put this out for comment. hopfully cb will be out before i get this done.
and i know i\'m going to bugger the geography.
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steuben sat in sulka\'s tavern. he stared in the tankard of beer and reflected on the past several weeks and years.
he had left has village of friesia about seven weeks earlier. while it was an amicable departure, things were easier for all envolved.
custom was that any tradesman would take on two or three apprentices to train up. steuben\'s smithing master had two apprentices. his last two as would later turn out. through out their training it was apparant that steuben and his fellow apprentice, alois, were equally capable. however, steuben was quicker to grasp the skills and techniques. alois, though, had the better focus, and was able to keep pace.
towards the end of his training steuben began to look at the mages and their arcane skills, even picking up a few of the simpler, lesser, spells. he could envision great weapons and armour that blended the two arts. but iron does not hold a spell well. each of his experiments failed. his most spectacular failure slagged the chest plate and the anvil he was working it on, and shattered the dense granite stone supporting the anvil. after that the experiments were curailed.
a few months after completing their training their master took ill and died. for about a year afterwards both alois and steuben worked the forge. soon they would have to take on apprentices. but there wasn\'t enough work for both of them and apprentices.
often in such a situation one of the smiths would head to one of the neighbouring villages and fill the forge there. steuben knew that while he could do that, he wouldn\'t be true to the oath that bound his ring of passage. so steuben left friesia. he wandered half aimlessly, half towards laanx.
bringing him to this point in time.
