Life Story
Page 1
It was a time long before the first foundation stones of Guardia Fortress were ever laid. At the furthest edge of the desert's restless sands, an elven people, long schooled in the weaving of magic into every tool they crafted, had raised a modest realm.
Prince Lucien, scion to this small realm, was surrounded by arcane instruments from his earliest days and devoted many of his long years to the study of spellcraft. With the king and queen ever attentive to his upbringing, he found both protection and counsel, while his younger sister looked upon him with adoration. Even among their most devoted retainers, he was hailed as the perfect heir, a prince whose tireless devotion to study and mastery of knowledge marked him as worthy of the throne.
But Urabe, an eastern samurai household and trading partner in their magical devices, rode upon the castle under false pretense of inspection and cruelly struck down the King and Queen. The elves, betrayed by swift ambush, strove yet to deliver Lucien and his sister from the peril, but were slain in ruthless succession by the host of invading ninja and samurai.
"If the lineage is maintained, then shall the Realm endure and not pass into ruin."
So spoke Lucien's sister, her voice ringing with stern resolve. She clad herself in the guise of her brother, and taking the chosen company of the most valiant, she charged like a gale into the very heart of the foe's host.
Lucian could not allow the steadfast courage of his sister and loyal retainers to be in vain, and so, gathering his closest aides, he fled, escaping the doom that was nigh, each step wracking him with anguish as though he were coughing up bitter blood.
Page 2
Swearing bitter vengeance against the hated samurai, the pair determined with grim purpose to conseal themselves in the lands of the East. By the counsel of his faithful aide, Lucien arrayed himself in raiment soiled and mean, feigning the lack of a voice, lest the noble cadence of his speech betray his bloodline.
And, in order to sustain the life of the trusted aide who had taken an arrow in his defense, Lucien clad himself in the tattered garb of a beggar, and gathered the meager coins by which they lived. He took upon himself the base tasks of the common folk-the cleansing of the river mud and the hauling of the manure-and through such grim labor did they cling to life.
Yet the aide, for all the succor and care bestowed upon him, found his bane in the deep wound of the arrow-shaft and passed into the beyond. It was then, in that bleak season, that the whisper of the East-wind bore chilling tidings: that the prince of that small Realm had been struck down and his head raised upon a pike.
Of all that he held dear, naught remained to Lucien in the whole of the world save his enmity. When he thought of his sister and the loyal retainers who had gone to their deaths, his heart forbade him to cast his life away in a despairing charge, loosing one final, futile arrow in repayment before dying.
He labored on, not by the will of his spirit, but borne forward by mere momentum. The beggars who shared his toil came to call the silent elf 'Yoizou' (vault of dusk), likening his unspoken presence to the enveloping darkness of nightfall.
Page 3
In time, a kindly soul came across Yoizou, who was living out his days as a simple beggar. This virtuous soul was none other than the young noble lady of the powerful samurai household that held dominion over the surrounding provinces. Seeing Yoizou, she pleaded with her lord father, arguing that his eyes were a spectacle of such profound misery that he could not be ignored.
Yoizou's mind was drawn back to an ancient memory: the sight of his sister, who had once shown grace and mercy to a starving dog, even in its wretched state. He knew the noble lady's gift of charity was devoid of any malice, and in his current shame, he retained none of the integrity that might have bid him refuse such mercy.
Yoizou was received into the great estate and granted station as one of the household manservants.
"Even a lowly roadside beggar may find ascension." Sneering inwardly at the bitter jest of his own plight, never speaking aloud, he rendered his service to the samurai household.
Yoizou applied himself to his low duties with unflagging diligence. He mastered the script of the Eastern lands and through patient, silent effort, he gradually acquired the means to communicate with those about him.
In time, he came to be recognized as an honest and diligent worker, and was accorded the great privilege of a small, solitary chamber. In the pre-dawn hours, Yoizou began to drill the forms of his fighting art with a simple wooden staff; when his toil was finished, he retired to his chamber to delve into the research of spellcraft. In this way, he found the sole means to momentarily escape the deep anguish of having protected nothing, and to dwell upon his lost realm.
Page 4
On a certain occasion, the noble lady witnessed Yoizou practicing his drills, and rejoicing that the eyes that had been full of sorrow when they first met were regaining their strength. She petitioned her lord father to grant him entry to the dojo for proper instruction. Acceding to the Lady's generosity, Yoizou learned the Eastern way of the sword. Though he was at times scorned as being born of an impure caste and envied for the blatant partiality he received, Yoizou offered no words of complaint, but instead toiled silently to hone his skills.
Though he uttered not a word himself, he listened attentively, permitting no stray whisper of the surrounding rumors and court gossip to escape his notice-such as the conditions throughout the East, the fearsome House Urabe that had subdued the surrounding domains and expanded their influence, or those of the strange magical tools they employed. From the shadowed depths of his memory, there rose the chilling image of the samurai who had brought doom upon his very father and mother.
Yoizou began sharpening his resolve. By weaving together the spellcraft of his ancestral realm with the disciplined sword arts of the East, he crafted a style of combat all his own. When there were none within the dojo who could stand with him in mastery of the blade, he came, from time to time, to be entrusted with the solemn duty of guarding the noble lady. The time spent standing sentinel over her, to whom he owed a great debt of gratitude, was the lone, subtle comfort Yoizou permitted to his heart.
In the course of time, the noble lady grew into her womanly beauty, and a marriage proposal was formally brought before her House. The one who sought her hand was none other than Yoizou's old nemesis-the lord of House Urabe.
Page 5
Should the marriage be accepted, she would become a hostage within House Urabe. But should it be rejected, it would serve as a pretext for Urabe to invade.
"I will accept."
So spoke the noble lady, her voice ringing with stern resolve. In its cadence was the echo of that day long past, when Yoizou's sister gave her own life.
Yoizou, standing sentinel in the adjoining chamber, also made his resolve upon hearing the noble lady's words. He would enact vengeance upon Urabe and honor the obligation owed to the noble lady... Yoizou donned the guise of one of the noble lady's handmaidens and accompanied her bridal palanquin. At the bottom of the wardrobe within the palanquin, he had secreted arcane implements and a great store of blasting powder.
Only a handful of days after the princess was given in marriage, the Urabe estates were engulfed in flames. As the lord of the house sought flight through a secret passage, his path was barred by a lone elf in a lady's underrobe; steel whispered free from the elf's scabbard.
The great residence was utterly consumed by fire and not a single soul was spared. With the loss of its lord, Urabe's power disintegrated. It is told that Yoizou's lord raised a stone stele for the noble lady and Yoizou, and that their names were thereafter spoken as those of heroes who, with only the two of them, rode into the heart of the enemy and won undying renown.