Zoe

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/111767667/lettering/S.png EVERAL moons ago, in the cluttered cobble streets of Argos, Zoe was trying to make a deal with a trader of furs and stones. She knew that she would have to barter hard in order to get the price she wanted for the ruby she had recovered from a shipwreck in the Southern Seas, but that didn’t trouble her. She knew this trader of old and was prepared for a long battle of words; it was a ritual they had performed many times before. Afterwards they would sit, drinking the thick honey-laden coffee which was a staple of her hometown and chuckle as she regaled the trader with tales of her recent exploits.

Around the mid-point of the familiar word-dance, Zoe looked down to spy a hand retreating from the pouch at her belt. Whirling, she grabbed as the arm and the hand attached to it retreated into the throng of people crowding the narrow street. Shoving pedestrians out of the way, she spotted a wiry old man haring away from her.

Being a woman unused to the receiving end of theft, she gave chase, rounding a corner after the disappearing back. A dead end. The man at the other end, frozen against the wall like a rabbit in her arrow-sight. As she was about to grab hold of him, he gasped and pointed at something behind her. An old trick, which she wasn’t going to fall for, until a stray sound alerted her. Glancing round, she predictably saw nothing and by the time she looked back the man had, predictably, vanished.

Checking her pouch, she found nothing had been stolen. Instead something had been deposited, by all appearances a very old and tattered map. A map directing her to the lost city of Marakamda! Could this be true? The treasures of Marakamda are just fable surely? Still, less likely situations had led her to many lost artefacts of worth, could this be any different?

Some months later, Zoe stands at the edge of the jungle which supposedly contains the lost city. Checking the map against the direction of the sun, getting her bearings, she folds up the map, stashes it away and plunges into the undergrowth...

'' From the official game manual. ''