Yes, this is the place, there is no doubt. You need not worry about your fee, good scout, your fee will be more than paid. I am impressed, most impressed, that you were able to find these ruins and bring me here, in this sundered world.
I never thought to look on this place again. No, I am not disappointed to find the villa in ruins. A long time has passed, and much that was is now gone without a trace. I knew well what to expect.
I wasn't born here, actually. My mother took shelter with her relatives in the north, at the very beginning of the War of Tears. It was there she bore me. But I grew up here, and my father continued his studies throughout my childhood, when it still looked like the might of our people would prevail. Look there, that tower. There were once two stories more above that, and the uppermost housed my father's glass, through which he viewed the stars and studied their motion. As a child I recited their names and learned the story of each by heart.
Oh no, my studies were no burden. I loved learning and the pursuit of knowledge, as my father did. There was no subject that did not interest me. Come, look at this wall here. Around this side, yes. These holes, so evenly spaced? Brackets for shelves, twice my height and groaning with books, ancient and valuable tomes my father was heir to. Ah, the shame of it! The boundless knowledge of our people, millennia of culture and learning, now gone. I regret now every day spent at play, each one a book unread, that I shall never have the chance to look on. But there are no scholars in this age. We are become a race of warriors and refugees, discarding any aspect of our culture that does not aid our struggle to survive. Who now plays the music Alabrillia composed, or performs the ancient dances? My young friend, have you ever danced? No, I thought not. That is no longer our way. Nor mine, sadly.
My mother danced for my father, often. This shattered basin once held a fountain, whose crescent jets would take on the moon's glow by night. Before it my mother would dance while my father sat on this very bench, playing his mandolin. Her dances were stories, told in a deeply physical tongue, relating the most poignant tales of her family's history. How would she dance our tale now, I wonder? Ai, I care not to think of it.
Forgive my rambling. Seeing this place now, my mind floods with memories. Here grew a tree that bore the sweetest plums imaginable. These stairs once led to a panelled hall, where, by the light of many candles, I debated with my father and his friends, on matters of philosophy that now seem trivial. And here the horses gathered, when my father summoned his retainers and rode for war.
I remember the swords that once were mounted above the great fireplace. I used to marvel at them, their jewelled hilts, and the smooth blades that reflected the light with its brilliance redoubled. It astonished me the day my father took them down from their places. In the courtyard, he danced a dance of his own, a dance that terrified and thrilled me. The slashing of his blades through the air made a haunting keen that I have never since heard, and I have danced that dance myself many times since then.
You see, by this time Shadowbane was spilling noble blood in the hands of the Hated King. My father knew the time had come to set aside the pen and take up his swords. In the space of three days his preparations were made, and his doom sealed. I have never heard word of his death, but I am not fool enough to entertain the notion he still lives.
The view of the bay is magnificent, is it not? Picture now a great ship at anchor, and a small boat being rowed to shore to collect my mother and I. With my father going to fight, he no longer deemed it safe for us to stay here. My mother and I were sent to the north, to the safety of her kin.
No, I never saw the cities of the north. We were intercepted by a fleet of refugees, Dar Khelegur fleeing the ruin of their homeland. The captains consulted, and we turned west, across the wide sea to whatever haven we might find there.
Some of us made it. I believe it was during our passage that the world splintered, and we felt the shocks of that sundering at sea. The storms and waves that hammered us surpassed the tales of our oldest mariners. Of eleven ships, only four survived the journey. Mine was not one of them, but my youth and strength were enough to keep me afloat, and a thrown line from another vessel hauled me to safety. My mother was not so fortunate. I picture her face sometimes, staring upwards from the dark, green stillness of the ocean floor. Does the moon's light still reach her there, I wonder?
We did, at last, reach safety. In the lands of the distant east, Elves were as beset as we had been here, but their numbers were greater. The Moraduragu clan took us refugees in as if we were distant kin. If this horrid age has a single merit, it is that all Elves now see each other as brothers, as we should have all along. But I will not thank the Hated King for that.
Amongst the Moraduragu, I grew to adulthood, and under their tutelage I took up the bow and blade. These hands that once traced characters on ancient parchment now are calloused as those of any slave. But the age of mathematics and philosophy has passed. I practice now division of a simpler sort! Ah, I should not make light of it. War is a horror, an endless horror, and those that prevail gain only the opportunity to witness more of it. In the east, I took up the cause of my benefactors and stood beneath their banner when men and centaurs came to slaughter them. I fought beside the Moraduragu in their wars, and in the end, I shared their defeat. What more can be said? It is a story each of us knows intimately, is it not?
When the walls had fallen, when the Moraduragu were broken and scattered, I found myself alone in the world. I cursed life and longed for the death that is denied us all. What does one do when cursed with endless living? If I must be, I shall be for a reason. I resolved to find some hope for the future, for myself, and perhaps, for our race. But first, I needed to do this. Come here, and find my beginning. I thank you again for your assistance in that matter. What now? Perhaps I shall seek after my kinsmen.
These shards, look here. These blue fragments. They were once tiles of surpassing beauty, which decorated my parents' bedchamber. It would have been above where we now... hsst! Did you hear that? Yes, from the treeline, there. Perhaps we have stayed here overlong. This way. I know from my childhood a path around the bluff that will take us from here unseen. Be watchful though, our 'friends' may know of it too. We'll see how well you use that blade of yours!