded that Gregori and I go on without him, and that he would join my group later. So we set out for the druid shrine, in hopes of finding our way to the evil that plagued the land.