Ariss

Loneliness is a strange thing, is it not? All of us left, each group seeking their own luck, their own fortune, each trying to be apart from the others. Yet it is not in the nature of a human to strive for loneliness. We claim to seek it, claim to love it, wave it like a banner to keep the world at bay. And even while we shout at others to go away our hearts beg for them to stay, to leave us alone, yet to keep us from being alone. Strange are the hearts of our folk.

And thus, after we scattered to all corners of the land, we now seek comfort in company once more. Towards Mistas we turn our minds, the great town of the south. Here, even before the gate is reached, a new inn has been opened, welcoming the wary travellers with roaring fires, an ale thick and strong enough to cut with a knife, beds and sometimes even breakfast. Of course there are the rumours of the food growing short, yet out on the bustling market squares there seems to be no sorrow in the faces of the people.

Some even hail from Lakeshire to the east, the peaceful town in the east. People quip that its citizens even nail the butter to the bread to keep the pixies from stealing it, yet light are the hearts of those that need not fear more than a pixie’s jest. And yet the road to Mistas is long and full of dangers. Few are those that dare to travel.

Only the west is worse, where dark forests hide many dangers. Even with the wise ones offering shelter to travellers in need it is only few that set out on such a perilous journey. Even the gypsies are seen no more, yet word is passed of a gathering in their desert camps to celebrate the rise and fall of Montor.

Thus are the hearts of men, and thus do their feelings guide their hands and feet. Many more meetings shall we have in days to come, old friends, old rivals. Many meetings in many places. Let us join together wherever we meet and lift a drink in the memory of what has been.