Ancients Legacy Ash Prologue: All that remained of Silver Cove were smoking ruins; an entire town set

to the torch and burned to the ground until only blackened stone and ashes lingered as a reminder of what had once stood here. There was a dead silence about, the terrifying force that had struck here left nothing alive; single-mindedly savage in its purpose not a man, woman or child not even the chickens and livestock had been spared from terrible butchery. Bodies and carcasses littered the streets and of the structures of the once prosperous fishing town; nothing remained of the towns simple beauty only blood, death and destruction on scale hardly imagined. A storm had come and passed in the night as if fate sought to hide its all seeing eye from this hideous sight and perhaps begin to wash clean the horror. Morning would come with the sun rising with the new day and with it would come witnesses, travellers unaware of the horror that awaited them. The silence and the smell of death; the buzz and howl of scavengers come to feast upon the flesh of the dead, they would turn back rushing to call for aid too late as the swift and terrible force made good its escape across the clear blue ocean.

Princess Alyssa Valerian, third and youngest child of King Darius Valerian woke with a start and yell, drenched in a cold sweat she shivered with fear. Between terrified gasps of air she remembered flashes of the nightmare; her fathers court was gone replaced by a dark parody littered with blood and death. The blackened, broken and mercilessly mutilated corpses of courtiers scattered about the dark hall in a vividly bloody tableau the princess could barely imagine is such detail. Alyssa was not alone everywhere shadows moved seemingly of their own volition, she could feel an awareness a terrible intelligence behind the moving darkness. Standing at the courts heart she turned to face her fathers throne, but the stone seat was gone in its place a throne of bone and blood and its terrible occupant. The occupant was made of shadows rather than flesh, blood and bone, darkness shaped into the form of an enormous man. Atop his head he wore a crown of night and he could see her, he had no eyes to see but Alyssas instincts were certain he could see her. He had no mouth to speak but a word was spoken nonetheless, in a thundering voice like an avalanche of rocks crashing down a mountain slope he spoke, MINE, the echoed evil in the Shadow-Kings voice sent shivers of terror down her spine and set her heart racing with a deep primal fear. The other shadows laughed in voices less terrible but still warped enough to chill her beating heart, revelling in the dark kings great will as his shadow spread creeping ever closer. Alyssa yelped when a cool hand touched her shoulder, she turned to face what horror stood behind her; she was pleasantly surprised. The hand belonged to a being shaped of bright white light and behind this amorphous entity stood many others luminous with pure light that cast back the terrible night and its dark occupants. What is done cannot be undone, the beings spoke in a single harmonious voice that was many, what is not yet done can be avoided, the being pressed a hand to her forehead. Alyssa was shocked as its vast presence touched her mind and woke her from nightmare screaming and gasping for breath and with a certainty she knew, All hope is not lost.

Chapter 1: I have witnessed the worst of humanity. I have suffered the vilest cruelties the self-righteous can imagine and lived to tell the gruesome tale of it. Perhaps I have peered to long into that abyss but I can never forget the pain and I can never forgive. -Ash Strider She is impressive, Ash could tell his old master had chosen his words were great care; words specifically chosen not upset him. She is everything I imagine a warrior princess should be. A spirited natural beauty, strong and proud, she has that spark of a born leader and her speech regal eloquent. It could just as easily be a trick, The seers say no, was Mareks too quick answer, The seers have been wrong before, Ash countered, And they will be wrong again, but it seems not this day. I still dont like it, Ash shot back, the storm of his emotions welled up threatening his already fraying control, Then youre going to like the councils other decisions even less. His house arrest had been all but inevitable. Accomplished young artisan; newly minted Grey Knight and a former assassin in training, few adepts possessed the power and skills to defy the High-Council and get away with it and fewer still the motivation. Newly elevated to the rank of full mage Ash had the free time to pursue his interests, to spend days and sometimes weeks scouring the Green-Veil for remnants of ancient magics to study. Upon first waking to find he was shackled and confined to his own home Ash had been nothing short of enraged, straining against the bonds imposed on his magic. His every desperate effort failing, futile in the face of the greater combined skills of mages far more practiced in the art. Ash flowed through the forms like a gentle summer breeze, the simple pleasure of physical exertion a distraction from his troubles. Hed found a clarity of thought in the tedious weeks of confinement, what small magic he had left to him he used to practice the new spells he learned and to innovate refinements to his spell-craft. In the training circle one could find the soul of beauty, precision and control, the very things Caleb Varros spell-journals had been a godsend, a veritable treasure trove of invaluable ideas Ash had only begun to skirt the edges of. Exotic concepts more than worthy of one of the most eccentric minds Haven had ever been privileged to produce. Every line spoke of an elegance of thought Ash despite his best efforts had yet to master.

We once served the same master, That which you serve is no longer that which we serve, Ash (Sorrow) Marcus Varro Aldus Grey (Founder of the Grey knights, Ascended) Caleb Rivers (Frost) Cara Rivers (Flare)

Alana Vadis (Siren) Marek Raines (Senior Grey Knight; Kyles mentor) Alana Valerian (older) Alyssa Valerian