Somewhere 
where dreams seldom last...
"Did you hear what that drunkard in the corner was howling about?"
"Aye, he wouldn’t shut up about lizards, rats and undead dragons. The man's a total lunatic."
Normally, I'd agree. But yesterday in the Coastwood, I overheard two shadowy figures whispering about a lizardman hiding in Ab'Dendriel. When I asked Llathriel, she said I’m too young for such things - then added that some life-weary souls had gone there to enter the Hellgate of their own will, never to return. Rumour has it that an ancient power stirs behind it. I think she meant to scare me, yet she sounded deadly serious.
"So you actually think there’s something to it? Well then, time to show Daddy that spoilt brats can be heroes after all. I'm in - let's slay some villains and save a few maidens while we're at it."
And with that, they were sold. Two would-be adventurers drunk on the idea of glory, armed with more confidence than sense. They left before dawn, their boots still shining and their swords barely dull enough to cut bread.
Elsewhere in the same woods, another man was hunting something real.
He remembered the sailor’s tale. The place, the scent, the promise of something old and cold beneath the trees.
They called him Scarface. The name had decades on it. The hole in his chest did not. A stranger's bolt had found him days ago; the wound still pulsed like a second heart.
His eyes carried the dim shine of someone who had seen too much and cared too little. For sure, he was not seeking glory. Heroes chase legends; hunters chase blood.
Ab'Dendriel disgusted him. Too pure, too polished, too certain of its own goodness. The elves kept their hands clean; he made a living from what their hands wouldn't touch - dirt, bones, and corrupted magic.
That night, fate, or something equally foolish, wove some different stories together.
The two boys crept through the undergrowth, whispering about honour and destiny, loud enough for even the trees to roll their eyes.
Then a man stepped out of the dark. Scarface. No warning, no mercy in his eyes, just the quiet certainty of someone who has already buried too many people to bother counting.
They froze. He studied them for a moment, like a hunter sizing up sick prey.
"So," he said, his voice dry as ash, "the necromancer sends children now? His assassins used to be braver."
That was all it took.
The first boy dropped his weapon; the second tried to speak but only managed a whimper. Then they both bolted, stumbling through roots and branches, tripping over their own courage, panic leaking from every breath. One of them started crying. Maybe both.
Scarface did not move. He watched them vanish into the dark, listened to the noise fade into nothing, then shook his head.
"Pathetic," he muttered.
He crouched beside a patch of disturbed soil. Something caught the moonlight. A scale, slick and recently shed.
"The green-skin is near," he said quietly. "Very near."
The forest did not answer. It was still laughing at the unsung heroes of Ab'Dendriel.
Upcoming next: Even More About Muscle and Bone.
| Content Teaser 2/2 | Feature Teaser 1/4 |
See more graphics:
