ChelonianCommander
Strength of Steel, Will of Iron
During the year of 7812, Britain was in a horrible bit of political strife as the king of Britain had died, but left no male heir, only a beautiful young daughter by the name of Claricia Laclau. Due to the laws of Britain, if a king dies and leaves no male heir then the eldest daughter must come up with a quest for the Briatin’s thousands of knights and the first one to complete her quest will take her hand in marriage. However Claricia had no intention of giving up her position of power, as without a king or prince she was now in control of quite literally everything political and military within Britain. She gave an impossible task, but without making it seems so. The task she proclaimed was to go out and slay the Dragon Caliburn. This was an impossible task as Caliburn was the magical living sword of the first king of Britain but after generations of bloody battle after bloody battle the sword turned into a crazed monster with metal skin, molten metal for blood, sword like claws and dagger like teeth. Thousands of knights had tried to slay the beast but all were killed while trying. However that was not the problem. The problem was that Caliburn has not been seen for centuries since the year 6975. But superstitions aside the majority of knights saw this as a truly worthy task and they sent off to slay Caliburn.
However one knight saw through her ruse. One knight named Brion du Chastel met with Claricia and told her that he understood the game that she was playing and told her that this was a chance for the two to gain much power indeed. They devised a plan in secret, one that required summoning forth the Grail Lady, the goddess of Britain. It happens to be that Brion was a rather adept mage, as well as a knight, and he possessed a secret artifact that will help them with their task. First they summoned the Grail Lady by contacting her the priesthood’s faeries, asking for to come over the royal castle for dinner, which she answered to. The Grail Lady came by the castle and was presented with a wondrous feast, as the staff made the very best food they can as they were told they were going to be serving the Grail Lady herself. As per custom traditions of Britain politeness, the Grail Lady was served a mild soup, but before she could be served Brion had put a weak sleeping poison in not just the soup but in every dish to be served to the Grail Lady without the servants noticing. At the end of the meal, the Lady was overcome with a wave of tiredness and soon collapsed into a deep slumber. With the Lady unconscious, Brion and Claricia put the second part of their plan into motion.
Brion and Claricia placed the unconscious Grail Lady into a carriage with covered windows and they took the carriage to an ancient wizard’s tower, with Claricia administering the sleeping poison whenever the Grail Lady roused. Normally a ruined wizard’s tower would be easy for something to exit and enter but what people didn’t know was that the tower was now the new home of Caliburn, the living sword. Brion had found this tower several years ago, and the reason he wasn’t torn apart by Caliburn was because on him was Caliburns hilt, which he had thugs, spies and other such individuals for decades, only to find it within the Border Empire’s magical treasuries, who had found it centuries ago and had kept it to use as leverage against Britain should the need arises. With Caliburn’s hilt in hand the Monster recognized Brion as its master and let him into the tower, with Grail Lady in toe. He placed her in the highest chamber and locked the door behind him. Normally the Grail Lady would be able to free herself rather easily but Brion had spent years remaking the tower, making its bars out of Caliburn’s molten blood, which forged bars and doors made of magical iron, which the Lady couldn’t break as she enchanted Caliburn millennia ago to never chip or shatter, even by the original enchanter as she had found out. With the Grail Lady firmly locked up, Brion and Clarcia put their final step into effect. After paying some thugs and ruffians to scour Britain’s ruins to find an ancient sword, Brion used Caliburn’s blood yet again to forge the sword into looking like new. Clarcia had already gone back to the castle and a month later, Brion marched into the castle, calling forth everyone he can, he holds up the sword claiming it was Caliburn in its true form as he had slain the beast. Many were skeptical and many challenged Brion, but he proved them all wrong when he shattered even the most enchanted of blades with his newly acquired weapon. Fulfilling the quest, Brion married Clarcia and the two began to rule Britain into an age known as the Decade of Red.
During the Decade of Red Brion showed his true colors of violence and sadism. With his newly forged ‘Caliburn’ began a series of partying and drunken challenges. He would begin to abuse his new power of kingship to do literally whatever he wanted. He didn’t care for politics or military leadership or even being king. He simply wished to fight, party and do whatever he wished while Clarcia did all of the silly things such as tax the peasantry and make sure Britain’s borders were secure. Brion began to invite dozens of knights into the Royal Castle for a feast and after a few drinks he would challenge all of them into honor duels by insulting each and every one of them personally and with his new sword he would slaughter them all in messy fashion. If they survived the battle he would then chop off their arms and legs then attach the legs of chairs or tables to the stumps in order for them to attempt to hobble back home only to die a few days later due to starvation or infection. Those who had the fortunate luck of dying immediately were no better off as their bodies would be stuck to a wooden post, their family coat of arms defaced and then hung just outside the city streets for all to see. Brion himself was becoming more and more feared by the populous and by the knights as he began to make more and more outlandish demands otherwise he would punish them in a horrific way. To fund these lavish parties Brion had Clarcia tax the peasantry more and more to the point where entire cities had to disband their militia and families would need to give up 9/10 of whatever they harvested or earned, and mass starvation and murderous crime became rampant across the land. However Clarcia wasn’t able to defy Brion as she was sure he would simply kill her if she ever raised her voice against him.
Things weren’t better for the Grail Lady as he could hear the prayers and wishes of the starving peasants and dying Knights all around Britain, asking her to denounce and remove the current king and queen of Britain to end this Age of Red, but as she was unable to do anything, worship of her began to die out and she grew weaker and weaker. She still had some of her power however and using what little power she had left, she was able to manipulate the dreams of strong and powerful knights, lureing them to her tower in the hopes they were able to kill Caliburn and free her. However, after a decade, dozens of knights had been lured to the tower and all of them had perished. Soon she began to believe that there was a knight alive that was able to slay her unwanted guardian. A month after the last attempt, she had quit attempting to lure in Knights as she grew tired of watching knights become needlessly slaughtered for her sake and she began to lose hope. Just then she heard the sound of metal footsteps and the rattle of metal armor. She poked her head through the magical iron bars to see a knight with glowing green eyes, twice the size of normal man, with steel armor embedded with emerald gems and shards and holding a large emerald shield and axe. She immediately knew what this newcomer was, a Void Born, a relatively new race of undead souls bound in armor that was discovered with the Border Empire just roughly two centuries ago. This particular Void Born just happens to be the, what the Border Empire called the Emerald Knight, the first Void Born and the de facto leader of the Void Born.
Normally Britain would immediately begin hunting down and killing off all forms of unholy creatures such as the Void Born, but with the lack of law and rise of crime within the country, the Emerald Knight had travelled into Britain in search of adventure as he has been known to do every century or so to break the monotony of politics. He had heard that many knights had travelled to save the Grail Lady but none had returned. Intrigued by these rumors he followed the trails left by these knights, and eventually came upon a clearing harboring the decaying corpses of knights, the mad sword Caliburn and the tower which held the Grail Lady prisoner. Caliburn saw the Emerald Knight and without a second thought rushed the Knight with fang and claws. The Knight responded by raising his shield and axe, and matched the creature’s strength and speed with his power and experience. At first she simply believed that the Knight would eventually fall to the creature, as there were many knights who were more noble and pure who were slain by Caliburn and this unholy abomination would surely be the same. To her surprise however the Void Born had managed to fight Caliburn for over an hour without letting up, much longer than any knight that had faced the creature, even managing to put the creature on the defensive several times and chip it’s supposed unbreakable armor. Still the battle was a stalemate, and while the Emerald Knight fought hard he was unable to land a solid killing blow. As the Knight fought, the Grail Lady felt hope beginning to rekindle within her. The brave undead Knight needed a boon, a single boon to turn the battle into its favor. She quickly thought a solution. Biting her thumb, and pulling out a lock of her blond hair, she covered the lock with her godly blood and threw the bloody mess into the battleground. After being drenched in blood so many times, Caliburn eternally craved it, almost like an addiction. The smell of the godly blood being thrown onto the battlefield was so tempting for the creature, that it turned to investigate and in that moment, the Emerald Knight had his chance. He jumped onto the creature and using his massive strength, strangled the creature until it breathed no longer. With the creature cold and dead, the Emerald Knight then bent open the bars and doors that held the Lady hostage. The Lady was fairly surprised as a beast such as Caliburn finally fell, not to a knight, but to an undead monster. The Emerald Knight knelt down to look her in the eyes and asked why she was locked up here. The Grail Lady told the Emerald Knight her and Britain’s plight and she requested the Knight’s aid to help her reclaim her domain the lack of Grail Worship had weakened her significantly. Agreeing to help the Grail Lady in her time of need, the Emerald Knight took her upon his shoulder and began a campaign to retake Britain from Clarcia and Brion.
For a year the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight worked together to right many of the wrongs in Britain. The Grail Lady would listen to the wishes and prayers of the people and lead the Emerald Knight to the town in need of help, where he would begin to clear out Brigand hideouts and monster dens to end the peasant’s harassments while the Grail Lady would use what little power she had to make crops grow in but a single minute or create a small spring of water to trickle from the ground, to feed the starving people of Britain. As the two went around helping others, the Grail Lady began to see the Emerald Knight not as a means to an end, but as a loyal companion and respected his fighting prowess, despite his undead nature, and the Emerald Knight began to see her not as just a damsel, but as a kind figure with a some unconditional love for all things living. Eventually the Grail Church was at its previous power and with its rise, so did the Grail Lady’s powers. Now with the people behind her she led the Emerald Knight back to the tower which had held her captive. Confused, the Emerald Knight asked their purpose her, and without a word she goes up to the corpse of Caliburn and with a single touch the beast’s heart began to pump and Caliburn reawakened. The Emerald Knight reached for his axe, but the Grail Lady told him to not worry. Now that the Emerald Knight had killed Caliburn, the beast is now bonded to him, and will now follow his every word. She told him that he would need to strike down the King and Queen to end the Age of Red, and she while she couldn’t directly help him, gifting him the mount Caliburn was the least she could do. She then told him that she once thought that no living knight would be able to kill Caliburn and she was glad she was correct. Blowing the Emerald Knight a kiss to give him her blessing she wished him fortune on his task. Thanking her and promising to be victorious, he mounted Caliburn and prepared for the final path of his journey. She in turn told him that when the dark deed was done, to wait for her for she will carry with her the future of Britain in her arms when they next meet.
For days the Emerald Knight rode towards the capital and when he reached the walled city he met with the Royal Army, an elite force of elite peasant and personal Knights stood in the path of the Emerald Knight. On top of the newly obtained Caliburn however, the Emerald Knight rode through the Royal Army with relative ease, charging through repeated arrow volleys and crushing all who stands in their way with Caliburn’s metal limbs. Finally after breaking through the army, and burning down the wooden gates and castle door, the Emerald Knight reached the castle’s throne room where the Brion was waiting for him, sitting on top of the king’s throne. Brion didn’t make any attempt to run, as did Clarcia several days earlier and was hoping to challenge the Emerald Knight in single combat. He wore the hilt of Caliburn around his neck to make sure the Emerald Knight didn’t attempt anything tricky with his new mount, and he was sure he was able to defeat the Knight with his own Caliburn blade. However while Brion was still just a man, the Emerald Knight towered over him and had at least three times the strength, and with a single swing of his emerald axe, he cleaved downward with such strength it broke Brion’s arm, and with a second he severed the King’s head from his body. With the King now dead, the Emerald Knight took the false Caliburn as proof Brion’s death and then he waited for the Grail Lady to return. No one knows what happened to Clarcia, but it is known that she have given birth to a prince while the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight was helping the greater populous and was hoping to escape to the Border Empire until everything settle down. It is popular belief that she was met with the Grail Lady who took the baby from her hands and turned her into a crow as punishment for her actions.
A day after Brion’s death the Grail Lady did indeed return with the rightful heir to the throne, but since the future king was just a baby the Grail Lady needed to now take matters into her own hands. She asks if the Emerald Knight if she could help her rebuild her country, and he didn’t hesitate to say yes. The Grail Lady took the Knight’s hand and together they ran this country with the Lady tending to the needs of the peasants and the Knight silencing any Knight who callanged the rule of the Royal Family usually through intimidation now that he has Caliburn by his side. The two worked in tandem raising the baby Jaquob until the he finally grew until a fine young man, both growing closer as the years flew by. Finally when Jaquob was of age he was crowned king by the Grail Lady, an event that has only happened once during the crowning of Britain’s first king and he led Britain into a new Golden Age for many decades to come. During this time, with their task of saving Britain done the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight still see each other from time to time, at least once every month as the Grail Lady is bound in Britain and the Emerald Knight’s loyalties were to the Border Empire. Still their journeys and adventures had blossomed an eternal love, experience only by ageless beings and despite the political slander from a province governor being in a relationship with a literal goddess and well as the religious slander from the Lady being involved in a romance with an undead being despite undead being considered abominations within Britain, the Emerald Knight nor the Lady has regretted this choice to be forever together.
However one knight saw through her ruse. One knight named Brion du Chastel met with Claricia and told her that he understood the game that she was playing and told her that this was a chance for the two to gain much power indeed. They devised a plan in secret, one that required summoning forth the Grail Lady, the goddess of Britain. It happens to be that Brion was a rather adept mage, as well as a knight, and he possessed a secret artifact that will help them with their task. First they summoned the Grail Lady by contacting her the priesthood’s faeries, asking for to come over the royal castle for dinner, which she answered to. The Grail Lady came by the castle and was presented with a wondrous feast, as the staff made the very best food they can as they were told they were going to be serving the Grail Lady herself. As per custom traditions of Britain politeness, the Grail Lady was served a mild soup, but before she could be served Brion had put a weak sleeping poison in not just the soup but in every dish to be served to the Grail Lady without the servants noticing. At the end of the meal, the Lady was overcome with a wave of tiredness and soon collapsed into a deep slumber. With the Lady unconscious, Brion and Claricia put the second part of their plan into motion.
Brion and Claricia placed the unconscious Grail Lady into a carriage with covered windows and they took the carriage to an ancient wizard’s tower, with Claricia administering the sleeping poison whenever the Grail Lady roused. Normally a ruined wizard’s tower would be easy for something to exit and enter but what people didn’t know was that the tower was now the new home of Caliburn, the living sword. Brion had found this tower several years ago, and the reason he wasn’t torn apart by Caliburn was because on him was Caliburns hilt, which he had thugs, spies and other such individuals for decades, only to find it within the Border Empire’s magical treasuries, who had found it centuries ago and had kept it to use as leverage against Britain should the need arises. With Caliburn’s hilt in hand the Monster recognized Brion as its master and let him into the tower, with Grail Lady in toe. He placed her in the highest chamber and locked the door behind him. Normally the Grail Lady would be able to free herself rather easily but Brion had spent years remaking the tower, making its bars out of Caliburn’s molten blood, which forged bars and doors made of magical iron, which the Lady couldn’t break as she enchanted Caliburn millennia ago to never chip or shatter, even by the original enchanter as she had found out. With the Grail Lady firmly locked up, Brion and Clarcia put their final step into effect. After paying some thugs and ruffians to scour Britain’s ruins to find an ancient sword, Brion used Caliburn’s blood yet again to forge the sword into looking like new. Clarcia had already gone back to the castle and a month later, Brion marched into the castle, calling forth everyone he can, he holds up the sword claiming it was Caliburn in its true form as he had slain the beast. Many were skeptical and many challenged Brion, but he proved them all wrong when he shattered even the most enchanted of blades with his newly acquired weapon. Fulfilling the quest, Brion married Clarcia and the two began to rule Britain into an age known as the Decade of Red.
During the Decade of Red Brion showed his true colors of violence and sadism. With his newly forged ‘Caliburn’ began a series of partying and drunken challenges. He would begin to abuse his new power of kingship to do literally whatever he wanted. He didn’t care for politics or military leadership or even being king. He simply wished to fight, party and do whatever he wished while Clarcia did all of the silly things such as tax the peasantry and make sure Britain’s borders were secure. Brion began to invite dozens of knights into the Royal Castle for a feast and after a few drinks he would challenge all of them into honor duels by insulting each and every one of them personally and with his new sword he would slaughter them all in messy fashion. If they survived the battle he would then chop off their arms and legs then attach the legs of chairs or tables to the stumps in order for them to attempt to hobble back home only to die a few days later due to starvation or infection. Those who had the fortunate luck of dying immediately were no better off as their bodies would be stuck to a wooden post, their family coat of arms defaced and then hung just outside the city streets for all to see. Brion himself was becoming more and more feared by the populous and by the knights as he began to make more and more outlandish demands otherwise he would punish them in a horrific way. To fund these lavish parties Brion had Clarcia tax the peasantry more and more to the point where entire cities had to disband their militia and families would need to give up 9/10 of whatever they harvested or earned, and mass starvation and murderous crime became rampant across the land. However Clarcia wasn’t able to defy Brion as she was sure he would simply kill her if she ever raised her voice against him.
Things weren’t better for the Grail Lady as he could hear the prayers and wishes of the starving peasants and dying Knights all around Britain, asking her to denounce and remove the current king and queen of Britain to end this Age of Red, but as she was unable to do anything, worship of her began to die out and she grew weaker and weaker. She still had some of her power however and using what little power she had left, she was able to manipulate the dreams of strong and powerful knights, lureing them to her tower in the hopes they were able to kill Caliburn and free her. However, after a decade, dozens of knights had been lured to the tower and all of them had perished. Soon she began to believe that there was a knight alive that was able to slay her unwanted guardian. A month after the last attempt, she had quit attempting to lure in Knights as she grew tired of watching knights become needlessly slaughtered for her sake and she began to lose hope. Just then she heard the sound of metal footsteps and the rattle of metal armor. She poked her head through the magical iron bars to see a knight with glowing green eyes, twice the size of normal man, with steel armor embedded with emerald gems and shards and holding a large emerald shield and axe. She immediately knew what this newcomer was, a Void Born, a relatively new race of undead souls bound in armor that was discovered with the Border Empire just roughly two centuries ago. This particular Void Born just happens to be the, what the Border Empire called the Emerald Knight, the first Void Born and the de facto leader of the Void Born.
Normally Britain would immediately begin hunting down and killing off all forms of unholy creatures such as the Void Born, but with the lack of law and rise of crime within the country, the Emerald Knight had travelled into Britain in search of adventure as he has been known to do every century or so to break the monotony of politics. He had heard that many knights had travelled to save the Grail Lady but none had returned. Intrigued by these rumors he followed the trails left by these knights, and eventually came upon a clearing harboring the decaying corpses of knights, the mad sword Caliburn and the tower which held the Grail Lady prisoner. Caliburn saw the Emerald Knight and without a second thought rushed the Knight with fang and claws. The Knight responded by raising his shield and axe, and matched the creature’s strength and speed with his power and experience. At first she simply believed that the Knight would eventually fall to the creature, as there were many knights who were more noble and pure who were slain by Caliburn and this unholy abomination would surely be the same. To her surprise however the Void Born had managed to fight Caliburn for over an hour without letting up, much longer than any knight that had faced the creature, even managing to put the creature on the defensive several times and chip it’s supposed unbreakable armor. Still the battle was a stalemate, and while the Emerald Knight fought hard he was unable to land a solid killing blow. As the Knight fought, the Grail Lady felt hope beginning to rekindle within her. The brave undead Knight needed a boon, a single boon to turn the battle into its favor. She quickly thought a solution. Biting her thumb, and pulling out a lock of her blond hair, she covered the lock with her godly blood and threw the bloody mess into the battleground. After being drenched in blood so many times, Caliburn eternally craved it, almost like an addiction. The smell of the godly blood being thrown onto the battlefield was so tempting for the creature, that it turned to investigate and in that moment, the Emerald Knight had his chance. He jumped onto the creature and using his massive strength, strangled the creature until it breathed no longer. With the creature cold and dead, the Emerald Knight then bent open the bars and doors that held the Lady hostage. The Lady was fairly surprised as a beast such as Caliburn finally fell, not to a knight, but to an undead monster. The Emerald Knight knelt down to look her in the eyes and asked why she was locked up here. The Grail Lady told the Emerald Knight her and Britain’s plight and she requested the Knight’s aid to help her reclaim her domain the lack of Grail Worship had weakened her significantly. Agreeing to help the Grail Lady in her time of need, the Emerald Knight took her upon his shoulder and began a campaign to retake Britain from Clarcia and Brion.
For a year the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight worked together to right many of the wrongs in Britain. The Grail Lady would listen to the wishes and prayers of the people and lead the Emerald Knight to the town in need of help, where he would begin to clear out Brigand hideouts and monster dens to end the peasant’s harassments while the Grail Lady would use what little power she had to make crops grow in but a single minute or create a small spring of water to trickle from the ground, to feed the starving people of Britain. As the two went around helping others, the Grail Lady began to see the Emerald Knight not as a means to an end, but as a loyal companion and respected his fighting prowess, despite his undead nature, and the Emerald Knight began to see her not as just a damsel, but as a kind figure with a some unconditional love for all things living. Eventually the Grail Church was at its previous power and with its rise, so did the Grail Lady’s powers. Now with the people behind her she led the Emerald Knight back to the tower which had held her captive. Confused, the Emerald Knight asked their purpose her, and without a word she goes up to the corpse of Caliburn and with a single touch the beast’s heart began to pump and Caliburn reawakened. The Emerald Knight reached for his axe, but the Grail Lady told him to not worry. Now that the Emerald Knight had killed Caliburn, the beast is now bonded to him, and will now follow his every word. She told him that he would need to strike down the King and Queen to end the Age of Red, and she while she couldn’t directly help him, gifting him the mount Caliburn was the least she could do. She then told him that she once thought that no living knight would be able to kill Caliburn and she was glad she was correct. Blowing the Emerald Knight a kiss to give him her blessing she wished him fortune on his task. Thanking her and promising to be victorious, he mounted Caliburn and prepared for the final path of his journey. She in turn told him that when the dark deed was done, to wait for her for she will carry with her the future of Britain in her arms when they next meet.
For days the Emerald Knight rode towards the capital and when he reached the walled city he met with the Royal Army, an elite force of elite peasant and personal Knights stood in the path of the Emerald Knight. On top of the newly obtained Caliburn however, the Emerald Knight rode through the Royal Army with relative ease, charging through repeated arrow volleys and crushing all who stands in their way with Caliburn’s metal limbs. Finally after breaking through the army, and burning down the wooden gates and castle door, the Emerald Knight reached the castle’s throne room where the Brion was waiting for him, sitting on top of the king’s throne. Brion didn’t make any attempt to run, as did Clarcia several days earlier and was hoping to challenge the Emerald Knight in single combat. He wore the hilt of Caliburn around his neck to make sure the Emerald Knight didn’t attempt anything tricky with his new mount, and he was sure he was able to defeat the Knight with his own Caliburn blade. However while Brion was still just a man, the Emerald Knight towered over him and had at least three times the strength, and with a single swing of his emerald axe, he cleaved downward with such strength it broke Brion’s arm, and with a second he severed the King’s head from his body. With the King now dead, the Emerald Knight took the false Caliburn as proof Brion’s death and then he waited for the Grail Lady to return. No one knows what happened to Clarcia, but it is known that she have given birth to a prince while the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight was helping the greater populous and was hoping to escape to the Border Empire until everything settle down. It is popular belief that she was met with the Grail Lady who took the baby from her hands and turned her into a crow as punishment for her actions.
A day after Brion’s death the Grail Lady did indeed return with the rightful heir to the throne, but since the future king was just a baby the Grail Lady needed to now take matters into her own hands. She asks if the Emerald Knight if she could help her rebuild her country, and he didn’t hesitate to say yes. The Grail Lady took the Knight’s hand and together they ran this country with the Lady tending to the needs of the peasants and the Knight silencing any Knight who callanged the rule of the Royal Family usually through intimidation now that he has Caliburn by his side. The two worked in tandem raising the baby Jaquob until the he finally grew until a fine young man, both growing closer as the years flew by. Finally when Jaquob was of age he was crowned king by the Grail Lady, an event that has only happened once during the crowning of Britain’s first king and he led Britain into a new Golden Age for many decades to come. During this time, with their task of saving Britain done the Grail Lady and the Emerald Knight still see each other from time to time, at least once every month as the Grail Lady is bound in Britain and the Emerald Knight’s loyalties were to the Border Empire. Still their journeys and adventures had blossomed an eternal love, experience only by ageless beings and despite the political slander from a province governor being in a relationship with a literal goddess and well as the religious slander from the Lady being involved in a romance with an undead being despite undead being considered abominations within Britain, the Emerald Knight nor the Lady has regretted this choice to be forever together.