Editing Morglin Ironfist (section)

=== Letter 7=== 
21st day of the Month of the Rat, Year One of the New Age

Ragnar the Usurper,

:It has been five years since my last missive. I can imagine how things must fare you there, sitting fat and bloated like a corrupt spider upon your cheap web of a throne, which you wrongfully assumed and which you have wrongfully held.

:My strength here has indeed risen like a phoenix from its earlier ruin. Many and great battles have I fought. Citadels have I cast down, cities have I taken and raised MY banner over. Heroes aplenty now flock to my cause. I wonder what you have done of late, sitting safely behind your castle walls. While bards shall sing of my name, your memory will be nothing more than sayings and drawings about you and your so-called queen carved on latrine walls.

:After long years of consolidating my strength in all areas, raising levees of peasants and pikemen, mounting warriors on horse, legions of ogres, goblins and trolls, marshaling the strengths of magic users and placing in the van the great creatures such as hydras and dragons, I set forth to sweep all before me.

:Three of the high kings of this realm united against me. They laid cunning traps for me and placed great strengths in their cities. Many were the heroes they arrayed against me so that at one time I faced six different armies closing in upon me from all points of the compass. It was then that the great investment I made in magic was rewarded. Twice I was able to teleport entire armies clear across my empire, placing them behind the advancing foes to crush them. I was able to control an Oracle and through her and by way of the thieves’ guilds I learned the secrets and intentions of my enemies. This was no small thing, for it enabled me to place my armies to parry their thrusts, and throw my armies into lands where they were weak.

:The cost of such campaigns was great. I spent in a month what but a short time ago I would have believed to be undreamed of wealth. But if one wishes all, they must risk all.

:I cast down two of my great rivals and finally there was but the great [[Lord Alamar]] to face my powers. Ragnar, you are but a groveling beggar compared to such as he. Long we struggled. He launched one attack that swept all the way into the heartland of my realm, forcing me to teleport back to deal with the threat. Finally I was before his great and wondrous capital city. My siege engines smashed down his high towers. Dragons struggled in the air overhead. Hydras wrestled upon the ground. Great legions of swordsmen, archers, dwarves, orcs, and peasant levees gave battle so that the ground was covered with the slain. With my magic wielders about me I gained the wall and there did I fight with spells, fire and sword against the great Lord Alamar, and his wizards that have already become a myth told by peasants around camp fires. He was cunning, mighty was his sword arm, great his magic, and brilliant his strategies. But they availed him for naught, for in the end I cast him down and my only disappointment was that he was able to flee into distant realms.

:So now, Ragnar the pig, I own all this land of Heroes. All creatures within it acknowledge me as the rightful king. I shall rule it with justice and wisdom. I shall guard its borders well for I have heard yet more rumors of wars in distant lands, and evil kings that plot their return to overthrow me.

:Let me add here that I view it as fortunate now that the fool Guthbert failed so miserably in his attempt on your life. If the plot had succeeded I would have but been a petty lord, in a petty realm, which is all that you now have. Your father murdered his brother, my father, to take the throne and you then took it from him. I was forced to flee, with but a handful of retainers into unknown lands, and here in the realm of Heroes I have carved out an empire to which a few paltry counties pale in comparison. To those who risk all, all may come as the reward. This shall be the last of the letters I will post at the gate. If you hear from me again it will be because the gate has opened and I shall come through it, sword in hand, seeking justice.

:Farewell Ragnar.

PS. If Ewine is still with you tell her I have married and am quite content. My companion has all the attributes that she did not, trustworthiness, intelligence, beauty and kindness. Beyond that, she bathes more than once a year and is not surrounded by a cloud of flies, something I find to be most refreshing after having known Ewine.