1 Intro Part 1

My earliest memories are of my grandfather. The white haired wrinkly old man with big strong hands and a smile permanently plastered on his face. He always smelled of tobacco and never raised his voice no matter how many vases or plates I broke. Other than that, there are many gaps in my early memories.

Every night after dinner, my grandfather loved to tell me stories of the good old days when he would sit at the back of a horse-drawn carriage with the season harvest, listen to his brother's crazy stories with an awe-filled expression and eat roasted corn until they got to Lindisfarne town a few miles away from our farm. Once there, the market square would be teeming with strange people, odd sounds and unfamiliar smells. They would come from near and far to buy the best farm produce that we made right here on our estate with our blood, sweat and tears. Things were simple and people were kind.

Today Lindisfarne was a dying town at the edge of nowhere. The farmers, fishermen and traders had gone and now only the hopeless remained; those who lie, swindle and steal. My grandfather tried to go there to sell some products to buy medicine for my grandmother a few months back but he came back beaten and bloody. The money was gone and with no medicine, my grandmother died of her illness. Gramps hasn't left his room since. He sits at his window gazing at the distance with blank eyes and an empty soul. Apart from Abigail -a servant girl who looked after him- I was the only one left to take care of the farm.

But what about my father, you might ask? He's not dead. In fact, he's alive and well (But I'll get to that in a second). My great-grandfather had passed the farm on to my grandfather and he intended to pass it on to my father but all that changed when the travellers appeared.

That's what we call them.

The people from another world that just appear out of nowhere with awesome magical powers that enabled them to defeat monsters and clear dungeons. One day when I was nine or ten playing knights and robbers with the neighbour's kids on the main road going to the town centre, some travellers appeared near us, out of thin air, and without warning. There were three of them, a handsome tall blonde man, a stocky oaf and the most beautiful dark-haired woman that I had ever seen (other than Abi but that's a story for another time!)

But where did the monsters they slay come from, you may ask? That would be a very good question. A question that nobody has the answer to. In fact, nobody even asks the question anymore.

Except me.

The popular theory is that after sitting idly and silently in their temples for years, the Gods created dungeons all across the world and summoned heroes to clear those dungeons and defeat the monsters that guard them, all for their amusement. If that's really the case then the Gods must be extremely bored and have a convoluted definition of 'fun'. I never understood why they couldn't just read books or take long walks if they are so starved of entertainment. That always seems to work for me.

You see, once the monsters were defeated, the heroes turned to us, town people, to mine the minerals in the dungeon along with the magical items which seemed to just drop to the ground when the monsters are killed.

Magic swords, rare items and powerful talismans would just appear on the ground where the monsters died instead of blood, guts and bones (I kid you not!).

The impact on my world has been threefold.

Firstly, due to the strength (and beauty!) of some of the travellers, the townspeople began to worship them like Gods (I admit to having straw figurines of Theresa the healer and Altair the sword king and Fyodor the grand mage under my bed). They upset the political and military balance of every kingdom in Westergaard to Esos and beyond. Every noble family was falling over themselves to offer up their sons and daughters hands in marriage. Some of the travellers became Kings, queens, generals, priests and even judges.

Secondly, because of the sheer amount of profit that could be made from the sale of the drop items, the entire economy was reshaped permanently and seemingly overnight. Farmers, fishermen and hunters became miners to mine the defeated dungeons, merchants to distribute the minerals and factory workers to make useful products out of the minerals.

This is where I answer the question of where my dad and mum are. My mom was the first to go. My grandfather told me that she was beautiful (with smoky eyes, long brown hair) and way too smart for farm life. She was an educated daughter of a town Earl and dreamed of seeing the world until she got pregnant with a son (me!) for a simple farmer (my dad!). When the age of wonders started, she hightailed it as quickly as she could. Rumour has it that she's a successful merchant somewhere in the south. As for my dad, seemingly disillusioned with the farm life after my mom left, he followed in her footsteps and went south to become a dungeon miner and maybe earn a fortune that would help him win her back.

Third and lastly, the dungeons changed the way we lived. No more going to the doctor when you're sick with a cold or a fever, doctors were replaced by magic potions (made from dungeon minerals) that you could easily drink, farmers were replaced by factory-made sweets (again made from dungeon minerals) and hunters were replaced by packaged meat (you guessed it, gotten from the defeated monsters).

Cheap and easy products like those gotten from the dungeons made life a lot easier and we lived longer, healthier lives as a result but it robbed us of life's meaning, family, dignity and purpose in the process.

I'm going to fix all that.

I'm hatching a scheme to reunite with my dad and mum.

You see, I have a secret.

I'm a collector of sorts, and hidden in an otherwise unused barn on the edge of my family estate are some animals. Magic beasts.

There's really no way to tame wild magic beasts in the Livornian forests but if you can obtain their eggs before they hatch, or find their young before they imprint on their mothers, you can obtain loyal beast followers.

Two years ago, the travellers hunted down a flock of wyverns that were killing dungeon miners. As a fierce battle unfolded in which the travellers were sure to win, I snuck into their nest located in a cave at the southern tip of the forest and stole an egg. Now, I have a violet skinned baby wyvern that thinks I'm its mother. I also stole a baby flying monkey that the wyverns were saving for dinner.

Together, Aki the wyvern and Yoshi the flying monkey will one day help me find my parents.

The only thing left to complete is how to get so much money that they never have to work again!