"After the demon was sealed within the Palace of Shadow, many refused to come near that place of terror. But as the years passed, entire generations forgot and the penniless and the immoral began to congregate in this once-barren place."
There they were: rafts and small ships, sailboats, all of them coming to make a living on land that had no one living on it. Others came from surrounding lands, some on foot even. All coming to make a living in a land that would accept them.
"This place soon became a populous harbor, the town of Rogueport, and some even began to say that the underground city held a legendary treasure."
And many of the greedy, money searching, folk tried to find it but could not. For the treasure the sought lay beyond the Door, and it was sealed tight.
But they were unaware the demon slept beneath them still..."
Tim thought of those last words of the tale, even though the full story wasn't finished yet. He only had one more tale to hear, but kept putting it off for some reason.
"There you are Tim!" Jenny said as she came up to him.
"Hi Jenny" he said, looking at her.
"Umm, I know you're heading back home soon, and I figured you might want something to do on the long journey" Jenny explained "so I made you this." She handed him a small leather-bound book.
Tim flipped through it and noted that only the first few pages had something written on them. He looked at Jenny again with an inquiring expression, wondering what was up.
"I wrote down all the tales the storyteller told, because I figured that you might want to remember them…" she paused, then sat down next to him "I know you don't think that reading them will be the same, but I figured it would be better than you forgetting them all."
Tim smiled "I doubt I would have forgotten them, but thanks. This is a really great gift."
"Also, the blank pages are for you" Jenny said "I've noticed how throughout your emails you've started to sound like you were telling a story, even though you were only saying 'hi, I haven't talked to you in a while, what's up?' or something like that. So I figured that maybe you could write down some stories of your own."
Tim grinned even wider when he heard this. "Thanks" he said, and then gave his friend a hug "I'll look forward to using it. Now all I need to do is think of something to write."
Jenny smiled at him. "I'm sure you'll think of something" she said "Rougeport is full of tales, and so are you." With that, she left.
And then Tim knew what he was going to write. He flipped to the first open page, grabbed a pen, and began to write his tale.
"Somewhere on the rooftops of the east side of Rougeport there is an old storyteller that will tell you a few interesting tales for a mere five coins…"