Prologue

Stormwind City, Year 15 ADP (After Dark Portal)

"Mat!" Mat Miller awoke in his bedroom to the sound of his mother, Charlotte, calling for him to get up, he'd made a habit of sleeping in these past weeks, he called back, "coming!" He groggily stirred in his bed hearing and feeling the crunching of the hay stuffed mattress as he sat up and pulled off the drab green blanket covering him. He pulled on clothes, a raggedy tunic once white but now stained a brown dirt color that nearly matched his leather trousers which were quickly becoming too small for the growing boy. His bare feet softened the sound of the creaking wood as he came running down the stairs to the main floor of the home.

As he arrived on the first floor he noticed the fireplace was already going and there was much evidence of hearty breakfasts being had in the form of tankard littered tables and sweet smells lingering in the air, but few of the other families who shared their home still remained, those who did were more focused on enjoying their meals than this new arrival. He then spotted his mother, a tall tan-skinned woman with red curly hair down to her shoulders, emerge from the rear kitchen area carrying a plate, she gestured for him to come sit at the bar and said kindly, "Ah there you are, your father and brother are already out for the day, we tried the ribs for breakfast, I saved you some, come on over and have a seat."

The young boy strode over and hopped up on one of the stools, his mom set the food down from the opposite side of the bar leaned across and brushed his wild wavy red hair, she commented, "we prepared the ribs using that recipe Susan got out of that Dwarven cookbook, I think they came out splendid, although all we really did was baste them in beer." Mat looked down at his plate where he saw three ribs, thick and juicy, with a beautiful amber colored glaze. As he dug into the food his mom continued, "I told her she'll have to leave the recipe for the tavern owners once we're done with the place, a little parting gift from the families of the Stonemasons Guild for putting us up, better than when your father was working on that Nethergarde place, there wasn't even an inn for us to visit him let alone some housing for us to stay in, albeit this is shared and temporary."

Mat would look up at her routinely with his bright green eyes and nod along, but with a full mouth he had little comment, still this was their morning ritual and his acknowledgement was encouragement enough for her to continue, "I for one can't wait to get out of the city, you can already smell and see the effect so many people in one place is having, I wouldn't drink from the water in the canals anymore to save my life, which reminds me I need to take all the wineskins out into the woods today and get us some fresh spring water." He continued nodding as she gathered together some leather pouches from beneath the top of the bar. She continued speaking, "Your father wants you to stay inside again today, they're all still worked up over this payment issue, but hopefully it'll get sorted soon, I'm itching to get out of these cramped quarters." At this Mat finally spoke, "awh ma' can I come with you? I can't spend another day sitting here tending the fire and staring at the walls." She eyed him up and down before speaking, "fine, but we aren't telling your father, he'd be scared to death knowing we headed off into the woods just the two of us." A smile broke out across his face and he quickly hopped off his bar stool and slung some of the wineskins over his shoulder. His mom smoothed out her worn blue dress, slung the rest of the wineskins over her shoulder, and slipped a large knife into her waistband. Together mother and son, the boy barely half her size, bounded out the door together.

The streets of Stormwind, cobbled stone that was rough and cool to the touch for Mat's bare feet, were busy with people on the move whose faces were twisted into worried expressions. Together the duo, mother and son, moved through the sea of folks that flowed in this man-made canyon of stone and wood, towards the gates of the city. As they passed row after row of shuttered homes and closed businesses, not even a towncrier or street vendor to be heard, Charlotte's expression darkened and she bit nervously at her lower lip while quickening her pace. She sighed loudly as they finally reached the city's threshold and began their journey down the path through the verdant forest. She looked at Mat and said, "once we get off the path remember to stay at my side and keep a look out, there's bear and wolves, along with who knows what else, living out here." Mat nodded and picked up a large stick, relatively straight and thick as his moms arm, that was laying along the path.

After a short distance they turned left leaving the well worn path, and all signs of civilization, behind. As they made their way through the bushes and towering trees around them both mother and son's feet crunched down the soft grass. Besides these imprints in the grass there wasn't much evidence for the presence of humans, a totally different world than the city they had been in moments earlier. Despite this calm environment Charlotte wore a vigilant expression, while Mat played soldier alongside her, wielding his mighty stick to cut down imaginary orcs emerging from the treeline.

He gasped loudly when a bear emerged from behind a large tree to their right, his mom spoke quickly, "hand me the stick Mat." Grabbing it from his outstretched hands she stepped forward and positioned herself between the large beast and her son. Before Mat, or the bear, could fully grasp the situation at hand and react further, Charlotte charged forward toward the bear yelling and raising the stick up above her head with both arms, stopping short of running directly into the mass of fur and teeth. The bear, evidently startled by this display of aggression, took off at speed in the direction it had came from. Returning to her son, who had gone pale in fear, she hugged him and then handed Mat back his stick and squeezed his other hand tightly. She spoke kindly, "well that seems like enough excitement for today. Let's just stop by the lake and grab some water there, we're already nearby."

Charlotte cut left again, quickly leading the pair to the banks of a large lake, with an island in the center, whose blue waters sat tranquil and glimmering in the sunlight. As they lowered the wineskins into the water the leather bladders quickly filled with cool water becoming engorged. She slung a few extra of the filled wineskins over her shoulder from Mat's pile as he filled up the last few. Once he was done they began the trek back to the city, with the wet leather pouches jiggling at their sides. As they neared the city the smell of smoke wafted through the air, pulling them both from the serenity of the woods and towards town. As they approached the entrance of Stormwind they found a small group gathered and beyond them a line of Stormwind City Guard, their plate helms gleaming in the sunlight, blocking the way into the city.

As they approached the group milling about in front of the guards an old man, bald but with a long white beard, explained to them, "you won't be getting into Stormwind today, seems there's been some sort of unrest, if all that smoke is any sign there must'n been something real bad." Charlotte responded, "thanks for the information, are you all staying in town?" The old man nodded his head back and forth and replied, "No, we're just coming up from Westfall to sell some crop. You're welcome to try the guards, I'll warn ya they aren't the most talkative bunch, they're a pack of tinheads if you ask me!" With that he turned back towards his fellow travelers while Charlotte approached the guards. Directing her attention to the center of the line of them she inquired, "what's going on? My familys in the city, my husband is with the Stonemasons." The mention of the Stonemasons seemed to draw the eyes of several of the guards and finally one spoke, "apologies but the city is handling an emergency at the moment, all citizens are cautioned to stay indoors and there will be no in or out traffic until the situation has been resolved." Charlotte raised her voice responding, "what sort of situation?" A guard towards the end of the line started to respond, "as if you didn't know their plan? You're the reason we're here, the bloody Stonemasons-" he was cut off by the original guard speaker who stared in his direction yelling, "enough! I'll have silence unless ordered otherwise." Before anyone noticed or could react Mat had dropped his wineskins and stealthed between two of the guards on the far right, he ambushed the guard closest to his mother by striking hard with his stick behind the guards knee, causing her to topple forward under the weight of the heavy plate armor. Charlotte ran into the open gap in the line with a loud taunting yell towards the group, which served to draw all the guards to her, giving Mat valuable time to escape into the city.

Initially Mat stood with a stunned look on his face as the guards swarmed his mom, and then with a guilty gulp he turned and ran deeper into the city. His eyes were at first to full of tears for him to notice the evident destruction, and solitude, he was experiencing in the streets of Stormwind. Although not a soul could be seen or heard there was plenty of evidence of a great many people having been in some sort of conflict, debris covered the street and many of the buildings had evidence of fire damage with a few still smoking. Twice he heard people in the distance, the rhythmic sound of plate off rock as a guard approached, and the clopping of horse hoofs, but both times he managed to change his direction and get away before coming into eyesight of the sounds.

When he reached the inn he found the doors barred so he began banging with all his might and called, "it's Mat! Let me in please! Ma' is in trouble." From the inside the sounds of wood being moved could be heard and finally the door opened revealing his father, Mattias, staring back in disbelief. Mattias was a stout man with shortly cut brown hair and a matching goatee, clad in brown overalls with a tan shirt. Mat ran into his arms tearfully shouting, "the guards at the entrance to the city took ma' it's all my fault they said something about your guild so I snuck around and hit one so we could get in but they got her." His father held onto the boy's shoulders and soothingly said, "it's alright son, there's been a whole heap of trouble in town today, lots of folks are hurt or are in trouble with the guards, it'll get sorted out, your mothers a strong woman, and Master Van Cleef made us all a promise that he'd get this sorted." A loud snort from behind him was followed up with a comment, "pfft Edwins been promising to have this all sorted for weeks, and now with how it all went down today, you saw what happened-" Without turning Mattias raised his voice, "not in front of the boy, you heard him about his mother, he's had enough today, Mat head upstairs. Your brothers up there."

Without a word Mat moved past his father revealing the rest of the first floor of the inn, several individuals from the Stonemason families sat around, some of them bruised and bloody with clothes torn and tattered. He continued quickly up the stairs and entered a one bedroom room where he found his older brother, Conrad, sitting on the edge of the family bed. He was only a few years older but Conrad looked much older on this night, his face was dirty with his green eyes shining through a layer of soot covering his face, his long brown hair was wildly disheveled, a hammer sat across his lap. He looked at Mat up and down and then said, "I'm glad you're okay, a lot has happened, pop and the others with the guild got in quite the tussle with the guards, they'd gathered to complain about this whole payment problem with some officials, but people started yelling and throwing rocks and torches and it turned into total chaos. Pop grabbed me and we headed back here the moment it started, but some of the others say it got real bad, they think someone important got hurt and that the guild might be in trouble, pop thinks that's nonsense cause the Stonemasons are just builders after all, normal hard working folk." Mat responded with his own tale, of their mom's courage against the bear and capture by the guards, which caused Conrad's eyes to widen in astonishment. The brothers stayed up into the night discussing each others day of adventures and what was to come on the morrow. Eventually however both boys drifted off to sleep, snuggled on the hay stuffed mattress with the worn green blanket.

They awoke to loud voices and clattering sounds coming from downstairs, the brothers together creeped to the edge of the stairs where they saw several men and women fighting with the guild members and their families who remained in the home. Their father was near the fireplace and had a tankard held in each hand, using them as fists to beat back a man approaching him wielding a torch and dagger. One of the men of the house was cut down by an intruder wielding an axe, who after felling him yelled, "for the Queen!" The losing man had been caught in the stomach with the axe, and the other man removed his axe from the body with a hard wrenching maneuver. As blood pooled around the body, Mat and Conrad charged down the stairs and moved into the space between the axe wielder and their father, who was too consumed in his own battle to recognize the danger.

The battle between the man and two boys began with Conrad charging forward with his hammer, Mat at his side till the last second when he lunged forward past his older brother grabbing ahold of the man's axe wielding arm. This gave Conrad the opportunity to strike low and hard, striking the man in the stomach as his opponent had done to his defeated foe moments earlier, but it did not have nearly the same success as the man's prior killing blow. First brushing Mat off with a shrug of his arm the man then turned and with the blunt end of his axe clobbered Conrad with a vicious strike that left him tumbling to the floor. The man raised his axe above his head while he stared down at the boys angrily, eyes full of hate, but the death blow never arrived. Their father had raced across the room and tackled the man to the floor, delivering his own finishing move with a punch to the face.

Rising from the floor, and leaving his opponent behind, he gestured for the boys to follow, and together the three ran from the inn. Behind them lay a scene of total chaos, people strewn about, some still fighting, both of Mattias's opponents remained unconscious, with the first's fallen torch having caused a growing fire. Stepping off onto the rough stone streets of the city the trio found chaos at hand wherever they looked, people were fighting and running every which way. Torches blazed in the night as yells and the sounds of violence radiated through the air, this was a city in pain, the pain of betrayal felt by all. Enveloped by the chaos and darkness around them the father and sons disappeared on the path to discovering their family's fate.