The Fire of Obergasten Hill | Part 1

Awesome work! Following!

This is so incredible. Thank you David for tagging me on this.

Gorgeous, I will be following this. Wonderful work Lucas and thank you @DavidP for tagging me.

Very beautiful indeed

Thanks for tagging. Such a great illustration and fine piece of story telling. Look forward to following the story.

I suggest you create a collection for it right now and put a link to that in the description of every part. Makes it easier to follow as time passes and people come to the story once it is underway.

@Mim1986 @Troxley @SkarletFever @NeonDreams @Mathgrl @NYB my friends, you may enjoy this.

Much of the matter is now common knowledge, but the full story, one of descent, of dreams betrayed, of justice and death, has remained our family's secret, ostensibly for the good of all. Yet the folk of Chisling have treated our family generously and cared for me in my frailty. I believe they deserve to know, and at last, my father agrees. Like this world, the truth is beautiful, and so, lest it die with me and be lost to eternity, I write now with my father's blessing, the terrible tale of the Schoneit Family.

Still, I feared the worst, for though his spirit runs deep as bedrock, my father remained an unaccustomed man among disquieted strangers. For all we knew, each peasant cloak hid a butcher's blade, an arsonist's torch, or the staff of a murderous mage. How could one man prevail against such deadly conspiracy, or the subtleties of magic? And there were whispers still worse of a curse most foul that stuck to the ruined mansion like a poisonous tar, or that Gammin Schoneit's own abuse of god-gifted spells had conjured a fickle and vengeful fein.

Yet, upon our arrival, we learnt that the Schoneit family had perished, one and all, in a sudden blaze one cloudy night. But, by dawn, the fire was out, the embers cold, and not a single blackened bone was left behind. Such was the Schoneits' might and reach that Chisling was left reeling. And once the shock subsided, all but the sagest of village elders began to murmur anxiously and watch every shadow, certain that the spirit of death might alight in their hearth next. Now fearing that the fate which struck Lord Schoneit might soon haunt or claim others, my father sought the truth. Not for riches, nor for glory, but for the love of our family.

But not all the world is beautiful to behold. Even now, the blackened ruin of the Schoneit residence looms atop the hill across the vale. As I write, six years have passed since the great mansion burnt, yet its skeleton still stands, the charred remains of a body none dare to bury. None, save my father, Venris of Teveny. Fearing that the filth and fuss of the city might hasten my lethargy, he brought us to live in quiet Chisling, confident that Lord Schoneit would respect my father's reputation and let us simply live. Gammin Schoneit's legacy was as old as the village itself. Indeed, the origins of his family's power and authority stem from the times of founding in the mists of centuries past, before the roads ran further west, before even the mages settled in Sulph. The Schoneits were fixed and impervious, permanent masters of the farmlands.

Contrary to rumours, the farming folk of Chisling had nought to do with the Fire of Obergasten Hill, and neither did my father. Our family settled in the village in the springtime, when the River Kiesling swelled and foamed with meltwater flowing far from the icy heights of Vastrath, upon whose barren flanks I have never gazed nor shall ever tread. Now in the summer, the Kiesling chatters across a shallow bed of stones smoothed by the flow of years beyond counting. I see the tiniest perch sunning such dazzling scales between each passing cloud as would draw the eye of Teveny's most esteemed jeweller. What marvels each season brings! Would that I had many more years to witness.