THE TALE OF MARIC, AND A SHORT STORY OF HIS MOTHER

[preiman]

so this first story is something I told in the Hanged Man tonight, while many of us were sharing histories, and one person was making stuff up, and I decided I might as well share it with everyone, it's not really a secret after all. I mean Maric has Told this story a few times before, and very publicly.
Stick around to the end though, because there will be a bonus chapter, a tale of mommy Canavan after.

You say, "I grew up in Sirak Drauth, in a small tribe, under the rule of the White Wolf Clan. My mother was regarded as one of the finest smiths in the nation and my father was a warrior, not a great one, but my mother said he had poetry in his eyes."
(Artus smiles slightly.)
Aleari shivers.
You say, "My father died in a cattle raid, which was an honorable death by Giganti standards, and when I was old enough I became a warrior like him. But thanks to mom, I was bigger, and frankly meaner than dad ever was. So during my first battle we found that I was one who could go into a great rage, berserk we called it, and I was death for anyone who stood against me. But it wasn't always easy to tell friend from foe, and in one battle, my axe met the back of my younger brother. They said he was trying to charge ahead, eager to prove himself for the first time."
Arienne cringes.
(Aleari covers her face with her hands.)
You say, "After that, things changed, during the battle my own clan cut me down, and I am told I took a great many of them with me. A day later I woke up in the deadhouse. Well that was it wasn't it, a berserker going battle mad they could accept, but one that came back from the dead after was too much, so I came here."
Arienne says, "Oh... Oh, that is sad."
(Artus sighs, a smile faids away from his face.)
(Aleari looks as if she would speak, then shakes her head slightly.)
(Arienne nods understandingly, even though she looks with sorrow at you .)
Aleari timidly says, "In the times I have seen you fight... your control has been absolute."
Speaking to you, Bryce quietly says, "Well, hell."
You say, "At first I wanted to just be a farmer and never hurt anyone ever again, but I learned about the church and how some of itss members could heal with a light from inside them, we don't really have anything like that back home. At that point I decided to become a monk, because I wanted to help people, not just quietly live out my life in exile. I met my fellow hopefuls Hali, Dorrien, and my wife Althia, we all worked so hard, but all around me I saw what these lands were, and how good and soft my new friends were, and I knew I couldn't put down my blade forever, that wasn't what these lands needed from me, they needed me to fight, and protect, because I was good at it, and from that day, I became a Templar in my heart, even if it wasn't until months later that I woke my light and took the oath."
Vinea eyes you speculatively.
You say, "I decided to stain my soul with more blood, because my friends couldn't, and because innocents needed me too."
Artus softly says, "Sorrowful yet impressiive, that's one honor of a templar warrior, i see."
(Arienne blinks hard, rubbing at her face. She stares off at nothing as you speaks, biting her lip.)
You say, "And So I sit here today,."
(Arienne nods slightly, consideringly.)


So that was the abridged version of Maric's history, I do have a more comp;lete version lying around, but for now that stays mine I think. now I also said I was giving you a story about mommy Canavan, and I like to make good on my word so here it is. apologies for the odd formatting, I wrote this to make copying and pasting it into the game easier, and while I have reformatted it just a bit, I am far too tired to reformat it completely.

So one day my mother was working in her forge, and a man comes to her with these strange peace’s of iron, says they came from the sky, and he wanted her to turn them into a hammer like the world had never seen.

My mother says she can do that no problem, She’d forge the sky iron, and carve into it runes for power, and strength, and speed, but her work on such a hammer would not come cheaply.

The man said this was no problem and that he would pay, when she gave him the hammer. So my mother took the iron, and for a month she forged, she forged the iron hot, but slow, so it would have in it the might of the deepest caverns, where stone runs like water.

When it was finished, my mother showed it to me, and said Maric this hammer is the weapon kings dream of, and great heroes die for. And I call it Dragon’s Strike.

Well when the man came back and saw the hammer he was pleased, and took it up, but then refused to pay my mother what it was worth. He said she should be grateful to have made the weapon of the next clan chief and that should be enough.

My mother said she was honored, but that she was still going to get her riln, and stood up to her full hight, towering over the man. You have to understand, I am the runt of my family, and my mother was the largest of us all. When she stood she darkened the sky.

She told him that there was a weapon mightier than Dragon’s Strike, and that if she didn’t have her riln he would meet it.

But the man didn’t believe her, and raised Dragon’s Strike against her, But my mother didn’t fear. She with a mighty grunt heaved up her great anvil and threw.

See the only thing mightier than a rune carved sky iron weapon, is the anvil that for years has beaten such weapons into shape, and when Hammer met anvil again, it was the hammer that shattered.

So there we were, the man on the ground, his great weapon broken, and my mother’s anvil atop him, and my mother walks over, and looks down at him, and she says “I did my work, best work I ever done, and now you’re going to pay me what it was worth.

So she took the man’s coin, and my brothers and I escorted him from the village, while all who saw him laughed at his shame. That man never returned to our village, and he never became the great chief he was so sure he would become.


I have actually told snips of this story over the years, but didn't actually write it down until tonight. I do hope people enjoy it.