- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
- Messages
- 3,877
- Reputation score
- 192
This story is meant as a homage to SNES RPGs like Secret of Mana and most of all Lufia 2. I was inspired to write this by MARDEK RPG on Kongregate. The beginning contains references to my archive-type thread, but they are of little consequence. If you want to read up on them, you can find it here. As always, constructive criticism is more than welcome. Without further ado, I give you the first half of Living Legend, because starting off with the second half is usually inadvisable.
~~~
People around the world rejoice. Parish, Crown Prince of Destruction, and his Unnatural Army were defeated. His flying black tower fortress exploded in a technomagic display of colours and unimaginable heat. His mad plan to unite the Elder Evils within himself has failed, the crash of his fortress into Dalen's capital has been averted. Once again, the world of Rivia is safe.
But a hefty price was paid. Four heroes, the likes of which haven't been born for 1,000 years and the likes of which won't be born for 1,000 more, entered Parish's fortress, defeated him and destroyed his tower. Only two returned: Thanarch of the Eternal Forest, warpriest of the Anshathièph, and Verilee Fights-Like-Lion, huntress of the Veldt Elves. The beautiful young starwitch Helena fell in combat, slain by Parish's own hand. And, more importantly, their leader, the man that brought them all together, the hero of Westwind and liberator of Pareia, Terric Ravenfield, also known as the Red Raven, sacrificed his life to bring an end to the Crown Prince of Destruction. The Red Raven, who went from a small-time blacksmith's apprentice to the finest swordsman in the Western Kingdoms, failed to spread his wings in time.
Or so it seems.
~~~
Falling, falling at the speed of a shooting star. Before his eye, Parish himself. With hair like wildfire and eyes like glaciers. As beautiful as a sunset and as horrible as the screams of a thousand dying children. A vicious snarl parts the Prince's face as he hits him with his fists, clad in armor so black it swallows the light. Again and again he is hit. It makes no difference to him. The battle is over. His eye wanders down to regard his hands, firmly clutching the hilt of the sword buried in Parish's chest. And then a little to the side to stare at the ground coming closer at ridiculous speed. Quite soon this would be over. He closes his eye and starts to pour his entire life into the one spell he knows. And as the Blade of Fire sears Parish's flesh, burns him from the inside out, a serene smile shows on his own face.
Then, no more falling.
He awakens. Pain. A thousand cuts and bruises on his skin. Pain. Something cool runs over his forehead. Pain. He tries to turn away. Pain.
“Don't move.”
But there is nowhere to move to anyway. The agony is everywhere, it is omnipotent, a cruel god out for petty revenge. His lips twitch. Pain. Is this his purgatory, the cleansing of his sins before he is allowed at the Divine Court?
Who is this woman, tormenting him by cleaning his wounds? A word flickers through his mind. A face. He tries to open his eye. Pain. He tries to whisper her name. Pain.
“No, my hero, I'm not her. Try to rest a while longer, you will need all your strength to heal.” To heal? But what for? The Crown Prince of Destruction is defeated. Thanarch and Lion made it out. Oh Gods, give that they made it out. If not, his sacrifice, his agony, it would all be in vain.
But isn't it already? The woman called him a hero. As the others and him rose towards the tower, the world stood as one and looked after them. Dead, he's a hero. A legend, even. Alive, though? What is there left? Parish's defeat was the apex of his life, his sacrifice the greatest deed he ever did. His return into the world of the living would not only lessen his own glory, it would lessen the death of Helena as well. A tear rolls down his cheek. Pain.
~~~
He awakens. He can't tell how many days he's been lying there, wherever there is, but this time he feels less agony than before. The lid of his one remaining eye flutters, and very slowly it opens. The room is darkened, thankfully, because even the dim light burns after the sheltering blackness inside of his head. Slowly the green orb of his eye wanders around. There is very little to see. It's a plain stone cabin, sparsely decorated. The open door shows a view of a conifer forest. He has seen that forest before, but the name escapes him.
There she is, entering through the door with another bundle of herbs to cure his wounds with. Aidleaves, he guesses. Their healing powers are quite potent. If she has been treating him with them all that time, the damage done to his body must have been unimaginable for him to still be in this bedridden state. She hasn't given up on him, but why? He's dead to the world, and it's better that way.
If he'd care about it, he would notice she's quite beautiful. Blonde waves of hair, intense blue eyes, skin as creamy and pure as milk. She still has all her teeth, which he can see as she smiles at him and comes over. “Finally able to open your eye, yes? That's good, good. You were taking your time, yes?” She pulls the sheet off him, and a groan builds somewhere in his lungs, only to die halfway up his throat. Pain.
There's not a patch of unscathed skin on his entire body. Everything is cut, burned away or bruised. From his point of view he can see where Parish's enormous flanged mace broke his arm, shortly before their descent. The bone has been skilfully readjusted, but the wound where the bone broke out of his body is still visible. “I fixed that up. Don't want it to be crooked, yes?” While he thinks, she works. Her slender hands exchange the bandages with the expertise of a healer. All that time she talks to him in her cute little accent and asks him questions that are none. Strangely, he is not annoyed the least. With a quiet sigh, he eventually drifts off, her voice calming like the patter of rain.
~~~
The Unnatural towers over the body of the master blacksmith. He, still almost a child, clutches the heavy iron sword with all his strength. The Unnatural turns towards him, the numerous bladed appendages protruding from its chest constantly twitching and rubbing against each other like an insect trying to clean its legs. The man within the harness has long since passed away, and still he is driven forward by the twisted machinery. One of the man's eyes is replaced by an array of lenses, wired to a box at the back of his head. He swallows and backs up further until he can feel the warm stone wall of the forge in his back. This thing is going to kill him, he just knows it. As the Unnatural closes in, tears start to flow, leaving streaks in his sooty face.
He awakens. And sits before he knows how. Shocked, he prepares to cry out in agony, only to find that there is none. He hasn't thought back to that day in years, mostly because it's not a fond memory. The Unnatural defeated him and left him for dead. By the time he woke up again, the Unnatural Army had murdered half the village.
He notices that he has balled his fist. A cut on his hand has opened up and bleeds onto the sheets. His saviour is nowhere to be seen, but there's a bundle of aidleaves on the table over there. With a groan, he turns and plants his feet on the floor.
An hour later, she finds him sitting at the table – shaking and sweaty, but sitting there anyway. She crosses her arms and smiles. “That's good. Now that you found the strength to get up, we can finally start to put you to work, yes?”
~~~
With unbridled fury he throws the axe across the small clearing that accommodates Grecia's cabin. It gets stuck in one of the pines, the shaft vibrating from the raw force, and he stares at it, concentrates all his hate and loathing on it. Damnit, he's sick of splitting wood. Damnit, he's sick of doing everything around here. What for? What should he get healthy and strong for? The world doesn't need a hero anymore! The great evil has been defeated. No one needs a hero in a time of piece. No one. Unless...
A soft hand wraps around his biceps, trembling with barely suppressed bloodlust, and he closes his eyes. Grecia. He can smell the herbs she worked with. A smell of earth and vitality. Her voice sounds amused. “Maybe this isn't what you were cut out for. True. But maybe, just maybe, I can provide you with something that suits your tastes more, yes?”
~~~
He stares into the room, dumbfounded. Out of all the things he expected, this was not one of them. She chuckles and gives him a little push inside. “Go ahead. It hasn't seen any use since my father died.” And indeed, the hammers and tongs, the anvil and furnace have all gathered a thick layer of dust. Well, not all of it. With raised eyebrows he regards the plain wooden chests in the back of the forge (for that is what this place is) and the trail of fresh footprints that lead to them. He turns to face her, and she clears her throat in embarrassment. “There... there's been an abundance of scrap metal recently. The tower practically rained down on this forest, yes?” He gives her a long look before shrugging. The metal that Parish used was of the highest quality, true. Maybe, he muses as he goes to open one of the boxes, it can be used for something-
He literally jumps as he sees what's inside the box. Spiked pauldrons, cruel-looking gauntlets and a cuirass depicting a Cerberus standing on his hind legs – the so-called “rampant attitude” - in horrible detail. The rampant Cerberus is, or rather was, the heraldic animal of the Prince. It's not surprising to find it on this armour. After all, it's Parish's own. His reaction earns him another chuckle from Grecia. “Don't be silly. It's not like he's still inside of it, yes? He's well and truly dead, I can assure you.”
It's truly foolish to be scared of a piece of armour. This is what he tells himself over and over as he reaches out to touch the cuirass. Ironically, he notes, his sword has pierced both the Cerberus and Parish right through the heart, if either of them ever had one. Something else in the chest catches his attention – a glint of gold within the pitch black darkness. A smile parts his face, quickly making room for a mournful expression as he pulls out the bent and broken remains of Yngvarr, the legendary blade of the First King. It withstood the ages without a dent, it slew Parish, but not even Yngvarr could survive a fall like this. Not only that, but it must have been the first thing to hit the ground, taking both his own weight and the one of Parish on its tip. By himself he suspects that it sacrificed its own power to safe his life. With a frown he reaches up and touches the jagged scars that run over his left eye socket. It didn't do him much good, now did it? He can remember Parish digging into his flesh with those accursed gauntlets... With a quiet curse he drops the golden hilt back into the pile of scraps.
“I really am sorry about your eye.” It's not the first time she said that, and it's not the first time he answers with a grunt. Unsurprisingly, he spots his own armor in the box as well, the red lacquered cuirass with the bird motif. On its chest the coat of arms he chose for himself, the rising black raven. Just like everything else in the chest, it's bent out of shape by the impact. With a sigh he closes the box and turns towards her. “I can use this,” he says quietly. “But I need some time to figure out what for.” She raises an eyebrow. His voice is a rare sound indeed. “Well, you either have to be quick or take your time, yes? Winter is near. Hesitate to long, and you will be trapped here with me.” The look out of his eye, as green as the light deep inside the forest, gives her a sudden tingle. “I can imagine worse fates,” he replies.
~~~
People around the world rejoice. Parish, Crown Prince of Destruction, and his Unnatural Army were defeated. His flying black tower fortress exploded in a technomagic display of colours and unimaginable heat. His mad plan to unite the Elder Evils within himself has failed, the crash of his fortress into Dalen's capital has been averted. Once again, the world of Rivia is safe.
But a hefty price was paid. Four heroes, the likes of which haven't been born for 1,000 years and the likes of which won't be born for 1,000 more, entered Parish's fortress, defeated him and destroyed his tower. Only two returned: Thanarch of the Eternal Forest, warpriest of the Anshathièph, and Verilee Fights-Like-Lion, huntress of the Veldt Elves. The beautiful young starwitch Helena fell in combat, slain by Parish's own hand. And, more importantly, their leader, the man that brought them all together, the hero of Westwind and liberator of Pareia, Terric Ravenfield, also known as the Red Raven, sacrificed his life to bring an end to the Crown Prince of Destruction. The Red Raven, who went from a small-time blacksmith's apprentice to the finest swordsman in the Western Kingdoms, failed to spread his wings in time.
Or so it seems.
~~~
Falling, falling at the speed of a shooting star. Before his eye, Parish himself. With hair like wildfire and eyes like glaciers. As beautiful as a sunset and as horrible as the screams of a thousand dying children. A vicious snarl parts the Prince's face as he hits him with his fists, clad in armor so black it swallows the light. Again and again he is hit. It makes no difference to him. The battle is over. His eye wanders down to regard his hands, firmly clutching the hilt of the sword buried in Parish's chest. And then a little to the side to stare at the ground coming closer at ridiculous speed. Quite soon this would be over. He closes his eye and starts to pour his entire life into the one spell he knows. And as the Blade of Fire sears Parish's flesh, burns him from the inside out, a serene smile shows on his own face.
Then, no more falling.
He awakens. Pain. A thousand cuts and bruises on his skin. Pain. Something cool runs over his forehead. Pain. He tries to turn away. Pain.
“Don't move.”
But there is nowhere to move to anyway. The agony is everywhere, it is omnipotent, a cruel god out for petty revenge. His lips twitch. Pain. Is this his purgatory, the cleansing of his sins before he is allowed at the Divine Court?
Who is this woman, tormenting him by cleaning his wounds? A word flickers through his mind. A face. He tries to open his eye. Pain. He tries to whisper her name. Pain.
“No, my hero, I'm not her. Try to rest a while longer, you will need all your strength to heal.” To heal? But what for? The Crown Prince of Destruction is defeated. Thanarch and Lion made it out. Oh Gods, give that they made it out. If not, his sacrifice, his agony, it would all be in vain.
But isn't it already? The woman called him a hero. As the others and him rose towards the tower, the world stood as one and looked after them. Dead, he's a hero. A legend, even. Alive, though? What is there left? Parish's defeat was the apex of his life, his sacrifice the greatest deed he ever did. His return into the world of the living would not only lessen his own glory, it would lessen the death of Helena as well. A tear rolls down his cheek. Pain.
~~~
He awakens. He can't tell how many days he's been lying there, wherever there is, but this time he feels less agony than before. The lid of his one remaining eye flutters, and very slowly it opens. The room is darkened, thankfully, because even the dim light burns after the sheltering blackness inside of his head. Slowly the green orb of his eye wanders around. There is very little to see. It's a plain stone cabin, sparsely decorated. The open door shows a view of a conifer forest. He has seen that forest before, but the name escapes him.
There she is, entering through the door with another bundle of herbs to cure his wounds with. Aidleaves, he guesses. Their healing powers are quite potent. If she has been treating him with them all that time, the damage done to his body must have been unimaginable for him to still be in this bedridden state. She hasn't given up on him, but why? He's dead to the world, and it's better that way.
If he'd care about it, he would notice she's quite beautiful. Blonde waves of hair, intense blue eyes, skin as creamy and pure as milk. She still has all her teeth, which he can see as she smiles at him and comes over. “Finally able to open your eye, yes? That's good, good. You were taking your time, yes?” She pulls the sheet off him, and a groan builds somewhere in his lungs, only to die halfway up his throat. Pain.
There's not a patch of unscathed skin on his entire body. Everything is cut, burned away or bruised. From his point of view he can see where Parish's enormous flanged mace broke his arm, shortly before their descent. The bone has been skilfully readjusted, but the wound where the bone broke out of his body is still visible. “I fixed that up. Don't want it to be crooked, yes?” While he thinks, she works. Her slender hands exchange the bandages with the expertise of a healer. All that time she talks to him in her cute little accent and asks him questions that are none. Strangely, he is not annoyed the least. With a quiet sigh, he eventually drifts off, her voice calming like the patter of rain.
~~~
The Unnatural towers over the body of the master blacksmith. He, still almost a child, clutches the heavy iron sword with all his strength. The Unnatural turns towards him, the numerous bladed appendages protruding from its chest constantly twitching and rubbing against each other like an insect trying to clean its legs. The man within the harness has long since passed away, and still he is driven forward by the twisted machinery. One of the man's eyes is replaced by an array of lenses, wired to a box at the back of his head. He swallows and backs up further until he can feel the warm stone wall of the forge in his back. This thing is going to kill him, he just knows it. As the Unnatural closes in, tears start to flow, leaving streaks in his sooty face.
He awakens. And sits before he knows how. Shocked, he prepares to cry out in agony, only to find that there is none. He hasn't thought back to that day in years, mostly because it's not a fond memory. The Unnatural defeated him and left him for dead. By the time he woke up again, the Unnatural Army had murdered half the village.
He notices that he has balled his fist. A cut on his hand has opened up and bleeds onto the sheets. His saviour is nowhere to be seen, but there's a bundle of aidleaves on the table over there. With a groan, he turns and plants his feet on the floor.
An hour later, she finds him sitting at the table – shaking and sweaty, but sitting there anyway. She crosses her arms and smiles. “That's good. Now that you found the strength to get up, we can finally start to put you to work, yes?”
~~~
With unbridled fury he throws the axe across the small clearing that accommodates Grecia's cabin. It gets stuck in one of the pines, the shaft vibrating from the raw force, and he stares at it, concentrates all his hate and loathing on it. Damnit, he's sick of splitting wood. Damnit, he's sick of doing everything around here. What for? What should he get healthy and strong for? The world doesn't need a hero anymore! The great evil has been defeated. No one needs a hero in a time of piece. No one. Unless...
A soft hand wraps around his biceps, trembling with barely suppressed bloodlust, and he closes his eyes. Grecia. He can smell the herbs she worked with. A smell of earth and vitality. Her voice sounds amused. “Maybe this isn't what you were cut out for. True. But maybe, just maybe, I can provide you with something that suits your tastes more, yes?”
~~~
He stares into the room, dumbfounded. Out of all the things he expected, this was not one of them. She chuckles and gives him a little push inside. “Go ahead. It hasn't seen any use since my father died.” And indeed, the hammers and tongs, the anvil and furnace have all gathered a thick layer of dust. Well, not all of it. With raised eyebrows he regards the plain wooden chests in the back of the forge (for that is what this place is) and the trail of fresh footprints that lead to them. He turns to face her, and she clears her throat in embarrassment. “There... there's been an abundance of scrap metal recently. The tower practically rained down on this forest, yes?” He gives her a long look before shrugging. The metal that Parish used was of the highest quality, true. Maybe, he muses as he goes to open one of the boxes, it can be used for something-
He literally jumps as he sees what's inside the box. Spiked pauldrons, cruel-looking gauntlets and a cuirass depicting a Cerberus standing on his hind legs – the so-called “rampant attitude” - in horrible detail. The rampant Cerberus is, or rather was, the heraldic animal of the Prince. It's not surprising to find it on this armour. After all, it's Parish's own. His reaction earns him another chuckle from Grecia. “Don't be silly. It's not like he's still inside of it, yes? He's well and truly dead, I can assure you.”
It's truly foolish to be scared of a piece of armour. This is what he tells himself over and over as he reaches out to touch the cuirass. Ironically, he notes, his sword has pierced both the Cerberus and Parish right through the heart, if either of them ever had one. Something else in the chest catches his attention – a glint of gold within the pitch black darkness. A smile parts his face, quickly making room for a mournful expression as he pulls out the bent and broken remains of Yngvarr, the legendary blade of the First King. It withstood the ages without a dent, it slew Parish, but not even Yngvarr could survive a fall like this. Not only that, but it must have been the first thing to hit the ground, taking both his own weight and the one of Parish on its tip. By himself he suspects that it sacrificed its own power to safe his life. With a frown he reaches up and touches the jagged scars that run over his left eye socket. It didn't do him much good, now did it? He can remember Parish digging into his flesh with those accursed gauntlets... With a quiet curse he drops the golden hilt back into the pile of scraps.
“I really am sorry about your eye.” It's not the first time she said that, and it's not the first time he answers with a grunt. Unsurprisingly, he spots his own armor in the box as well, the red lacquered cuirass with the bird motif. On its chest the coat of arms he chose for himself, the rising black raven. Just like everything else in the chest, it's bent out of shape by the impact. With a sigh he closes the box and turns towards her. “I can use this,” he says quietly. “But I need some time to figure out what for.” She raises an eyebrow. His voice is a rare sound indeed. “Well, you either have to be quick or take your time, yes? Winter is near. Hesitate to long, and you will be trapped here with me.” The look out of his eye, as green as the light deep inside the forest, gives her a sudden tingle. “I can imagine worse fates,” he replies.
Last edited: