Intro Story - Read the First Request

Topmost Parchment (written in an elegant hand with a generously inked quill):

Noble Senators,

I come here for the people of Faristown. You can find us a 30 minute walk downriver of Soros. We’re tanners, plasterers, cobblers, and smiths—loyal to King Peter and his father before him. We remember our parents’ stories of the Fall and the bad times, but him and his father have done right by us, and our kids have always known full bellies, warm beds, and safe nights.

We’re not ignorant bumpkins, listening to rumors and superstition. We have those who marched under Peter’s flag, and we’re a traveled people. But I don’t mind saying we’re scared. Our nights are not be as safe as they’ve been.

It started with some chickens. We thought it was a fox or a weasel, as there wasn’t much left but a few feathers. But then it was cats, and then dogs and pigs, and that was when we took alarm. What could take a sow could surely take a child.

We armed ourselves as best we could and tried to find what was taking our stock. We followed tracks to the old silver mine. It was abandoned in my grandfather’s time, and we knew it wasn’t safe, but we went in to find who or what was coming in the night.

In the belly of the mine, just beyond what our lanterns could light, we saw it. It was the size of a wagon, and it watched us with cold, flat eyes. It’s skin was rough but pale as a corpse.

Just a jerk of its tail made the old tunnel’s roof fall in. Reggie’s leg was crushed by rock. We managed to drag him out, but the leg went sour and he lost it.

Senators, if you can’t help us, we’ve all agreed to leave Faristown. We gathered some money, not a lot, but we hope enough to bring you to save our town. If not, we’ll use it to find a new home.

If you don’t come by the change of the season, don’t bother coming as you’ll just find a town full of beautiful, empty homes where families used to live.

- Donald Cooper