HISTORY
In the world of Erion, war was being fought over the Crystallization Cauldron, which had wiped the Kingdom of Valentine off the map. Fairies had control over it when King Odin's forces staged an attack. In that battle, Gwendolyn stumbled across her older and now dying sister. Griselda was convinced that, having died in battle, their father would show some sign of love for her. Before passing away, she handed her Psypher spear to Gwendolyn, who vowed to join her sister shortly.
Later in the same battle, she met the Fairies' strongest and most feared warrior: Oswald, the Shadow Knight. Able to change his body into an unnatural blackness that increased his strength tenfold, none was said to survive an encounter with him on the battlefield. He and Gwendolyn fought, but once he had pinned her down he refused her demand to kill her. He said that killing any more from a side that had already lost was a waste of his time, slayed a man that tried to sneak up on him, and left her.
They lost that battle, and upon hearing of Griselda's demise Odin showed no sign of remorse. Instead he ordered another attack upon the Ringford troops. Gwendolyn was both saddened and annoyed by her father's act, but nonetheless obeyed. Death was not the way into her father's heart.
This time they were successful and won the Cauldron from the Fairy kingdom. However, a third party intercepted and turned the Cauldron off. As Gwendolyn headed for the Cauldron, she witnessed the woman running away but thought little of it. When she returned home to Ragnanival and discovered that person had sabotaged the Cauldron, she felt guilty for having let her get away and promised her father that she would subdue the woman herself.
Velvet
She found her in the forests surrounded Ragnanival, where the two fought until Odin himself appeared and demanded Gwendolyn to stop. Odin spoke to the young woman, whose name was Velvet, and revealed that Velvet was his illegitimate daughter. Velvet derided him and wanted nothing to do with her father.
Odin would have let her go, but a highly respected general happened upon the scene and blackmailed the king. If Velvet went unpunished he would tell the country that the king had been fraternizing with the enemy during a past war. Torn between causing a revolt in his country and his daughter, King Odin could only watch helplessly as Lord Brigan had her brought back to the capital to confess. There she told them that the Cauldron could only be restarted and controlled by the wearer of a special ring, Titrel, and that ring had been feed to a dragon in the mountains. Lord Brigan suggested they offer Velvet to the dragon in return for the ring, and left with the girl in hand and some troops.
Gwendolyn was thrown by all of this. First, her father had loved another woman. Did that mean he had never loved her own mother? Is that why he could never show love for her? And Velvet was special to him. Gwendolyn could see the depth of his sorrow for her death sentence. He showed no such emotion for Griselda's death. He had never shown so much care for her. Obviously, her half-sister was worth more than she was, though Gwendolyn had dedicated her life to making him happy.
In order to make her father happy, she would have to commit treason against her country. Gwendolyn followed Lord Brigan into the mountains and waited for him to send his troops out in search of the dragon Wagner. Alone with Velvet, he revealed that he planned to kill her himself whether they found the dragon or not, and then he would tell all of Ragnanival that not only had their king fraternized with the enemy years ago, but he then willingly sent his own daughter to her death.
Unable to stand such traitorous action against her father, Gwendolyn fought and killed Lord Brigan. When his troops got back, they saw the princess had murdered a highly respected general and freed the woman that sabotaged their war efforts. She was brought back to the castle and subjected to the customary punishment. Stripped of her honor, a sleeping spell was to be placed on her that could only be broken with a kiss, and she would be forced to wed the one that awakened her.
As Odin cast the spell on her, he told her how grateful he was and that he wished he didn't have to do this. Gwendolyn told him how she had longed for her father's love and would be happy for the rest of her life now that she finally had it and fell asleep.
The Ring Titrel
She awakened in an old castle in the forest, and was greeted by the Shadow Knight. Pitying herself for being forced to love and the bear the children of her country's enemy, she tried to make it clear that she would not enjoy his company. He presented her with a ring, boasting that he had retrieved it from the stomach of a dragon, and then apologized that he had nothing better to give to her.
Gwendolyn instantly realized it was Titrel. He apologized again, saying that he had to leave to fulfill a promise he had made. He asked if she would still be here when he got back, and she informed him that she belonged to him now and would do whatever he wished. Annoyed, he told her firmly that she was not an object, not a tool to be used and thrown away, and he would never allow anyone to treat her like one. This struck her deeply, and when he left she was left wondering what his motive was.
While he was gone, Gwendolyn brought the ring to King Odin, but found that the Netherworld had started a small scale invasion and the king was currently possessed by Lord Brigan's spirit. She freed her father from the possession and presented him with Titrel. Elated, he unwittingly let out that he had tempted Oswald and gotten him to slay the dragon in exchange for the right to marry her. Now that she had saved her country from the Netherworld and given such a precious item to the king, she was forgiven for her previous crime and was no longer banished.
Gwendolyn was touched that anyone would do anything so drastic just for her. Though she had regained her honor and was allowed to live in the castle once more, she declined, stating that now that she was married she had a duty to her husband.
The Inferno King
She returned before Oswald did and waited for him. As the hours turned into days she grew more and more worried about his predicament. Donning her armor once again, she left for the Lava Pits that he was supposed to have gone to.
Inferno King Onyx greeted her warmly and skimmed over the issue of where Oswald was until Gwendolyn demanded it of him. Onyx explained that King Odin had offered her to him years ago, and in exchange for letting the issue drop quietly the Shadow Knight had agreed to wield his sword for him just once. He was fighting, or perhaps had died while fighting, a baby dragon named Leventhan, whom when fully grown was supposed to cause the end of the world. The Inferno King offered to help Oswald kill the dragon, but only if Gwendolyn agreed be his wife instead.
Gwendolyn repeated Oswald's words to her, that she was not an object, and ran off to find and help him herself. Though considerably weakened, Leventhan was still fighting strong, while days of constant battle with the beast had worn Oswald out to the point that his attacks were desperate and he was concentrating much more on surviving a few minutes longer than killing the dragon. Gwendolyn grabbed the dragon's attention and fought it for him, causing enough injury to chase it out of the land. Onyx was awed by her resolve and let her leave with her unconscious husband, though warned that he was a tortured soul that was destined to die in misery.
When the Shadow Knight regained consciousness, he explained his situation to her. His adoptive father had promised Oswald's soul to the Queen of the Netherworld in exchange for putting some of her power into Oswald's cursed sword. This was done behind his back, and recently the Queen of the Netherworld had decided to cash in on the promise. As a result, reapers were stalking him just out of sight, waiting for a time when he would wander too far away from the sword.
It was at that moment a messenger from King Odin's court arrived, telling Gwendolyn of a surprise attack from the Fairies that resulted in the loss of the ring she had given to Odin. Oswald overheard this and, feeling betrayed, left her sight.
The Netherworld
Gwendolyn, feeling more horrible than she ever had in her life, went to the Ringford by herself to retrieve Titrel. She confronted the Fairy queen and asked for the ring back, explaining that it was a gift from her husband that meant a lot to her. Queen Mercedes saw it as a thinly veiled attempt by the Valkyrie to get control of the Cauldron again. Gwendolyn took the ring back by force and fled from their land.
She arrived home to discover that Oswald had been taken by a reaper. He felt that she did not love him and didn't want to burden her any longer, so had willingly let the reapers get him. Her father was well known for sneaking into the Netherworld to steal Queen Odette's priceless jewels, so she confronted her father. He was annoyed that she was not there to deliver the ring back to him, but she promised to hand it over once she and Oswald came back.
Odette refused to return Oswald to the land of the living and taunted her by showing off Oswald's unconscious body, so Gwendolyn did what a Valkyrie does best. After a long hard battle, Gwendolyn defeated the Queen of the Netherworld and in doing so wiped her soul from existence. Oswald was no longer bound by the curse of his sword, but without the Queen's power the Netherworld started to seal off from the living world.
King Odin retrieved the two just in time and dropped them off in his castle. There, he asked Gwendolyn to keep her promise and give Titrel to him. She told her father that the ring was a symbol of her love for Oswald and his love for her, and if he wanted it that badly he would have to kill her for it. Oswald ran to her defense, but King Odin couldn't bring himself to harm his daughter in the first place. He stomped out of the room, leaving Oswald and Gwendolyn to find their way home.
Armageddon
Quite some time afterward, Gwendolyn and Oswald noticed something happening over in Ragnanival, which they had a limited view of from their castle. Oswald left to investigate, asking Gwendolyn to stay in the safety of the castle. She obeyed, but after a while it was clear that the prophecy of Armageddon was starting to unfold and she wanted to see if Oswald was safe. Before leaving she saw the ghost of her dead sister, who told her to remember to knock off the crown. Confused by this statement, she left the castle to find her husband.
By this point Leventhan had plenty of time to steal life energy from the planet, forcing him into adult form. Large enough to encircle the world with his long snakelike body, he started destroying whatever was left of the ground beneath him. Gwendolyn noticed a crown hanging off of one of the horns on his head and, remembering Griselda's words, fought the dragon. It didn't like that she could so easily stay in the sky with him and so most of his attacks focused on damaging her wings. When she was finally able to do it, knocking off the crown weakened the dragon so much that it hardly took any effort to kill it, but her wings had been utterly destroyed in the effort and she plummeted to the ground.
Oswald had noticed her fighting and intercepted her as she fell. He didn't know where to bring her for help, and the Valkyrie's kingdom had been utterly destroyed, so he took her to the people that had started gathering around the Cauldron. Gwendolyn wasn't the only one that had to fight an apocalyptic being though. Oswald, worn and weary, passed out as he reached the Cauldron with her unconscious body.
When they awoke, the world was bare. Their weapons were gone, the Cauldron was nowhere to be seen, and the world was so utterly quiet as to be deafening. They realized that they were the only two people left on the planet, and the two "crownless lords" that were predicted to survive the apocalypse. Gwendolyn was terrified, but Oswald noticed something in the distance. While the land immediately around them was bare, Phozons could be seen replenishing the ground with plants not unlike that of a solitary paradise.
Later in the same battle, she met the Fairies' strongest and most feared warrior: Oswald, the Shadow Knight. Able to change his body into an unnatural blackness that increased his strength tenfold, none was said to survive an encounter with him on the battlefield. He and Gwendolyn fought, but once he had pinned her down he refused her demand to kill her. He said that killing any more from a side that had already lost was a waste of his time, slayed a man that tried to sneak up on him, and left her.
They lost that battle, and upon hearing of Griselda's demise Odin showed no sign of remorse. Instead he ordered another attack upon the Ringford troops. Gwendolyn was both saddened and annoyed by her father's act, but nonetheless obeyed. Death was not the way into her father's heart.
This time they were successful and won the Cauldron from the Fairy kingdom. However, a third party intercepted and turned the Cauldron off. As Gwendolyn headed for the Cauldron, she witnessed the woman running away but thought little of it. When she returned home to Ragnanival and discovered that person had sabotaged the Cauldron, she felt guilty for having let her get away and promised her father that she would subdue the woman herself.
Velvet
She found her in the forests surrounded Ragnanival, where the two fought until Odin himself appeared and demanded Gwendolyn to stop. Odin spoke to the young woman, whose name was Velvet, and revealed that Velvet was his illegitimate daughter. Velvet derided him and wanted nothing to do with her father.
Odin would have let her go, but a highly respected general happened upon the scene and blackmailed the king. If Velvet went unpunished he would tell the country that the king had been fraternizing with the enemy during a past war. Torn between causing a revolt in his country and his daughter, King Odin could only watch helplessly as Lord Brigan had her brought back to the capital to confess. There she told them that the Cauldron could only be restarted and controlled by the wearer of a special ring, Titrel, and that ring had been feed to a dragon in the mountains. Lord Brigan suggested they offer Velvet to the dragon in return for the ring, and left with the girl in hand and some troops.
Gwendolyn was thrown by all of this. First, her father had loved another woman. Did that mean he had never loved her own mother? Is that why he could never show love for her? And Velvet was special to him. Gwendolyn could see the depth of his sorrow for her death sentence. He showed no such emotion for Griselda's death. He had never shown so much care for her. Obviously, her half-sister was worth more than she was, though Gwendolyn had dedicated her life to making him happy.
In order to make her father happy, she would have to commit treason against her country. Gwendolyn followed Lord Brigan into the mountains and waited for him to send his troops out in search of the dragon Wagner. Alone with Velvet, he revealed that he planned to kill her himself whether they found the dragon or not, and then he would tell all of Ragnanival that not only had their king fraternized with the enemy years ago, but he then willingly sent his own daughter to her death.
Unable to stand such traitorous action against her father, Gwendolyn fought and killed Lord Brigan. When his troops got back, they saw the princess had murdered a highly respected general and freed the woman that sabotaged their war efforts. She was brought back to the castle and subjected to the customary punishment. Stripped of her honor, a sleeping spell was to be placed on her that could only be broken with a kiss, and she would be forced to wed the one that awakened her.
As Odin cast the spell on her, he told her how grateful he was and that he wished he didn't have to do this. Gwendolyn told him how she had longed for her father's love and would be happy for the rest of her life now that she finally had it and fell asleep.
The Ring Titrel
She awakened in an old castle in the forest, and was greeted by the Shadow Knight. Pitying herself for being forced to love and the bear the children of her country's enemy, she tried to make it clear that she would not enjoy his company. He presented her with a ring, boasting that he had retrieved it from the stomach of a dragon, and then apologized that he had nothing better to give to her.
Gwendolyn instantly realized it was Titrel. He apologized again, saying that he had to leave to fulfill a promise he had made. He asked if she would still be here when he got back, and she informed him that she belonged to him now and would do whatever he wished. Annoyed, he told her firmly that she was not an object, not a tool to be used and thrown away, and he would never allow anyone to treat her like one. This struck her deeply, and when he left she was left wondering what his motive was.
While he was gone, Gwendolyn brought the ring to King Odin, but found that the Netherworld had started a small scale invasion and the king was currently possessed by Lord Brigan's spirit. She freed her father from the possession and presented him with Titrel. Elated, he unwittingly let out that he had tempted Oswald and gotten him to slay the dragon in exchange for the right to marry her. Now that she had saved her country from the Netherworld and given such a precious item to the king, she was forgiven for her previous crime and was no longer banished.
Gwendolyn was touched that anyone would do anything so drastic just for her. Though she had regained her honor and was allowed to live in the castle once more, she declined, stating that now that she was married she had a duty to her husband.
The Inferno King
She returned before Oswald did and waited for him. As the hours turned into days she grew more and more worried about his predicament. Donning her armor once again, she left for the Lava Pits that he was supposed to have gone to.
Inferno King Onyx greeted her warmly and skimmed over the issue of where Oswald was until Gwendolyn demanded it of him. Onyx explained that King Odin had offered her to him years ago, and in exchange for letting the issue drop quietly the Shadow Knight had agreed to wield his sword for him just once. He was fighting, or perhaps had died while fighting, a baby dragon named Leventhan, whom when fully grown was supposed to cause the end of the world. The Inferno King offered to help Oswald kill the dragon, but only if Gwendolyn agreed be his wife instead.
Gwendolyn repeated Oswald's words to her, that she was not an object, and ran off to find and help him herself. Though considerably weakened, Leventhan was still fighting strong, while days of constant battle with the beast had worn Oswald out to the point that his attacks were desperate and he was concentrating much more on surviving a few minutes longer than killing the dragon. Gwendolyn grabbed the dragon's attention and fought it for him, causing enough injury to chase it out of the land. Onyx was awed by her resolve and let her leave with her unconscious husband, though warned that he was a tortured soul that was destined to die in misery.
When the Shadow Knight regained consciousness, he explained his situation to her. His adoptive father had promised Oswald's soul to the Queen of the Netherworld in exchange for putting some of her power into Oswald's cursed sword. This was done behind his back, and recently the Queen of the Netherworld had decided to cash in on the promise. As a result, reapers were stalking him just out of sight, waiting for a time when he would wander too far away from the sword.
It was at that moment a messenger from King Odin's court arrived, telling Gwendolyn of a surprise attack from the Fairies that resulted in the loss of the ring she had given to Odin. Oswald overheard this and, feeling betrayed, left her sight.
The Netherworld
Gwendolyn, feeling more horrible than she ever had in her life, went to the Ringford by herself to retrieve Titrel. She confronted the Fairy queen and asked for the ring back, explaining that it was a gift from her husband that meant a lot to her. Queen Mercedes saw it as a thinly veiled attempt by the Valkyrie to get control of the Cauldron again. Gwendolyn took the ring back by force and fled from their land.
She arrived home to discover that Oswald had been taken by a reaper. He felt that she did not love him and didn't want to burden her any longer, so had willingly let the reapers get him. Her father was well known for sneaking into the Netherworld to steal Queen Odette's priceless jewels, so she confronted her father. He was annoyed that she was not there to deliver the ring back to him, but she promised to hand it over once she and Oswald came back.
Odette refused to return Oswald to the land of the living and taunted her by showing off Oswald's unconscious body, so Gwendolyn did what a Valkyrie does best. After a long hard battle, Gwendolyn defeated the Queen of the Netherworld and in doing so wiped her soul from existence. Oswald was no longer bound by the curse of his sword, but without the Queen's power the Netherworld started to seal off from the living world.
King Odin retrieved the two just in time and dropped them off in his castle. There, he asked Gwendolyn to keep her promise and give Titrel to him. She told her father that the ring was a symbol of her love for Oswald and his love for her, and if he wanted it that badly he would have to kill her for it. Oswald ran to her defense, but King Odin couldn't bring himself to harm his daughter in the first place. He stomped out of the room, leaving Oswald and Gwendolyn to find their way home.
Armageddon
Quite some time afterward, Gwendolyn and Oswald noticed something happening over in Ragnanival, which they had a limited view of from their castle. Oswald left to investigate, asking Gwendolyn to stay in the safety of the castle. She obeyed, but after a while it was clear that the prophecy of Armageddon was starting to unfold and she wanted to see if Oswald was safe. Before leaving she saw the ghost of her dead sister, who told her to remember to knock off the crown. Confused by this statement, she left the castle to find her husband.
By this point Leventhan had plenty of time to steal life energy from the planet, forcing him into adult form. Large enough to encircle the world with his long snakelike body, he started destroying whatever was left of the ground beneath him. Gwendolyn noticed a crown hanging off of one of the horns on his head and, remembering Griselda's words, fought the dragon. It didn't like that she could so easily stay in the sky with him and so most of his attacks focused on damaging her wings. When she was finally able to do it, knocking off the crown weakened the dragon so much that it hardly took any effort to kill it, but her wings had been utterly destroyed in the effort and she plummeted to the ground.
Oswald had noticed her fighting and intercepted her as she fell. He didn't know where to bring her for help, and the Valkyrie's kingdom had been utterly destroyed, so he took her to the people that had started gathering around the Cauldron. Gwendolyn wasn't the only one that had to fight an apocalyptic being though. Oswald, worn and weary, passed out as he reached the Cauldron with her unconscious body.
When they awoke, the world was bare. Their weapons were gone, the Cauldron was nowhere to be seen, and the world was so utterly quiet as to be deafening. They realized that they were the only two people left on the planet, and the two "crownless lords" that were predicted to survive the apocalypse. Gwendolyn was terrified, but Oswald noticed something in the distance. While the land immediately around them was bare, Phozons could be seen replenishing the ground with plants not unlike that of a solitary paradise.