The green season of my tenth year brought with it the first of my service commitments to the Home Stone, during which the young men of Boswell Pass were expected to help maintain and expand the trade routes. While the service itself was obligatory, the circumstances of ones service, the very nature of their experience with it was entirely random. being only small matters which were left to Fate.
I had drawn a general service chit for Forestry, and then from a specialized grouping unique to the first, another for the Rim-Tun Pass. My first summer of service would be among the highland wilderness trails of the mighty, and mysterious Voltai Mountain Range. What awaited me there could not, beyond the obvious, be foretold. Camp life, long days of hard labor, the constance of mediocre food, and dozens of sleepless nights were to be expected by one and all. These first expectations having been taken from among the stories of the survivors of previous years.
The Lower Rim-Tun Trail, where it departed from Boswell Pass, was our rally point. A place I should not anticipate seeing again until returning the following Fall. Ahead of me now lay the first of what I would come to know as the Far-gone days.
