The First Steps Away From Home

[Ludo Maypop]

Dearest Reader,



I preface this tale with a question. Where does a story begin?

Is it simply a matter of winding back time to the very start of it all - to the moment in which our Hero first meets the world? Naked, blameless, and crying to be heard for the first time? Or, perhaps the beginning is found in the embers of a tragedy? A crucible of past pains from which they burn, only to be poured, shaped, and molded into what they are meant to be? You might even be inclined to consider whether our Hero is expected by portent or prophecy? Are they the answer to a question asked before they were even born to hear it?

Perhaps.

If you will permit this author to be so bold, however, none of these are beginnings which are worth putting quill to paper. Are we not all born, and by the time we are in the grave, haven't we been no strangers to cruel misfortune? As for prophecy? Huddled in the dark, it looks awfully similar to delusion, doesn't it?

However, I have a feeling that you are a clever reader indeed. You found this humble author's manuscript, which clearly indicates you are a gentle-saer of both taste and wit. With that said, you have undoubtedly noticed that I have already given you the answer to this little onion, haven't I?

Where does a story begin? At the Beginning, of course!

Where is that, you might ask? Well, the thing about Heroes, is that they are just like you and me, until one day they decide to take a first step. And then another. And another. On, and on, and on, and on and on and on some more. Until one day, they pause to look back, and realize how impossibly far they have traveled, and how heavy the mark they've left upon Creation truly weighs.

Only then, Dearest Reader, do you have a Story. When the End can at last glimpse the Beginning, and be amazed by truly how far they've come.

Now, I invite you to continue forth into a truly splendiferous story that was originally passed to me in a Calimshite parlor, during a game of Three-Dragon Ante (with three dragons, no less - though that is a tale for another day). You might find certain events within to be outlandish, and possibly bordering on the absurd! As I leave you to the tale and cease my monologuing, I will leave you with two important things to consider, should the events within incite your skepticism:

1. My source's integrity is most assuredly unimpeachable, and my integrity is as such that I should not reveal their identity in my florid prose.

2. There are no refunds on manuscripts.



Sincerely,

Volothamp Geddarm

[Ludo Maypop]

Our story begins many years ago, in a dell deep in the Neverwinter Wood. There, near a burbling brook, stood a little wooden cottage, of the sort Men build. Cozy but not cramped, and simple but not plain. It had a roof of thatch, not too shaggy, which sloped to an awning over a modest porch. A chimney made of mortar and river-stones abutted the residence, perpetually curling a small crease of white smoke into the trees wreathing the dell.

Within the wood, within the dell, and within that cozy little cottage, lived a Halfling with ruddy, freckled skin, coal-black hair, and big brown eyes. Short in stature even among the wee folk, and almost as short in years, Ludo Maypop nevertheless tended the matters of house and home as well as any grown folk, big or small. Up with the rooster's crow every day, the boy fed the chickens, tidied messes, tended the garden, and minded the kitchen. The latter of which seemed to occupy the majority of both Ludo's time and passion. It's often been written of the Halfling love of comfort food, and the trait did not miss the young Maypop. Though only cooking for one, making sure not to skip any of the six Halfling meals in a day was practically a full time job.

It was a lonely life. Days, weeks, sometimes months on end, Ludo lived alone. Halflings are a folk who prefer to never meet a stranger. When neither friends nor strangers darken your door, sometimes the only thing to do is to create the friends you want to meet. Ludo had a menagerie of friends of the manufactured sort. There was Pattypan the Possum, who accepted tribute in the form of pie crusts and apple cores. Gregory Forklin was a misshapen kitchen utensil in a previous life, before a crudely-knitted suit was fashioned around his rusty handle. Ludo even found the time to painstakingly whittle a canine companion of a sorts from a log, and named it Bark. It has also been written extensively of the Halfling love of a good pun. Or an especially bad one.

Discounting the friends he imagined, made with his two hands, or that walked on four legs, Ludo only had one other friend. The only person he knew in the world, really.

Karsten.

Technically Sir Karsten of the Argent Order, though Ludo had as much understanding of titles and orders as a hippopotamus might. A Human Knight in glinting armor was strange company indeed for a Halfling. For as long as Ludo could remember, Karsten had always been close by. Even in Ludo's haziest early recollections of his parents, he was there. When his parents died in Ludo's tender years, Karsten took up the responsibility of being the boy's guardian. He spirited Ludo away to an isolated place of safety, and built the cottage in the woods with his own hands. For Ludo's formative years, Karsten stayed close at hand always. He taught the boy how to read, mended ripped seams, healed scraped knees. Karsten taught Ludo how to cook; he was surprisingly well-learned on all manner of Halfling recipes - from trifles to toad-in-a-hole, and from sausage rolls to scuppernong pies. But most importantly, Karsten was a friend to a boy who was starving for one. He was never to proud, and never too grown up to meet Ludo in his own world, where imagination manifested into reality. So long as the chores were done, there was always time for a story, or a game, or even just reveling in idle time by laying on the grass and calling out animal shapes in the clouds.

As the years passed, and Ludo began to show signs of self sufficiency, Karsten spent more and more time away from the little cottage he had built. The Argent Order needed him, he explained, and that he would never be far. At first, it was a day or so, every other week. Then a day every week. Two days. A week. Two weeks. A month.

The day before Ludo's sixteenth birthday, it had been 58 days since Karsten had returned home. For the last three years, Karsten had spent more time away than at home. But he'd never missed his birthday before...

[Ludo Maypop]

"Six peaches, a quart of blueberries, two bell peppers, three big tomatoes, two eggplants, four courgettes, and two goose-neck squash!"

The basket was full-to-bursting with ripe fruit and vegetables from the garden, and Ludo grinned at the bounty, even as he had to use both arms to lug it back to the house. Midway back, he paused, setting the overflowing basket down for a moment to tilt back the wide brim of his gardening hat.

"Reckon we could make a ratatouille for sure! Maybe hand pies for the peaches, and muffins for the blueberries?"

He looked down expectantly for an answer. Wedged in his pocket was a bent and fussed-over fork, well-past its prime. The bent tines carried a rat's nest of yarn that almost looked like an unruly head of hair - reinforced by the crude face painted on the flat bit near the handle. Gregory Forklin didn't give an answer of the sort that grown-ups might understand, but Ludo got the message.

"You're right, we baked muffins yesterday. What about scones? A cobbler? Maybe a grunt? With a dollop of clotted cream!"

Ludo picked up the hefty basket again, and double-timed it back home. He dragged his produce up the stairs, and paused for a spell in his nearly toy-sized rocking chair, which sat next to Karsten's gigantic one. He couldn't help but look up at it, and frowned at its emptiness. Feeling eyes on him, the boy looked back to Gregory in his pocket.

"I really hope he comes home, Gregory." Ludo swallowed heavily, hanging his head a little. "I'll bake my own cake if I have to. I just don't want to eat it by myself."

A few beats of silence, and Ludo looked appalled at the fork.

"I am not wasting buttercream frosting on Pattypan! You know he doesn't appreciate stuff like that. Might as well give it to Bark."

Ludo slid off the rocking chair, his perpetually-bare feet smacking lightly on the porch. He turned to the cottage door - a curious little portal with an unusually low-mounted doorknob. As he reached for it, he caught a flash of light in the corner of his eye. Looked to be lightning - north, just past the crest of the ridge overlooking the dell. Barely half a moment later - a peel of thunder. A close one.

Wait. Lightning??

Ludo's brow knit as he pushed the brim of his hat farther back on his head. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"Did you see that?"

Gregory didn't answer, and Ludo wasn't paying attention if he did. The Halfling took a few steps off the porch, looking in the direction of the strike.

"Maybe I imagined it?" Ludo conceded to himself, perfectly capable of holding a conversation with a party of one.

When the second bolt came down, it elicited a surprised yelp from the boy, who almost fell back on his backside. Ludo blinked.

"Okay, not imagining! Real lightning!"

He couldn't be sure, but it looked like it was pretty close to the last one. Which was preposterous. He wasn't sure which book he'd read it in, but Ludo was definitely certain that someone with enough smarts to write a book had certainly written that lightning never strikes the same place twice.

BANG

He wasn't imagining this. Any of it. A third bolt out of a cloudless sky. Maybe he couldn't be sure about the first bolt, but the second and the third one?

Karsten said stuff like this was auspicious. Grown-ups love big words, but Ludo knew what that one meant. A sign.

The boy's lips pressed into a determined thin line, and he pulled Gregory out of his pocket, wedging him into the basket between a tomato and a courgette.

"I need you to watch the produce, Gregory."

Ludo shuffled to the edge of the porch, fetching his trusty walking stick, which he kept propped between the newell posts. Another spear of lightning came down, and there was no doubt about where it hit.

"I gotta go take a look..."

A mixture of curiousity and trepidation filled Ludo's expression. He tipped down the brim of his straw hat, and set off for the ridge.

[Ludo Maypop]

By the time Ludo had crested the ridge, lightning had touched down four more times. The penultimate two were so close and loud that the Halfling cupped his hands to his ears to shut out the painfully-loud thunderclaps. Grimacing, the boy looked around at trees to the right and left. Karsten used to tell him not to stay too close to trees in a thunderstorm. He'd be very cross right now if he saw what Ludo was doing now!

The air smelled strange here. Something acrid smelled like burning, but not like any smoke he'd ever smelled before. The hairs on his bare feet stood on end, almost like the ground was buzzing. Ludo tried to make himself as small as possible, looking warily to the suddenly-ominous trees at his left and right. Beyond the ridge, there was open ground devoid of trees for about a hundred feet. At the center, the halfling could clearly see a blackened scorch mark radiating outwards for ten feet in any direction - the source of that strange burning scent.

KA-DOOM!!

"AAAAAH!!"

A final bolt speared from the sky, blinding and deafening at once. He was close enough to feel the displacement of air, and tumbled backwards, his straw hat pinwheeling away. Every hair on Ludo's body seemed to stand as he cowered behind a rotted log, cupping his hands to his ears. All he could hear was a muffled rush of blood in his ears overlaid by a faint, high-pitched ringing. A frozen image of lightning in mid strike seared into his retinas until it was at last blinked away. When he could hear and see the world again, the boy kneaded the goosebumps on his arms and feet away, and carefully - very carefully - hazarded another peek over the log, keeping his hands cupped over his ears, just in case.

Unchanged from what he'd last seen, but with more time to look, Ludo focused at the center. In the distance, something was catching the light of midday, and twinkling like glass.

"What is that?"

Ludo patted his empty pocket. Oh, right. He'd left Gregory at home. Still a good question. The halfling craned his neck a little more, squinting. No good at this distance. He'd need to get closer. Ludo immediately squeezed his eyes shut at the thought. That's crazy! He'd get zapped to a crisp!

At the same time, this was easily the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him! He couldn't wait to tell Karsten, especially if he came home for his birthday! Karsten went on so many adventures and always had stories to tell about far-off lands, exciting new people, unbelievable exploits, and fantastic treasures! Up until now, the best Ludo could do to compete was to either make a particularly-good Full Hafling breakfast, or to make up his own adventures. No matter how good of a story it was when Ludo and Pattypan the Possum fought against imaginary pirates, it was just that. A story.

No longer.

Maybe if he waited it out, and made sure that it was safe, he could take a look? Ludo cupped hands over his ear again - just in case, but kept a vigil on the epicenter. Nothing. Without a cuckoo clock in the cottage to look at, keeping track of the passing of the day was more of an art than a science. Karsten showed him how to tell time based on how his shadow was cast on the ground, but Halflings needed no such trick. If anything in the planes was as punctual as Mechanus, it was the workings of the Halfling stomach. A whining growl from Ludo's belly, so long after Lunch? Couldn't be earlier than half-till Tea. With his bearings found, Ludo settled in, watching for any signs of remaining danger.

Four tummy growls later, Ludo was reasonably certain the coast was clear. That, and if he waited any longer, the only things he'd have time for Tea would be some crusty rarebit and cold summer sausage. With hunger sanding down the edges of his danger aversion, Ludo settled his nerves, and convinced himself that all was well. He clambered over the rotten log, splitting his attention between the scorched ground and the blue sky above. Even without the threat of lightning peppering from above, Ludo had a healthy respect for danger from above. Karsten told him all manner of stories about monsters, and plenty that liked to hunt from the clouds. Harpies, Rocs, even Dragons! Even before that, Karsten had read him practically every Halfling folk tale ever put to press - a disturbing number of which involved naughty children being carried away by hawks or eagles.

"They only know you're small. They have no idea you're special," Karsten was apt to say, "Once they realize you're hard to catch, they'll move on to something easier."

It was a comforting thought, as long as you didn't think about it too much. Still, the lesson sunk in deeply. No lightning in four tummy growls, and nothing ill on the wing either. Ludo dug his bare toes into the mossy earth beneath, finding his mettle.

"Okay...okay. Okay. I'm doing it. I'm going. Right...now."

His first steps into the clearing were tentative and careful. Ludo stooped into a crouch, as he slowly crept towards the burned earth. Blackened blades of grass fell to ash with the faintest crunch beneath his feet. Ludo wrinkled his nose, unfamiliar with the smell of ozone. This close, he could now see what was at the center of the scorched earth. It was a crystal. Rising slightly from the ground from glass-crusted rock, it sat maybe three inches off the ground. Roughly cube-shaped and translucent, when it caught the light, it reflected back in shades of blue, contrasting with the milky-pink quartz glass crusting the ground below. Ludo had traversed from one end of the dell to the other, and sometimes even a little bit beyond, but he'd never seen any mineral of that sort, not that he was well-learned in matters of mineralogy or any other Dwarf-sense.

Enthralled by his curiosity, Ludo took another step forward, and immediately stepped back.

"Ow!"

He tilted up his foot. Well-calloused or not, a Halfling sole was no friend of jagged glass. Fortunately, it was just a small cut, but it forced Ludo to now mind where he stepped as well. The boy frowned. All around the crystal, a lacing of glass formed like ice on a lake in winter, revealing askew panes with razor-sharp edges. Ludo paced the periphery, looking for the safest way to approach. It was only two or three steps, but they needed to be careful. With his tongue pressed between is lips in thought, the boy made his first step. The sheet of quartz beneath didn't crack or shift. Another careful step almost ended in disaster, but Ludo was able to keep from slipping backwards onto shards. Not wanting to risk another step, Ludo reached as far as he could, his little fingers just curling around the far edge of the crystal's opposing facet. With a grunt, he pulled the crystal free from the rock - and nearly bobbled it into the glass.

Beyond the horizon in the north, Ludo heard something unseen roar, and felt the weight of unseen eyes he could not explain.

Quickened by ancient fears, the boy clutched the crystal tightly and turned back the way he came, missing a wicked shard of glass by a cat's whisker's distance. Ludo ran, over the log, down the ridge, back to the dell, and back to the little cottage by the burbling brook, never looking back. He kept one hand pressing his straw hat on his head, while one kept hold on his treasure. He didn't stop until he was well-past Gregory and the garden basket, and well-through that curious door with it's too-low doorknob. Only when the door was slammed fast behind did Ludo stop. The boy slid down to the floor, catching his breath. As the adrenaline ebbed, the wide-eyed look of fear turned to wonder and elation.

"My first adventure," he whispered, in awe, "For real this time."