Heroes of the Lore Backstories

Hinky

With dawn breaking upon the Deh’run mountains, young acolytes groggily rose in their bedchambers. The Vayu Monasteries of Deh’run were scattered across mountain peaks along the Deh’run range, bordering the three large Aquila kingdoms.

The Aquila were primarily a military race; born fighters with senses as sharp as their blades. As a people, the Aquila were fiercely loyal to tribe and nature, and worshipped the Four Elements as personified deities.

Agan personified the element of fire, and the Aquila paid homage to the flame in combat training. Through their rituals of dance and song, the Aquila worshiped Ague, the aspect of water. Wildly practical and resourceful, the Aquila thanked Gaia, the aspect of Earth for their bountiful harvests.

It was in meditation and training at monasteries such as this one, that the raptor race paid tribute to Vayu, the aspect of Wind. The Vayu Monasteries took in Aquila children both noble and orphaned alike, and such with the uncanny pair Hinky and Erland.

Erland un-Peregrine was a scion of the Peregrine house, and natural heir to the leader of the Tawny Aquila. Brown as an autumn leaf, Erland smelled a privileged upbringing. At the young age of 13, his talons were coming in nicely. The wicked curve on his beak pointed directly back to his Peregrine house heritage, and his broad breast pointed to weapons training and a healthy diet.

Hinky on the other hand was a street urchin, orphaned at six years of age when his tiny village on the foothills were raided by Salander tribe. It was a full day after Verax the Scaly left the smouldering remains of the village, did Hinky crawl out from under the rubble - alone and afraid, with nothing but the pants on his feathered bottom and his father’s necklace clutched in his talons. After days of walking to the nearest settlement, he encountered Sister Melinah among the Vayu Monastery missionaries. Covered in ash and with nowhere else to go, Hinky followed the missionaries back to the Monastery and spent the next few years in training.

Washing the sleep out of his eyes, Hinky nudged Erland in the direction of the window. “What do you think? Should we do it?”

Erland looked back, amused. His keen hazel eyes scanned Hinky up and down as he shook his head in disbelief. For a lowborn, Hinky sported a marvelously white coat. While his form wasn’t as well nourished as Erland’s, the young snowy Aquila was coming into his physique nicely. The pair of them were sparring partners and were quite evenly matched, both in skill and wit.

“Do I think we should break into the library, look for Lord Garud’s Puzzlebox, steal it, and try to crack it open? Yeah sure, let’s get breakfast first”, he rolled his eyes back at Hinky.

“This place is full of secrets. You heard Sister Melinah, a lot of those secrets are locked in the library, to be studied and learned from. What good is any of that if it’s locked away? Erland, you are the heir to the leader of the Tawny Aquila, what if these secrets could defend your people.

Forever? Since the day I got here, it has been calling to me, in my dreams. A small wooden box with gold trim, and the spectre of a huge Aquila with great white wings. Sister Melinah told us, you were there! Lord Garud calls to me.”

“No no, she said it could be Lord Garud.”

Erland cocked his head to the right, as he always did when he was deep in thought. “Okay, we’ll take a look. But I was serious, breakfast first? The sisters were whipping up honeyed oatmeal.”

---

As the years passed, Erland and Hinky continued their training during the days and exploring during the nights. The pair were inseparable, and at the age of 17 were caught more than a handful of times in places within the Monasteries they had no right being. The young lads were in favour of Sister Melinah, the deputy head priestess at the Monasteries, and avoided their fair share of reprimand.

Now on the floor of yet another unnamed vault in the depths of the Monasteries, the boys sat apart, looking at each other. Between the two young Aquila lay a small wooden chest, its borders plated with gold. Strange runic symbols ran along the gold reinforcements, glinting unnaturally in the dim light bouncing off the damp walls of the vault.

“So, this it then?” asked Erland, motioning at the chest with a feathered wave.

Hinky stared stoned faced at the chest.

“This is it”.

Reaching over, Hinky picked the box up and rested it on his lap. Turning it over, he mused out loud.

“There’s no keyhole, and we have no key. If this is Lord Garud’s Puzzlebox, and I do think it is..perhaps the solution is a bit more crude than we think.” Looking over to Erland with a shrug, he continued.

“Lord Garud was a war hero, I don’t think puzzles were his speciality”.

Unsheathing his dagger, Hinky took a deep breath and drew it across his forearm. As beads of blood dripped onto the chest, Erland let out a sharp gasp. His large eyes remained laser focussed on the droplets falling onto the chest, only to be absorbed into the gold lining. The tawny Aquila continued to look on in disbelief as the runes glowed with the vibrating hum of ancient magic before stopping abruptly with the sounds of clicking locks.

“The blood of Garud?”, choked Erland at his companion, eyes so wide they were close to popping out of his avian skull. “You’ve walked around nameless all this time, when you could have worn Hinky un-Garud with pride? When was the last time the world saw an un-Garud?”. Finally running out of breath, Erland gasped out one last question.

“When did you know?”

Lifting the lid, Hinky’s visage remained unchanged as his eyes beheld the contents of his elusive quarry. He continued to stare at the insides of the chest as he answered Erland. “I don’t think I did. It was..a feeling, a hunch. I have heard Lord Garud in my dreams for years, it felt like we were connected somehow. I grew up in a village, away from the city and the army. A descendant of Lord Garud..it didn’t make any sense, but somehow it did too?”

Mouth hanging open, Erland snapped himself out of the daze.

“So what’s in it?”

Turning the chest around to face Erland, Hinky shrugged. “A map”.

In Lord Garud’s Puzzlebox was a lone piece of curled parchment, browned with age. Sketched in with a viscous liquid, now turned black, was what looked like a mountain pass. Along the middle of the pass was a crude drawing of a circle with an image of the crescent moon at the centre of it.

While the map was incredibly detailed at the entrance of the mountain pass, the path opened up into barren land save for two landmarks. The pass either opened into nothing, or nobody knew enough about what lay on the other side to cartograph a map.

On the left of the opening was a drawing of a building, along with symbols for food, drink and a bed. A lodge of some kind, perhaps?

On the right of the opening was a coloured in opening in the ground, further decorated to look like a gate or doorway of some kind. Above this drawing was two symbols. The first, was a skull and crossbones.

The second, was the crest of Garud.

“Whatever I was hoping to find in Lord Garud’s Puzzlebox”, said Hinky pointing at the doorway on the map, “we will find in here. If only I knew where here was.”

“Well I think the map isn’t done telling you”, pointed Erland hesitantly.

At the top right corner of the map, the viscous black fluid rearranged itself to form three telling words.

“The God’s Trench”