[[Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9nFdkJ3JTU]]
In the far reaches of Regisfall, where the winds gnash their teeth upon basalt cliffs and the sun seems a stranger to the land, there broods a place called Thorncrag. A land of briar and bone, where even the air is sharp and bitter, and only the iron-willed dare call it home. The mountain shelf juts like a broken fang into the sky, and upon its blackened stones, Hill Elves forge not only steel, but themselves.
No bard sings of Thorncrag’s beauty, for there is none. Yet every song of valor has its root here, in bloodied knuckles and boot-scarred earth. It is a crucible of stone and scorn, where warriors are not born but beaten into shape, and shieldbearers train until sinew screams and lungs tear like paper. There, pain is not the price - it is the path.
*
Within the bowels of Thorncrag, beneath any lawful gaze, a hidden arena pulses with heat and fury. There, in a circle of blackstone and torchlight, two fighters clash to the roar of a hundred voices. Amid the din stands Ettrian Ffiebi: a living avalanche, broad-shouldered and grim, his helm crowned with curling horns. The crowd chants with rising hunger: “Ram! Ram! Ram!”
Ettrian’s fists are twin hammers, each blow displacing the air around as he moves. His opponent, sturdy but slow, struggles to keep up. Until Ettrian feints, then charges, head first: his signature headbutt.
CRACK!
The helm strikes true. The Ram’s horns find bone. The other elf crumples like a felled tree.
“RAM! RAM! RAM!”
The chant echoes as Ettrian lifts his horned helm in salute, blood dripping from the curve of one ram’s spiral. He does not smile. He huffs, seeming disappointed the fight ended so soon.
*
The wind howls outside as Ettrian trudges home, coins clinking in his fist like brittle promises. The door creaks open to a dim stone chamber, lit by embers and the wheezing breath of a woman upon a cot.
His mother, once called Irvna The Stormborne, a legend in Thorncrag’s ancient battles, now curled like spent parchment beneath a woolen shroud. Her Lyrandel fataly damaged in her last expedition, a few years back.
She coughs. “Another fight, Ettri?”
He kneels beside her, giant hands gentled by grief. “We eat another week. I win again.”
“You better win. You're my son”, she murmurs. "But I worry. You're risking your life out there for me."
"Stop, mama..."
She turns her glassy eyes to him. “Leave this place, child. Thorncrag grinds dreams into dust.”
His fists clench. “I won’t leave you.”
She smiles, but it is a sad smile.
*
Years pass. Ettrian stays with his mother as her light dims, until it fades. Grief seeps into the stone. The Stormborne is no more; ashes returned to the cliff winds. Ettrian, unmoored, drinks heavily to fight the pain of her loss. His reputation prevents him from joining the shieldbearers of Thorncrag. And drowned in liquor, he fights poorly in the arenas. The Ram is now a beast in debt.
On a night thick with storm, he rummages through her things: torn gloves, old letters, and at last, a leather-bound tome. Its title is etched in calligraphy faded by time:
"The Water Fist", by Eoneleth Gallardo.
Ettrian squints at the diagrams. Dancers made of ink, slipping past spears, folding like waves, striking like floods. It is a style foreign to Thorncrag’s bruising school - a river in a land of stone. Eoneleth was arandorian, after all.
He is intrigued. This is all very interesting, to discover now that his mother studied martial arts, something she kept for herself, all these years. However...
However pages are torn. Whole chapters missing. He sees her notes in the margins, years old, incomplete.
She had tried. And failed.
He understands what he must do.
*
Beneath a rusted sky, Ettrian packs what little he owns. His horned helm. The book. A satchel of coin earned and owed. At the docks, wind lashes waves into frenzy. He boards a creaking vessel bound for Arandor, land of green pastures and golden meadows.
He looks back once at the cliffs of Thorncrag, where ghosts whisper in basalt. He spits. Then, turning, looks ahead, into the distant unknown. The waves crashing against the vessel almost sound like the crowds in the arena: "Ram! Ram! Ram!".
Ettrian "The Ram" Ffiebi sets forth, away from his past, with two goals in mind. First, upon arrival, he would seek the Order of The Valiant Shield. Maybe he can join them and carve a name for himself in the new land. Second, to find the monk Eoneleth and learn the dance of water, to finish what his mother started, and become more than what Thorncrag allowed.
“For you, mother,” he murmurs, as the ship cleaves the dark waters.