EroLegacy: Intro draft

	Softened by a soft breeze off the snow-capped mountains like the first harbinger of autumn, summer’s heat yet lay on the wide open fields of the Low Country. Green was running to gold now as young shoots sprouted their feathery tendrils and stretched sunward, readying for harvest. It was a time for a farmer’s idle strolls between milking and woodcutting, for children to play in the long grasses and throw stones at scavenging birds. But the fields were empty, and so too the barns and pastures scattered about the mound of Nathfalan. Only the halls and houses at the peak were inhabited, and not by those who had raised them in stone and timber. Within the palisade there were only vermin, greater and lesser alike.

	In one night of blood and terror, the town had been taken by vicious, primal invaders. Men had died with pitchforks and axes in hand, helpless to protect their families from creatures born to kill and destroy. Their sturdy homes were now soiled dens where women were brutalized and children devoured. Idols smashed, wealth plundered, innocence lost.

	Seated in the shadow of the gate’s arch, a bestial figure looked down into the wealth of grain and grass that teetered on the cusp of going to spoil if left unharvested for flour and hay. Urok of Night’s Tribe he was, and he cared nothing for the waste, of the long season of toil that had seen the ground tilled and planted, any more than for the lives of the planters. Were it not from his banishment from the halls higher up the mound, he would not be scrunching his bulk into the narrow shade offered by the pitiful, broken barrier that was his only shelter. But he watched the fields, and the wagon track curving lazily through them towards the indistinct smear that was the forests to the west. To do otherwise would only allow for greater misfortune to be heaped upon him; that angel-kisser Norix would be all a’glee if he let some interloper slip into their claim on his watch. And his punishment would be far worse than simple removal from darkened hall and earthly pleasures.

	Fuming over his recent humiliation, Urok almost missed the unnatural flash of light from below. For a moment, he thought to disregard it, but another gleam stung his eyes. Growling deep in his chest, he raised one hand to shade his eyes and tried to pick out the irritant’s source. After a moment, his nocturnal pupils resolved the form of a figure coming up the road, headed straight for the mound’s peak with a purposeful stride. Relatively small, no doubt a man-thing like the slaves he and his tribe had taken, but that bright gleam reflecting sunlight at him could only be polished metal. Armor, which meant that this was no wanderer coming in for hospitality. An adventurer. Probably seeking news of a such a prosperous settlement suddenly fallen silent.

	Long tongue protruding, Urok licked his lips in anticipation, rising from his hunkered seat and taking up the iron-bound bludgeon he had used to break that very gate with one mighty blow not two weeks before. It would serve to crush this hero just as well, and he was ready for a tenderized meal. Maybe the fool would put up enough fight to offer him a new scar, boosting his prestige and a commensurate reward; his place back out of the sun’s glare.