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As the Prince died, so did the future of the smaller kingdoms allied in the battle of Kells Valley, and no matter how hard the rest of the armies fought, their strikes had lost their edge against the [[Ageless]]. Their will to fight was still there, but somehow their bodies lost the strength to carry through. Their attack force was utterly and brutally decimated by the [[Ageless]] force after the fall of the Prince that day.
'''Chapter 3: The Long Road'''
With the Prince dead and the armies of the lesser allied kingdoms decimated, the forces of the [[Ageless]] pushed forward and wiped out the human villages leaving only a few survivors in their wake. Even the villagers who had attempted to flee for the hills and forests ended up being wiped out by the rapidly progressing lines of [[Ageless]] forces. The following morning after the fighting had passed and the kingdoms of Rinn, Tarjin, and Cylhesh, were reduced to little more than ash and rubble, the few survivors staggered out of the ruins that was once their homes and shops and banded together as they buried their dead.
The threat of the [[Ageless]] potentially coming back through, forced the survivors to abandon their location and seek refuge somewhere where there was human armies still able to fight and defend. With the decision made to head for the kingdom of Brenth in the south the survivors returned to the battlefield where their allied forces had fallen and hopelessly looked for more survivors and wounded.
The battlefield was a wasteland of the dead surrounding the still kneeling Prince or Rinn. The survivors found no life here and yet they felt a sense of awe at the sight of the Prince’s body still kneeling when all around were fallen and laid out on the ground. They knew the Prince was dead, but when they approached and looked into his helmet, they could not see a face. One of the survivors removed the helm of the Shadow Wraith armor and inside found nothing at all. The body of Prince Lehimn had been completely destroyed.
After offering some prayers for the fallen, the survivors gathered what they could and knowing the stories of its power on the battlefield they collected the armor, and its companion sword and shield and made their way to the kingdom of Brenth where they would present it to King Garr in exchange for allowing them to join and live under the protection of his kingdom.
Brenth was a good size kingdom a fair distance to the south of the southern plains which the journey by horse would take a good week, but the survivors from Cylhesh, Rinn, and Tarjin were on foot and pulling three carts of what supplies they could put together for the journey.
Early in their journey to Brenth the survivors encountered a group of highwaymen intending to rob them. Along with any monies, and jewelry, the thieves took the groups food and the Shadow Wraith set, leaving the kingdom survivors with too few provisions to make the entire trek to Brenth.
Two days had passed since the robbery and a few of the survivors were out hunting and gathering to try and make up for the lost food when one of them stumbled upon a small encampment with a smoldering campfire in the middle that had burned down to a few embers. The hunter could see bodies lying on the ground with trails of blood coming from a small rock cliff. As he carefully approached the other end of the blood trail he found a concealed opening in the rocky face that led into a large fairly open cave with with a portion of the ceiling collapsed letting daylight in.
In the middle if the cave was the Shadow Wraith armor sitting on a large flat rock that had fallen from the ceiling onto other debris making it into a natural table like structure. Around the cave were still lit torches and on the floor of the cave more bodies.
The hunter noticed one of the highwaymen was still barely alive and leaning up against the wall. He approached the thief with his hunting knife drawn and the man looked up at him and said, “It killed us for our blood.” The dying man pointed toward the sword laying on the ground still clutched by another and then died.
No one knows if the highwaymen knew about the Shadow Wraith set before taking it, but they would never profit from the venture.
The hunter then found what was left of their food supplies, gathered them up along with the Shadow Wraith set and their money and other items, then returned to the group to tell them what he found.
The group of survivors continued on their way and midway through had to endure nature’s fury as strong seasonal storms had forced them to seek shelter. They set up a makeshift camp under a rock outcropping where they used their carts and a bunch of furs tied together to keep the wind at bay.
The Shadow Wraith set was secured in one of the carts and a bolt of lightning came down on top of it during the storm, striking it. The lightning strike itself was terrifying enough, as it had knocked out a few of the group and left the rest hurting down to the bone, but no serious injuries resulted, but soon the group would find a much more frightening effect from the strike that hit their small encampment.
That following night the group noticed that the helmet, sword, and shield of the Shadow Wraith set were glowing with a bright blue hue. Afraid the items were deadly to touch they left them as they were on the cart.
The storms lasted nearly two full days, but allowed the group to reorganize and shore up their water and food provisions. After traveling several more days they noticed that the hue of the Shadow Wraith glow had become more of a purple and remained that way for most of the journey to Brenth.
The group was almost five days out from the kingdom of Brenth when they were ambushed by four ruthless mercenaries. They were there for the Shadow Wraith set but did not say who had hired them to retrieve it.
The survivors offered no real resistance to the mercenaries as all they had were some makeshift bows and hunting knives, and no training to go up against these brutes. They opened up the furs hiding the Shadow Wraith set and got out of the way as the mercenaries began to gather up the pieces.
Their leader seemed to take a shine to the still glowing sword which he grabbed and as he lifted it and began to swing it like he wanted to test it out on one of them, its glow shifted from purple to deep red and strange red energetic tendrils quickly emerged and struck almost everyone.
Only a few had remained untouched as the others were quickly rendered unconscious by the strange energy that seemed to suck the victim's life force into it. The mercenary who held the sword was dead, and was the only one killed by the effect. By the time everyone had regained consciousness, the strange glow of the sword was gone.
No one, not even the other three mercenaries wanted to touch the killer sword. The group used a fur to wrap the sword up and put it back in the cart. They felt weak, but were able to continue forward and the other three mercenaries did not give them any further trouble as their leader was dead and they knew that attempting to take the Shadow Wraith set was not worth the risk.
Weary and hungry, the group of survivors arrived at Brenth and they were granted an audience with the King of Brenth to provide details about the fall of their kingdoms to the [[Ageless]]. Finally, they presented the King with the armor and told him and his court everything they knew about it. The survivors were welcomed as refugees into the kingdom and the King ordered his court’s priest to oversee the construction of a chamber in the treasure room that could ward against any strange effects the Shadow Wraith set might still possess.
''To Be Continued...''
