grey world

The bard leans in closer, voice dropping even lower, the firelight flickering across his scarred face.

“...But the lad’s story didn’t end in those sewers, oh no. That was only the beginning of the real bloodletting.”

“After the chimera hunt, Xax kept running with the Falcons. One day he and old Jaeger came back to town half-dead after sloppily killing a Blood Griffon that’d been terrorizing the countryside. Jaeger chewed the boy’s ear off the whole way — ‘One day I won’t be there to save your sorry hide, whelp.’

Xax took his broken sword to Belvin the smith, and the old man — grateful the beast was gone — gifted him a monstrous greatsword as payment. Beautiful, heavy thing.

Outside the forge, he ran into Lady Valerie. The noble girl he’d been secretly mooning over for months. She told him the Baron might have a quest that could make him a knight… and if he succeeded, they could finally be together by the waterfall. Xax wanted that life so badly it hurt, but he still felt he owed the Falcons everything. He gave her the violet pendant as a promise anyway, even though you could see the doubt eating him alive.

They went to Castle Waterburn. Baron Vincent greeted Jaeger like an old war brother, casual as you please. The Baron hired the Falcons to find his wife’s missing son — supposedly kidnapped. He took a special interest in young Xax too… those striking green royal eyes and the ‘X’ in his name didn’t go unnoticed.

Come morning, they set out. But Val had waited all night. When she saw Merrygold riding with them, she lost it — called Xax a peasant, ripped the pendant off, and stormed away. Broke the boy’s heart clean in two.

Their investigation started at the rundown temple. Sick children everywhere. While Jaeger pressed the priest, Xax went upstairs and met a young nun named Abigail. He broke temple law and used a forbidden Taknum healing crystal on a dying kid. Abigail was grateful… and it turned out she was the one who’d been watching the Baron’s boy the day he vanished.

She told them the story: the child had gills behind his ears — cursed. She’d taken him on errands — florist, stables, fish market by the river — and he disappeared while playing in the water. Xax smelled the lie in her route, especially that stables detour.

Later, at Xef’s grave, Xax left the griffon talon and — with shaking hands — the violet pendant. He played his dead friend’s flute until he fell asleep crying.

That’s when Valerie tried to kill him.

She came hooded with a dagger, jealous and furious. They fought, they screamed, they kissed like the world was ending. They spent one last day and night together in the cave by the waterfall. She confessed her family was marrying her off to the Baron as his second wife. Xax threw her dagger into the rapids and they said goodbye… ‘Don’t follow me, bandit,’ she whispered.

Guilty and heartsick, Xax went back to the trail. He discovered Abigail had really gone to the stables to fuck the stablemaster. Then he found small webbed footprints leading into the sewers.

Down there, armed with nothing but a rock and a glowing crystal, he killed a disgusting Cerphin creature in the filth. Before he could go back for his sword, a blue dart took him in the neck.

Meanwhile, Jaeger forced the truth out of the Baron. The boy was another man’s bastard. Vincent had paid the priest to hex the child so he could get rid of him and have his own heir. When the Baron’s wife overheard, everything went to hell.

Jaeger tracked the corruption to a secret cult beneath the temple — worshipping some ancient sea monster, the Leviathan. He walked in on a nightmare: the stablemaster sacrificed on an altar, blood everywhere, the priest chanting. Jaeger put arrows through the cultists and kept moving.

Xax woke up trapped in a burning hell-vision, fighting imps, tormented by a voice promising him truth and salvation. He didn’t want to be a mercenary anymore. He just wanted out.

In the real world, Jaeger fought through the cult lair, found Abigail swollen and corrupted by the beast’s offspring. When Xax finally killed the serpent monster in the nightmare, the illusion broke. A monstrous Cerphin pup burst out of Abigail and fled into the sewers. Xax chased it down naked, killed it with the monster’s own horn, and barely made it out alive.

At dawn, Jaeger found the Baron’s boy — now a mutated fish-thing. Knowing the only real cure was to kill the Baron who ordered the hex, Jaeger made the grim choice. He gave the child poison and lied that it would heal him. The boy died quietly.

When Jaeger brought the corpse back, the Baron’s wife killed herself in grief. Vincent raged, refused to pay properly, and banished Jaeger and the Falcons from ever getting royal favor.

Xax met Abigail one last time. She returned his greatsword. The boy was done. Disgusted with the whole rotten business.

Back at camp he told the Falcons’ leader he wanted out. The price? A duel to the death. Jaeger stepped up himself — hoping to wound the boy badly enough to scare him into staying alive.

They fought. Xax loved that man like a father… but he wanted freedom more. He drove the greatsword through Jaeger’s belly.

As Jaeger lay dying, he smiled with pride and handed Xax a sealed letter. ‘You did it, lad. You’re a free Xerion now.’

In the letter, Jaeger told him the truth he’d always suspected: Xax was likely highborn, stolen from the north. He also warned that Belvin the smith — the same man who gave him the greatsword — was once a slave trader deeply tied to Xax’s past.

So the boy who started as a spoiled prince, became a slave, then a mercenary… finally walked away from the Falcons at dawn. Grief in his heart, Jaeger’s letter in his hand, and that cursed violet amulet still around his neck.

He turned east toward Melbourne, eyes hard, greatsword on his back.

Looking for answers. Looking for blood. Looking for who the hell he really is.”

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