Seasons passed, and years, as the once-knight and his charge wandered the lands between those claimed by Hob and Man. With time, Mara grew into a Hob girl of clever wit that would rival any human of like age, and under the guidance of Jaris her skill of blade would be the envy of any man-at-arms.

In this time the cunning plans of the cruel Hob chieftan Gareth had continued to fester in the mountains of the north. There his power and influence had spread, until all Hob chieftains of any import could be said to be under his sway.

Years past, his ambition had been checked by a powerful and wise Hob chieftain known as Raakeh, who ruled the mountains abutting Hellsfurrow, and sought peace and prosperity by communion with the Men of Myr. But owing to Gareth’s clever scheme of years past, unwitting Men had done for him what would have come at great cost to his own armies. Raakeh’s treaty with Myr was destroyed, her southernmost settlements were razed, and her warriors were slain at the hands of a marauding war-party of the Realm. The rival chieftain’s power thus diminished, it was little effort for Gareth to claim her remaining lands and Hob as his own, and Raakeh now spent her days in Gareth’s dungeons.

Upon a rocky crag hidden among the snow-covered peaks Gareth had constructed for himself a fearsome keep, in the fashion of the Realm, beneath which he held his enemies captive, and from which he dispatched his retainers and men-at-arms to do his evil bidding.

Within the halls of his throne-room, Gareth, who now called himself King, would entertain, with ever-increasing frequency, human spies from the Realm. These craven souls, whose loyalty could be purchased for the weight of an untarnished coin, brought him news from the halls of the King of the Realm himself. Then, through their villainous connections, they whispered plots concocted by Gareth into the ears of those whom he wished them to reach.

Though this conduit, Gareth had fomented a war between the Realm and Myr, and then constructed other distractions in the lands far to the west. For while none would dare speak such treason aloud, a truly wise man or a jester might whisper that the King of the Realm was a man full of hubris and short on foresight, and easily manipulated into sending the might of his armies far afield on crusades of folly.

The Duke whose lands were the Northlands was a man who could be called truly unbefitting of his bloodline. For he was easily bribed with the fertile lands of Myr, which he now held, in exchange for inattention to the northernmost reaches of his own lands, thus allowing Gareth’s machinations to go unchecked.

Cunning Gareth took every advantage of these failings in nobility. In the vacuum of scrutiny, and with all enemies of his own kind vanquished, his power grew.

You, being of Man, might believe, as all of the Realm did, that the powers of divination and scrying were those of Man alone, gifted by the gods with dominion over the beasts. Were it so! Imagine, now, the fearsome sway of a Hob lord, who calls himself King, possessing his own diviners, peering through arcane means at the threads of the Fates themselves.

Their divinations had served Gareth well in his rise, and he trusted them greatly. They had foretold, many years past, that no child of Hob, nor one born of Man, would strike him down. This he had taken great pleasure in, for it meant that nothing save age or intercession of the gods themselves could stay his advance.

But now, his power among the Hob at its apex, he had reached a crossroads in his villainous plans. He desired with greatest passion and hatred to march his armies on the Realm, and strike down those who had caused him such grievous suffering in his younger years. But he was clever and knew that, even now, his power was not sufficient to match the full might of the Realm.

Yet while his human spies had willingly swayed the lords and wisemen to the south at his bidding for the price of silver and gold, Gareth believed that loyalty cheaply bought is of little value when the wager is greatest and the betrayal is against one’s own kind. And with such a great endeavor planned, he trusted not human spies—indeed, any human, for he hated them all with equal bile—to gain him the knowledge and influence that would be required to further his goals.

In frustration of this plan, Gareth had lost every Hob he had once hoped might fulfill this role to the unexpected cruelty of the war-party guided by Jaris years past. So it was that, after the war was concluded, Gareth had bid his scryers tell him where he might find the Hob that would become for him the agent of subterfuge that he desired, one who could mingle among the Court of the Realm yet was not of tainted human blood.

And so the Hob scryers cast their lots, and burned their incense, and entered trances, and gazed deep into their obsidian shards. And they came to Gareth and told him thus: “We have peered into the Well of Fate and in the depths have found your answer. There is such a one. She is a Hob girl, yet will be raised by a Man, and is like no other. The Fates have ordained that the future of your kingdom shall rest upon her shoulders, should you choose to seek her out.”

Gareth was greatly pleased, and asked them how he might find this girl.

And they instructed him that, were he to create a haven to gather together those scattered Hob and Men who had sympathies with one another, with pretensions of living together unmolested, surely she would be drawn to that place one day. For the Fates had also ordained that she would be cursed to wander the land, cast out by Man and Hob alike.

This idea pleased Gareth as well, and he bade his spies, Man and Hob alike, seek out those few among the Northlanders and Hob who had sympathies among the other, and direct them to a place within the territory he called his own, a valley where none lived and they would be left unmolested until the one of whom his scryers had foretold was located among them.

In the years since, this place had grown, and prospered, in its own way, and was known as Haven.