Friends At The Table

…was standing there in the midst of utter chaos, I found strength in words uttered by the immortal warrior Red Jack (who you will become well acquainted with as you read on) only days before he led an assault on the being called the Advocate. “Heroism,” he said, “is not such a unique thing.” He was right. The heroes that day were not only those who faced down men worshipped as gods—or those that despised them. The heroes were the many whose names were not already known, who rallied their neighbors as the world around them crumbled, and ensured that even if the very body of Hieron itself vanished, Hieron, the collection of people, would not. The world, contrary to this book’s title, did not end. All of which is to say that I am grateful that this text is being published in an incomplete state. The truth is that when I first began to write this volume, it wasn’t a volume at all. It was just a book. An encyclopedia, collecting in one place stories from reliable (if not always honest) narrators, who together pain