[The Ruling Ring]

"Oh," he said nervously, grabbing a chair and sitting down nervously. "I see. Alright. Well...you already know that I went away with my friends, to learn magic. We'd heard tell of a wizard named Radagast the Brown, and we thought that we might find him, and ask him to teach us magic. I don't know why, really," he looked at the flames flickering reflection on the floor, then looked back up at Ellie. "Anyway, we never actually found him. Before we might have, we met Beoluin. He was a cleric, that's what he told me, and Ojo, Mergo, and Geriber. He thought we were nice, and since we'd had a terribly rough time already--Mergo was ill, you see, from all the travel, and we'd even ended up running from some wolves at a point, and losing almost everything we'd brought with us--Beoluin took pity on us. He took us into his dwelling, healed Mergo, rejuvenated all of us, and taught us all a bit of magic. It wasn't anything large, you know, just some things that might help get the chores done, and such. He told us that he would teach us more when he thought that we'd mastered what he'd already shown us, but he never did. And what's more, I don't think he meant to. Ojo, Mergo, Geriber and I escaped when he became a cruel master, but once we got back over the Misty Mountains, Mergo fell very ill again, and died," Drago was silent for a moment. "He was like a brother to me...after that, none of us really knew what to do. Geriber went off on his own and left Ojo and I, and I lost Ojo just outside of here, to another pub. He said he didn't feel like coming home."

Drago looked away from Ellie for a second, out the window. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to her nervously.