Karith's Journey

The bleak grey sky hung low over the vast, empty badlands.

The shadows of vultures flashed occasionally over the sun-blasted dirt and rock as Karith trudged along, eyes down, cap pulled tight over his forehead to keep the sun off his face. It had been four days of this same scene as he traveled east towards the distant mountains which ruled by presence over the empty stretching landscape.

It would be two more days and nights before he reached those mountains, and at least one of those days would be without the solace of food. Still, Karith pressed on, resolute. It wasn't more than a few weeks ago that he had been sipping at mulled wine in his sister's garden, waiting for the arrival of his mother and father, and it was a few minutes short of a few weeks ago that that very same goblet of wine made its way clattering to the floor, as his sister came into the room in tears. His parents had been murdered in their sleep by foul beasts, and their possessions looted, including the Talisman of Gro-Nagrak which his father had kept carefully cloistered away from the forces of evil, guarding it with his life until the very end.

It was these foul beasts, Orrks from the heart of the Deadwind Mountains, that Karith now pursued over these desolate badlands. He would have their heads and return the talisman to its rightful place. Little did he know events would not play out in such a simple fashion.

Two more days of thought and solitude passed before Karith reached the forested hills at the base of the Deadwinds. Having found a stream to gorge himself on and to fill his waterskin, Karith rolled out his sleeping bag for the night. In the morning he eats his last roll and prepares to depart.