EQ 11 - Roztov's Family - 2013

Roztov's Family

Roztov had been time travelling a lot lately. He felt old, but not ready to give up the adventuring
life just yet.

He'd given up living on Norrath though. The old tower in Butcherblock was a very distant memory
and the house in Neriak was sold.

In the end he'd settled down, renting a plot of land in one of the endless valleys that seemed
to have magically turned up outside of New Tanaan, the city in the centre of the Plain of Knowledge.

He still went back to Norrath from time to time on some minor quest or errand but it felt like a
foreign land to him now and the places that he remembered had all changed.

People around Butcherblock still remembered him, and the innkeepers of Qeynos would still give
him a friendly greeting, but he went less and less now, having no reason to do so.
The only link he had with the old lands was his frequent visits to Surefall Glade. He was still
a druid after all and they still ran their affairs from there.

No, the three room house 103 Market Heights in Maple Bridge Point was his home now and had been
for some time. He was married now too, to a woman from the jungles of Kunark and they had three
children.

She didn't seem to mind the time travelling, she saw it as druid business and in a way she was
right. It was through the druids that he had learned the teleport spells that allowed him to
go back into the past. He supposed it was the fact that he was an old man now that meant he enjoyed
the past so much, but he didn't think about it much.

There was much to do in the village of Oceangreen, the village that would one day turn into
the city of Qeynos. The gods had been playing around again, he didn't really understand it,
and things needed to be fixed. He did his little bit by helping these ancestral people fight
of the forces of Bertoxxulous. It was a good job for a druid, who could heal the diseased animals
and cure the forest of the evil work of the Plague God.

Most of his time was spent at the house though. As the children grew up he adventured less and
less. He had a feeling though that when they were old enough they would get a restless spirit
of their own and want to see Norrath and everything that it had to offer.

He looked forward to that day. He wondered if his new wife would allow it. She certainly would
not come with them, she was a homemaker first and foremost and her place was in the Heights.

She was a big member of the community around the suburbs of New Tanaan and had quiet enough
to be going on with thank you very much!

He liked to take the children in his arms and fly across the hills around the house. They were
delighted at how high up they could get when he set off from the highest ridges. It wasn't really
flying, just levitation, but they were impressed enough.

Wid, his wife, would caution him about it, but no one listened. It was one of the many magical
things that their father could do and he took great pleasure in their adoration.

He could teleport into the garden, he could go invisible, turn into wolves and trees and summon
all kinds of magical play mates.

He eldest son, Feargus, was getting curious about the world now, but had not expressed any interest
in druidism. If Roztov had to guess he would say Feargus was destined to be a Rogue! He was always
in mischief. Haydar was a Warrior, there was no doubt about that and little Roztova was just a baby
so it was too soon to tell with her.

With a busy home, food and supplies to be brought in, purchased with the vast wealth of his earlier
adventures and his Loyalty pension from New Tanaan he was kept very active.

He didn't tell them much about what he was doing when he disappeared for a while. His wife knew he
was time travelling. He could tell she was worried that he would lead all her children into a life
of wild adventure. When he told them bed time stories he told them about all the people he used to
know in the Heroes of Kaladim and all the enemies they had faced. Most of all though it was the places
they liked to hear about the most. The jungles of Kunark, where there mother was from, the icy wastes
of Velious, the moon of Luclin, the other continents of Norrath and the chaos ravaged lands of Kua.

One day they would want to see that world for themselves and Roztov planned to be the one that was
there to guide them safely though it. It made him nervous to think of the dangers they would one
day face but he could hardly stop them. That would be hypocrisy. As he reassured his wife, he would
be there to look out for them, even if it was flying invisibly above them like a guardian angel.

That was a long way away though. In the mean time he had a hole in the roof to patch, some shopping
to pick up from town and three children to help bath and put to bed. After that, who knows? Maybe he
would pay a visit to Oceangreen...