Magnus: Birth of a Legend
Some people are meant for greatness
Chillin Kitties
Shitpancake and Jayne snuggle a lot, because they’re litter mates. I was lucky enough to catch them looking like this, chillin’ like villains.
…Time for this week’s story…
Magnus: Birth of a Legend
On the first day of the month of the Dragon, in the year of the Griffin 1521, in the age of the Minotaur, a prince was born. King Rex Herculus of the Layenda Kingdom declared a week of celebration for the birth of his youngest son, whom he named Magnus.
Prince Magnus Herculus was descended from a legendary family who had led Layenda for thousands of years. They had defended their Kingdom against invaders, famine, demons, and more. Of his eight brothers and sisters, Magnus was the wildest child by far. No challenge was too great and no obstacle could stop him. He always found his way into places he wasn’t supposed to be and never let being the youngest boy hold him back. While his antics were amusing, everyone in the castle could tell that Magnus was meant for greatness.
He loved all his brothers and sisters, but was closest with his only younger sibling, the baby of the family, his sister Eva. Beautiful and intelligent, sweet and strong, she was the darling of the royal family, loved by one and all. So, when on one lovely spring day at the tender age of seventeen Princess Eva was kidnapped, the kingdom fell into despair. A dark cloud loomed over everyone’s heads, as kidnapped princesses were shipped somewhere around the world and rarely ever recovered.
Magnus was the one person in the Kingdom who would not sit by and let the crown’s forces handle it. He took a few of his personal guard and mages with him. He recruited some mercenaries and pulled a few criminals out of the dungeons for a chance at freedom. Using their contacts, Prince Magnus was able to secure a real lead, even before the crown.
At nineteen years old, Magnus stood proudly before his father and requested the crown take their forces to cut-off any possible escape. Meanwhile, Magnus himself would lead the forces he had mustered to rescue his sister. King Rex protested, uninterested in losing two children. Magnus had trained with the Kingdom’s greatest warriors and mages his whole life. He had fought in small skirmishes and led men into battle, but had never ventured out on his own. In the end, the King had to trust his son. Magnus had produced results, and the King wanted his daughter back.
“Go forth, my son. Return your sister to her home, but make sure you bring yourself back as well,” decreed King Rex.
A ship was stocked with everything they needed and Magnus set sail with his militia before dawn the next morning. It was a week’s journey to their destination, deep into a dark land called Karrag. Karrag was a vast patchwork of powerful city-states constantly vying for regional power. A long history of betrayals made it difficult for any of them to trust each other, and much of the land on the outskirts of any city-state was in contention with at least one other. To stay incognito in the adversarial territory, Magnus donned the guise of a commoner over his leather armor.
Once they made landfall, they split into groups and the mercenaries guided Magnus’s militia to the places where the loathsome lurk. With coin and sword, they ventured into the most dangerous parts of corrupt towns and gathered information. The smart ones shared what they had and walked away with a pocket full of coins. When Magnus’s militia reconvened, they put together what they knew and set a course due North, deeper into Karrag. The brigade journeyed into heavily forested mountains. In a canyon there, they found a sprawling, well-guarded outpost.
They attacked with lightning, fire and steel, penetrating deep into the caves and underground passageways. Magnus led the charge himself, and was not satisfied to just rescue his sister. He ordered his men to pilfer any information they could about the criminal organization behind it all and raze the outpost to the ground. They laid waste to everything as they searched the network of large underground tunnels for prisoners. With his sword, he cracked open the lock to Eva’s cell. Taking her by the hand, Magnus led her and several other prisoners to their freedom.
Light beckoned them outside, ever closer as they ran. The first three men to run outside as a scout group were promptly smashed by a large club. Magnus and his group skidded to a halt and discussed their options. The order was Magnus’s to give, and so he ordered everyone to stay put while he would go outside to face whatever giant awaited him. They were to run into the forest while he fought.
Sword and shield in hand, Magnus bid his sister farewell and stepped outside. The sun was partially obscured by the smoke coming from the burning outpost structures. World ablaze around him, Magnus stared down a cyclops three times his size. They exchanged words and the fight commenced before he knew it. Magnus moved quickly, relying on quick spells he knew well, making himself faster and stronger. It was just enough to keep him from being splattered across the cyclops’s club.
The cyclops drove him to the edge of a steep chasm. With his back to a rocky pit, Magnus was low on options, and drawing a blank on spells in the heat of battle. In that moment, he faced the reality that his father may only get one child back. The cyclops was suddenly jarred by fire on his back and roared in pain. On a higher ledge, some of Magnus’s mages were firing spells at the cyclops. Magnus charged into action, slashing the cyclops’s achilles and toppling it into the ravine.
Magnus returned to Layenda with Eva and most of his militia alive. The people crowded the streets and rained flower petals upon the convoy on their way to the castle. King Rex shed a tear to have his children back safe. Layenda celebrated for a week, and Magnus became the hero of the kingdom.