I spent my days pushing a large gear next to another slave. Not quite sneaky enough, as it turns out–I was caught and, as punishment, forced to work the slave pits far below Aku, a grim place known as the Hall of Never-Ending Toil. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I was broke and desperate. On the way there, though, Fate dropped an opportunity right in my lap: some noble couple was packing for a vacation in the countryside, and they’d just happened to leave a box of jewels unattended on the back of their cart. I left the city, heading north–maybe I’d have better luck in Kunrir on the western coast. I managed to slip out of their grasp, but I knew that I’d have to leave town for a while. When the miracle failed to go off, she called the Expungers, the terrifying keepers of order in Uttaku. My luck turned sour when an Uttakin noble–you could tell from the expressionless mask that covered her face–brought me her recently deceased son and demanded I resurrect him. I’d heard that anybody with a bit of talent could set up a stall in Aku’s Grand Bazaar, so I got myself a soap box and offered to perform tricks for the locals, calling myself the greatest wizard that had ever lived. Of course, becoming an initiate required ablutions in a special spa, and entry to the spa required shards. (Aku is built on a sheer cliff wall and situated such that the more affluent manses are positioned directly above the shacks of the less fortunate.) I thought I’d hit my low, but that point was still well ahead of me.Īs I soon came to discover, nobody in Aku would give you the time of day if you weren’t an initiate of their religion, the Church of Ebron. I entered Aku destitute, pawning my scimitar just so I could afford a cheap room to rest and recuperate in the lower districts of the city. I was beaten within an inch of my life and stripped of all my possessions, then thrown out on the street. I thought that by exposing Bundle, some of those dishonestly gained goods might make their way to me, but calling him out in front of all his clients with no actual proof turned out to be a bad call. Grindel did not eat farmers, though, his kind being strictly vegetarian–the initial rumor had been started by none other than Buskle himself, who was making a tidy profit by looting the bodies of brave but foolish adventures who challenged Grindel and lost. The monster, as it turns out, was rather pleasant, although quite capable of tearing a man’s head from his shoulders if provoked. I didn’t like my chances much, but rumors are often overblown–I once slew a child-eating monster that turned out to be a man in a costume–so I followed Buskle’s boy out to the Mixen Sumps wherein lay Grindel’s.
The tavern-keeper, one Byllewyn Buskle, seemed eager for me to try my luck for the 300 shard reward on Grindel’s head. The denizens here, though, were obsessed with just one thing: Grindel, a monster that terrorized the local farmers and had slain dozens of would-be champions before me.
In my experience, a few rounds of drinks at the local inn opens up many possibilities. It seemed like a good idea, then, to begin in Aku, capital city of Uttaku. Aku lay west, so I headed in that direction, diverting from my path only to stop at a likely-sounding inn, the Hall of Heroes. I knew little of the lands to which Fate had brought me, only that Uttaku is known elsewhere as “The Land of Hidden Faces” and that the mages of Aku might possess the knowledge to send me back to my home, a distant time and place. I bore little more than the shirt on my back: a scimitar, a suit of chain mail, and 65 shards, the universal currency of the Fabled Lands. Hard winds and bad luck deposited me on the southern shores of Uttaku, also known as Old Harkuna, just west of Ringhorn and the River Rese delta. My first venture into the Fabled Lands (Harkuna and its surrounds) ended poorly.
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