Prequel

My name is Acacia Misko. I have been asked to tell you of a series of events that happened a few years ago in the country of Ustalav. A series of events that came to be known as The Carrion Crown.

First, though, a little bit about myself. My father was an elf who was a travelling merchant. My mother was a human farm worker on a farm just outside the town of Tamrivena in western Ustalav. They met, fell in love, married, and had me. My father then went away to deliver goods to the neighbouring country of Belkzen, and he never came back. Reports say his wagon was attacked by orcs, but his body was never found.

My mother worked long hours on the farm, so I was usually on my own for most of the day. I would wander the nearby forests and mountains, learning about the ways of the wild. It was only natural, then, that when I came of age, I decided to become a ranger. I would help the local townsfolk whenever they needed to venture into the wilderness, to gather food, find lost sheep, and so on.

It was on one of my forays into the nearby forest that my destiny was to be revealed.

I could hear up ahead some wolves barking and snarling. I then heard a man's voice cry out for help. Dashing through the trees, I came across a middle-aged man on the floor, surrounded by three wolves. His leggings had been torn where one of the wolves had bitten him, and I could see blood. I ran in, making a loud noise and waving my axe above my head. Two of the wolves fled from my intrusion, but a third turned toward me and leapt. Instinctively I lashed out with my axe, and metal met bone. With a yelp, the wolf crashed to the ground, my axe buried in its neck.

The man thanked me profusely, and as I bandaged his leg, he told me that his name was Professor Petros Lorrimor. I helped him up, and I helped him walk back to town. I got him a room at the inn and left him there for the night. In the morning I returned to see how he was. He thanked me once again and said he would never forget my bravery. And that was it. He said goodbye, left town, and I never thought about the incident again.

A year later, I received a letter from Kendra Lorrimor, the professor's daughter. It was to tell me that the professor had been killed in an accident, and, to my surprise, I had been mentioned in the will. The old man had remembered me after all. I was asked to attend his funeral and the reading of his will in the town of Ravengro.

And so it began. I had started along the path of the Carrion Crown.