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The First Part
In my many years as a Travelling Poet and Bard, I have journeyed far and wide across the fair Realm of Arcady and I have seen sights most people have not dreamed. I have stood on the magnificent and terrible Southern Capes in the midst of Winter, when the storms are at their fiercest, while waves as tall as the towers of Altaban washed over my frozen body. I have witnessed the monstrous beasts that lurk in those dark and deadly waters of the South swallow brave galleons whole. Creatures the size of mountains that with a flick of a tail can touch the depths of the Sea and the Stars themselves. I have crossed the Great Ocean from North to South, and from East to West, and in the course been stranded on desert islands, with no sustenance but what I could gather from the spare vegetation for months at a time. I have ridden the giant Elgwan across Ch’Angagriel, the Wasteland, from Altaban to Monterba, and further South where the Terukh, the Oasis are few and far between, and I have seen the shifting dunes above the ruins of Gorimon, precious Jewel of the Bakshevan Empire, concealed for Centuries by the coarse and treacherous sand. And I have journeyed Far West, carried on good will and Destiny by Shadow Ships to the strange and unknown cliffs of a World unseen by most, a World of an unfamiliar Tongue and customs, a World of Great Wonder and Mysticism.
I have seen all this and more but the fairest sights still I have seen in the Lands of the North, from Ayrede to the Border Mountains, from Tyren to the Bay of Fire. No sight can ever compare to dawn at Mount Tireney, looking out to the Plains of Nehdrah where wild Stallions run free in the Thousands. And to look on the city of Corescent, the Pearl of Fire, while the boiling sun sets in the Ocean beyond, the slow waves reflecting dark yellow and red as they lap slowly upon the sandy shores, is an experience truly treasured and ne’er forgotten. These lands are blessed by the Creator, shaped by men, yet wild and free and fertile, home to the greatest cities, the most precious sights and the most cultured and civilised people in Arcady. Of all the fires I have rested my weary legs by, of all the taverns where I have learned the legends of tale-spinners and memorised the songs of Bards, of all the lands where I have wandered from city to village, it is to the Northlands I return time and time again to learn ever more.
Join me now, for I will evoke in you the very emotions I first experienced when visiting the sights and treasures of the Northern Lands. Join me, and I will surely bring you there, to the exotic midst of this blessed land and you will pine for its rugged coast and green woods and its hardy people and like me, you will ne’er rest until you can return to yonder shores.
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