Unlike my father and beloved Uncle Alistair and so many previous generations of Kelforts, I was gripped by wanderlust in my youth and left home shortly after my eighteenth birthday. For thirteen years I traveled the world and beheld such wonders, from the vast Library of Talruah to the bawdy taverns and pleasure houses of the great port city of Bormelo and even the great jungles of the Southern Isles. Every day was a new adventure and life was good. Until one day when, after recovering from a night of wine and song in the city of Corthell, I received an envelope bearing our family's signet ring and another envelope stained with blood. I recog