Recollection of the Prologue: Revelations in a Dark Basement

Tollán begins to tell you the story, drawing you in with his animated gestures and phrasing. It is enrapturing, you feel like you are participating in the story, riding along on the emotional journey. You recognize that this tiny, frail little mouse is truly a master storyteller.
He tells you of his quest to perform the Shulei custom of proving himself, taking time upon reaching adulthood to prove his worth to his family and bring honour to their name. This task is no burden, Tollán speaks of his Father with great pride and respect, and the story begins with Tollán Softpaw sitting in a train at the station, setting off to further the family brewery business as part of his proving. When he describes the ominous pair of Ongoles who came to take him off the train, his description is so vivid you can almost see their looming shadows and hear their deep breath above you. Always ready for anything, Tollán tells you how he agreed to disembark with them, but as the train began pulling away and the ongole reached out to grab him as they stood on the station, Tollán tells you, with an obvious and deep sense of shame, how his resolve broke, and he tried to run away rather than courageously facing whatever situation he was about to find himself in. His tiny legs were no match for the hulking assailants, he felt a sudden searing pain on his back as they struck him, and everything faded into darkness.
He awoke, bound and alone, in a dark basement, where he was kept for days with little food or water. By the smells, he could tell this was some sort of brewery. The conditions were horrible, but he refuses to allow you to pity him for that time. It was, he says, a time of transformation for him, a time when he learned a crucial lesson: being afraid will get you no-where. Only those who are willing to face what others will not can accomplish what others will not. Locked in that dark room, he had nothing to do but pour his efforts into the magical skills he had developed while peeking through the windows of the magical academy next door to his childhood home. His strength had always been with magic of the mind, but the fear that welled up inside him every time one of his gigantic captors came to bring him the occasional crust of bread clouded his mind and closed his mind off from theirs before he could accomplish anything. So he waited in the dark, trying to push his mind into the insects that skittered past him. He drew diagrams in the dust, meditating and searching for any mind large enough to help him escape, until one day, with a clear mind and the latest modification to his diagram that had come to him in what was either a dream or a hallucination, he reached out and found… something. At this point his story begins to derail. He tries to describe to you a magical theory that is based on emotion and instinct, that draws power from something that he cannot explain, and only after he sees confusion and boredom in your eyes does he relent and get back to the story of what brought him here.
For he was not doomed to sit in that darkened room forever. One day, an unexpected visitor arrived, the Otter Sylas. Tollán sadly tells you that Silas is a Nameless Shulei, cast out from his family and denied the honour of a family name. It is a shameful state, but beggars can’t be choosers, and people tied up in basements can’t choose their rescuers, so together with this Nameless one, Tollán crept from his cell and made good his escape. With his new source of power, his fear of his captors evaporated, and he tells with pride how easy it felt to bring down the first Ongole they came across, putting him to sleep where he stood and watching this creature nearly a hundred times heavier than himself crash to the ground.
With his newfound courage, he tells you how he convinced Silas to help him sabotage their casks and implicate yet another competitor. With these two rivals now certain to be at each other’s throats, the Tollán family’s company, Brownbelly Brewing, is certain to find new opportunities and prestige.
So whatever comes, Tollán is ready to face it. He tells you with contagious enthusiasm that he will never be too afraid to try something new, that now, he will accomplish amazing things and raise his family’s name to be known and respected by everyone. His excitement and yours continues to rise as his enthusiasm pours forth, and he is only stopped by a sudden coughing fit that wracks his tiny body and forces him to sit down and regain both his calm and his breath while someone else takes a turn speaking.