Story of the Orchid: Chapter 2

The following is the second chapter of a six part history of the Order of the Elder Orchid and its Township of Darel'horth, written by Sir Ferenold Stormshend.

Chapter 2
The next day, I returned to back to Darnassus, with the sweet nostalgia beginning to gradually go bitter, and so too embitter me, as I was separated from my land. It was no doubt not a journey that I could take again, not anytime soon at least. I would be holed up in Darnassus surely and not too upset with teaching druidism, but neither in that sweet ecstasy that I had experienced but a day ago. It was upon a night, a mere twenty-four hours later, that I came upon Lord Vanston.

He was a well-dressed man, and at first his countenance perturbed me; he claimed I was a warlock, he claimed that the Elder Ways led to the fel arts, yet I did not despise him. He had a redeeming quality which buried the rest of his falsehoods, the fact that he was a Patriot of Gilneas, and he was a man of the Light as well, a noble man. We spoke of a great many things before he spoke of that which struck true in me: Of returning to Gilneas.

For that is why he ventured to the Oak, to seek those who sought to return to Gilneas. I revealed my own station now, a man whom was well known, and who perhaps unwillingly had a fair amount of influence in the Oak. So I listened closely to him, and I became intrigued with his offer: Of venturing to the South. I could not resist but think about it myself, and I told him of a town I knew of. The town near the Blackwald, which may very well be hidden from the forsaken.

I spoke too, of preserving Gilnean culture, of preserving our past, and being a noble he agreed such things were surely important. Then, as if by the will of fate himself, a third man walked into the Oak, one that we both knew well. And that was Lord Torean Austerlitz, another Lord of Gilneas, whom owned a fair bit of land up in the Northgate woods, the ancestral ally of the Headlands. He was all too amiable towards the offer as well, and thus a sort of pact was forged between the three of us.

Yet that very night, I found myself beginning to doubt whether I truly sought to venture back to Gilneas. It was to be a surely dangerous journey, and it could be a mere folly of the passions, as true as they oft’ were. I resolved to sleep upon the matter.