In the years intervening my employment under Him, I have been solicited numerous times by a vast number of reputable and well-known publications.

Most, seeking clarification and enlightenment on the world-turning happenings that unfolded in my tenure as His confidant, butler, and friend.

Now years later, and in light of the recent news from the Ancient Plains, I find it necessary to elucidate on both my relationship and my, admittedly narrow, understanding of the man who has come to be known as the Burning Messiah.

Before I expand on my role in the occurrences I intend to intimately detail in this memoir, I must confess that this work is being written at His behest and with His most confident blessing.

Portions of the work have been penned by His own hand, amongst a few others, to expound upon facets of our adventures where I find myself uninformed.

I am aware that my admission may incur some wrath from The Faith, which has declared an anathema on Him and His many followers; be that as it may, the recent news has ostensibly made much of their objections both meaningless and I find, somewhat hypocritical.

Thus, I find it more necessary to allow the reader total awareness of the simple fact that my retelling is anything but un-biased and has been heavily influenced by that oh so distant pariah whom I first met between Augiers and Kondrit, and who likely looks on from those same distant Northern lands.

This contemporary matter, however, is best left to the philosphers, politicians, and journalists, as it is not the core subject of my recollection.

Though now, I must admit that in that illuminating way it often does, hindsight has allowed me to observe how the many small, -and at then seemingly meaningless- decisions and actions, have sired much of today's considerations and counterconsiderations.

Alas, let me now dispense with my desultory musings; it is enough for you to know that my employment under Him began in the half-winter of 1148.

Twenty eight years prior I had been employed as the assistant steward in the home of one baron Febbril Eld, a man renown for his jovial personality and queer collection of antique feline figurines, —despite his many peculiarities, he is a man I still hold in quite high regard to this day.

My ten years in Febbril's employ were largely uneventful, save for my courting and wedding of a beautiful young governess by the name of Semaria Smithkin.

Our marriage was motivated foremost by our strong mutual affection; the pragmatism that drove most of our peers to the chapel eaves was at most a secondary driver.

In its latter stages though, strong mutual affection proved to be an ineffectual replacement for either cold pragmatism or blind romanticism in the fueling our marriage.

The illusion, however, was too sweet to immediately dissolve; the addition of our son allowed it some continuation, but sadly, by the birth of our daughter, we allowed ourselves to devolve to close friends and little else further.

Disillusionment did little to cool our companionship, but the truth led us to find chafing the constraints of marriage.

The end of my marriage coincided quite well with the end my employment under Baron Eld. My search for further employ was as quick as a private conversation between myself, the amiable Baron, and my next employer; an adventurous foreign Oirid by the name of Ossric Herminger.

Yes, the very same Ossric Herminger. A Oirid of such renown that his numerous discoveries and adventures require no retelling from my amateurish hands, which would doubtlessly dispel much of the romanticism that surrounds them.

So I shall endeavour spare you, dear reader, of much of my recollections of Ossric, who was a man of such wit and so filled with life and beauty, that only the most artful of penmen could capture the fullness of his life.

In the sixteen years I served as the Steward of his Landerly estate, I had the honour of being present throughout many of his more famous escapades and revelations.

Our companionship was deep and lasted the entirety of the brief time we shared. It was through it, that I can be one of but a handful of men to truthfully proclaim to have met and sparsely taught his most famous apprentice and adopted son, the Acceron, Moyana.

It was in the year 1146 when Herminger's untimely passing came at the soiled blade of the black-hearted Malcour, that my and Moyana's hands washed the blood from his body and dressed him for the funeral pyre that was tradition to his Barmetic people.

When his vast property passed to the then unnamed Acceron; in a charmingly characteristic act of defiance, the now orphaned-boy decided to liquidate many of his master's assets and passed them to the staff of his various properties, choosing for himself a life of academic monachism.

- The auspiciousness of this choice has since become known to us all.

After the unfortunate passing of my latest employer I sought to travel the Continent. I was then an unmarried, moderately wealthy man, largely by my own labours and somewhat augmented by the inheritance gained from Oirid Ossric.

My own son had long left the comfortable nest of his parents' making and my youngest child had begun her own foray into the professional world as an apprentice in the Psychological and Psionic fields, which were then still in their infancy.

My former wife Semaria was likewise thoroughly engaged with matters of her own life, and little cared to see the world beyond Britterly, so I soon departed after a brief period of mourning and heartfelt goodbyes.

My journey through the Continent saw me travel primarily by the Four Locomotives.

In those enlightening months, my feet trod where the feet of my Bemmi-Saxin ancestors trod all those centuries ago, as they sought refuge from the scorching Heartland and it's perpetually warring Tribes.

I saw bazaars and temples peopled by the variegated peoples who call the peripheral continent-coast of Auratica, —and the greater supercontinent of Orae—, home.

I rode ahorse alongside the brown men who steward the eastern Baseru Mountains and use great spear-toothed lions to guard the Ngona's Pass from desert beasts and the shadowy Nomads.

I fished amongst the Red men who fish the northern Rogarod Sea and hunt sea-beasts so large that cities quaked when they awoke.

I was assailed by local Ails and sought healing from towering golden-skinned priestesses, whose sweet music brought joy and health to all but the dead. In fact, were the local legends to be trusted, their music could rouse even them!

Sadly, my many adventures had their price, and the toll of illnesses and the rapid lightening of my purses steadily dulled my enthusiasm for the fantastical Continent.

By the end of near twenty months, I had to face the truth, and promptly decided that my journey in the continent had drawn to a close.

Unbeknownst to me then, however, was that this marked only the start of what was to be an endless whirl of adventure, mystery, and intrigue at the side of He Who Burns, The Exulted Speaker of Fire.

As it marked the beginning of my association with Him, it serves as good a start as any for a recount that deserves more justice than I can ever give it.