On a chill October eve, a lone huntsman rises up on a knoll overlooking the High Moor. Silhouetted by the ascending moon beyond, the wind whips at the tail of his leather greatcoat. Across the far horizon, storm clouds gather; lightning flashes silently over the Graypeak Mountains behind. Rain streams off the wide brim of his hat, and violet eyes glow from the shadow it casts across his face. Seen as a vagabond drifter in the eyes of more civilized folk, out here in the barrens he is as one with his environs. Huffing frosty breaths into the cold night air, he leans upon his bow and gazes outward over the heath.
For league upon league he has tracked the beast. It has led him through thorn-tangled hollows, over fields choked with briar and bracken; he has slogged through muck and mire, crawled beneath spoor-laden underbrush; he has hacked a path through a forest of spidery vine, braved ruins lined with swaths of odd emerald slime. For days just past he has trudged across the boglands, spongy peat oft giving way beneath his boots, leaving him to grasp for solid ground while flailing for a handhold amidst brackish tarns. During the weeks he has stalked the creature, a bond has formed between hunter and prey. It is as though the beast has pulled him onward, compelled him to follow even when suffering severe fatigue. And now, in this desolate hinterland, the trail has gone cold.
Shouldering his bow, the huntsman slings ‘round a satchel and drops to one knee. He rummages through the contents, murmurs a profanity or two, then draws forth a bizarre-looking gadget arrayed with dials and gauges. It is one of many such devices he has acquired from the gypsy troupe he often shares fire with. Setting the contraption upon the lichen-strewn rock, the hunter adjusts levers and slides knobs. The apparatus comes to life: wheels spin, gears churn, pistons pump in and out. Perhaps of gnomish fabrication, possibly crafted by more fiendish hands, it spews out thick plumes of steam. Vapor swirls about the ground like a lowland mist. Without warning, a turret at the top spins round and emits a ghastly red beam in the southerly direction. The hunter rubs his hands together with devious satisfaction. For the beast’s trail has just heated up again.
Upon the final hour of night, the huntsman finds himself far to the south, well beyond the High Moor. His quarry has led them past the Serpent Hills, veered far too close to the Troll Claws of legend, and paused just shy of the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Balthazar Vex stands at the edge of an ancient sprawling graveyard. The sinking moon outlines crypts in ghostly silver light. An eerie breeze drones across the necropolis, nudging haphazard gates to ring against stone, drawing his eye westward. On the far side of the cemetery, over the twisted wrought iron fence, the walls of a great city rise up. Mist lingers over the Sword Coast shoals beyond. The hunter takes to a knee and traces his fingers over the earth; the beast has passed this way – he can feel it in his bones. Another frosty breath sighs forth. So be it, black beast, if you would gnash my fate against yon walls, then I shall wrangle such fate til blooded or bound. Becoming as one with the shadow, the huntsman glides among the tombs. Forward, ever forward, his spurs upon the trail as though tracing out a pattern across the face of Faerun.
