text: [Themes: fantasy, fantasy]
  
  These are dark and dreadful days. A group of evil wizards, The Black Veil, or as the people call them: The Sourge, hold the land of Azrya in an iron grip. Hordes of undead and bands of barbaric orcs are the least of the evils that roam the land freely. The people, poor and neglected, live in constant fear. Some people dare to stand up against their oppressors, but they are at great disadvantage.
  
  But slowly tales begin to spread across the land of a hero that has been born. One of the last remaining sages says that he saw a message of great importance written in the stars. Whatever the message meant, people are realising that big is going to happen in the land.
  
  [Author's Note: The people of Azrya live in fear. An evil group of wizards, that call themselves The Black Veil, hold the country in an iron grip. Their leader: Sarces, singlehandedly killed the previous king and his royal guards. When all hope is lost, a small light appears in the darkness. A hero is born ... I know that this isn't a masterpiece, but this just my first story and I'm not a native speaker of English so advice or comments are welcomed.]
  
  > Continue
  You are born at a small farm at the outskirts of the kingdom.
  
  Your life on the farm is miserable, the crops often fail, your father drinks to forget his troubles and often hits you and your mother ran away, leaving you with your brutish father.
  
  To escape the misery of your life, you often leave for the nearby city of Gree, pickpocketing citizens and stealing food from the market stalls. You do all this without remorse, you don't care what happens to the people if they lost all their money, you are poor, so why should others be not?
  
  After another succesful day of stealing, you return home, only to find that your farm has burned to the ground. While you walk through the rubble that was once your home, you find the half burned remains of your father, or rather ex-father. Unsuprisingly, you don't let a single tear and leave the ruins of your farm, taking some coins and a knife that survived the fire with you, while you decide where to head next.
  
  > head back to Gree
  When you arrive at the gates of the city, you notice there is something wrong, the people that had been crowding the streets just an hour ago left, even the town square is empty.
  
  Suddenly you hear shouting behind you, turning around you see half the people of Gree coming after you, clutching whatever they could find. 'There he is, kill him!' 'That's the one that stole my purse!' 'Hang him!' 'Kill....' 'They must have seen me coming and waited to ambush me', you think.
  
  > run as fast as you can
  You realise you can't win this fight. As arrows fly around your head you turn around and run as fast as you can towards the nearest gate. You quickly dodge the swords that the guards swing at you and pass the gate, just before the guards closed it. You escaped, but you realise you have to be more careful from now on.
  
  > travel to another city
  Leaving Gree behind you, you decide you'll go to the coastal city of Thersport after all.
  
  On the way to Thersport you pass through the Woodsher forest, a forest rumoured to be as old as the land itself. Slowing your pace you enjoy the sight of the wonders of the forest, huge oak trees, decorated with coloured leaves, small chipmunks playing in the branches of an elm tree and dozens of birds all singing their own beautiful songs.
  
  Suddenly you see a cart overturned on the road. While you stop to see if anyone is hurt, you hear someone or something walking through the dense bushes on the side of the road. Turning your head to the sound you see dozens of people, men, women and children all covered in rags and armed with what looks like improvised weapons made from scrap iron and wood from from the mighty trees of the forest. A man, you assume to be the leader of the group, approaches you. 'Who are you and why are you passing through these forest, are you in service of the dark wizards?' You tell him who you are and that you are passing through these forest because you are fleeing from the city of Gree, although you 'forget' to tell him what the reason for their attack was. 'So you are fleeing the empire too, huh. Well, let me introduce you to the Resistance, we are the only ones left to challenge the empire, who are not captured, or worse. But where are my manners, I'm Thran, king of the rebels, and you are welcome to stay with us as long as you like, as long as you are prepared to help us and our cause.' Suddenly you notice a small crown made of branches on his head.
  
  > accept his offer
  'Ok, I will join you.'
  
  Thran smiles and leads you into the woods. After a couple of minutes you come to a clearing. The whole place gives an impression of a real town, there are little shelters and houses made from materials from the forest. You can also see a larger building, it probably is where the headquarters are located. It also has a lake for washing. 'Welcome to the Resistance.'
  
  > Next
  You quickly adapt to your new life. You are helping at the small farms the Resistance has and you have got your own house.
  
  After a few days Thran comes to you when your are working on your piece of farmland. 'All the men need to come to the command centre, immediately.
  
  When you arrive most of the men are already seated. Thran walks up to a small platform, used by the speakers. 'Our spies in Thersport have reported that the city is going to revolt' his speech is interrupted by cheering ,'but the governor has already fled his palace, however, our scouts report a huge army moving to the city. We are going to help the citizens fight for their freedom!'
  
  'But how are we going to do that?', a person in the crowd asks. 'That's a good question. As you know the Scourge has a naval base near the forest. We are going to take over, then we are going to commandeer a ship and sail to Thersport via the river. Are there any questions?'
  
  A few hours later you leave the forest, hoping that you will be alright.
  
  > Next
  After half an hour you reach the harbour. Dozens of ships are anchored here, all fully supplied and ready to sail away.
  
  You quickly get into battle formations, hoping that the enemy hasn't spotted you yet. But then you hear a horn, followed by the shouting or men. Apparently they wanted to fight in the open fields.
  
  Although you outnumber your opponents, you are driven back. You find yourself battling three armoured men.
  
  You dodge their blows and are able to stab one of them through his armour into his heart, but your knife shatters when you want to take it out of the corpse. Now you are fighting two men, while you don't have a weapon.
  
  Luckily for you, one of them is killed by one of your comrades. While your opponent is shocked by the death of his ally, you sneak behind him and break his neck. When you search his body you find a dagger and quickly take it.
  
  The rest of the battle is quickly decided. Although you were driven back at the beginning of the battle, you drove the opponent back afterwards. You killed a few enemies yourself but the rest of the battle wasn't very hard.
  
  After you have taken control of the harbour Thran speaks to you: 'I saw you fighting bravely in the battle, thanks you for that. Now we have to help the citizens of Thersport. But which ship should we take?'
  
  > The biggest one
  'The biggest one, so we can accomodate all of our soldiers.'
  
  You quickly board the biggest ship you can find and sail of to sea. The trip to sea goes well and before you know it your have reached the shore, now you have to turn north to reach the Jeat, the river that leads to Thersport.
  
  Although you have to row upstream, you soon get sight of Thersport. It seems like the siege has already started, the city is ablaze.
  
  Suddenly you spot enemy troops coming to the river, but you don't pay much attention to them, after all, they can't reach you on the river.
  
  But then the ship suddenly stops and you can hear Thran cursing. Apparently the Jeat is a big river, but it isn't deep, so the bottom of the ship is stuck in the muddy soil.
  
  The enemy soldiers have reached the banks of the river and and shoot with flaming arrows at the ship. Since you have nowhere to run, you are burned to death on the ship.