The Runes of the King

## Origin

*This is an interpretation of a folklore tale passed down through oral tradition in Northern Leyanthe. It is told in the first person from the eponymous "Runed King" who discovered Runic Arcana.*

## The Runes of the King

**When I was a child**, we were told to work hard and one day we will achieve greatness. When I was young I knew not what these words meant. Arguably today, I still do not.

As the young prince of a noble family in Leyanthe, I was treated with respect and dignity, though it felt undeserved. I was taught the ways of our people from birth. It was not often Neu-doh like ourselves were gifted with Arcana, so we were in part revered, in part looked down upon. I learned to cast spells from the day my stony hands could wrap themselves around a wand.

I was a mere 8 years old when my family fell to slavers in Jinn-Ran.

They came like shadows in the night. "Meat for the mines" they called us. They chittered with glee upon finding we were Neu-doh. They were miners and their equipment was more than enough to break our bodies in the same way they break the earth.

My father, a champion of constitution, refused to give in to their prying demands. He would not tell them where I hid with my mother and sisters, even after they bore chisels into his forehead. They hammered away at his arms and legs. He bled and screamed, his skin quaked and crumbled, but he dared not give up his kin. My quivering gave way to whimpering, and shortly after they pried the wall we hid behind open in a similar fashion to how they pried his shins from his thighs. Though I could not see him, my fathers face was surely one of heartbreak and an endless sea of disappointment.

We all ended up in different camps. I could not remember my sister or mothers face after years. How many years it was I could not say for certain, though I knew I had grown. I was never provided with an amount of sustenance greater than what could be defined as meagre. My gritted flesh grew softer, and its surface began to crackle.

At night me and my fellow prisoners were shackled to walls and to floors alike. I was a lone Neu-doh. My shackles fit tighter than the rest, clearly they were meant for Vel or Humans. Many sleepless nights full of groaning from the days labor and the crying noises from those not yet broken began to fill my memory. I wished I could still be one of those for which crying was possible.

In the hours of hardship I remembered the words I was given as a young man. "Work hard and one day we will achieve greatness." Surely this couldn't be the hard work I was told of, could it? This wouldn't be the greatness I once sought, would it? When these thoughts came to me I quelled them with the feint recollections I had of practicing weaving Arcana into the air. I could no longer do such feats without a catalyst of some sort, but during my short-lived studies I never learned what the catalysts could be.

Shouting awoke me from a slumber I had not realized I fell into. I turned to my fellow slaves. Silence. Then, suddenly, distant sounds of violence amongst unfamiliar voices. The mere vibrations of their pain bounced off the walls. I tried to stand. My legs were shaking and quivering. I dared not make a sound for the memory of my father's anguish flashed in my mind. I tried to walk, but found my head firmly against the ground, with a burning sensation of pain throbbing down through my neck and shoulders. My ankles remained manacled to the ground of my cell. I felt around desperately for anything to prop myself up. The cold of a broken chain rubs against my palms as I push against the ground. Pressing my hands down to my own shins and below, I find nothing but horror. My steel bindings, tighter than the rest, remained untouched.

My lungs gave out from the shouting. My body no longer produced sweat. My mouth no longer provided saliva. If I were to bleed, I'm certain it would be in the form of dust. I was alone. Isolated. Left to die in a cell in a prison I committed no crimes to belong to.

Hushing my anguish came long after the regret I felt from continuing to wake back up from the sleep. Hunger had seemingly eclipsed the feelings of my nerves in the entire lower half of my body. Even the tips of my toes shrieked from the desire of food, as they had since given up the desire to continue allowing me to feel the ground.

All I had now was the thoughts within my head echoing off of the walls of my skull. The memories of my time learning Arcana. The cramps of the hand, holding itself in various positions. Plants with unpronounceable names. Symbols in books representing obscure concepts I still cannot grasp. Symbols. What were those symbols supposed to represent anyways? I wish I paid more attention. Father told me to memorize them, but I never quite knew why. I fondly remember asking numerous times if I could try to draw my own, but Father said that there's no point, and they represent magic the same way our crest represents our family. They had no inherent meaning, so why memorize them?

There was one symbol I remember in near perfect detail, as it was simple to draw. Two lines branching off from one another, intersecting at the top and bottom and twisting on the left. How I wish I had something to draw it with now.

My finger twitched in memory of the symbol. Pain shot up my leg from the untrimmed nail breeching my now feeble skin. I ran my fingertip over the wound. A line. A twisting line. I pressed my nail into my thigh yet again, twisting the line upwards. The blood made my fingernail slick, and caused it to be easier to draw. A branch from the line. One last stroke. The intersection at the bottom. The symbol now etched into my fleshy yet stony skin bled.

If I died it would atleast by on my own terms, with a memory that meant something to me. However I did not pass from bloodloss, nor did I pass at all. The wound's skin sealed itself up. A burning pain unlike any other shot through my body, more intense than my nail pressing into my skin. The image of an impossibly hot blade of glass pressing through my wound was how I envisioned it. A clattering of something onto the floor near me. I move what little I can to investigate the noise. A blade had clattered to the ground. I felt for a handle. It fit naturally into my hand, as if made for it.

The blade gathered I press it onto the chain restraining me to the ground. The metal links are reduced to naught but thin air. I gather myself. The answer I sought was here in my mind all along. This was the greatness I looked for so deeply. I pressed the blade onto my skin and drew other symbols from my memory. My body restored itself if almost by some sort of miracle. My endless torment turned rapidly into elation. I stood upon strong legs, a feeling I had not yet felt. I left my cell without so much as a problem remaining. I carved one last rune into my skin, on my forehead. I had thought long and hard about the rune that shall go on to define me. "King."