Life Story
Page 1
Bakesh was born in the village of Siegen, deep in the mountainous northern region. The village is populated by miners who work in a small mine and dwarven blacksmiths who process the ore they extracted.
Bakesh was a black sheep in that frontier region.
All because of his blacksmith father. His wife had left him long ago, and fights with other dwarves were a daily occurrence. And he was the worst sort, taking anything that annoyed him out on young Bakesh.
As his son, Bakesh was looked upon coldly, and his head always hung low with the villagers.
Page 2
After he was 10, Bakesh was forced to mend and repair miner's tools for the villagers--a job no one else wanted to do.
These tools, used to dig through the hardened bedrock, soon broke, even after repair, and the rough miners would beat him, demanding they be repaired for free. Perhaps due to his dexterity, Bakesh, who managed to work by watching and learning, was eventually given the task of crafting and making locks. But no matter how well he did, he was never paid as much as other villagers.
And even then that money was taken by his father who returned occasionally.
Page 3
One winter, Bakesh's father ran off one night. Infatuated with a young woman, he had stolen a large sum of money meant for the maintenance of the mines.
The villagers' anger was directed at Bakesh, who had been left behind. They threw stones at him, driving him from the village and telling him not to return until he'd found his father and retrieved the stolen money.
Bakesh's father was in Tule, at a tavern town not farm from the village. Apparently the woman had been a honey pot, and she and another man beat him senseless in a snowy back alley.
Bakesh just watched from the shadows so he could take the money from his father's pockets.
Page 4
When Bakesh approached his battered father, he found him mumbling "Let's take this money and go to the kingdom. Find the job of our choice at the guild and live a life of freedom."
Hearing this, Bakesh kicked hiss father. For the first time in his life, he lashed out at the man who had been so selfish.
Bakesh, kicking his father until he stopped moving, , was filled with a sense of liberation rather than guilt. Now that the source of his anguish was gone, he no longer saw the need to return to his village.
As his father had said, Bakesh headed for the kingdom. It was now his turn to live his life enjoying freedom.