Chapter 1

The novel is still title-less, but here's chapter 1 of my RPG-inspired fantasy series. This chapter is pretty slow, but it's pretty much just exposition so I hope it's okay that it's a little short. I really love Tolkein's style - the way he speaks to the audience and the lighthearted way that TLotR starts, so I kinda tried to emulate that here. I'm worried it's a little choppy though... Any and all feedback is most welcome, thanks!

Chapter 1 – Merrihill

Having grown up in a small town, the lure of adventure was especially strong for a dreamer like Jeremy. Merrihill was the largest settlement in Lochnall, though that isn’t saying much, given that it was the only real town in the tiny country. Small groupings of homes were scattered through the land, and a few villages stood here and there, but it wasn’t a country known for its tall buildings or heavy populations. Lochnall itself was not only the smallest country on the continent of Erus, but also the smallest realm in all the world; a tiny speck on Ganae’s face. The country was most widely known for its many towering redwood trees – not so dense that they blocked the sunlight, but enough to make farming obsolete. The lack of ability to farm honed Lochnall’s residents into adept hunters, which, over time, made its wildlife equally clever and skittish. A single narrow river from the neighboring Myinae Forest offered the nation its only water source, and emptied into the ocean on Lochnall’s southeastern border.

The first settlers of Merrihill cut a clearing just north of the river, and there the small hamlet rose and thrived. Unable to make money as farmers, the people of Merrihill strived to fine-tune their skill as craftsmen instead, and established themselves as clothiers, blacksmiths, and purveyors of other material goods. Their close relationships and dealings with their neighboring countries earned them both financial security and protection by the military, but being such a small nation that kept mostly to itself, such assistance was not something that was ever needed.

Despite being the most populated region in Lochnall, Merrihill contained fewer than 100 buildings – mostly timber-framed cottages with an adjacent shop or workspace. Dirt alone connected the people, as in fact there were no paved roads in all of Lochnall. There stood an inn at Merrihill’s easternmost border, near the beach of pebbles at the edge of the sea. It offered only three beds, but since Lochnall in general was not an area of heavy traffic, they were almost never fully booked.

Jeremy had not just explored every inch of Lochnall; he had mapped it as well. Throughout his childhood, he kept drawings of the scenery all around his room, and his early development as an artist helped him to grow into something of an amateur cartographer. He had learned the lay of the entire land within his 23 years, but now craved adventure outside of what he had always known. Through stories and legends he had learned of the rest of the world – lush grasslands, the frozen north, the deep jungle, the dense forest, even an entire kingdom underwater, but they were not enough to satisfy his curiosity. Above all else, he dreamed of seeing the world: to experience every corner of it, the way he had his own home.

The stories and tales in which he immersed himself also told of Ganae’s many weird and wonderful races: various species of elves, each one more peculiar and mysterious than the last; noble and reclusive shape-shifters; terrifying demons; mystifying faeries; hardy dwarves; all-powerful gods; shamans and sorcerers and even merpeople in the ocean. Each race held their own tantalizing fascination and Jeremy aimed to meet every one of them.

The people of Merrihill were less idealistic about his plans, however. He was known throughout the town as a bookworm with a certain naivety about the ways of the world. His scurrying about with a sketchpad was tolerated by the townspeople when he was a child, but as an adult, it seemed only pointless and lazy to the town of hard working craftsmen and merchants. When Jeremy began sharing his intentions to leave and travel the world, they scoffed and brushed the news off with annoyance. In spite of their opinions however, they were eager to accept Jeremy’s help when he offered his services for odd jobs in order to make money for the trip. He spent time delivering packages, tending to livestock, and even washing dishes in exchange for a few spare coins, among other jobs. Still, his plans were spoken of with sighs of “That silly Vondran boy thinks he’s going to be some great explorer? He knows nothing outside Lochnall; the real world will eat him alive,” and “He can’t even hunt! What does an artist think he can accomplish on his own?”

Despite all this however, Jeremy had the reluctant support of his parents, who shared the apprehension of the townspeople, but having always been loving and encouraging parents, wanted their son to realize his dream. The Vondran family was somewhat famous in the area for their horses. Their fame was small, only reaching through southeastern Erus, but in a small town, their pride was great, and, being the most reputable horse breeders in the region, people came from all walks of life to purchase steeds from them.

Having always thought Jeremy would go into the family business, his father never took the time to teach him how to hunt or fish. They were fairly wealthy and only ever needed to buy their food from the market. Rather, they taught him about horses and how to care for the ranch, and, as Jeremy had always been a scrawny boy, they gave him all the books he could ever want, in order to sharpen his mind. However, his parents were dismayed to find that, despite all of their training and assistance, Jeremy was generally only in the way when he tried to help out. His sharpness of wit was no substitute for his clumsiness when it came to manual labor, and thus their unyielding support of his dream to travel the world was born.

Still, they could take no comfort in his plan knowing that he was woefully unprepared for life alone and on the road, as he possessed no skill for hunting or, gods forbid, combat. So they purchased a novice bow and arrows for him and proposed the idea of a hunting trip, within Lochnall’s borders, to determine how he might fare on his own in the wild. The idea of this opportunity delighted Jeremy, and he packed supplies to take on his preliminary trip to the northwestern corner of Lochnall: best hunting grounds in the country. This of course was a fact he knew not from experience, but from hearsay alone.

The eye-rolls of the townspeople were Jeremy’s only farewell as he marched through the streets toward his destination.