Chapter 1

The world of Norrath, another sphere floating in the abyss, another blue orb going about its unending route around its sun. The inhabitants of this world go about their business as normal, living, loving, exploring, creating, destroying, hating, warring. The planet's serenity is interrupted on its surfaces. But never more so than it will be.

A rustle in the bush alerts the massive creature who towers at least five men tall that a battle will ensue soon, and he will be right in the middle of it. "Who's there? Show yourself, so that I may pay tribute to the God of War by destroying you!"
The mischievous human appears suddenly behind the mountain giant, two daggers in hand, one placed firmly in the giant's Achilles' Tendon. "Very well, here I am, giant…though I doubt you truly wished to meet me in such a way, am I correct?" A roar of pain emits from the giant, who whirls around to see not only one of the tiny, well, to him at least, creatures who have signed their own death warrants. The small elven mistress smiles as she finishes a final strum of her lute, bringing the entire party into view. Her small frame is clad in beautiful blue plate mail.
"Greetings, giant, I doubt you care to know our true names before your death, but you have to have something to shout out during battle, am I not correct? So, just call us…hmm, what would be fitting, do you think, Ootog?"
"Ootog just want to bash dis ting and be done, me hungry." A disgustingly large form standing a full half again over any other of the party members speaks in a broken tone, and at a pace that a five year old child would become impatient with. As wide as an ox, and ten times as strong, the Ogre taps his iron clad foot impatiently, an obvious behavior picked up from the others. Ogres normally wouldn't bother with impatience, any time the emotion may have reared its head, the target of that impatience would become a bloody stain on the ground before they heard a word of protest.
A scoff of disgust comes from below even the elf, smothered in a thick Scottish accent. "Ogres…they only ever think about two things, if Ogres can be said to think, that be. 'Food and Barshin.' Though I must be agreein with 'im on this one. I'm a bit famished meself, and I've not 'ad any ale in 2 days, I'll nary be welcome back in Kaladim if they ever get wind of this." The small dwarven lass shoots a look of disgust to the mentally deficient Ogre above her, who is at present enraptured with scratching his posterior.
The giant stands there in stunned silence, a look on its face rather similar to an Ogre. "Enough, I'll crush you all." The giant slams a fist into the ground where the human was. "Huh?" Another dagger pierces the giant's other heel, followed by a flurry of dagger strikes faster than the eye can see.
"Silly giant, never turn your back on a rogue, you'll not live to regret it." The human laughs as each of his daggers pierces and splits the giant's flesh.
The giant swings a massive arm at the human who, in his zeal for fun, has been caught off guard. As the massive hand nears its target, a light drumming can be heard behind him. The hand slams into its target with enough force to uproot a tree, though the rogue looks largely unharmed. "Oooh, now you've done it, giant, Ootog doesn't like it when someone hits me."
"You bash me friend, Kiel, now Ootog bash you!" The giant turns to see that the ogre is indeed greatly angered, and is wielding an axe as large as the ogre himself. The source of the drumming is revealed as the elf, who has traded her lute for a sword and a small drum. "And now, Giant, you shall experience the power that we, 'The Righteous Heralds of Unmitigated Glorious Justice,' have." She lunges into battle tapping her drum with skills so great they can inspire men to greatness, or cause her enemies to wish for death. Ootog follows closely behind her, flying at the giant, his axe slamming unerringly into the side of its leg, the force nearly unbalancing both of them.
The wood elf starts up a song, as they all proceed to pummel the giant. "On this great sunny day, the shadows needed to play. The stories that may come forth, will always be the truth, Ootog, with his axe so mighty, and Kiel, his daggers so lightly. Inspiring words from Breana and the god's blessings from Shanarra, shall allow us to make, a blood drenched wake. The giants of this world, shall beg for --" A tap at her shoulder breaks her concentration. "Huh? Kiel, why'd you interrupt me?" Kiel beams her a smile, and points towards the corpse on the ground, blood flowing from a thousand wounds.
"The target is dead, my dear, your song, though as beautiful as you are, is sadly no longer needed." Kiel beams Breana a smile that would melt the great glacial continent of Velious. "With all of us, we are unstoppable, the entire Rathe Mountain range will echo with the screams of our Righteous Justice." With that he leans down and kisses his wife.
"Oh, not again. C'mon Ootog, the both of us be hungry, I'll start the fire, you grab some of the meat from that giant and we'll leave these two alone." Shanarra moves away from the newlyweds who are at present enraptured with one another, and starts a fire, looks like it's going to be her and the ogre eating alone again tonight. "Better find a bib…a big one."

The beautiful white halls of Erudin's Royal Palace echoes with the screams of anger from an ebon skinned beauty. Her dark brown skin contrasting with the pure white of her gossamer robes perfectly as she stalks the halls angrily shouting a name. "Jobober! Get over here now! Jobober, where are you!" She huffs as she darts behind a pillar looking for Jobober. "Jobober, I swear, when I find you, you'll be cleaning every bathroom in this city!"
A palace guard rushes over to her, his staff in hand and his face obscured by a helm. "Milady Eroana, your elemental has been sighted in the west hall extinguishing every torch and flame it finds, get him under control before we are forced to take action against him."
"Thank you for the information Bunnol, always looking out for me." Eroana runs off to the west hall, shouting the name of her summoned pet. "Jobober, I have you now, you psychotic puddle!" She rounds a corner to find the entire hall black as night, save for one light at the very end. She can see her pet approach the torch and in a second, the water elemental blasts the flame with ice, extinguishing it instantly. "JOBOBER! Stop that!" Eroana incants a spell giving her night vision and chases after her pet. Jobober rounds a lit corner, which becomes darkened quickly as he obviously has extinguished another flame. She gives chase, her robes flowing behind her, the hood of her robe is pulled back by the wind, revealing the face of a beautiful Erudian woman, the bangs of her hair falling just above her eyes, to hide the most noticeable feature of all Erudites, their ample foreheads. A head so large is necessary for the most intelligent race on Norrath, though some may say their swollen heads are a reflection of their swollen egos. She rounds the corner to see Jobober extinguish another torch. "Jobober, why are you doing this, stop it at once!" She rushes over to her pet and kneels down next to him. The water elemental's human-like upper half turns towards Eroana, a blank look on its face tells Eroana that the elemental is obviously ill. "Come, Jobober, please, cease this madness and come with me, we will find out what is wrong, ok?" She stands, and lovingly strokes the top of her pet's finned head. "Follow, please, Jobober?"
The watery voice of a young boy emerges from the elemental. "Yes, mistress Eroana, I don't know what came over me, I'll follow you." The elemental looks up at Eroana, a 'tear' flows from its 'eyes' and is immediately re-absorbed on its cheek. Eroana lovingly wraps her arm around Jobober, like a mother to her child, and they head back to the Gatecaller's Magician's guild.
"Lord Vasile, Mistress Eroana Steelcaller requests a meeting with you involving her elemental's behavior as of late." One of the guild hall's announcers speaks quietly with the Guildmaster, Vasile Jahnir.
"Hers would be the water elemental who was running around extinguishing all of our flames today?" Vasile inquires.
"That it is, My Lord. Mistress Eroana begs for your wisdom in this matter, as she is very worried about not only her elementals, but the elemental planes themselves."
"Bring her forth, but leave her pet in the halls, I'd much rather not have him extinguish the lights of this guildhall." Vasile motions to a guard at the stairwell which leads to the room where the guild's leaders spend most of their time looking after the events and well-being of the Gatecaller's of Erudin.
Eroana nods to the guard waving her into the room she's only visited twice before, the same white walls trimmed in an ocean blue tile pattern resembling waves. Such an obsession with water is natural for an island-living people, like the Children of Erud, or the less glorious 'Erudite' title given her people by the other races. Unlike the majority of her people, though, Eroana chose not to take the water-obsession to the next level and actually worship it. Eroana decided long ago to not worship Prexus, the Ocean Lord, but instead chose the calm, quiet, contemplative and peaceful nature of Quellious, the child-god.