1 October 1499 - Day 2

We start, as soon as the sun rises again on the horizon. It is a bright day, the sun rises high above our heads, and there is hardly a cloud in the sky. We follow a path south. It is in quite well shape and it is a nice start of the journey, seeing that we probably won’t always have the luck of walking on a real road. The way is long, and even though we keep walking all day, the chance of reaching the last post in the known land today is very little. We don’t find many people on this road. But after a while we hear noises coming from the right. It sounds like someone was in big trouble. We halt and discuss what to do. Finally, even though I don’t like it, my Pseudodragon flies over to see what is happening.

And suddenly, all of us see a man who is chased by three wolves, projected into our heads by my familiar. The man is running in the direction of the road, so in our direction. We don’t have much time to decide. My dragon comes back. We decide to hide at first. As the wolves and its victim come close enough to see them, we decide to help him and fight our first fight as a group. The wolves are easily fought, Banis and Randor turn out to be good fighters, I would never have expected a monk to be so strong. But maybe it is not too far off, since they even survive in the hostile cold, that is in the mountains where I come from. I have never fought such big wolves. I am not sure if the others ever have, but they don’t seem to recognise the wolves either. So we fight the wolves. Everyone does the best he (or she) can, and when the wolves lay on the ground, bloody and dead, I heal whoever is injured. Especially, though, the man who fled from the wolves and is still quite weak. We take him with us to make sure that he will not get attacked again.

 And so we come to spend our first night in the wilderness. It is a bright full moon night. I don’t trust any of them much yet and so I would prefer to stay wake all night, to see if they are trustworthy. But I have to sleep to make sure I am in full possession of my powers when we go on the the next day. So I advise my dragon to keep an eye open for whenever someone gets too close to me. The others decide who is guarding our small camp and after a while everything is quiet. The man we saved from the wolves is staying with us tonight. After a while, I fall into sleep. it is not a very deep sleep, just enough to recover my magical powers.

Sometime in the night, I hear noises. They are very near, in the camp. I open my eyes. Everyone is on their feet. I hear one of my comrades shouting. When I get up, I see what caused all the shouting in the middle of the night. The man who was staying with us, had walked away a few steps. And he is no longer a man. He now looks like the wolves we fought on the path. And I can feel that the magic, which is usually a shield around me that protects me from danger, had not returned yet. Not for the first time these days I feel magically drawn to the small hut in the middle of the mountains, covered in snow and hidden from sight. But there is no such dreaming right now. 

The wolf attacks the camp. Everyone is fighting, but the werewolf is strong, and doesn’t seem to be hurt by the slashes and stitches which the swords of three men and the fists of a monk do to him. I use a few more spells. The werewolf ignores them, just like the attacks from my four comrades or the shot I try with my blowgun. But at least I can heal the people around me, so they can keep fighting. At last, the full moon disappears behind a cloud. The werewolf starts transforming back into a human, but gets stuck somewhere in the middle. Luckily for us, a half-werewolf loses his special powers that made him invulnerable to our attacks. Thanks to this, we kill him. His body falls to the ground, covered in blood and with wounds all over his body. But also one of our group is injured. Davor is laying on the ground, holding his arm where the werewolf bit him. Healing is not a problem, it is not a serious wound. The problem we now have is that the leader of the Grey Wolves was bitten by a werewolf. No one can therefore tell if he will transform into a werewolf as well, when the moon is full in the next month. We carry the body of the werewolf away, somewhere to the river that is close to our camp. Somehow, we still manage to fall asleep for a few more hours. 

30 September 1499 - Day 1

I have been summoned to the king, such as many other people. The room is crowded with people hoping for their application to be successful.

Finally, a servant of the king opens the door and names five people. My name is among the names named. I enter the room and look around. Aside from me, there are four other people. One is a man. He looks tall and a bit green on his skin. He doesn’t look like the kind of person I would like to have an argument with. He is wearing light leather armour, like those people do, who I have seen moving around without noise, hunting deer and stealing. I shall later get to hear that his name is Davor. He is to be the leader of our group. I think they are called rogues. On the other end of the room is another man, tall, fully armoured, and looking as if he could fight a boar with his bare hands. He has a sword hanging from his belt. He looks very noble in his clothes. I later hear his name is Randor and he is a cavalier. Somewhere else in the room is a monk. Those people are easy to recognise. I have seen a few of them in the snowy forest. They walk over snow, just like me, without having their feet frozen. And, just like all of them, this monk here is also poorly dressed. He only wears this cloth wrapped around his body. I shall later find out that his name is Zen. The last man who entered the room with us is wearing a big hat. On his back is a long leather case from which the hilt of his big sword sticks out. He is not as heavily armed as the other fighting man, but he, too, wears armour. His name is Banis. He is inquisitor. I have never heard of such people. I suppose they are rare in the snow.

The king gives us a paper with the outlines of the new country we will explore. And together with this comes the promise that, once we have cleared the land from every creature, we shall become the new rulers of the area.

Our group shall be known as the Grey Wolves, and our sword shall be feared among our enemies.

The Story of the Grey Wolves

My name is Evaron. I am a witch. Together with a tiny Pseudodragon who is my friend, I live high up in the mountains where there is only snow and ice. My mother has already lived there, and her mother before her, and so on. On dark nights, my Pseudodragon recalls the story of my ancestors, how they lived and what they did. My Pseudodragon is my best friend, my companion, and this is the story of how we left the snowy mountains and made our way to the warm parts of the world to follow the call of the king of a country, to find a new homeland, and to be remembered in the world’s stories, such as my mother was, and her mother before her, and so on.