The Wall

I finally got up the courage to cross the wall this week. You know the one. It cuts Misty Thicket in half north to south, and west of it, well… west of it are all the things the deputies built the wall to keep away. Goblins, largely, and a few orcs. Runnyeye and Deathfist respectively. They set up little camps out there, and adventurers come and scatter them, and then they come back, rinse repeat.

I suppose it’s adventurers like me - because I am an adventurer now, make no mistake - that keep the balance. There are deputies stationed all along the wall who do a pretty good job at making sure any goblin or orc that gets too close to the wall ends up real sorry. (By sorry I mean dead, which I guess kind of reduces the odds of sorry, now that I think about it.) But if there weren’t people out there looking for coin and glory, cleaning out those orc and goblin camps from time to time, I think it’s pretty darned likely they’d build up enough numbers on the far side of the wall to just bowl our fine deputies right over.

I did a patrol not long ago, not for pay but out of my loyalty to my city and my people. Walked the whole length of the wall and back a few times, called out to the guards anything unusual I saw. In the dead of night I swear I saw a zombie wandering around out there. No idea why, but the deputies didn’t tell me I was crazy, so maybe that happens sometimes. This is a world that sometimes has very little rhyme or reason. And someone or something’s been raising skeletons and plaguing rats in what used to be a nice garden near town, so maybe that’s related.

That mystery’s a bit rich for my blood though. Occasional noble volunteer work aside, right now I’m just trying to make a living so I don’t have to go back to slinging beers. The deputies pay when people bring them trophies from the Deathfist Orcs or the Runnyeye goblins, so that’s why I decided to venture west of the wall and do a little hunting. Sometimes I paired up or joined a small group, mostly foreigners. Human adventurers, elves, people like that, who come here looking for the same thing as me: good coin and a cure for boredom.

Eventually I want to go farther, out though. Once I’ve gotten good enough at goblin-hunting I want to see if I can fight my way through the Runnyeye citadel, through the gorge on the far side, and out into the Plains of Karana. Not only are the plains storm-blessed and so named after my god, but there’s supposed to be a druid circle or two out there, and I’d love to meet some druids who don’t take one look at me and think of my father.

If I get really lucky, maybe I’ll find a druid that knows him but doesn’t know me.