Anglachel Ralsin

The Prince

• The Prince, a Destiny Stolen

  The Beginning

  
  
  In a far-off kingdom, the kind of place where legends are spawned, there was a child of a nameless King, who was meant to be the greatest warrior of an age, the herald of change, and a ruinous usher of a blood-drenched future. In the dark of night, amid omens and prophetic lines fulfilled, the mother, a Princess of great renown, of stern beauty and prideful will, was on the verge of giving life to the babe who would become King in his own right, when the sinister hand of another agent intervened. What was meant to be a momentous occasion, was turned to a time of mourning, for both child and mother perished during the birth. And so, the ancient kingdom was left bereft of its great hero, the cursed and blessed child of Destiny. Darkness followed the stormy night, and the people for whom the Fates had already woven a rich tapestry, embroidered with war and dyed with glory, faded into legend. Legend faded to fable, and fable to myth, until only the merest footnotes in the annals of history in obscure libraries remained.

• The Warrior, Reborn

  Rebirth

  
  
  Whether it was a kind-hearted God who wanted to spare countless of lives the agony of decades upon decades of war, or a Deity with some Divine purpose for putting the fated people down, the Fates, being robbed of their design, brought the warrior of Legend to a place where war and fighting is not only exalted, but the religion, and the lifestyle, of every soul present. Upon the layer Avalas, in the cube named Olorinn, deep in the Eternal Battlefield of Acheron, Anglachel was reborn, awakened and fully grown, eager for war. As is custom, he was reborn into the convoluted battlefields, and was tempered in blood and combat, being rent, again, and again, by merciless foes, only to be repaired and put back on his feet by the Deities who rule the fabric of reality on Avalas. In a place where a lifespan is measured only in the moments it takes to exchange a few cruel strokes of bladed steel and poisoned spears, the warrior Prince spent an entire lifetime, honing mind and body alike, to earn the chance to escape the perpetual mindlessness of the great Battlefield, and aspire to one of the higher places of Acheron.

• A swordsman of Destiny

  Transcending Olorinn

  
  
  Anglachel’s form grew more and more perfect, his strength became honed and brutal, after nearly a century of incessant war upon Olorinn, so that in time, he was selected to attend the tournament, a bloodbath lasting one entire material year, the victor of which would be taken from Avalas and made a Warlord, an honorific entitling them to move to the cube of their choice, and pursue martial perfection with greater focus, practicing against greater foes, in the search for flawlessness of war. The fortress in which the tournament was held was arrayed with traps and brutal pitfalls, and in the first day, nearly all of the aspirants were culled. Those who failed, were sent back to Olorinn, to await another century of interminable combat for the next chance to ascend. Anglachel proved himself to be equal to all of the challenges of the fortress and more, ascending to the tallest spire, to do battle with the tournament’s guardian- a brutal giant with a cunning killer instinct and a weapon meant to rend the very air before it. Still, Anglachel persevered, proud and brutal, felling his foe with a multitude of cuts, until the ichor had drained completely from the giant’s veins.

• Gaelias, the Swordsmen's Cube

  Making Something Perfect

  
  
  Even as the ichor drained from the giant’s spent body, Anglachel’s own form was repaired and brought to a space of pure white. There, arrayed in robes of deep purple, the Masters of the cubes received him, and asked him what he would do next. In the sole decision he made during his entire time in Acheron, he chose to move to Gaelias, the swordsman’s cube, a place where only the virtue of perfect swordsmanship could buy mastery- all else was superfluous, and empty. Upon Gaelias, beyond the beautiful green fields and rocky hills that were the stage for all manner of martial contest, meant to hone skill and body alike, there stood a tall, beautiful steel-grey tower, which was the home of the one and only swordsman to ever reach the Eleventh Floor of the Champions’ Tower, the ultimate expression of perfection of blade. The Diamond Mind he was known as, his name long ago forgotten, an Elf of such flawless form that he had been able to break apart not only the gate that had barred the Eleventh Floor of the ultimate trial for the swordsmen of Gaelias, but defeat the ancient guardian within, thus claiming his place as Master of Gaelias. In that tower, Anglachel learned the discipline of the Diamond Mind, learning to still his mind and pursue perfection of form by bending combat to his liking, with his thoughts, and using sheer force of will to adjust the conditions of the encounter to play out his victories. The form took an age to master, though in Gaelias, time has no meaning- by material reckoning, he might have spent nearly ten centuries hard at work, unquestioning, unhesitant, learning the Diamond Mind’s skills and strength by replication and study.

• The Ivory Mark

  The Ring

  
  
  Eventually, Anglachel’s form had progressed so far, that he could learn no more from the Diamond Mind, but had come to the place where perfection could come only through practice. And thus, he was unleashed in the perpetual circle of combat that is the Ivory Mark, a collection of warriors who show the greatest promise across all of the planes of Acheron, brought together to do battle and expand their minds and learn from each other. In this ring of warriors, Anglachel was proofed in fire again, changing the discipline of the Diamond Mind into something with his own print on it. In the end, Anglachel became one of the warlords of the Ivory Mark, proud and strong and stern, truly brought into the role of Prince which he had been fated for, from his very birth. And so, with the only blade he had ever wielded in hand, the green-grey sabre he had been born with, a weapon that would come to be known as the Jade Basilisk, he returned to Gaelias, to challenge the Champions’ Tower for his own chance at Mastery, and the duel with the Diamon d Mind that would precede it.

• The Champions' Tower

  One Moment, One Opportunity

  
  
  The challenge which would give Anglachel his chance at Mastery was intended to be brutal, uncompromising, unrelenting. Each floor of the Tower contained a single warrior, chosen from among the ranks of Gaelias for their strength and renown, which the aspirants would duel and try to defeat, in order to progress. The first of the duels was a fight in the dark, which the Prince of Destiny won with swift and conclusive action. And so he progressed to the second floor, where he fought a small and slender swordsman, with agility that far exceeded the Prince’s. Nonetheless, in the end, Anglachel proved victorious, relying on the vicious strength of his mind, and his body, by extension, to win the day. At the entrance to the third floor, however, Anglachel’s mind wavered, the first time in a timeless age. In a moment of indecision, Anglachel found himself the pawn of a religion that brooked no place for peace, no place for comfort. He was the slave of instinct and flawlessness, the utter expression of mindlessness. In that time, and in that place, he decided to lower his blade for the first time since taking it up, and turned his back on the Tower, for the prospect of victory was the key to cementing himself as an avatar of war, a being stripped of personality and uniqueness. In an effort to retain what small humanity was left him still, he descended from the Tower, his blade discarded, left abandoned in the dust, a stark symbol of how complete his disjunction from his world had become.

• In Exile

  Cast out, but not Forgotten

  
  
  For the second time in his long life, Anglachel was brought then to the space of white, to face the Masters of Acheron once more. In that terrible place, they cursed him for his weakness, for his wavering, and engineered a terrible retribution for his treason- he would be banished to a place of no glory, brought low to suffer, in his folly, the tyranny of the mundane that mortals were all subject to. And at his waist, always, would remain the Jade Basilisk, heavy and cold, drawing his hand, always, to battle, even as he tried to keep himself from sinking back into the warrior he had been molded to be. To refuse war and combat would be to suffer a terrible sickness- the longer he refused violence, the more he tried to put down the instincts of an age, the knowledge of the great swordsmen of Gaelias, the sicker he would become, in punishment for his crimes. And all the time, the knowledge that he was being drawn towards a pit, a pit lined with the corpses of men- for when he had slain enough, and regained his focus and strength, he would be returned to Acheron, to face the Champions’ Tower once more, and take his place at the top, or die trying, at the hand of his former teacher.