Brandon

My life is a mess and I don't know what to do about it. Everything has gone downhill fast for me these last few years and I know who my friends really are. I may have gone overboard by killing Nasis like that I'm not even sure what came over me. But coming back from a stressful patrol to be sneered at and looked down upon by a noncombatant spoilt little bitch was just a ted bit too much even for me. And of course, there was the shock of hearing about Aaliyah...

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I was returned home for judgement but seeing mother reduced to prostrating herself on the dais begging for my life left a sour taste in my mouth that even now years later I can't wash out. I was judged by the king, my father whom I had a private meeting with a few hours before passing judgment.

I mean I can appreciate the sentiment and the predicament the man is in, he wasn't supposed to be king his brother was and his brother had all the support and was loved by the nobles. And now here I am the son of the surprise king everyone had forgotten about to the extent that the assassins that tried to end the royal lol line and nearly succeeded forgot as well. And I come and I kill one of the grandchildren of the now dead but still beloved would be king.

The Houses had to have their pound of flesh lest a royal think it could easily skate away from killing one of their own. And so the king was under pressure on all sides with an already tenuous relationship being built with the help of the Houses with the reclusive elves, the Stone Dwarves and the Maori to check the Barbarian threat. An alliance that has never before been even dreamt up in any royals wildest dreams but because they all wanted the same thing from the Tundra it was becoming a reality.

And here I am upsetting the Houses who's backs this whole alliance stands. When he explained everything in that way to me I was sure I was going to the headsman, and the more he explained the more sure I got that this is it for me. I started counting the many backup kids the man has, the many wives and potential for more kids. I started seeing how we aren't even close, in fact, i barely know the man but still, he is my father h shouldn't be telling me I will die over a chalice of whiskey by the fire in his private sitting room. But I was sure this was him building me up for the inevitable news of my looming death. Until he told me that I would have my arm cut off and be banished from the kingdom and my name struck from the royal annals.

The first thing I took in was that I wasn't going to die and I sighed a relieved sigh and took an big swallow of ash whiskey to cool my nerves. Then the actual sentence that would be passed down dawned on me and I looked up at the king in complete confusion.

"Banished to where?" I had asked the man because Sandersoria stretches out in all directions encompassing any map I have ever seen of the continent. He had no response for me either and so a few hours later my offending arm was shortened at the elbow and a geas was magically placed on me to never again set foot in the kingdom.

Something I would only ever be able to unravel when I Awakened, if I ever Awakened or with the help of a stronger or smarter Awakened than the Royal Master Magician Zuesius. Not likely to be found anywhere nearby. Mother directed me to head to the highlands and find her people, she gave me maps, letters of introduction and everything. I could leave with everything I could carry on my person but that's about it.

Father gave me a ring of holding which is still useless to me until I am able to Awaken, but I know it is a great treasure. The things were practically myths until soldiers started looting them from dead barbarians. I've tried connecting with my underworld friends to help me get restarted but apparently without an arm and without being a royal any longer I am useless to them, that's what it means to be removed from the annals, I am a nobody.

Some of my old thief friends showed their sympathy when they saw me but most just laughed or sneered at my misfortune. Its safe to say I never made it to the highlands but I did run across a group of bandits after spending 7 months in the Wilds. One of the 7 unclaimed unconquered territories within the Kingdom of Sandersoria. Those months were the worst in my life and I was reduced to foraging and digging up toots like an animal, begging when I encountered hunters that were lucky enough to survive the forest and come out with their prey.

For some reason, the beasts left me alone but that's only the intelligent ones, I had to quickly learn to outsmart the rest which is really harder that anyone would think. Those bandits saved me from eventually finding myself in some creature's stomach and thankfully by the time they did I was dirty and grimy so no one thought to search me. I had gold and platinum buried away but money had very little value to be by that point.

I stayed with them for three years, being their servant, cleaning washing pots, covering the latrine pits when they moved to different locations. Holding their shields or swords as they raped or their horses as they robbed. I hated it but its what I'd been reduced to. They never actually entered Sandersoria so no one really organised a force to hunt them out of the forests but eventually I made friends even amongst them. It's crazy the shit a person gets used to and rape and murder became almost a norm, like just a thing that was done on Tuesday before lunch.

Then the barbarians came through and I knew immediately who and what they were and I warned the few in the Band I actually liked but no one listened to me.

"There are 250 of us and around 100 of them," Kwezi said with that dirty mirthful grin on his face.

259 rode off to ambush the barbarians and only 70 of them came back, not a single barbarian casualty throughout the brief but epic fight. It's actually beautiful to watch those fuckers slaughter people. There was one with a hammer that was especially devastating and a crazy woman with a long-armed axe that just cut a swath through the Band. I had to follow them after that, I wanted what they had. I didn't want to be whatever the fuck I was anymore, a one-armed bandit flunky who got raped by one of the bandits but is too ashamed to tell anyone. After all, it was a fucking Tuesday and that's when they do that shit before lunch!

I followed the barbarians for days, occasionally loosing them and panicking when I fall asleep but eventually finding a trail and running with it with all my might. Living in the bush had thought me a lot of previously useless skill, like identifying trails. Their trail was always sparse which meant most of them were woodsmen but its still difficult for a 100 people to pass through the bush without leaving one.

When they reached the coast I was sure they would board a ship and I'd be dead, I could hardly stand. But some of them came to me, they asked me questions, I didn't even lie. None where impressed with my parentage at all which baffled me at first. But they fed me, let me enjoy the warmth of their fire and spoke in their strange rough language and laughed amongst themselves, a lot like the Band actually.

The next day beautiful women with spears and javelins immerged from the water and spoke to some of them before we were all led on a boat to a strange rocky isle where tunnels under the isle lead to tunnels under the water. This is not something I had ever heard of before but here it was, a passageway to other lands far from Sandoria the ''mild continent'', as the Undines called it.

It was an adventure from there and though no one babied me or took care of me I felt looked after. They woke me when it was time to eat or leave, they gave me a sleeping math and sometimes even spoke in Sandersonian for my benefit. I sometimes weeped when I had some privacy for the unfairness of life and though I know they heard, none bothered me or even asked about it. Months later when we immerge from the water tunnel and took another boat to a different continent all together it was a new start for me.

There we met these strange people in this training camp, and I've been training in espionage and strategy ever since.

"Hey Brand?"

"Yea?" I respond already turning around.

"You didn't see the fight?" Sachi asks giving me a look.

"Nea, I was busy. What's up?"

"I have to go see Master Dragon with Volvox in another 30 minutes, any more info on the siblings and their trainer?"

"All I know is what I already told you, their weapon types and that their grandfather is one of the 20 founders, sorry that couldn't help with your matches," I say with a shrug.

"No worries, we gave you short notice anyway thanks for trying," he says and slips away.

My life is taking a completely different route now, oh and my arm is being regrown.