Part I

Erreth sat upon the planks of wood that formed the seating arrangement on the deck of his small boat.  It was the same boat that he and his friend Ged had made when they were much younger.
Ged and Erreth had not always been named so - as was the custom of Earthsea, or at least the Archipeligan islands - they had their own "true names" that only their most trusted friends may know, and were given to them by the town mage.  True names are always kept to oneself, and actually mean something in the True Speech, the language by which magics are enacted. To allow someone else to know your true name is to allow them the power to command you, and so in many cases, not even a childs parents were told, unless the child specifically did so.

Erreth and Ged had been named at the customary age of 16, or maybe slightly later, when they were deemed to pass into manhood.  Usually, it was the job of the village sorcerer, or if one was not available, a mage was often sent from Roke school - and then only if there was need for one in the area.  They both had other "use names" as with many other inhabitants of the Archipelago, which were often of their own choosing, and sometimes were changed at the same time as they were given their true name.  Erreth and Ged had often played together as children, many years previous, when they would pretend to be prominent characters from Earthsea's history.  Most heroes were often known only by their true name after their deaths, and these characters were no exception.  The esteemed Ged, Archmage of Roke, had died only a few years after the birth of the Ged of which I speak, and likewise, Erreth-Akbe, slayer of the great dragon Orm, had died many hundreds of years previous.  Our Erreth-Akbe and Ged always pretended to be these characters, fighting imaginary beasts and foes upon the southeastern shores of Gont, and as such, their nicknames for one another stuck.

Erreth had traveled with his parents when they moved to Perregal, some way northeast of Gont, but luckily, he and Ged never lost contact, such was their friendship.  Mere months ago, however, the two lost contact.  Erreth had written letters to Ged, which normally were received without fail, and often prompted a speedy response.  This time Erreth received a disheartened reply from Ged's family, stating that he had taken to the sea and sailed far west, believing that he could find some of his lost family members that had sailed off towards the west reaches.  This troubled Erreth somewhat, as he had also had family members that had gone off exploring - maybe there was something causing this disturbing trend, he was not sure.
Maybe it was related to the previous few years events, in which the King of Havnor and several companions had set right a great wrong, that had unbalanced the world - a story which I am sure would best be told by a much more able storyteller than myself.

However, I digress.  The Erreth of this story, troubled by these events, then decided to set off to look for any of his own family members that may have vanished in search of adventure, and so, it was upon the boat that had held fast since his childhood that he sat now.  Using the little amount of magic that he knew, he summoned a slight magewind into the sails of the Clarity - as he had named her, and set off for the north.
His magic was not strong, however, unlike his namesake.  The original Erreth-Akbe had been both a potent mage and a formidable warrior, something most uncommon for the mages and warriors of present day Earthsea. Most mages went to Roke to get the very best education, either that or they became village sorcerers.  Warriors usually became pirates, soldiers, or guards. Of course, there was nothing to say that our Erreth might not develop his abilities further whilst keeping a keen hand for the sword - after all, in recent years, they had begun to accept women into the school of Roke - something which had been forbidden for many, many years.

The magewind was feeble, and having no talent for weatherworking, Erreth was unable to correct his course adequately.  Even the weakest currents pushed him off course, some distance to the east, until he ran close to the western coasts of Hur-at-Hur, something which I am sure Erreth found undesirable.

Luckily though, in his favour, the Kargad peoples had signed many treaties for trade and commerce with the King of Havnor, and this fell to an advantage, as it was not long before a certain Karg warrior stumbled across the meandering boat close to the shore near his home.
The pale faced Karg must have looked quite different from the people that Erreth was used to - most of the people living on the islands of the Archipelago having much darker skin, and more often less facial hair. It is no wonder why they often refer to us Kargs as the "hoary men" - we must have seemed so white to them!

Oh what trouble I had in communicating with him at first, I did not know a single word of Hardic - and he only knew a few words in the dialect of Karego-At.  Luckily I was able to understand those few words he did know, even though Karego is not especially close to Hur-at-Hur.
He managed to explain his situation to me, and with the aid of the sandy beach and a stick, I was able to give him approximate directions to the north reaches. After some thought, I decided to ask him if it were possible to travel with him, as I needed to go as far as Chemish, a small island in the North Reach, to buy some of the wonderfully strong fabrics they produced there for ships sails. He agreed, and we set off at once in the general direction of the island.

He was able to explain to me to a degree, what had happened to certain members of the respective families that he and his friends had not heard from.  The kargs had never reported anything such, yet they were never much for heading too far west, or north, and never though that anything would be far enough to the east worth exploring - if anything at all existed beyond the horizon.
We managed to sail well enough, my skill in sailing made up for Erreth's lack of ability with the magewind, something that was to my comfort, for I - like many of the Karg people - had never had much of a trust of the dark skinned ones magics.  Something that, unknown to me, was bound to change soon enough.

It was a few days sailing, sometimes heading directly north for a day, and then to the west somewhat for another.  The weather became increasingly bad.
Away from the warmer equatorial temperatures, we felt rather chilly, and I think it was this that must have contributed to our lack of attention to our position in the seas, and we had drifted far too many miles to the north of our target.  On we sailed, regardless.

We came to a part of the sea that was becalmed, smooth as glass, and lacking wind enough to motivate us. Erreth seemed unable to summon much of a wind at all, and did not do much to move us from the spot, but as we thought our hope was gone, something peculiar happened. We saw land - appear - a few miles to the northeast. There was a purplish tinge to the air between the island and us, at first we thought it was simply some strange effect of the sun on fog, but as we drifted somewhat more north - and we should have seen at least a little of the coast unobscured, the island did not seem visible past the fog. It was as if we could only see the island through the haze - as if it were a mirage we were seeing.

Eventually a wind did pick up, heading directly for the hazy region - and yet we had little choice in the matter of which direction we went, for there was no way that this little boat was going to be capable of tacking into the wind.  Wretched thing, what kind of fool goes on a journey like this in such a boat! Fools like us, apparently.

The boat touched the haze, for now it was clear that the region was distinct, not many miles across, but only a few feet high and wide - evidently it was much closer than we thought.  The boat drifted slowly into the haze, and as we at last passed through into it, something strange happened.  We thought we had been thrown from the boat and into a freak whirlpool that had suddenly appeared, yet that was not the case. Tumbling for a few moments, that seemed like an eternity, the boat emerged from the whirlpool, throwing us out like ragdolls, into a few inches of marsh water. The boat suddenly landed with a shattering, wet smash, as it landed but a few feet from us.  Evidently this was no ordinary whirlpool, and we certainly weren't in Earthsea anymore.

From the swamp, we could see what appeared to be a small hamlet, set upon a hill to the east. Picking up the few supplies we had from the boat wreckage, we set off for it - in a somewhat confused daze.  

People were barking orders at shopkeepers, whilst others appeared to be practising magic amid an ancient construction of menhirs. We walked past the latter, and Erreth did not appear to recognise any of their words of power that they spoke. I must admit, that I did not either.
Listening to conversations in the town, I was able to pick up one or two sentences, and slowly understand what they were saying, it was not all that different from the Kargish dialects, yet Erreth did not know what to make of the gibberish they spoke. Fortunately, the text upon what I took for the town sign was readable to me - at least the characters were, yet the Hardic runes that Erreth knew, were of no help here. It seemed that I might be teaching him more of my language than he bargained for.

After wandering aimlessly for a few hours, I finally managed to ask what the name of the town was - though it was clear from the sign how it was written, I did not know how to pronounce the name.  One of the shopkeepers I asked, pronounced it "Holtburg" - and after reading the sign again, I was quickly able to get some idea of how to read the text of this new land.

We had no money in this new place, but were able to sell the materials recovered from the boat that would be of little use to us as resources to a few of the vendors in town. With these few coins we had enough to buy ourselves a small meal in the towns tavern.  A kindly looking woman offered us information about the land we were in.  I was thankful to Flinrala for the books she gave me, and it prompted us to learn more about this place.

When the sun set, it was clear to us that we were no longer anywhere near Earthsea, the skies of Dereth are so different, the aurora lights the sky at times in such a way that mystifies the mind - and the sounds from the forests often stills the heart.

Erreth-Akbe and I, Rexx Magnus, could see that we had much more to learn about this strange place.

-----

Part II

The sun rose, as it usually does, following the departure of the twin moons, Alb'arel and Rez'arel from the skies. The clouds slid lazily overhead, giving irregular bursts of colour to the land as the sun broke through. 

Erreth and Rexx sat at the top of the bank behind the inn at Holtburg, watching the daily bustle at Sedor Wystan's smithy.  Numerous people scuttled around the building in which the Archmage Cindrue resided - the occasional loud bang and yell as someone mis-cast a spell and broke furniture.  Luckily the gentle breeze took the sound away from the top of the hill, so they sat in peace, away from the noise and clamour of armoured shoppers.  They spent the time in quiet contemplation of the events from the previous week.

They had both soon learned of the devices that captured ones life essence before death, and transferred them elsewhere - minus a few treasured belongings and some degree of ability.  The idea of returning to life after ones death was not completely alien to them, as most of the archipeligans of Earthsea would often live on in a state of ignorance in the lands at the other side of the Wall once they died - or at least they would have, before the King of Havnor and his entourage had destroyed its effects and once again enabled people to be reborn.  It was still a strange idea to them, however, to be recreated at the instant of one's death - still a painful experience however.
It was an experience they had both encountered many times in their short time in this new land - much of the fauna had proven to be very aggressive, and according to most of the islands inhabitants, only one species had survived from the islands native population.  Most of the creatures on the island of Dereth - known to its original inhabitants as Ireth Lassel, were from other worlds like themselves - though it was not known wether the farther off continents of Auberean were stricken with the same malaise.

Erreth had managed to get himself into a most difficult state of affairs, whilst Rexx was off exploring the libraries in the three capital cities, Erreth had decided to explore the area surrounding Nanto. This proved to be fruitful at first, for they had both discovered that anyone living on Dereth could actually speak to one another directly by simple thought, without the use of magic. The magic was another matter altogether.

It was nothing like the power used in Earthsea, naming things gave you no control over them here, so the old speech was useless.  Instead, a peculiar system of magics was in effect, the air had the same living, flowing energy - but it powered the spells of mages. They required components to act as a catalyst for their spells, and some kind of focus through which to channel the mana.  Gestures played a part in this too, as did spoken language - though it was more often a description of an effect, rather than to command something directly.

It was often a simple matter to command one or two schools of magics, but due to the requirements of learning them, many had to wait for years until they could even master the simplest of spells if they did not have a latent talent for them.
Both Rexx and Erreth had found out how to enhance their new found weapons, and increase their speed and damage capabilites - necessary benefits in a world that was bordering on chaos between the towns.
Erreth had taken up the sword and staff, whilst Rexx had favoured the more strategic approach of the bow, and the stealthy tactics of the dagger.

Back to current affairs, however, Erreth was busy scouting the area surrounding Nanto, in the hopes of some foe to best and increase his abilities with the sword. It was not long before trouble ensued.
He had decided to investigate one of the numerous "festival stones" mounted atop a large hill near the Nanto lifestone. That was soon ended, several times, when a couple of very large grey giants decided to throw boulders at him, and maim him terribly. As he ran away in blind panic, he collided headlong with a pack of large white, furry, three legged creatures, that decided he would make a good mid-morning snack.
After several unsuccessful return trips from the lifestone, he decided that the monsters preferred to warm his carcasses with their undersides far too much - and he was so weakened (not to mention without armour) that he could not manage a single one of them in an attempt to retrieve his belongings.

Attempts to contact Rexx in this situation had proved useless, for some unknown reason - either way, he was many, many miles away doing research in Zhaikal.  After the decision to wait in the town, Erreth stumbled across a rather formidable looking man, who announced himself as Fire Bug.  Erreth asked if the man could aid him - and thankfully, once he had finished stocking up on his much neede spell components, they both set off for the dreaded hill.

The taint of blood on the air must have drawn more scavengers to the area, for in addition to the grey giants, there were also very frail looking insect-types, an appearance that proved contrary to their abilities.
Thankfully, Fire Bug pulled out a cleverly concealed bow, and peeled off the antagonists one by one, in a very short time. Erreth retrieved his armour and weapons from his many corpses, and thanked Fire Bug numerous times for his most welcome aid.

After this rather humbling experience, Erreth decided to stick to the lands he knew most well - and try to get some idea of how these monsters behaved.  Erreth related his tale and asked Rexx what he had learned in the time he was searching the libraries. Most of it had been simple history, but also useful information about the current situation was starting to appear.
Rexx's last warning was somewhat ominous, especially after the recent events. "Be careful these days, there are things that are VERY alien to us out there."

----

Part III

I sat in one of the numerous shopping "halls" - this one in zhaikal. The only reason I can ascribe the term hall, is because the Gharu'ndim settlements throughout Dereth appear to have a very strong liking for centralised shopping areas, often with a jeweler, mage and grocer or scribe situated in the same building. Of course it makes my work harder, to hear the constant babbling of spellwords, but the grinding of powders and the savoury smell of many of the dishes whipped up by those learning to cook also provide a relaxing atmosphere in which to read.

I had taken an interest in the lore of this land, both the ancient Empyrean, recent Dereth texts, and also the history of those who came here before us from Ispar. I had also come across numerous references to a culture known as the Dericost - which I believe I have encountered on numerous occasions.  One topic that both fascinates and terrifies me, seems to be the ever present Virindi - they demand respect and caution in their sheer malevolence through disrespect of all "lesser" life forms.  Through numerous notes and scraps of parchment that I had pieced together, it appeared that the Virindi are beings of pure energy, who enslaved other races in order to carry out menial physical work, even using those of their own race, damaged on arrival to Dereth. They also experiment on us lower life forms, in order to find out how we think as individuals - apparently they have one mind, and indeed act like a kind of insect colony in this respect. Of course, there are exceptions to this.  Ecorto is one of these exceptions. 

I have sat for hours watching him, all he does is stand there - if I can say stand, as he appears to do so on no legs!  Sometimes a purplish tendril of light will escape the side of his mask before he withdraws his head deep into the cowl of his robe and removes his mask to clean it. I have yet to see his true face - though I am not sure I want to.  

The virindi had apparently made a tenuous agreement with many of the Tumerok tribes trapped on Marae Lassel, and in exchange for bringing them to the mainland, they modified them to make them appear more human - gods know why! They also use them as their militia, with tuskers (an ape like race) as their hands, and many variations on the lowly drudge for other kinds of experimental work.
A lot of my information regarding the virindi came from Diyas al-yat, though I do not altogether trust him.

I was unable to contact Erreth for much of the time during my research, though I didn't know why - I think it may have had something to do with the numerous fizzled spells that were being cast around me.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to contact him in time to warn him about certain species of creature that lurked near the nexus towns, in particular the ones that caused his most embarassing and humbling situation.

Zhaikal was nice, though I couldn't stay there forever to complete my learnings of the lore, and so I moved off to Cragstone, via a conveniently located "Portal" in the woods below the town.
Cragstone was impressive, a well-stocked mage shop (with an owner posessing a strange pre-disposition towards the shadows) an armourer with the highest quality wares, and numerous windmills situated on the hills rising above the town. It also boasted one of several blast craters formed by the destruction of the shadow spires years ago. An impressive sight indeed! I could almost believe I had witnessed the event itself.

Erreth had taken up the study of lockpicking as of late, and decided to attempt entry to Thorsten Cragstones tomb in order to pay homage.  He told me that the lock was nearly impossible to pick, and was unable to find a key, but after numerous attempts he had got in. The tomb apparently had some kind of healing ability which proved useful.

Once I had finished my lore studies - which took several weeks, Erreth informed me that he had taken another foolish turn - this time accidentally entering one of the outposts of the virindi. The southern keep near Khayyaban was the one in question. Apparently he had entered, and seen others going in before him.  After discovering the hallways had been cleared, he entered, then after going in for some distance - changed his mind and turned back, only to be confronted by a Tumerok High Priest, and two Tumerok warriors. 
He was rather close to the exit as well, but the priest took him down with a quick spell, leaving his corpse in the most irretrievable place - even though close to the exit.

He had ran back to the main town, in the hopes that someone might be there and able to help. Strangely enough, Fire Bug - the one who had helped him a few months before, was there.  Fire Bug came with him, and helped him to retrieve his belongings once again - and out of gratitude, Erreth asked if he could join Fire Bug and his followers in their cause.  Thus, Erreth explained, he became a member of The Paladins of Fate.

Erreth explained to me what they were all about, and so I told him that the next time I was in the area I might even join them myself. In the end I did - and got into many scary situations in the process. 
Luckily the lore I had read stood me in good stead when compared to Erreth's experiences, and I quickly learned the vulnerabilities and strengths of many of the creatures inhabiting the areas around the keep.  Of course I did not live entirely in Khayyaban - the wandering streak still takes me quite frequently to far off places.  Erreth, on the other hand, has decided that he has had enough of perilous situations, and has calmed down in recent months - taking up the art of cookery along the way. 
I have no doubt though, that he is simply learning a way to manage when he goes farther afield, and needs to survive on less food than he would near the towns.