from the Journals of Morningstar 776 Series C, Warforged Wizard
by Richard Smyth
CHAPTER SIX
Date: 1 Zarantyr 997YK
I decide to leave Cragwar, leave Breland, and head east, toward the Mournland. Perhaps there is a place for me among the warforged who inhabit that blasted landscape. I don't think there is a place for me among humankind. Especially after what happened last evening.
It happened during the New Year's Eve celebrations. At first, all was well: people worked their magics, making lights blaze high in the sky or soar like birds through the city streets, just above people's heads. Many caroused drinking Demon's Brew or Swamp Wine from the Shadow Marshes, and as the night grew darker the magics grew more reckless and dangerous. At one point, Elmiri beckoned to me from an alley, and when I followed him I was set upon by older orphans who had some mastery of magic and who cast spells which immobilized me. My one and only comrade in the world had led me into a trap. While immobile, they stole my possessions and hit me with hammers and crowbars, leaving me broken upon the ground. I lay quietly for what seemed like hours, trying to gather my strength, but before I was able to lift myself a band of carousers lifted me and threw me in a fountain. Then, long after midnight, a drunken bum came stumbling up to the fountain, and he shouted at me as I lay in the water, gesticulating wildly. When he fell in and we near embraced, he ran off and brought the guards, claiming that I had attacked him. The guards, fed up with everybody at that point, lifted me out of the fountain and carted me off to the city gate, where they dumped me in a heap outside the wall. I awoke this afternoon, with comrades from the squatter's camp working to heal my wounds.
I was trained to identify patterns--among deployments of battalions in a field of battle, among chess openings and mid-game strategies, among my officer's behaviors and personality traits. After last night, the pattern of human behavior has crystallized, and I know I must leave. There is no point in waiting for any land grants, for such a gift would require that we be considered on a par with the humans who made such a proposal. And it has become apparent to me that this will not be the case--not anytime soon, not in Breland. Though the Treaty of Thronehold granted us status as free living beings, it is obvious that it will take some time before what is written in paper becomes written on people's hearts.
So when I am healthy and able, I will set forth, knowing not where I go nor why, simply hoping to find some refuge in the wild.