Dorastor...the mere name sends a cold chill down my spine. When I lie at rest and my thoughts linger on our quest, already so full of doubt, my animal soul cries at me to turn and head back to the familiar and the safe. But, thank the Dark, I am no mere animal. I go where I will and fear be damned. I will make it as a slave, and laugh at its discomfiture as I force it to the places it would not dast go.
We came from the lands of the Geroini, from where Darkos and Grant hailed. We had stayed at the Warkannon estate and Grant and I had stayed in the "Summer House" - as a child my entire family had known only a tiny corner of an overcrowded tenement in Raibanth. Here they had empty houses on acres of land waiting for honoured guests. I pondered many guilty thoughts at how I should feel in the presence of such opulence. Had I climbed out of the hell of slum life to a greater status or merely leapt into a pit of decadence? Such thinking is for the Lhankor Mhy sages, however, and I forced it from my thoughts whenever such doubts surfaced. The family of Darkos were welcoming and it was good to rest feet weary from what was already a monumental journey.
At the festival held by Senator Warkannon an attempt was made upon the life of Darkos. At first we were at a loss as to what had brought about the attack - some grudge held against Darkos from days gone by? Certainly we had seen how some of the young women of the clan had once carried a torch for our noble-blooded companion and were now spurned by his adoption of a barbarian god as his patron. Who knew what these wealthy, spoiled children could do in a fit of jealousy?
But we found that the assassins were lying in wait for us all. The divinations showed that the ancient and tiny cult of Black Fang had been commissioned to kill us all - we could only guess at the origin at this threat, but for such an obscure cult of assassins from such an obscure end of the world to hunt us filled me with consternation. It would have taken little thought to guess our intention to stop at the Warkannon estate, but who would seek to divine the purpose of our journey or the direction of travel? Strangely this made Dorastor a more sensible location, for any assassin would as likely fall prey to the demons of those haunted lands as would we. Chaos does not discriminate between enemies.
Or so I believed...