[jrizz]

It has been many years since I came to these lands in search of my brother, Glenn. I did not come here to be a hero, that was his role not mine. I found him and was lucky enough, for a short time, to spend time with him. He spoke to me many times about responsibility and how we need to help those less fortunate then ourselves. I listed to him but I never really understood. Sure I would help someone in need and if I saw an injustice I would try to right it. But I never had in me that fire that he did. All he did he did to prepare for the great battle against Blood. He never got to see that battle happen, and he was lost to me to soon. I did not take up arms and take his place in that battle, I felt that was the realm of heroes.

Now I am beginning to understand what Glenn was trying to tell me. It has been 12 years since the heroes defeated Blood and his forces. The price this world payed for that defeat has been great, maybe to great. But that is not for me to judge I was not there. And that is the issue, I was not there.

I see all around me and in every port I go to, people suffering, hungry, sick, and displaced from their homes. More and more evil arises in the lands. Bandits, mercenaries, beasts, undead, and now as I have found out recently and first hand something far worse plagues the lands. I see around me more people that have a “dark” taint to them. They seem to revel in the state of the world. It is like the darkness in the skys and the suffering of the world have brought out in the open many evils.

I had the chance to step up and try to be the hero Glenn would have wanted me to be. I was in the City of Lor where I ran into a large group of “adventures”. Some I knew well and others only a little. A obviously poor man walked by us a tried, in a most feeble way, to pick pocket one of us, a paladin of Toran I think by his demeanor. Kobal, who was also there, caught up to the man and quested him. As it turned out his was head of a family who was fleeing from some kind of cult called the Black Hand or the Iron Hand he was not sure really. He was trying to get his people safe passage on a boat to Milstone but the price was high. We offered to help him and his people return to their lands and remove the cult. He said they just wanted to leave. We decided to help with the cost, which was 10,000 trues. While we started to make a collection a woman named Lin'da stepped up and gave the man 20,000 trues. She is a moody one but obviously has a big heart. With the man's expenses more then taken care of. We decided to see about this cult.

We won the day in the end but against an enemy that fought to the last. We think they were under the influence of a strong mind control. We captured one of them, a dwarf, when Rhynn tried to sense what magic held his mind she was struck almost dead. They also had under their control golems that seemed to have been ripped for the very rock around us. They were terrible beasts that could render themselves immune to any attack for some time and even when that power faded they were very hard to take down. But we had a strong leader (I think his name was Mich) and we all did our jobs well. It felt good to be a Hero.

One thing to note. On our trip to where the cult had taken up residence a small but powerful dragon swooped out of the sky and hovered over us. It did not attack us but some of us were quite startled and attacked it, It flew off. I tried to say we should not attack it if it came back but I dont think anyone heard me. Because it swooped down again and hovered a moment and once again some of us attacked it and once again it flew off. Further on in our travels it showed up again this time with another and ready for battle. I dont know if it was hunting us from the start or mad at being attacked but this time it was clear there would be a fight. We attacked them after they drew first blood and we chased them off again. I will say this, I would not want to meet a full sized one of those. All I can think about this is that there are more dragons in the world then we think and they are coming. We had better be ready.