Chapter 1: Only A Boy
I can certainly remember back that far, if someone wants me to do so. I don't usually like going back to the old days in my homeland, but today I'm in a better mood than most. My mind usually goes shady and then completely blank at age four... but I think I could at least give it a shot.
I was born to a full family of five about nineteen years ago. I had a father who was a busy miner in our mountainous region where we lived, a mother who always knew how to manage scraping together the last pence of our denars before we had to pay our rent to the landlord, and all three sisters that hell could expell to this earth for the purpose of making my life more... interesting.
It wasn't a bad life though, regardless of our prevailing circumstances. We were a close-knit working family, and all in all I wouldn't trade any other family in the world for the two younger brothers who eventually came after me. My father was a hard worker in all respects. He earned his pay after weeks of back-breaking labor away from home, and then would meet up with us for a few days of family time before going off to work again. My Mother was frugal and, dare I say, cunning in terms of making ends meet. She was never hesitant about taking a small job here and there, and the rest of the family would help her do what was necessary. I suppose it goes without saying that the children truly had nothing else to do. This life was a comfy life for the hard working, which is what we were as a family. Although at the end of the month we never truly had obtained an excess in wealth, we could be happy just to live with our pride intact.
As time went on, however, the king's wars were becoming more and more demanding. When I was only seven years old, my father was levied into the town garrison without a moment's notice. The pay, obviously, was less than what he had earned at his mining occupation, and less frequent at best. This left us virtually polarised for the weeks to come. The fear for our father combined with the general lack of money motivated my mother to move the family closer to town. Much, much closer. I had been given a job to help my mother sweep various shops within the town, and my brothers and sisters either helped too or were given odds and ends to perform for the sake of the family. This way of life was new for everyone, but it did seem to work out for a while. That was, until the street urchins began to threaten us for our pay. This happened individually, of course, and all too infrequently... but it became a real problem when my brother Todd went missing.
It happened on the night of pay day sometime between March and April of that year. I was eight years of age, and didn't know what to make of it until a townsperson found his corpse on the street the next day; beaten bloody, and unrecognizable in the face if you didn't know him well. The swelling had destroyed my brother's features absolutely. This was the first time I knew of death so personally. It had been all but a distant reality for me until this happened. I finally felt the impact of what it was to be mortal, but that wasn't the hardest part for me: The hardest part was knowing exactly who did it.
Ralph Muldonn was a child of twelve. He acted as some kind of leader of a handfull of street urchins in the area. His means of living fall between allowing others to rob people for a cut of the profit, and outright robbing people himself. Pickpocketing was another one of his ventures, but still robbery was not a small part of his operation. At all times he was either invisible or surrounded by his fellow pickpockets. He was one hell of a kid looking back at the time, and all that I could do was move on. I had no means of stopping him from terrorizing the rest of us, and from then on whenever one of his kids asked me for my 'toll to keep the peace', I gave it to them. I was genuinely afraid of him for some time, and he used that to his advantage.
Some years later, Ralph turned sixteen and him and his pickpockets moved out of town in search for other 'work'. This was a perfect opportunity for me because I was a tall boy for the age of twelve, and this opened-up a number of odds and ends jobs that I could work on my own. This was a huge relief for the family, and our situation only got better in hearing of my father's promotion from peasant levy to militiaman. Our luck was finally seeming to look up for us, and for the first time in my life at least, it truly was.
Of course there were still other pickpockets and thieves in the town, there was never any helping that. But as I grew taller, larger, tougher, I began to learn how to hold my own. At the age of 16, I had been offered work at a local shop as a 'keeper' of the shop. I swept floors, took inventory, made sales, put my foot down on hagglers... it was a nice steady income that also gave me a good name in the town. My father was released from service only months later, and the rest of my family returned home except for my brother Drake. He was 15 then and beginning to become financially independent, so he was left with me to take care of until he could find a more steady line of work.
However his age may have affected his job opportunities, at the time he was almost as self-sufficient as me- minus a good job. We went through some tough hardships together with the famine that year, and by the next one he was all too ready to assume sole responsibility for his upkeep. That was right about the time I met Aefre. One day while I was purchasing supplies from one of our merchants outside, my eyes happened to cross a girl at the smith's shop across the street. After a little homework, I learned that she had moved to this town from another due to some mysterious family circumstances. I wasn't allowed to become the fool of the town and skip work, but I knew that I had to do something.
An opportunity came when it was rumored that the blacksmith was looking to take-on a couple of apprentices for a price. The smith said that he personally wanted to pass-on his knowledge to younger generations as his due to society, but there was no hiding the fact that the previous famine had left the coffers of some families dryer than most would take comfort in. Anyway, combine this prospect with the fact that my current job had no real future and the inevitable happened: I took up Mr. Anton on his offer.
I had to become a burden on my family again in order to pursue this career, a deal that had me work for Mr. Anton for free and had an extra two denars flowing to him per week. This was a very generous deal, but seeing as my father's mining pay produced only 1 denar excess, my brother a few pence, and my mother between pence and a denar every week I was definitely putting a blow upon the family finances. Even so, I was happy that I was throwing my lot in with some kind of plan for the future, even if it were surprisingly unclear what it exactly entailed...
My days with Aefre began in this fashion. Anton's job was to work with the iron, Aefre's job was to manage the goods and help take over the smithing when Anton was overloaded, and my job for the first week was to do whatever I was told to do. I was pretty bottom tier starting out, as you might guess, but for some reason this didn't keep me out of contact with Aefre. I worked along-side them both fairly evenly, and Aefre was a master of going off topic anyway. I didn't know what it quite was about her at the time, but she offered something that none of the local girls possibly could: A foreign accent, A creative approach to virtually everything, a strong will, and an incredibly independent lifestyle.
These intricacies made her a polar opposite of what was commonly know as 'feminine' in my town, and, although I thought the best of her for it, some of the townsfolk thought of her as an upset to the social order of the realm. It would be an embarrassment not to notice that she were not only from another town, but that she was an immigrant from another realm altogether. Just how far she had to come and from which direction did not concern most people here, only that she was an immigrant- and nothing could change thier minds about that.
Despite the attention she drew to both the shop and the people around her, Anton was more than happy to have her work there. I was on the same page, not even missing a beat. Although she did take some getting used to, I was virtually unphased by the fact that she was the girl that she was. Before I knew it, we were walking home together, and then after some time we began to go places after work. This of course drew attention to me that virtually ruined the good name I had with some people, but what did I care? For the first time in my life, I knew I was in love. Nobody in the whole world could take that away from me. Nobody.
Later that year, I became skilled enough to assist working with the metals that Anton cast. This brought me to the very first step of becoming a journeyman. Aefre was assigned to instruct me on the less tedious aspects of the job, and I found myself working even harder than I had before. Aefre could relate to the stress I was going through as she was a journeyman herself, and was very understanding when I apologized for virtually neglecting her after work during this period of my life. The good news came several months later when Anton decided that I could use some materials as a test piece to smith for him to judge.
I was at first unsure that I was ready for such an endeavor, but Aefre assured me that with the skills she taught me over the months that I could produce anything that Anton could ask of me. I wanted to believe her, and felt better because of her support, but something was telling me the whole time that I was missing parts and pieces of the process... somehow.
By the following week, Anton presented me with his idea. He said: "I want to see what you can do with a dagger. I can't afford to use too many materials on you right now, son, but I do expect to see some character in this piece. Feel free to mould it with serrated edges or with some depressions within the metal. I trust that you can do that much." The process would take one of his precious work stations for a period of about four days. I was nervous, and I remember how anxious I was to do well on this test, but the result turned-out just about how I expected.
The finished product was a dagger, at least. The hilt was fine, the dagger was not bent in any direction other than straight... but the depressions in the sword looked like terrible engravings by some amateur artisan- which I was. The edges were serrated, but the serrations were not always wide enough to be useful in melee. The inconsistency of the serration size was a factor too, but that was a more minor issue. The point of conflict here was that the dagger simply looked amateur, and I did not know what to make of it.
I brought it to Anton after it had completely cooled. He carefully took it from my hands and inspected it. His eyes wandered from the hilt to the tip, then down to the edge of the blade, around the serrated portion and across the depression in the metal an inch inside of the edge. A few more moments passed, and he smiled to himself. "Alexander", he said, "I think I could present this to anybody and they would ask 'who the hell messed-up the engraving'... but what a mighty fine job you did on the rest!" I suddenly felt all of the energy drain from my body as I felt the full impact of the labor I had undertaken the past four days. "You pass in my book. However, if the guild doesn't think it's a work of enough quality, then you'll have to start from scratch again in a few more months. Until then, I need to teach you how to work with the depressions. Good job."
Upon hearing this news, a celebration between Aefre and I took place that night. I had very little money, so Aefre surprisingly paid for the drinks as we visited the local tavern. Before that night I had never had more than half a pint of beer, due to... obvious economic circumstances. Both of us ended-up consuming two pints of mead. Aefre had to almost carry me home that night, and somewhere along the way home I spilled everything to her. Outright. I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but it probably sounded like the most crooked proposal in the world from the least likely person to give it.
There is no need to speak of exactly how much of that night I remembered. That morning, I woke up at the inn, and had the most ferocious headache. I dressed like normal, pulled my shoes on and went to work. That day was probably the most silent day at work between Aefre and I that we'd had for a long time. I wasn't sure about anything that happened after the second pint, and I was generally worried that I had done something out of place while in that state. My fears became reality when Aefre told me during work that she wanted to talk with me about something when we walked home that night. I began to think of what to say. After all, how should a man go about apologizing when he doesn't know what it was he did wrong?
That night, Aefre spent a little more time looking away from me than usual. I couldn't place my foot on it, but it seemed as if she were less comfortable around me all of a sudden. This made me afraid at first. After a while, however, I noticed something very different. The way she was acting, it was almost as if she were... embarrassed. I had honestly never seen her like this before, and I didn't know exactly what to make of it until she spoke: "Alexander..." I looked over to her. "D... Do you remember what you told me the other night?" I could have sworn a part of me withered and died inside. "Umm... I'm sorry. I honestly can't remember much." A small pause ensued, and then she continued. "You... told me you loved me. Over and over again. And that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me." I suddenly felt a surge of relief that I hadn't hurt her in any way, but this feeling was swiftly replaced with a stabbing consciousness of what would follow, and how either way it would go it would definitely change our relationship forever. Forever... "I suppose what I'm asking is..." She looked directly at me. "Did you mean it?"
This was probably the most difficult answer I had had to give in my life up until that point. I knew what she meant to me, but did I truly amount to anything like that to her? There was no time to think, so I decided to do the unthinkable: I decided to be honest. I took one last swallow of confidence, of the old life I knew with her that would be no more, and said the words that would turn it from daisies to old memories: "I meant it." I said it. "I meant every drunken word of it." There was a pause, then Aefre's face began to light up rose red. She turned and covered her face to try and hide it. I gently took her hands away from her face and held them in mine... and she let me. "You don't have to cover your face. I love you, Aefre... Do you love me?"
From this point on, my life became something far greater than I ever truly deserved it to be. By circumstance my family had virtually no wealth to give, and Aefre had no family from which to strengthen my family's wealth. Marriage would have been a joke in two ways: There was no practical side to an unconditional marriage in the eyes of my family, and Aefre would have to give all of her rights over to her husband- something which neither of us would find very romantic. Neither of us were ever supposed to find a companion in our lifetimes because of this, and yet we found each other. That in itself is more than I could have imagined to ask for within my lifetime.
A week passed by, and word came back from the guild that my dagger "certainly was an amateur model" and that I should "probably try again." At the age of 18, and 7 months, I was eager to become a journeyman and find a place to live with Aefre beyond the town. It was a journeyman's duty to labor under many different masters of the land, and this would give me both an excuse to be with Aefre and a way to distance myself from the marital control of my family; Not to mention it would relieve my family's living expenses of my apprenticeship fees. I would become a truly free man in no time I thought, as my next test approached at the date of May 3rd, 1256. Until then, I worked very hard under Anton and Aefre so that I could be certain that I would get it right this time.
When the day came, my new project was to make a sword. Anton had been doing exceptionally well in the previous months, so I was given a little extra materials to work with. He recommended that I attempt to punch or make a hole in the metal in certain spots, warping the rings into ornamental pieces. Twisting was a recommendation for the handle, where another part would have to be welded onto the tip so as not to slip from the wielder's grip. Other than that, I was told to redeem myself by engraving my name and an artful sign into the blade. This project was no small matter of work, but it could definitely be done. It had to be done for the sake of our dream.
I relentlessly heated and hammered that tortured piece of metal into shape. I had learned the basics of the trade, and my only instructions were to make the sword look exceptional. I focused on the blade as to make it strong, I filed it into a sharp edge, I punched the sword in three places with diamond shapes so as not to weaken the sword by much, and I twisted the handle into perfect proportion. The weld was done nicely, the point of contact virtually unnoticeable. I engraved my name, the symbol of our shop, and a small touch along the length of the sword as if I were preparing it for a lord. When I was done with the sword on the morning of May 2nd, I gave it to Anton who became just as prideful of the object as I was."Truly, this time you are ready."
I spent more time with Aefre that day than I had the whole week. Anton decided to give me and Aefre a rare day off, and we enjoyed it by watching the jousting and archery tournaments that were held that day. It was an awesome sight to see the knights clash over and over again. Sometimes there would be a winner, other times there wouldn't be. One man who caught our attention was Lord Didericus. He smashed his way through competitor after competitor until he ranked in the top two on the lists. The final fight was a scene where he took a blow from the opposer's lance and kept going as if nothing had happened. A man named Johannes aced the archery tournament and did an encore match blindfolded. He lost when he put the blindfold on, but he managed to hit the target a few times anyway.
Sometime when all of the clashing was going on in the ensuing tournament, Aefre grabbed my arm and clung to it. I felt very happy when she did that. She would tell me about what she wanted to do when we headed out of town: What places we should visit, what blacksmith would be the best, where we would live... Both of us had a pretty one-track mind about all of this, and it was incredible just how good it all felt. No matter how many times we went over it, we would never lose interest. One of us would work with armor, the other would do arms. Two shops right across from each other in a town somewhere not there. It really was an ideal to look forward to, but nothing could have alerted us to what would happen next.
A week after the sword had been examined, it was delivered back to me by horse messenger. A letter was attached to the hilt, and I opened it. I couldn't read a scrap, so I gave it to Anton who read that my sword was "of competitive quality" and "showed marked improvement." The final sentence struck home when it said "Our guild will honor you with approval of this project, and hereby permit you to become a journeyman to continue honing your skills. Someday you may become the master that you strive to be." Anton gave me a hearty congratulations upon reading the letter. This was a gargantuan step in my life, and I was proud to have had him as my master. "So tell me, Alexander. Where are you headed now?" I glanced over at Aefre, who was smiling. "We're going to head to the smithy in Tarquil. There is a new life there awaiting us"
As I walked outside to browse the horses at a nearby shop, Anton and Aefre approached me from behind. "Alexander, my boy, you've forgotten something!" I turned around almost stupidly. 'What on earth could I have forgotten?' As he approached, I saw that he held my sword in his hands. "This sword", he said, "Is a fine work for a boy of your age. I think it belongs with its master". He handed me the sword, and I just stood there. I didn't know how to thank the man for giving me so much. "... Thank you, master." "Good luck on your journeys, Alexander. I apologize, but I have to get back to work soon. If you ever need to know something, look for me. I'm your guy." He turned around, and headed back inside to work on his next order.
Aefre walked over to me next. "Hold out your head." I did as I was told. She slid a necklace over my head, and then she kissed me. We continued for a moment, and then she gently pulled away and held the front up. "This is an eagle. Where I come from, it's a symbol of both courage and freedom. I know no better person to give this to than you." "Thank you, Aefre", I said. "It's perfect." Aefre smiled. "I'll finish up cleaning and gathering my tools. Make sure to tell your family about your sword before you tell them goodbye. I'll be waiting for that horse at the inn!" She turned around, and hurried back inside the blacksmith's shop. I then took my necklace off and held it up to the sun to get a closer look. The horizon truly is our limit, isn't it?
I walked over to the horse merchant to browse what he had for sale. "Good day, Alexander! Are you here to buy or to look?" "I'm buying", I said. This activated his merchant's personality. "Well then... what might you be looking for?" "I only need a horse for basic travel. One strong enough to carry two people and some tools on the road." He kept his eyes fixed on me, scratching his goatee, and walked over to his selection. "I would recommend this one if your horse is a short-term investment, because she's old and on sale for about as much as the days she has left in this world. This horse here is much less of an upkeep and will perform well as a travelling horse for many years to come, but it's obviously much more expensive because he's younger. This horse would be the middle-ground between the two over here. He's your basic saddle horse, with no more and no less quality than what use you told me you'll need out of him. But prices are going to rise fairly soon..."
I ended-up buying the basic saddle horse from the shop. His name is Aluino, named by some Spanish breeder. He had a brown coat of hair and a little bit of an attitude, but that made him all-in-all cheaper for me to purchase. The merchant did haggle me up a few denars, however, but I consider that a success compared to what he's done to non-acquaintances in the past. It was my first time owning a horse rather than using one to deliver arms orders from place to place, and I felt a sense of pride as I rode him off to see my family. Our home village was only about a fourty-five minute's ride from town, so it made for a relatively quick trip back and forth. Aluino covered that distance smoothly enough until I had to bring him to an immediate halt.
Up ahead was my home village. I looked in horror as flames prevailed from the rooftops, and the troops of an enemy war party were swarming the scene. "No..." I dashed Aluino forward. "No!" I had to go see if my family was alright, frantically racing Aluino through the burning houses of the village to search for them. I came to a halt when I was seated over a large gathering. The people of the village were herded out front like cattle, some tied-up. A messenger standing on an old tree stump was reading-out an imperial edict given by thier king, and I heard just enough to know what was going on: "If you have entered military service under a pretender to the throne, you are considered an outlaw and will be put to death- as will your family. Any resisters to our selective extermination of all infidels, beggars, outcasts, and corrupt gentry will be put to death. Those who were born in our land and assimilated into another are traitors, and shall be put to death. When.."
The village people were being beheaded one by one as the edict was read out. I galloped Aluino closer to the place, where I could not continue any closer. I stopped. There, lying amidst the pile behind the stump, were the severed heads of my father, mother, and one of my sisters. The executioner was red with mess, and I looked on almost long enough to go insane when a guard spotted me. "Hey! You there! Identify yourself!" I had no choice but to take Aluino as quickly as I could back through the burning village. Everything began to blurr with the tears that streaked down my face. Nothing in this world makes sense anymore. None of this was supposed to happen! I kept telling myself this over and over as I fled the scene. The guards were fast, but they gave-up shortly before I entered the forest trail that leads me back to town. If there is any kind of justice in this world, I thought, Let Aefre be alright!
More smoke appeared from above the horizon before the town came into view. An army of men besieged the town, and there was no way of getting through. Knights were polishing thier armor, footmen readying thier spears, archers stringing their bows and the like. The assembly of several seige towers was in effect, and ladders were being readied by formations of fodder men. I looked upon the gates, which were fortified with archers of the town. I dismounted my horse. I walked forward a few paces, and slowly sank to the ground. "...It's too late", I uttered to myself. "...It's really too late..."
I sat on the ground there for a second, contemplating what was happening, and what was about to happen. Some time passed... and then some more. I tried weighing my options over and over again, but every time the yield was the same: none of them were good. The town was surrounded by forces that would most likely kill a wandering peasant in fun or in jest, the gates were not to be opened for commoners going in or out, and there are no other passages into the town. "Think, Alexander... THINK!". I was only one man, with a goal no army in the world would care about. There was no possible way to save Aefre. Unless...
I sat up instantly, and turned to mount my horse. I rode toward the guards of the camp, who seized me and Aluino when I came to a stop. As I was thrown onto the ground, the gaurd spat: "What is your purpose here, peasant?" I looked up, and pointed to my sword in its sheath. "I want to enlist in the army!" The guards looked at each other, and laughed hysterically. After one of them caught his breath, he asked me "Why would we recruit a peasant of an opposing kingdom? Especially one with no armor and obviously no experience?" I took my letter from its pouch, and read to him what I had memorized. I looked up to him, and he seemed very confused.
"So... what does a journeyman want to do in military service? Especially against his own kingdom?" I gathered my courage, and spoke the words that could possibly save both my life and Aefre's: "I have a vengeance against the king himself. He levied my father into service when I was seven years old, and paid him less than what he worked for as a miner. This put my family through great hardship and the famine eventually killed-off my siblings. I am here to fight, and assist with welding and repairing armor and weapons that are damaged or broken after battles."
The gaurd looked me over then. He had the eyes of a killer, and the face of a madman. He studied my face, my hands, and then lifted my sword from its sheath to inspect it. This went on for a long time. Just when I was certain that I was going to die, he slid the sword back into it's sheath and signalled the other guards to let me through the camp. "Jorkell, take this man to the recruiter. See that he is enlisted here and attached to one of the late assaulting battalions. We may need a man like him after the battle." Just like that, I was taken through the camp where I was recruited and attached to the 17th assault battalion. From the news of the camp, the defenders were about 1200 strong and the attackers were 3800 strong. In other words: There was probably a snowball's chance in hell that the defenders would win the melee.
I waited with my new battalion, where I was introduced to the stories and heroics of past victories over my kingdom. Most of the armor in the camps was rusted, cloth and leather were stained, and the odor of death filled the air around the elites. Oh god..., I thought to myself. I hope I never smell like that... I had only spent hours within the camp when it was time to assault the walls. Every battalion was brought into formation, and I certainly appeared to be an odd soldier out: No armor, no shield, a strange weapon that couldn't have seen battle before, and a foreigner. Nevertheless, the sergeant marched us up to the seige towers where another group had already occupied it. Arrows came at us like rain, and a well-armoured soldier behind me kept his shield up high over both of our heads to protect me. "This one's on me, newbie."
When our time to assault came, we marched our battalion up the walls and into the ongoing melee. I was many ranks behind the actual fighting, and when the ranks of my kingdom finally broke we rushed for the town center. I was nearly trampled in the rush, but I managed to work my way to the sideline of the formation. Various troops were breaking off to loot and pillage the shops and houses, and I took advantage of this to dash toward the smithy. I burst through the door with all of my strength, and searched the place. "Aefre!", I shouted. "Aefre!" One second later, I fell to the floor on my knees. "...She's not here..." At that moment, I heard Aefre's shriek amongst the others outside, and I knew it was all over. Tears of an entirely new kind rolled down my face. The girl I had loved was gone in an instant.
No matter what emotion swelled-up inside of me at that moment, I knew that I was probably dead if I stayed until the end of the battle, so I gathered the tools that no longer belonged to anyone but the pillaging troops and I and fled the scene. The battle was still ensuing at the center of the town, a last stand of a small number of hopeless men, and that gave me enough time to make my escape. I ran past the walls. I dashed through the outside ranks and to Aluino who had been tied to a nearby camp post. As I was mounting Aluino, I was finally spotted by a camp sergeant and his party as I began riding away. It was too late for them, however, because thier armor weighed them down far too much, and I was able to manage to get away from the scene unscathed.
I rode until I found a caravan that was travelling far away from home. I truly didn't have any other choice, so I banded with them on their arduous journey. The days would grow harsh and the nights would grow cold. At times, I had felt as if the world itself were far away from me. After a few months of travelling like this, I had made my way to a land they called Calradia; A land where I heard outcasts and outlaws alike were not uncommon, and simply heralded as fortunate to be alive. Here, any boy who has seen the true face of war has instantly become a man. This is exactly what I was: An outlaw, an outcast... and just another Calradian man- fortunate to be alive.
"When others ask me why I left my homeland, I don't usually tell them the full story. I simply tell them that there is nothing to go back to, and that is that." The merchant looked at me with a hollow face, and took another drink of his mead. The way he acted, he seemed accustomed to listening to such tales. He set down his drink. "Well, it does pass the time until the meeting", he said. "Don't take it personally, kid, but look around you. You're not the only man here with a story like that." I did look around me. Remarkably enough, everywhere there were mercenaries. There were mercenaries on the wall, mercenaries on the floor, mercenaries at the tables, and mercenaries checking into the inn for the day. Standing just outside... were more mercenaries. "It's remarkable how many mercenaries are gathered here. Is there a war?"
Every nearby face in the room turned toward our table, and conversation nearly ceased in the large tavern room. "You really aren't much of a historian, are you?" The mercenaries each slowly went back to thier usual banter. "Very well, very well..." He scooted his chair closer to the table, and leaned in toward me. "This land has been at war for centuries. The mercenaries here are waiting for the next battle to take place, which will predictably be sometime soon." I sat straight up in hearing this news, surprised. "I'm a pretty good judge of character though, and I think that if you put your mind to whatever you want to do here, and aren't afraid to get your hands a little bloody while doing it, you could make a good name for yourself in Calradia someday." I sat there, dizzied by the information being spilled upon me. "...really?", I ventured. "Yes Alexander", He said. "If Calradia doesn't kill you first."