Brilliant Band of Glory
| Type | Ring |
|---|---|
| Discovered By | Pyr |
| Discovery Date | 2013-08-07 |
| Discovery Location | Nocaneb, Far East |
| Abilities | Prestige +4 |
| Current Owner | Pyr |
The story of how Pyr first found the ring...
Pyr was not the first born of his brothers and sisters, that would be Lord Abek who had traveled off to some far away foreign land to make a name for himself, becoming a Count in an empire called Astrum.
He was not the favored and most beautiful either, that would be Lady Eva, whose ghostly beauty was only exceeded by her ferocity on the battlefield. She had also achieved a Lordship over a magically beautiful rural land far to the north on the Dark Isle. Pyr never knew why it was called that, the silver shores along the eastern coast are so bright under full sunlight, that you can be momentarily blinded by its brilliance.
Pyr was the leftover son. He had no one to follow or take orders from, no one to lead who would follow him into battle. He did have his freedom and lots of free time, and in a way, Pyr valued those things greater than all the silver spoons his elder brother and sister would ever have.
Pyr was a monster hunter. He traveled from town to town, listening for whispers of the grotesque and the unholy. He'd arrived in Nocaneb two days earlier, and had already found quite a large labyrinth of undead near the site of an ancient forgotten battle. He still bore a long nasty looking scar along the left side of his face, that would've taken his eye had he not parried that last blow from the final battle just the night before.
After barely making it out of there alive, he decided he needed to head back to the surface for a little sunlight and some rest. He dispatched a letter to other adventurers in the area, because he had a feeling that he had yet to face the darkest force that Nocaneb had to offer.
One brave lad by the name of Orado answered his message, but it seemed there were just too many undead for him to handle. They shared battle stories and rabbit over a fire while Pyr contemplated the next day's exploits.
At the first crack of dawn, Pyr woke up and discovered that he was once again alone. He would've appreciated having Orado along with him, there was safety in numbers, but sometimes you get more done when you don't have to wait on someone else.
He traced his steps back to where Orado said he last found the unholy creatures. He scoured the room looking for anything out of place. He bent over to examine a piece of what seemed a scrap of armor, when he noticed some faint groove marks on the stone floor. He examined the wall and the floor more carefully and spotted a small hole in the floor near the marks on the floor.
Pyr pushed the hilt of his dagger into the hole, hearing an audible "CLICK!" that made him wonder if he had just activated the trap that would kill him. He froze for a second while a nearby section of stone that had appeared to be a flat wall opened outward revealing a dark passage behind.
Feeling his way carefully, he found a set of stairs going down into darkness, but he could hear the sounds and noises of movement below. He was not alone. The stairs went down, down, down, to what felt like the bottom of the world.
The bottom of the stairwell opened up into a large room that was filled to capacity by the shambling corpses of the formerly living. They all turned to face Pyr, as the undead cannot bare the sight and smell of anything that lives and breathes.
An ordinary man would have fled that room screaming and no one would have called him coward for it, but Pyr charged into the fray, the still-healing scar on his face pushing him to fight harder and faster. His sword was unstoppable, slicing, stabbing, sweeping and parrying, before long all the undead lay still, except for one.
He could hear the sinister laughter before he could actually see what it was. It looked like something spawned from the nightmares of children. It was over 10 feet tall, looked half man and half horse combined in some mad dark sorcery, many of its bones gleamed from within the decaying flesh of its large torso. He carried a huge scythe that could slice Pyr clean in two in one stroke.
He had fought against many different shapes and sizes of undead, but he'd never seen anything like that. Not wanting the battle to go on any longer than necessary, Pyr flanked around and tried to remove the head of this undead champion. The massive creature sidestepped the blow and brought down his scythe in a lightening fast attack, but Pyr was already circling away again.
Fighting something that was already dead was one thing, but he was fighting something that was wielding a 8 foot long weapon that was already dead! His mind working quickly, he thought that was the advantage he should remove first, Pyr changed tactics and targeted the arm holding the giant weapon.
Lunge and twist! The shoulder which was big and strong was still only rotting flesh, the twisting sword combined with the weight of a very heavy scythe forced the creature's weapon to clatter to the ground. With all the speed and force he could muster he spun, flashing out with his sword at the large undead creature's head.
This time his blow was true and the head rolled across the room. The massive body slumped down to its knees and then keeled over, finished. The creature's hand grabbed at some small pouch tied around its neck.
Moving very carefully, he opened the pouch and emptied the contents into his hand: a very ornate golden ring, inlaid with the finest craftsmanship he had ever laid eyes on.
What was it worth? He'd heard ancient stories of rings with magical powers both amazing and terrifying. Was this one of those? How had the massive creature come upon something so refined and beautiful?
Pyr remembered the Sartan Priest Martin Octavius once told him that if he found something truly unique and valuable, that it could be the key to him finally becoming a priest, but was that still what he wanted? Was it even really possible?
Pyr had a feeling his life was about to get a little more interesting.