Slowly the sun rises, a red glowing globe, it rises majestically over the mountains. The sunbeams slide slowly down the hangs, slide through the forest, banish the last morning fog, break through the last
treetops and shine on roofs of some houses.
The village down in the valley, bedded inbetween high mountains and dense forest slowly becomes alive. A rooster craws and the first villagers come out of their houses. They are dressed like simple farmers but their gait is straight and full of proudness, dignity and honor.
The villagecommunity crowds before the biggest house, in which their leader lives and starts talking. They sit on simple wooden benches, the women share out bread, fruits and water.
As the door opens and the leader steps out, the villagers become silent.
The leader greets his people and starts to talk about the plans for the day.
The fields have to be tilled, the wall has to be repaired and everything needs to be ready for the winter.
Suddenly, when everyone wants to do his duty for the day, there suddenly appears a figure on the road to the village. It leads a horse with it, on that you can see a sword and a shield. The figure wears a sucoat, but the coat of arms is fade and dirty,
You can see that the figure must have experienced a lot already, the face is full of scars and heavily signed by age. Also his sight is cloudy and keeps wandering into the distance.
The villagers stand up, and two guards, dressed in green and black go towards the figure with their leader.
He greets the Stranger and asks for his need.
The Foreigner asks if this is the village "Balde", which citizens call themselves the "Baltimores".
He looks into the round of villagers and takes the silence as sign for him to continue talking.
He is one of these fallen knights who are tired of fighting and who are looking for a place of rest. He heard of "Balde" and started searching for it. He hopes to get accepted as many other before him.
The Villageleader tells him to sit down for a moment, because he has to discuss the case with his villagers.
So the villagers and their leader move back to the great house and start an argue about the stranger.
The most dont see any problem with this foreigner, because everyone of them appeared someday here, but some think they are too many already, as they also have to keep their Identy and Anonymity.
So the Discussion goes on for a while, as the leader says:
"Did we ever reject anyone of you ?"
That was the keyword that the argue has ended.Everyone went to their work and the leader shows the stranger the village, shows him the house, the fields and leads him through the forest.
The last thing he shows the stranger is the armory. There hang the green-black surcots of "Baltimore", the swords, shields and axes. As the Stranger asks what for they need all these weapons,
the leader answers him : " Even though we are almost remote and live like farmers, all of us are still warriors. There are some knights in this region who are interested in our lands and also dont understand our lifestyle and even less respect it,
So we have to defend ourselves from time to time. Also in this region there is another group of people with this same ethos, the children of the sun. We help them wherever we can."
After a little while you can see that the foreigner enjoys his stage already. He stores his old surcoat and takes the green-black of "Balde".
On a beautiful morning, as the community sits together as every day, there appears again a Stranger on his way to "Balde"...
...You could be that stranger.
1. Chronicle of the Baltimores
Conquisitore, Villageleader of Balde
Special thanks to Different for the translation of the text