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Grail
Ambassador/Royal Advisor
Protector of Slyph
Domini/SR |
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As the old book is taken off the shelf the dust blown off and laid down down upon the library table the reader looks over the old, ancient, and worn cover, brushing fingers across the ridges of the finely made cover as they touch the raised, golden letters, that spell out simply, �GRAIL�.
They carefully open the cover, it creaking as they do so and reads the first page.
�Contained in these pages is the life history of the Royal Prince Grail of the kingdom Willow Winds.� |
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Long ago, a young king named Willow after the lands he was destined to rule met and married the beautiful daughter of a nearby duke of the kingdom, that went by the name of Annivel, and not long after the ancient crown of these lands was placed upon her head, she gave birth to their first son and heir, Gordon. Not long after that came along Grail, Gasto and a daughter Gwedalyn.But as this volume states, the history written therein is about the second child, Grail. |
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Years of the prestigious life as the second heir with two brothers and a sister in Willow Winds was not all that wonderful as some may think. For Grail had seen more than the normal Prince. As a young boy he spent time with his father and mother learning quickly the ways of a royal. Grail had a very good aptitude for learning, picking up weapons and fighting with them, being instructed in the ways, weapons, and fighting styles of the monk, the ways of magick, and able to pick up on the world�s news, studying fervently. Also going through the Whisper Guild trials enriching him with a special abilities and crafts. |
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As he grew into a young man there was always the problems of his parents having to deal with having a son who seemed to draw the local ladies from the surrounding towns of the summer castle on the coast to watch him swim as he did daily, working out with his hands and weapons as the ocean winds blew upon the beach. This caused his mother to require him to swim on a secluded beach, far from watchful eyes. And there were the summers spent playing with his young cousins of his father�s brother, Dargoth of Mysthia.This daily ritual would one day help to foster his love for the sea and all its vastness. |
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Time went on and a rivalry within the brothers was being felt. Grail and his siblings learned what castle life was like, but there was gloom on the horizon. His younger brother, Gasto, was not thrilled with his station and the birth order and slowly tried to dwindle his competition to the throne his father sat upon. Gasto�s first plan was while Grail was about to marry a royal lady of a foreign kingdom across the sea to make it look like he ran off from the arranged marriage. It worked to a point. He took Grail on a hunting expedition, not informing their parents. Gasto then kidnapped and sold his brother to his evil uncle Blood Baine, another of his father�s brothers, this one not readily claimed by the family for his treacherous lifestyle. |
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Luckily, King Willow sent out the Whisper Guild and while searching for Grail, they found Gasto in the act of conning a band of traveling minstrels into letting him hide in their midst. The Whispers took him into custody until Grail could be found. Once they returned to the castle Gasto was charged with his crimes and placed into the castle�s dungeons. However, he was not there long as a necromancer that was an old friend freed him.
In retribution he poisoned his sister Gwendalyn and then escaped into the sewers hoping to evade pursuers and carry out his plans in the future. But he only saw his demise. |
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The necromancer was found by the Whispers and promptly beheaded after disclosing the whereabouts of Gasto, whom the Whispers saw that he was made to die most painfully and in as gruesome way as possible under royal orders. Though Gwendalyn was on the edge of death, several went to find her help so that they could hopefully restore her health. Her future husband, Wroth, searched for many healers and after a long ritual brought her back to her former health. In the meantime, Grail was rotting in a cell waiting to be sold to slavers from Ja�Thar. He was fortunately found by some adventurers and brought back home slightly scarred from his experience and learned very quickly to loathe slavery and all it stood for. Grail vowed that he would repay his uncle for his treachery and with the help from the Whispers, he depleted and crippled his uncle�s ranks severely and saw his uncle die in a most painful way. |
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After the severity of these actions Grail decided to take over leadership of his father�s naval forces, building new and powerful designs and leading them to many victories over enemy kingdoms and pirates. He spent many a year at sea, his feet touching land very rarely, his way of dealing with the ordeal. The many nights at sea his dreams and thoughts filled with visions of love lost, a painful past, and of new lands his eyes had never been laid upon. After years of leading the naval forces, King Willow decides its time to send Grail to Asgard to be the emissary and to establish relations since his would be bride had already married another and this would be another way of helping him deal with his past. |
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After a long journey on the sea on the newly built and commissioned, �Dream Chaser�, he and his crew finally made it to the port of Asgard City and he found his first love and a Queen and a land to rule with her.
He ruled with wisdom and with fortitude and wasn�t afraid to lead this land against any enemy so it and its Queen would be safe. But then there was the fateful day he led their naval forces out to battle to become wounded and stranded in a far away land without his memory or magick, He lived in this land making his way as best he could until the day his memory returned and he made his way to his old home to find his Queen betrothed to another and seemingly happy. Having no other ties as children or anything he secured passage away from Asgard only returning periodically under cloak and hood to see what changes had been wrought but never revealing his true identity. In his travels he expanded on the ways of the simple monk developing an inner peace of sorts and a large disdain for the taking of another�s life. He shed his weapons from himself aside from his father�s sword and that of his own that matched it in that they lain hidden in a safe place in the castle of Asgard until he saw need to summon them to his person, the old spell of summoning them not lost from his memory unlike his other magick. |
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His travels took him many places throughout the following years until he found a land, Domini, a wartorn, savage land ruled by a beautiful Empress who�s fire and strength no land had ever known and he found friends of his past who asked him to make this land his home. The Empress honored him and betstowed upon him an office and a position to aid her in her task of rebuilding her family�s legacy.
As the last printed page is turned, the reader gently closes the book, places it back from whence it came, and now feels more enlightened and informed of the once boy prince of Willow Winds and what his life had been.
The rest of this history is of course yet to be written. |
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