Zach Arniman

Name: Zacharias Arniman
Nick Names: Zach
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Brown
Family: No
Parents: Elizabeth and John Arniman
Siblings: 2 sisters and 2 brothers

I was born and raised on a small farm east of Saban. I have four siblings - two sisters who are both married to farmers and two brothers who both live and work on the farm. I am the youngest of us. I must have been about 8 years old when I realized that farm life was not for me. Boring and repetitious it was. Instead, I listened with enthusiasm to my uncle's stories about life as a soldier and adventurer. His stories about how he had fought against the Orcs in forests and caves, giants huge as trees on the plains and even trolls got me to dream myself far away from the farm and the boring life. The years passed and I got older. My view of farm life did not change. Many times I tried to explain that I would have a life of my uncle, but my parents did not understand it - my father was himself a peaceful man who no side had held a sword in his hand.

I was therefore very surprised as I on my 20th birthday was handed a fine armor - bought by my father in the blacksmith in Saban, 10 gold pieces and told that I was free to choose one of the farm horses. My uncle gave me his old but still sharp and good sword and told me to be brave but not stupid. I left the farm the next day. My father told me to be careful, my mother cried and my two brothers seemed to be happy to see me leave. A week later I was in Tanemerah - the big city - here I would start my new life.

It was not as easy as I had imagined - my 10 gold pieces disappeared quickly. So after a few days I found myself standing by the fountain in the square, without a penny in my pocket, hungry and discouraged. But then something happened. A rather fat man greeted me nicely and introduced himself as Dane - priest of Alahna. More people showed up - Celeste, Hayseed, Gannock and Sylar. They were like me newcomers. We talked a little about this and that and then a lady popped up. She wanted us to help her and would pay us to do so. Her house was invaded by beetles. I took the job on the spot and my newfound friends were also more than ready for a little adventure.

We cleaned the lady's house for beetles without problems. But then found out that the lady had disappeared. At first I thought she was going to cheat us of the payment - but then we found some tracks that led to a cave by the sea. That is, we found the tracks after we had calmed Syler down – he totally lost it because someone – I think it was Dane killed a deer. The cave was not empty and after we had slaughtered a bunch of sea monsters, we discovered that we had come too late - the lady was dead. And now for the real strange thing - puff the lady was gone and instead there was an old man - Dane recognized him immediately as Moge - it turned out that it was all a test. Moge told us to stick together, learn and do good deeds, or at least something similar I think.

My Dear Son,

Your father and I have really enjoyed getting your letters. We miss you so much and wish you were here with us tending to the farm. We are glad that you have made some adventuring companions and are getting a long well. To tell you the truth Zach, I'm writing you because we have been having problems up here. Your father is too proud to ask for your help, I try to tell him you would not think less of of him if he did. Hope to see you soon.

Love Always,

Mom

Hi Mom
I don't know if the letter reaches you before I get back to the farm. Your letter got me worried so I am gathering as many of my friends that I can find and heading north as soon as possible. What ever the trouble is I am sure we can handle it. Se you very soon.
Your Son
Zach

I found Dane working in the Crow’s Nest as I expected. I told him of the letter I had gotten from Mom and of my plans to head Nord at daybreak. He immediately offered to go with me and before we had time to leave the inn Gannock and Kylie showed up and offered their assistance too. On the way out Gannock handed me a brand new helmet. He had crafted it himself. It was perfect – Gannock sure has more talent than one would imagine.

On the way to Saban we met Evelyn. She is nice and I like her. I will have to keep my eyes to myself though – Kylie is teasing me anytime she gets a chance. While we were travelling I couldn’t help thinking how lucky I was to have friends that was willing to help me without knowing what dangers was lying ahead and at the same time I was deeply concerned about what might have happened on the farm.

The first person we met when we entered the town was my mother – I was surprised seeing her in town, but to my relief she was okay. She didn’t want to tell me what the trouble was all about, but she told me to go see father who, at the moment, was selling boar hides at the bounty office. My Father told me that both he and my mother had to leave the farm to make some gold in town by cleaning and hunting since they had lost the income for the harvest this year. The harvest was to be sold to the town Port Smith, but lost on the way. The ship transporting the harvest was attacked by pirates and smugglers and the cargo was lost. My father had not made a copy of the shipping Manifest and since he is a farmer and not and adventure he had accepted the loss and found a way to get by. I was relived this was not as bad as I had feared. I handed my Father a heavy purse filled with gold – at first he wouldn’t take it but in the end I managed to convince him that he should.

We all wanted to go look for the missing Cargo and stopped by the Dock Master. He didn’t have much information – only that the ship had been boarded and all the Goods had been stolen. When we were leaving he did discreetly tell me about and old story of a Sea Cave on the Coast between Saban and Port Smith. Since we had nothing better to go from we decided to look for the cave. We followed the Coastline north from Saban. The cave wasn’t hard to find – after a few hours of traveling we noticed a ship anchored close to the coast and when we took a closer look Kylie spotted a few hostile men on the Beach. Standing on the beach we could see the cave. We entered the cave and immediately discovered a few traps – and a bunch of hostile Smugglers. We fought our way through the cave without much trouble – we are getting better and better every day and a smuggler band that might be a threat to a handful of sailors on a ship was not really a threat to us.

This was turning out to be a good day. In the back of the Cave we found the stolen shipment. After that we returned to Saban to tell the good news.
I owe my friends great thanks for helping me out. I will not forget that. I hope someday soon I will be able to return their favor.