The winds ripped through the forest tearing up trees and decimating all in its path. Animals ran for their lives or where caught up in the boiling maelstrom never to be seen again.
The same sad fate happened to all in the castle as the Winds tore through its rooms, corridors and hallways. Turrets were knocked to the ground, stone was pulverized into sand that in turn flayed the skin right off the poor folk caught unawares inside.
When the King and Queen returned from their ride, their happy laughter was cut short as they viewed the destruction and death before them. Nobody was left alive and their wondrous home in ruins.
Many hard weeks later, after burying their dead and salvaging what food and provisions they could from the castle and countryside, the broken hearted couple packed up their horses and left to start a new life in new lands far far away.
After months of travel, they found a lovely new place, and again with love and care, they rebuilt their lives. It is said that if you look carefully, and keep love ever in your heart, you can find the wonderful new castle they built as a celebration of life and a tribute to their past.
There was a wonderful castle, built with loving hands, to grace the landscape of a lovely City.
Inside this wonderous castle lived Queen Esmerelda and King Shrader. They were young lovers and newlyweds and the whole lands shined in reflection of their love and devotion to each other.
Nearby, in the surrounding forests lived a slightly mad Warlock. He had once been an advisor to the King and Queen, but an "accident" causing half of his laboratory to disappear, caused him to be sent packing to the woods where his magical experiments could do little harm to others.
One fine morning in the late spring, whilst the Queen and her consort King were out riding on the western plains, a spell the Warlock had been trying to perfect went horribly wrong.