"Well, I didn't want to speak over our handsome knight after he offered us a story. I may be a Brelish girl, but that doesn't mean I don't have the utmost respect for the Knights Arcane," Sinope protests slightly, but since Rionus has paused for a while, she acquiesces, "But it does seem we have time for one story. Now, it may or may not be true...There was a great barbarian warrior shrouded in mystery. Some said he arose from the Argonnessen. Others say that he was a man raised by the Talenta halflings. Still others, that he was no ordinary man, but a Valenar elf instead. Whichever the case, the legends just call him Crimson Arc, perhaps after the name of his blade."
"Crimson Arc had been plagued by dreams of an incalculably beautiful woman who was trapped somewhere deep in the earth, perhaps even in Khyber. In time, he came to fall in love with this woman--and he spoke with her through the walls of her prison within his dream. The dreams seemed so real to him, that he knew they must be a vision quest sent to guide him. Following his dreams and his instincts, he traveled the length and breadth of the land, searching for his true love. Using the details in the dream and the intensity, which waned and waxed with his distance to his love, he managed to track her prison to the Demon Wastes. He slew countless demons and their foul spawn, journeying deep beneath the scarred landscape into the caverns below. And there, he saw the sealed wall from his dreams, jutting with Khyber dragonshards and a message in a language he couldn't understand--who knows what language it was, he was a barbarian after all, and barbarians generally don't bother learning to read. So Crimson Arc used his mighty blade, planting it deep within the sealed wall, the Khyber dragonshards humming with magical resonance...and suddenly, the wall shattered. He ran inside to embrace his love and found a silhouette within--there she was! Did she just twist her palms? How unusual. But still, as he approached and she pulled off her hooded cloak, he could see that it was none other. As he closed his eyes to engage her in a deep kiss, her own eyes flashed like a predatory cat's."
"No one knows what truly happened that day, and the stories diverge. The only thing we know for sure is that something evil was released that day, and Crimson Arc was never heard from again. Was he killed for sport by his erstwhile lover? Did she keep him as a slave? Or does he roam the Demon Wastes, twisted to her evil and fanatically devoted still, a shell of the former hero?"
"This is one point on which even the bards do not agree."
