"OK, so you'd expect me to begin at the beginning and work my way forward,
right. Well boyo, we don't do that sort of thing round here... we prefer to make
it up as we go along."
The old storyteller pull his seat a little closer to the fire and spreads his
patchwork cloak out behind him.
"So how about I start at the most exciting part of the story? Well, you might
remember that the Grinch, Catrina and Sharla had taken shelter from a mountain
blizzard high in a pass out of the Southern League. Now, that castle was once
ruled by a paladin-lord who fell out of grace and became a vampire, known as
Gallowfire.
He was eventually defeated but his lover, a terrible creature who's head could
detach from her body and fly through the night looking for blood to drain
searched for many years to find a way to bring him back to life. Eventually she
succeeded, one dark and stormy night whilst our heroine's rode out the
storm.
The battle between the three was swift and terrible. The Grinch, recognising
that he was outclassed when the vampire tore his dog Borg asunder fled down the
stairs and hid in one of the cellars. Rath, the Sword-saint priest, recognising
a foe that his sword could not defeat, fled into the storm, and was never seen
again. Catrina and Sharla both stood their ground to the last, and the last
Grinch saw of them was in a glimpse during a flash of lightning from the bottom
of the tower.
Gallowfire had one hand wrapped around Catrina's throat whilst he loving drank
her blood. Sharla was slumped against the wall of the tower, hands twitching
feebly as she tried to claw her guts back in.
There are few things that get the blood of a paladin up more than killing
female relatives. And so Beren, and the others thundered along Gallowfire's
trail to the South, stopping here and there - for still he could let no wrong go
un-corrected - but eventually coming to the city of Scumport on the South of the
Sea Princes.
It was here that Gallowfire defeated them all, where I rescued them, and where I
sent them back to where they belonged."
To be continued.