Mesmer's Mask

Prologue

Come sit with me, and let me tell you a story. I may not look like much right now, but not too long ago I was a hero. Not like the great heroes of legend, but rather one of the people who fought beside such a hero. I am overshadowed by someone greater still, but my own part in the story is not insignificant.

~*~

My world is changing. It is nothing like the world of my childhood anymore, and I know that it will be radically different from the way it is now by the time I die. I was born in an age that will be remembered long after everyone that lived in it is gone. Some things you just know, and this is one thing I know for certain. The events of my time have changed the world and its people. The lands of my childhood no longer exist. Not really. My birth land has gone through flame into ashes, its green fields and rippling brooks transformed into a barren wasteland. Some people still strive to make a living there, clinging to memories of better days, thinking that one day the land will be fertile again and the kingdom restored.

Most of us know better now, although we were not all equally quick to learn. The land is lifeless, unliveable, and it will not recover from its wounds during our lifetime. Perhaps after many generations have passed it will once again yield to nature, although it will always bear scars of the past. I like to think that it will, although I know that it might not recover at all. Some wounds run too deep, some sorrows are too great to overcome.

I am not one given to despair. I have faced danger more times than I can count. I have fought battles with apparently impossible odds and somehow I came out the victor. I know that things are rarely as bad as they seem, however bad the situation might look. I like to think that there is always some hope, because I do not believe our gods would abandon us entirely. I know that there are fights you cannot win, but I would never consider a battle lost until it has actually been fought.

I am done fighting. I have fought and lost many battles, but I have won the ones that really mattered. I do not hold the illusion that I am a hero. I have fought alongside heroes. I have watched them rise to greatness, and I have seen some of them fall. I would not wish to be a hero. It is a lonely existence, marked and defined by the tragedy of loss. I lived that life for a time, because I travelled with those greater than myself. It is not something I can endure.

My story starts in a place called Ascalon, a land once beautiful and bountiful but now little more than a memory. No- it isn't my story. I was in it, but I wasn't the main character. Let me tell you the story of Ascalon, of its people, of its heroes. Let me tell you of the fall of Ascalon, and of what happened after.