Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Here are the opening paragraphs of Jason Cosmo: Hero Wanted:

Chapter 1

The arrival of the stranger was quite a shock. He strode into the Festering Wart tavern like an insult, stopping in the middle of the common room with his hands on his hips and arrogance on his face. All the village men were there that spring evening, drinking warm rutabaga beer and gossiping about the recent rash of mottled pig pox going around. We ceased our talk to stare at the new arrival in sullen, suspicious silence. The only sound was the sputtering of the smoky pig fat lanterns hanging from the dangerously bowed rafters.

My humble village of Lower Hicksnittle, on the northernmost fringe of the backward Kingdom of Darnk, was as isolated and uneventful a place as could be found. Hicksnittlers plodded thickly through life, considering anything beyond the edges of our rocky turnip fields to be alien, hostile and ultimately unimportant. We knew little of events elsewhere in the Eleven Kingdoms, for travelers from the south were rare. To the north lay endless leagues of empty wasteland and the black wall of a distant, unexplored mountain range. Hence our amazement when the stranger appeared in our midst.

He was thin and pale and outlandishly dressed. His peach hued breeches were too tight, his white blouse too ruffled, his jeweled codpiece too much. The bobbing yellow plume on his wide-brimmed felt hat was too long, the golden curls of his hair too dainty. We Hicksnittlers favored drab, ill-fitting garments woven of mudflax and cottonweed. We cropped our hair short and bathed irregularly, if at all.

His dress was one strike against him. The sword at his belt was another. A man with a sword was trouble.

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More to come …

Best regards,

Dan McGirt