The Beginning
The Beginning is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.
Sunlight crested the peak of the mountain to cast its golden warmth upon the landscape below. Aspen trees, magically locked in their autumn hues, quaked as their limbs stretched towards the light. Until recently, the grove of white-barked trees shared the land with a dozen towering sycamore trees. Those sheltering arboreal giants were gone now, their severed trunks all that remained of them in a glade that was one part mud and one part frozen grasses.
Siethidi gazed upon the changing scene, his handiwork at his grandmother's bidding. Behind him, the scholars and denizens of Summit Academy watched on with curiosity. If they had questions, if they had concerns, then none were shared with him. Ahead of him, three different projects began to come together and each day they grew closer to completion.
Stripes of cloth could be glimpsed amid the aspen grove to the west of where he stood and he knew that tomorrow furniture would be moved into the inn rooms built beneath their boughs. He had commissioned two structures upon the edge of the grove that would give his grandmother comfort during her stay and keep her out of the betrayer's spire. To the east, the Rumor Woods had been culled to create a large open field that was surrounded by viewing stands. Tents popped up upon either side of the wooden structures as more and more merchants flocked to his call.
And above it all, from every corner, the pennants fluttered and snapped in the breeze.
His blood quickened when he thought of the cries that would echo through the air and he knew that the Battle of the Phoenix and the Serpent would take place soon.
Turning, he began to make his way towards the northwestern edges of the Rumor Woods. There was a man there, a hunter of sorts, that he needed to talk with about the denizens that lived there. With luck, his plan of them would unfold as smoothly as the others.