The old man leaned forward, the sparks of the dying fire intermittently illuminating his haggard face. The wicked scar on his face pulled his lips into a horror-show of a grin as a voice like honey spilled words into the dark of night. “When they came, it was like a bolt of lightning. The Travelers appeared in a small border town on the edge of the Empire from who knows where. They immediately started pushing in to the surrounding countryside, burning and killing and performing acts of heinous cruelty. They had the strength of demi-gods, and magic they cast forth like the onrushing tide, unstoppable.”

He took a drink of mead from a well-worn drinking horn, which one of the eagerly listening youths rushed to refill, and brushed the foam from his long moustaches before he continued. “The Emperor was warned by his Seers soon after their rampage began, but he was unconcerned at first. The area they were in was sparsely populated, and not much valued. In fact, if there was one part of the Empire he could afford to not care about, that was probably it. It wasn’t until they razed the fortress-city of Yulinh to the ground that he was awoken from his indolence.”

Everyone carefully turned to the side and spit on the ground at the mention of the hated Emperor, and the old man’s eyes flashed with some half-remembered pain. “After that they seemed to pick up speed, defying all measures to stop or even slow them down. They were like a whirlwind of steel and blood, destroying everything in their path... In their rush to the Imperial Capital Dar’shon. Still, the Empire is a massive place. Eventually, defending forces managed to stalemate the Travelers in Goran’s Gap for a few months.”

He took another long sip of the mead, clearly taking a moment to marshal his thoughts. The children grouped around the dying fire could barely contain their energy, even though it was a story heard many times before. “As time went on, the Travelers became more and more frantic to force a breakout and one night, through the use of stealthy assassins they poisoned the defenders water supply. Early the next day they swept through the defenders lines, killing many of those brave souls who had survived the initial poisoning.”

They all made the sign of remembrance, wiping their right hand across their eyes to wipe away the tears that vengeance could not afford. The energy changed amongst the young listeners, building. “They pressed on like demons, neither eating or sleeping, or stopping to obey the demands of nature. They force-marched on Dar’shon and with malice they conquered, no crushed, that Jewel of Koral. They threw down the edifices of the Empire, raided the Temples and Treasuries, and behaved like conquering barbarians. Anything that could be eaten, drunk, smoked or fucked damn well was. And then, on the Morning of the Vernal Equinox, they were gone. All of them.” A cheer sprang out, slightly hoarse with the emotion of the Eve of the Vernal Equinox.

“All that left behind were any weapons that had already been liberated from their possession, and the absolute chaos they had created. The conquerors were gone, returned to whatever hell they had escaped from, but the Agelastan Empire was no more. They had destroyed it’s edifices, and the people who made it work. And since that time, 48 years ago this very night, we have been watchful, wary and prepared. For if the Travelers return, they will find us no easy meat!”

The children and young adults around the fire, motivated by the tale, slightly tipsy from drinks their parents snuck them, and enlivened by their own sense of immortality, began to talk and babble and yell to each other how they would destroy these hated foes if they ever dared to return to Koral. All except one young pale-skinned elven lad at the back of the mob. A rueful smile perched on his lips like a falcon waiting to strike.