Unlikely Heroes

If you've ever heard any of my other stories this preface is probably unnecessary, but I feel it's appropriate to assure you that this story is as true as they come. As far as I know, anyway. I don't have perfect recall and I wasn't there for all of it, so some of it is a little embellished for the sake of entertainment. To be honest I wasn't there at all in the beginning, except maybe in a peripheral way. Some of it I never got a solid enough account of to swear to its veracity and, to be perfectly honest, some of it I'm just straight going to make up. Because what's the point in remembering something exactly the way it happened anyway? It's a legend, and the only real difference between a legend and a lie is time.

But most of it is mostly true as near as I can tell, and you'll never know the parts that aren't because you never noticed any of it in the first place.

I'm not one as a rule to spin yarns about wizards, warriors and magical monsters, but I try to call it as I see it and I've seen a lot of weird things in my time. Some of that bears a little explanation by way of back story, so indulge me in taking the time to tell you a little bit about Xenonia and the legends that came out of it. I promise if you just bear with me it'll all start to make sense at some point. Much as any of my stories do, anyway. For my part I promise to respect the process and offer up the story with the appropriate poetic flare and with a minimum of commentary.

Fair enough? Fine. Here we go...