Out of Character:
The soles of Christopher’s black leather shoes crunched briskly along the frozen gravel road. Dark clouds rolled across the sky like a stampede of demons, driven forward by the icy Salvic winds. Chris knew that a layer of snow would soon blanket the fields of golden grass and pine-covered hills. After that, the blizzards would start to sweet the countryside, burying everything in their path with a vindictive glee. Such was Salvar; such was his home.
And he was home. Finally, after over a year of travel and dangerous and unwanted adventures, the weary chef’s hometown was in sight. Soon, he could just kick back, relax, and just while away his time in the kitchen or with an open book on his lap. Maybe he would work on learning some new, harder spells from his books that he’d hidden in his room. He gazed contentedly over the town from afar. It was all as he’d remembered it: stone houses with shingled roofs and smoking chimneys, a modest marketplace where imported fruits and vegetables were peddled, and, of course, the Golden Grass Inn. He smiled at the sight of it. It was the tavern that he and his mother owned; it was where the chef learned to cook.
Chris thought of his mother, Lara, and wondered if she would even recognize him. She had been the one to send him off in the first place. The Golden Grass Inn was hugely successful, and she’d wanted to open up another in one of the growing frontier settlements. Running two taverns would have required double the amount of supplies and fresh produce and grain was very expensive in Salvar, especially during the winter. For this reason, they came up with a plan to save an admiral amount of money. With two busy Inns to keep stocked, they realized that it would be far more efficient to have larger quantities shipped in from warmer southern regions rather than going to local vendors. Christopher’s job had been to travel to Scara Brae and Corone to meet with various merchants and warehouse owners and use his negotiating skills to work out beneficial contracts to keep the two taverns well stocked.
Unfortunately, a trip that was supposed to be over in three months took far longer than he’d expected. A civil war breaking out in Corone and an unhealthy collection of other problems on that forsaken island kept the poor chef stuck there for months and months past when he was supposed to depart. Even once he finally returned to Salvar, the home stretch of the journey was wracked with trouble. Following suit with the rest of his trip, what seemed like an average ride home with a merchant caravan turned out to be even more trouble.
As it happened, that “merchant” caravan had actually been a small pilgrimage of Ethereal Sway priests and agents operating in disguise. That alone would only have unnerved Chris a little bit. Unfortunately, they happened to come across a town under a dark siege by the vampire lord Kincaid and none other than a legion of zombies. Zombies! Hadn’t he gotten enough of those rotting abominations in Corone? He, his friend Elijah, and a strange Elvin girl with a massive sword got caught up in the small war against the undead hoard and their master. It was a wonder that they made it out alive.
Despite the strangely friendly rapport he’d established with Malachi, the leader of the band, he was very relieved when he parted ways. With Chris and Elijah heading north to the Great Bridge across the Akyar Kakka River, and then east to get to Chris’s hometown, after a fairly comfortable week at the city Lovstek, and Malachi and the caravan going south to Knife’s Edge, the chances of either of them getting into any more trouble dropped considerably. He was especially glad to be away from the Sway agents after some of the rumors that he’d heard – troubling news about the powerful monarchy and the omnipresent church being at war with each other, leaving the rest of Savlar in the middle.
On the other hand, Chris remembered as he retrieved the vanquished Vampire’s sword from it’s hiding place in his bedroll, all that trouble hadn’t left him empty-handed. He gazed affectionately at the elegantly crafted blade, its bluish metal gleaming even in the gloom. He traced his thumb across the intricately engraved runes and glyphs. It was a magnificent weapon. He could feel the power coming from it making his hand tingle and sending a shiver down his spine. If he could unlock the mighty sword’s secrets, there was no telling what he could accomplish. The priests had claimed that the blade was evil, but Chris didn’t buy into it. He felt called to it; he was meant to have it.
And since he wasn’t even able to make it one more week on his way home without running into more trouble, he’d even gotten a chance to test it out. The fact that it was because he got into a duel with a strange woman who’d only been defending herself against a band of crazed killers was something to be ignored. It wasn’t Chris’s fault that she’d been so efficient at defending herself that he’d thought that she was the attacker and rushed to the aid of the wrong side. At least he was able to straighten it out and get her to a shelter to recover without getting eaten by her pet dragon. On that note, who in the hell brings a pet dragon around with them? Fortunately, she would probably be gone by the time he got back to the makeshift camp, if she hadn’t already woken up and taken off. Hopefully she wouldn’t try to eat Elijah when he returned from a neighboring town.
As the weary chef reached the top of the last hill and found himself looking down at the town he was born in and grew up in, a smile came to his face as he forgot all of the hardships from the past year. He wanted to break out in a sprint down the hill, but that sounded far too cliché. Instead, he strode calmly and casually down the hill, wearing a bright smile on his face. It wasn’t until Chris entered the town did he realize that something was wrong. Nobody rushed out to greet him, the usually bustling town square was all but empty, and the Golden Grass was silent and dark.
“What the… where is everyone?”
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