I have recently received this journal a long time ago as a sign of thanks from an old woman I have helped, now it felt like the time to use it...
Many moons have passed since my travels in Ennor have begun. Since I have left Gondor, my kingdom, where I grew up, since I journeyed to Eriador and put my blades and crafts to use there, since I begun fulfilling my role as a Ranger.
I was only 20 years of age when my travels begun. I am now nearing 50, though the Dúnedain blood in my veins betrays the eye and I appear no more than 35.
Yet all these years I have seen pass in moderate peace - a criminal to be captured here, stolen goods to be retrieved there, delivery to be done elsewhere.
Yet that is not so anymore.
Since the fire in Archet many months ago, there is something almost tangible in the atmosphere, something heavy in the air, some unspoken unrest, something weighing on people's hearts... and the folk everywhere begin to notice.
Stranger and stranger still things keep happening in the vast lands of Eriador. Animals became aggressive, unsettled; forces are at work which I fear have not yet struck their worst blow. The outlaws, the brigands, the criminals - they feel it too, and if they are not commanded by some evil force, they take advantage of this unrest.
While I await a call from the Chieftain, I have busied myself serving those vile men and creatures they surround themselves with justice at the request of local folk (at least those who weren't too unsettled by my murky appearance to speak with me - recommendations from the officials have helped). I have slain many of them throughout Bree-land, from the forests of Chetwood to the hills of Andrath, and tracked some of their camps down even as far West as Buckland.
There is a lot to be done, but my more recent journeys in the Old Forest have worn me out, so I have turned to the merry Shire of the Little Folk, hoping their light-hearted excitement at the Harvest Season and ignorance to the rest of the world will still my heart... Yet even here I cannot find peace. Although it seems as if the darkness creeping through Ennor have not yet reached the hearts of the Shire-Halflings, the silence from my kin unsettles me.
For now however, I must put my skills to good use and earn enough money for a steed, for my previous one, an old mare bred by a Rohirrim settled in Bree-land, have been frightened away by a pack of wolves and I could not, for the life of me, track her down - it has turned out she returned to the farm, but I need a stronger steed for the kind of dark places I'm going, and that poor old girl has seen enough to frighten her heart.
The times now are shifting, they're so different from when I received this journal many years ago.
