A Time for Heroes, A Time for Salvation

"Welcome to Sophinian adventurers, please enjoy your stay in our fair city"
"Thank you"

An old man sitting on the town fountain motioned the adventurers towards himself - "Come children, come sit with an old man and listen to a tale of courage and sacrifice."

I suppose we could stop and listen they said.

Did you know the city of Sophinian has not always been so quiet and safe. For you see there was once a time when heroes were needed, heroes came and they fell. A great army was building on the east of the Griffin Claw Mountains. This army was vast, composed of ogres, giants, demons and other abominations. As the army grew the sky darkened, rain fell for days; heavy drowning rains that began to flood the region.
The rains continued till one day when the sky turned red as though it had begun to bleed. People of Sophinian worried as the ground beneath them rumbled with the approach of the army. Children ran, old men like myself were hurled to the ground from the great shake.

As the cities people scrambled to protect themselves and their homes, the rain stopped, but it was not long before the rain returned; but this was not rain they felt upon their skin it was ash. This ash blocked the sun and all that was good __ or at least we thought so. Four heroes emerged from the darkness, a long white standard waiving with grace in the wind. They said nothing as I approached them, they kept their pace and marched forward. When they reached this very fountain they knelled before it, drank and said but a few words, words I would never forget.

"May these waters quench our thirst, and may our blood cleanse this land of its darkness"

Our brave heroes walked to the top of Widows Hill, drove their standard into the ground and looked down upon the impending army. Some say as the heroes stood on that hill, all stopped wind, sound, everything. Yet their standard continued to fly. A short silence fell over the city of Sophinian and our heroes waited.

Up the hill walked to figures, one was a large man dressed in plated armor worn with ease, and carrying a halberd unlike any other I had seen. His name was Victories MacKenzie and he was known as a legendary dreadnought. Soldiers so legendary they simply waded into battle without hesitation. The other was a robed figure, truly a powerful Magus but no name was ever recorded.

As the sun rose up[on Widows Hill the heroes charged into the heart of the army, as they charged they unnamed Magus rained hell down upon them. I had never seen anything like it in my long life. Our heroes never did return, nor were their remains ever found.

To this day their standard still flies upon Widows Hill.

"I never saw any standard flying when we entered the city"

Then perhaps you should go for a walk my dear boy, a walk you have already taken but never seen.

"What do you mean old timer?"

The old story teller slowly got up and walked away into the darkness, as he did the heroes saw something, something truly amazing...