Role

Chapter 1

The wind was chill and brisk for a late summer day before full harvest.
It picked up in the south sweeping down through the mountains and into
the quaint farmstead that lay on the edge of the Dwarven Forest. In site
of the Ruins of Ostalagiah, the farm survived despite the season being a
rough one barely able to support the family of three who lived off of it.

The father was a simple man, but a strong worker use to a life of hard
toil in the earth. He was grateful to have some food on the table, a
beautiful wife, and an even more darling little girl to share it with.
The mother though gifted in herbs and their concoctions, had long
accepted her more simple life. Even if she had given up dreams of her
own apothecary in one of the major cities, when she looked into the eyes
of the young girl who played outside the window in the sandbox by the
barn she knew it was worth it.

The girl Tiria played as she routinely did in the yard. Her parents had
woken in good spirits and so she found herself in a joyous mood, taking
in the sun and late summer air. Only a month prior such could not have
been said. Her parents had been full of angst and worry, starvation
possibly at hand with a particularly harsh harvest unfit for market.
Then miraculously the crops had found new life in short order, bolstering
to record levels that would surely give them the best stores of food she
could remember in her young life and further trade still for the local
market.

Suddenly a happily whistled tune could be heard down the road and Tiria
looked up and gave an innocent pure smile of joy. Old Alagar walked by
every day on his way into work as a Tribunal in Voralian. And if Alagar
was coming, that meant walnuts and berries! The child Tiria ran to the
fence as she often did and Alagar found her as he did every day. Always
to be counted on for his warm smile, the old man gave her the treats as
was their custom. As always, he ruffled Tiria's hair and told her how
much he wished he had found time in his life to have had a daughter as
beautiful as her.

It would have been a day like every other day had not Alagar's eyes swept
the crops and a look of consternation grown on his face, his smile
quickly fading. Tiria looked up and asked what was wrong, but Alagar did
not answer. Just then her mother came out, frowning, and reminded Tiria
not to speak with strangers. The kind old man of law who adored her so
did not return the following day nor the day after.