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[h3]Crown Prince Izerk Whitemane the Mighty[/h3][/center]

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Izerk Whitemane of Glimmerdale thought little of Lucumbro's roads, and even less of the bandits that infested them. It seemed quite apparent to the mighty warrior, true of heart as he was, and keen of mind, that the country's descent into civil war had driven both the desperate and the despicable to conduct heinous crimes against their own kinsmen. 

Not just three hours past, as the Sun arose in the east, did Izerk enter the burned out hollow ruin of Timberlane. Scorched scaffold marked the skeletal remains of once sturdy hovels, and swarms of flies ran riots around the piles of heavily decayed flesh that dotted the main thoroughfare. The Gorilla surmised a war party had paid the little settlement a visit, and that no defence was a waged - no battle fought. What happened at Timberlane was a slaughter, and such things did not sit well with the son of Goria. 

War was not common under the lush canopies of Glimmerdale Forest - but it did happen - and when it did happen, there were certain rules one was expected to abide by. There were notions of dignity, of honour. Life was valued above most things, and the taking of it was not something done without a large amount of forethought. Children were never to be harmed, regardless of their blood; women too, for what was Goria without those who selflessly gave life unto the world? And the very idea of burning an entire settlement was tantamount to excommunication, no matter what banner you fought under. 

In Lucumbro though, Izerk had rapidly surmised that Man and Elf paid little heed to the rules of war, or the values of honour and nobility. They were apparently a pair of selfish races, wholly concerned with fulfilling their own futile desires. 

Six Men had accosted Izerk not long after he left the ruin of Timberlane. They were a pitiful bunch, with scarred faces and ridden with disease. They waved crude blades at him, and spat curses through cracked and blackened teeth. Initially, the Crown Prince of Glimmerdale attempted to talk them down from their folly, but his tongue's beastial handling of the Lucumbro language drove them towards a mixture of fear and anger, rather than reason and sanity. They charged him with what passed for Men as "war cries". 

Now there were six broken - no - shattered bodies beneath the canopy of some random copse. A just price the would-be bandits had paid, for threatening the Crown Prince of Glimmerdale. 

And now, as he crested yet another hill laden with the vegetation of Lucumbro's countryside, Izerk looked down upon a body of water so large that it took him several moments to convince himself that what he saw was real. Nothing larger than a lake existed in Glimmerdale Forest, and Lucumbro's bordering ocean was a sight to behold for the Crown Prince. For some minutes, he noted the beauty and sheer enormity of nature's work.

"So, this is what a sea is," he mumbled in the Gora tongue. "Scrolls and tales of the Elders do the reality little justice." 

His eyes fell upon the distinctive outline of a human settlement, far off and a few miles east along the coast. It seemed intact, though it was hard to tell from his vantage point. He'd entered many such places, and had found no one to aid him in his mission. In fact, most of visits to Lucumbro settlements had been met with deep-seated scrutiny, sometimes with fear and once or twice with violence.

"Perhaps this little Sea-Town will be different," Izerk grunted, before making towards the settlement at a slow yet inevitable pace.