I followed the bandits into the woods near the camp by the Thorn River, slowly moving from shadow to shadow as the cold night wind softly blew the leaves in the trees, a strand of unruly hair blew into my face. I pulled the hood of my cloak back over my head to keep my disobedient hair in place. When the bandits started making camp for the night in the clearing I stopped to make sure I had an accurate count of their numbers and who the Stag Lord had sent up here to attack Oleg’s trading post, I noticed right away that she was not among them. While I crouched there in the brush hidden from view I kept thinking that I should have moved Karina farther away from these lands, but honestly I never thought I would have to worry about her mother wanting anything to do with her or myself ever again. I never thought I would be back here in these woods lurking in the dark or worrying about the Stag Lord or his men, but I guess I was wrong since here I am back here hunting for both of them. May their Gods forgive them if anyone has hurt a hair on Karina’s head because Calistria knows for certain I will not, though I pray Erastil will forgive me if I do catch them. I slow my breathing and calm my emotions since letting my other half take control now will not accomplish anything. Calming down I force myself to make sure I take an accurate head count. It appears to be about a dozen men and a woman in robes, at first I thought it might be Karina’s mother, but I see the flash of a holy symbol of Gozreh and realize it’s not her. As I sit here in the brush making sure there are no other lurking about and letting the Bandits settle into a routine, I start to recall the last night I had spent in this clearing.
I was laying in our tent together her warm body next to mine our child sleeping peacefully in my arms. I laid there looking down into my daughter’s face hardly believing how much my life has changed. It seemed another lifetime ago when I found myself abandoned on the streets of Restov with nothing to my name accept a pouch full of coppers and a dagger. My family had abandoned me here, well if you could call them family. Being born what I was in Cheliax always meant that I was an embarrassment to my family and since they could not afford one in the circles that they travelled I was always hidden away never spoken of nor shown any real love. When my Father was given a diplomatic mission to travel to Brevoy, he decided to take me with him. At first I was ecstatic thinking that my family was finally starting to accept me. How wrong I was, the plan all along was to abandoned me in some back water hovel in a foreign land where I could no longer bother them and no on would know me.
Once I accepted the fact that I was abandoned by my Family, I needed to find some work, but when people looked at me they would never really give me the chance so finding no luck with honest work I turned to the dishonest kind. I found I had a knack as a cut-purse which is how I met Karina’s mother. She was like me a young and abandoned, trying to make it in a cruel world that gave nothing for free. Her story was similar to mine, she had lost both her parents in some uprising father south, it was also through her that I first started listening to the preaching’s of Calistria. It was Karina’s mother who through her faith of Calistria led me down a hedonistic path of lust and revenge, needless to say the earlier part kept me by her side for some time. We spent almost three years together living by sheer luck and skill. It was not till Karina was born that I realized what I was truly missing from life. The hollow lust and revenge provided by following Calistria was no longer filling that empty space in my soul. I found that inner peace when I looked into the eyes of my daughter Karina. The hunger I had inside me for so long would no longer be simply sated with empty vengeance on a world I had felt had done me wrong. What I truly made my heart sing, what I was truly missing was the love that you can only get from family and more importantly from a child. After Karina’s birth, I tried to convince her mother that perhaps her birth was a sign that we should slow down perhaps give up this life and settle down as a family. Karina’s mother laughed at me, she would not hear of it.
The end came for us the day we waylaid that old Hunter who was guiding a Royal family out on a hunting trip. She wanted to ambush the family and I forbid it. I knew this family meant us no harm they were only here on holiday. She finally agreed to leave them alone but, then turned to kill the old Hunter; it was then that we crossed blades. She cursed me for being weak and allowing him to live since he could possibly lead them back to us and our camp. I looked at the old hunter and he swore if we let him live he would just guide the nobles on a hunt further north, he had no interest in bandits.
Once again later that night as we were settling down that I asked Karina’s mother one final time about moving out of the area to perhaps go west and do something not so dangerous. She just laughed at me and said where’s the fun in that. She said she had Banditry in her blood and so will her daughter. It was that comment that made decide on what to do, later that night that I waited till after she had drifted off into a sound sleep. I gathered up Karina and what gear I could carry and fled the forest traveling north past Restov into the Gronzi Forest.
I travelled several weeks constantly moving always covering up my trail as best I could. When I finally reached the northern edges of the Gronzi forest, I ran into someone I never thought I would see again, it was the old hunter whose life I had saved. It turned out that he lived in the northern woods. He told me his name was Riggs and he serves as a hunting guide for some nobles from House Orlovsky. In fact the day I had first met him he was leading some of the Orlovsky family on a hunting trip for some of the larger southern Boars that was the Noble family we had spared that day. In return for sparing his life and those of the nobles he was in-trusted to protecting, Riggs let me and Karina live with him. Those were some of the happiest years of my life. I think Riggs knew that Karina meant more to me then anything else in the world and through that core belief; Riggs felt I would find comfort in the teachings of Erastil. Riggs also turned my unique abilities that had previously been used to make a living into something more respectable and honest. Riggs trained me on how to be a woods guide, when I got better he would even let me take some of the younger nobles of House Orlovsky out on boar hunts.
Season passed Karina grew into a beautiful young girl, always a pleasant child I never had a problem with her minding me and she never asked why I looked different. I had finally found the love and acceptance I had always sought in my daughter’s embrace. Karina also seemed to have a magical affinity for animals and nature in that surprised me and Riggs sometimes. It was not uncommon to come back from a hunt and see Karina playing with Squirrels or feeding birds from the palm of her hand. As time passed Riggs had gotten older and could no longer go out on some of the more dangerous hunts, he would instead hire on has a wagon guide and lead trade caravans from the northern reaches of Brevoy through the Gronzi and into southern area of Brevoy. It was on one of these Caravans that Karina accompanied Riggs. I was out on a hunt with some nobles from House Rogarvia when I received the letter from Riggs stating that the last caravan he was on needed him to accompany him further south to Restov.
I was initially worried knowing that Karina was with him, but I thought nothing of it since it had been years and there was no way that anyone from that area would know who she was. That night I went to sleep in my tent and I received a vision from Erastil. I saw Riggs fighting off Bandits, and I saw Karina being carried off in a wagon screaming for me. I awoke with start covered in a cold sweat; I immediately gathered all my gear and headed south to Restov. When I reached Restov I discovered that the Caravan Riggs was guarding offered him more money to guide them out to Oleg’s. I knew then something for certain was wrong. I didn’t stop to rest in Restov but continued on to Oleg’s arriving in the middle of the night only to confirm my worse fears. The caravan that Riggs had been travelling with was raided and some people in the Caravan were taking hostage by the Stag Lord who was attempting to lure out some adventurers sent by the Sword Lords to clean up the area. Since I knew exactly where they would go I set out that night heading to the forest near the Thorn River, I figured they would still be using that as a staging area for their raids north.
As I sat here in the shadow’s going over my life and what led me to this place and time, I heard some noise behind me. It sounded like someone was moving through the forest towards the Bandit camp, I could hear the sound of bottles rattling together and the creaking of armor. I was pretty sure they were not more of the Stag Lord’s bandits because as clumsy as they were even they would not have made that much noise. I silently slipped out of the Brush back into the shadows to investigate exactly who else was coming here to the Bandit camp and if they were friend or foe....
