My Dear Friend,

If you are reading this, then it means that you decided to leave with those who came for you. I am not sure who you are now with or where you are going, but from what I have been able to figure out, if you had not gone with them you would have died last night in Asylum. I do not understand everything that is happening, nor do I expect you to, either. It seems we are swept up into something that is greater than both of us, and for either of us to veer from the appointed path would mean death for one, if not both of us. Someone has put a lot of work into making sure that we exist, and I do not think they will let us rest for too long. You must learn as much as you can in the next few years. Use your time wisely. Learn anything and everything that you are able to. Never let anyone tell you that you cannot do something—you are able to do whatever you put your mind to.

We each have our duties to fulfill, and yours are no less important than my own. I don’t know how long it will be before we see each other again, but I know, deep down, that we will. I would like you to promise me that whatever life puts us through, you will remember me for who I was. Many hard times are ahead for the people of Terroval, and hard times breed hard men. Do not get so wrapped up in your quest to better yourself that you forget to enjoy life. I want you to remember something for me, and I want you to live by it, and when we meet again, I want you to remind me of it.

Life is a struggle. The only way to survive is to remember who you are, and who your friends are. No matter what anyone else may do to you, they cannot change who you truly are. Live life to the fullest with every breath and consider each moment a challenge ready to be faced with weapons bared. Remember who you are and remember me.

Your Partner in Crime,

Victor Deus

Year: 3044 AGD

Month: Year’s End

Fourth Eighthday (Last day of the year)

Continent of Terroval

Blade's Edge Mountains

Near Tranquility Mist Village

Shawnrik carefully folded the well-worn note before placing it back into his pocket. He had memorized every word long ago, but he felt that losing the paper would be like losing another little piece of his friend. It had been a little over a year and a half ago that Victor had gone missing. The world began spinning like a child's top that day, and every day since had been a blur. He hardly remembered the frantic ride across Northwestern Terroval, as the group tried to make it back to Asylum before the battle commenced. When the Giants had stepped into their path on that last morning, Shawnrik knew in his heart that they were there for him.

The letter that Victor had left Nim had said that he would need to leave with someone along the way, but a part of Shawnrik had wanted to stay with Nim, Ashur, and Dunnagan. His first reaction was to try to argue his way out of it; after all, his mentors were riding off to war, and his only friend had gone missing an Eightday earlier. Shawnrik felt like he would be lost without at least one familiar person around. However, Nim had quickly dismissed that notion, reminding Shawnrik of Victor's note and its dire portent, and that was all he had to say.

On their way into the mountains, the Elder Giant had asked Shawnrik what the conversation had meant. Not wanting to talk about it, Shawnrik had simply shrugged and let his mount fall behind the rest of the party. It took a few days, but eventually he had quit sulking and began to converse with his large companions.

The eldest Giant was also the smallest of the group, standing at just under twelve feet in height. His name was Pedrial Lightfeather. Shawnrik had wondered how a Giant had ever been given the name Lightfeather, but he never voiced his quandary aloud. There were four other Giants in the party, the tallest standing at nearly sixteen feet. Each moved at a steady, thoughtful pace, their power clearly evident in each action they took.

At first, Shawnrik had been content to ride along beside his newfound companions, but one morning he decided to try to keep pace with their loping stride. He had still not grown accustomed to his newly changed body, and the first day had been an exercise in caution, his mind not quite yet processing where each foot should fall relative to his new mass.

It took a few days, but Shawnrik was eventually able to maintain pace with the Giants for a good portion of the day. It didn't take him long to realize that the Giants had a seemingly endless amount of endurance, running all day long with little exertion. When Shawnrik ran out of stamina, he would mount up for a little while until his body quit complaining a little, and then he would begin again.

Towards the end of that first Eightday of travel, the path became too rocky and uneven for him to ride safely. Not wanting his horse to slip and break a leg or kill itself and him along with it from a deadly plunge, Shawnrik elected to lead the horse through the rocky expanse.

Shawnrik had spent the greater portion of his life in the city of Safeharbor; his excursion with Ashur and Dunnagan had been his only experience outside the city walls. Those few months had not prepared him for the grandeur that waited within those mountains. The air seemed crisper, and the land around him had a much more permanent feel to it. Looking up at the majestic peaks above him, Shawnrik felt small once again.

The party continued at such a pace that, besides a few brief rest stops, he had only been able to enjoy the scenery in the morning or at night. Ten days after he had left Nim's party, Shawnrik found himself bumping into the back of Pedrial Lightfeather. One minute they had been jogging along, and the next the man had just stopped. It took him a moment to realize that the elder had indeed called a halt, but he had been paying so much attention to where his feet were landing that it hadn't registered.

Looking around to see why they had stopped, Shawnrik got his first look upon the village of Tranquility Mist. It appeared to be a small community, made up of a few dozen stone-worked dwellings. Moss and other plants were well appointed throughout the village. The strangest thing about the village was the fact that the houses had metal roofs, the likes of which Shawnrik had never seen before. Most of the buildings he had ever seen had thatched or clay roofs; the most outlandish he had seen had been stone-worked, or marble roofs that some of the rich had paid the Shapers generously to create.

The people of Tranquility Mist accepted Shawnrik as if it was natural for him to be there. His first impression of the village was that it was very sedate, but he quickly learned that it was only because the children of the village were away at school. He found out that the children would leave to go to school every other year, returning only for planting and harvest seasons. On the years that they didn't go to school, they would stay home and learn a trade. It had been another month before the children returned home for the harvest.

Going from a place like Safeharbor to a place like Tranquility Mist was a big adjustment. In Safeharbor, everyone was always rushing around, trying to get from one place to another as fast as they could while trying to make as much money as possible. The people of Tranquility Mist went through their day in a steady process, rarely hurrying and finishing one thing or another as it came along. If you needed something from someone else, you could trade your time or other goods for it, money being of little use.

Settling in, Shawnrik found himself under the tutelage of the elder Pedrial Lightfeather, whose house was just large enough to accommodate the two of them. Having arrived so late in the year, it would be impractical for him to return to school with the kids when they went back after the harvest, so he spent his time with the elder learning whatever Pedrial decided to teach him.

It didn't take long for Shawnrik to find out that Pedrial was the smith of the village, but his excitement at the prospect of learning such a craft was quickly tempered by the amount of work required before any crafting could begin.

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The first thing that Shawnrik learned was that there were no shipments of ore to be had this far into the mountains, so if you wanted materials you would have to get them yourself, or have something valuable to trade for them. Shawnrik had two bags of gems that Ashur and Dunnagan had given to him, and a small bag of gold coins, but it seemed that those were not fit for trading in Tranquility mist, so Shawnrik quickly found himself working in the quarry, gathering the materials needed for the smithy.

The second thing that Shawnrik learned was that a village smith rarely made weapons or armor; most of their time was spent making new tools and pots, or repairing old ones. When he wasn't gathering materials, Shawnrik could usually be found working the billows as Pedrial Lightfeather worked on one project or another. While he worked, Pedrial would tell Shawnrik what he was doing and why he was doing it. Shawnrik hadn't realized it at the time, but the old Giant had been preparing him to be the smith's apprentice.

Shawnrik found the Giants to be a very gentle people. They worked hard and settled their differences with words or actions instead of with a blade, even though they were powerful enough to break someone in half with an errant blow. With such strength, it made sense to settle differences in ways that did not involve force.

The average male seemed to be somewhere around fifteen feet tall, and the average female topped out around twelve feet. The skin tones were as varied as they had been in the city, anywhere from a light cream to a dark obsidian, but every Giant seemed to have a slightly violet hue to their skin, if one knew what to look for. The eye colors also seemed to vary vastly, but the one thing they had in common was that they reminded Shawnrik of gemstones. He had seen everything from a deep jade to a dull hematite.

Shawnrik had briefly met some of the young giants when they had come back for harvest, but he had been working in the smithy most of the time they had been home. The kids had simply shown up one day and disappeared the next, but all he could get out of them about where they had come from was the name Serenity Valley.

The winter rolled by, and Pedrial Lightfoot taught him the history of the Giants. It seemed they came from a faraway land, where they were used as slaves because of their pacifistic nature. Some of the Giants rebelled; tired of the way their brothers and sisters were being treated and were banished. The only thing that remained from that time was their language, complex and beautifully harmonious.

During his time in Tranquility Mist, Shawnrik learned that physical labor had the benefits of toning his body while keeping his mind clear. As spring rolled around, he once again found himself working in the quarries and mines that were spread out in the mountains around the village. The hard work let him clear his mind for a time, forgetting the feeling that he was leaving someone behind. He read Victor's note at the end of each day, wondering where his friend was and what he was doing.

With all the work to do around the village and each person learning a different craft, there wasn't a lot of time left for socializing. He had attempted small talk several times with the other kids, but he had not met anyone who he would consider a friend during his time in the village.

It was during the summer that Shawnrik finally felt like he had a good grasp of the language and was willing to try to communicate using it with someone other than Pedrial. His first attempts were met with the same stoic patience that the Giants seemed to use with everything they did, and it wasn't long until he felt comfortable communicating with his neighbors.

All things considered, he rather liked his life in Tranquility Mist, but he knew deep down that he didn't belong there. When the night grew dark and the rest of the village was in bed, he would sneak out to a flat spot in the quarry and practice his sword and axe techniques, the way Ashur and Dunnagan had taught him. It was during those sessions that he felt the most at peace. That was one of the main reasons that he knew that he didn't belong, but it was by no means the only one.

One of the benefits of living among the Giants was that he was able to forget that he was now larger than any man he had ever met in Safeharbor. His clothes had already been modified several times to accommodate his growth, and by the time Harvest Festival rolled around once again, Pedrial decided that it was time for a new set of clothes entirely, something loose that Shawnrik had room to grow in.

He hadn't noticed when his voice had settled into the light baritone that he now spoke with, but he was glad that it had. As the days went by, he found himself growing much more comfortable with his body, and he found that his strength had grown considerably. The hardest part about his strength was learning how to control it.

It was very important when smithing that he not hit the metal too hard or too softly. Other things that people might take for granted, the Giants had to use great caution doing as well. Simple things like opening a door or bumping into a post could quickly turn into a disaster. Knowing where you were, what was around you, and the strength of the things you were dealing with was crucial to every day survival.

On his rare free day, Shawnrik would explore the mountains, often running great distances to see what was just over the next hill. He had thought that his larger body would be slower, but he had been quickly disabused of that notion. His longer strides lent themselves well to increased speed, and he found that he could jump incredible distances. His strength let him climb wherever he wanted. If he couldn't find a hand or foothold, he simply made one. Shawnrik quickly began testing every limit, trying to find out everything that he was now capable of doing.

Shawnrik had spent the better portion of the day doing exactly that, and his exploration had brought him further afield than ever before. He now sat upon a massive rock formation that overlooked one of a multitude of hidden valleys in the Blade's Edge Mountains. The sun was slowly making its decent towards the horizon, coloring the sky in a multitude of pinks and purples. It would be well past dark by the time he made it back to the village, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Pedrial would likely not make a big deal about it—he never seemed to want to put extra rules on someone who was already well behaved. Shawnrik's run had been exhilarating, but it had also given him a lot of time to think about what was to come on the morrow. On New Beginnings three years ago, he had met his best friend for the first time, and sometime tomorrow morning ten years ago, Victor had been born. Last year, Shawnrik had spent New Beginnings huddled next to the fire in Pedrial Lightfeather's home, not yet used to the frigid cold of winter in the mountains. Tomorrow, he would be off to someplace called Serenity Valley, where he would go to school for the first time in his life.

Shawnrik wasn't sure when his own birthday was; he thought it was somewhere in the month of Ragnós, which meant he was nearly halfway through his fifteenth year. When he thought about the fact that he was five and a half years older than his best friend, it made him laugh. Five years older than Victor, who had taught Shawnrik how to read and write Common, and speak it properly. Five years older than the boy who had been giving him advice ever since the day they met. Victor, who had disappeared, leaving only a letter that said that everything would turn out alright, even if he didn't know where on Terrazil he himself would end up. Even with his own future uncertain, he had been trying to reassure his best friend one last time.

A day never went by in the last year and a half where Shawnrik hadn't thought about his friend, but as time went by he found it a little more difficult to remember exactly what his friend had looked like. He knew that on the day that he saw his friend again, he would look completely different, but he still lamented the fact that his friend's image should fade into memory like that.

A cold wind blew through the mountains as the sun set to the west, throwing the eastern edge of Terrazil into twilight. Shawnrik let thoughts of the past drop with the sun as it dipped below the horizon, and he began looking forward to the new day. Someday he would meet his friend again, and he would be strong enough that they would never be parted again. The world was changing, and he would change with it, using everything at his disposal to learn as much as he could for when that fateful day would arrive. With a sigh, he let go of all the worries for his friend that he had been carrying around and began his journey back to Tranquility Mist, and the future.

“Time for another day of work, tunnel rat.”

The voice arrived shortly before the toe of a soft-soled boot not so gently met the side of his torso, as it had every morning for as long as he could remember. Every morning—or what passed for it in these lightless tunnels—the foreman's toady would wake him up this way. The jerk never seemed to do it to the other workers. No, he only seemed to pick on the young human boy.

It being the only thing he had ever known. The boy found the action a little bit comforting, and just part of the daily routine. He had awoken in this place what seemed like forever ago, unable to remember anything from before. The only thing on him was a worn set of clothing and a pair of blood red manacles.

As he left the cell where the workers slept at night, he grabbed his pick and joined the line that was being shackled together in order for them to work the mine. The Goblin that had woken him was moving to the corner of the cell, waking several of the other workers, quite a bit more pleasantly than he had been awoken, the boy noted.

Taking his place in the line of Goblin-kin, he noticed that he was almost as tall as the shortest of them now. He had tried communicating with them, but none of them seemed to want to talk to the boy who didn't know who he was, and who also had the ire of the foreman's toady. The only names he had were boy or tunnel rat, but everyone else was called tunnel rat at times as well, so he referred to himself as boy. He knew he didn't belong here, but he didn't know where it was that he did belong, either.

“It's New Beginnings up top,” the Grey Elf who regularly escorted the group down into the mines said to no one in particular. “You know what that means? It means it's a new day for digging, so get to it!” With that, he cracked his whip, and the line began to move forward. A steady clank, drag, clank were the only sounds that accompanied them into the darkness.

Happy Birthday, a strange voice said. The voice had been so clear that the boy looked around to see who was talking. It took him a few moments to realize that the voice that had nearly made him stumble had come from inside his head.

Birthday?! Who are you? Who am I? Hello!? If there had been anything else in his head with him it was gone now, or at least silent. He didn't have the time or energy to contemplate the idea that he was going crazy.