A Princess’s Adventure, Prologue



Prologue
The Past.

         “Are you sure they will be safe down here?“ Iulianus asked
         “It was her last order, so we do not have any other option.” Cyriacus responded, “Nevertheless it will safe down here, only our people know how to navigate these tunnels.”
         The two traveled further in to the tunnels in quite until in frustration Iulianus asked a question out loud to himself, “How did it come to all of this? The emperor dead, his only heir dying facing one of those things, our military destroyed, and our civilization in ruins!”
         Cyriacus turned and looked at him for a moment with a disapproving look, “That is a stupid question! You know well enough what happened.” In his head he continued what he had started saying, “They came once again, five hundred years after their master was defeated they rose up again looking for the keys to free him from his prison. They attacked us so quickly we did not have a chance to fight back, we did our best but it was not enough. Even the princess with her mothers armor and swords could only do so much, though she did take down their leaders.”
         “Sorry, I am just so frustrated.” Iulianus has stopped and was now shaking, “when they attack here I just hid, I fought so many of the empire’s enemies with courage, but when they showed up I just ran.”
         Cyriacus actually felt sorry for him, “Not everyone can face a dragon, when a dragon landed at the palace I saw veteran solders who have faced countless enemies and deamons run, men and women who had never thought of running before in their lives could do nothing but run. While the princess who had never even trained in any of the martial arts put her mother’s armor on and welded her swords as if she had always done that very thing.”
         “I suppose, but it still disturbs me that I just ran when my friends, my comrades were being killed by them.” he just stood there for a moment, then slammed his fist in to the stone wall making a loud thud that echoed through out the tunnel.
         Cyriacus did not say anything to Iulianus, not that he did not want to just there was nothing he could say. “We should put these in the vault, and then we can discuss these thing afterwards.” Iulianus nodded in agreement and they continue deeper in to the tunnels eventually coming to the spot Cyriacus had been looking for, “Magic Storage Vault” he silently read to himself then touched a spot on the wall and it separated quickly and quietly.
         “I had heard of this place, but never seen it before, the special vault where they stored all of the magicly enhanced equipment.” as Iulianus looked in wonder only to be disappointed by the mostly emptied shelves, “What to all of the equipment!?” it was at this point that Cyriacus filled him in on what had happened in the last two weeks while he was in hiding.
          When the dragons and their minions attacked most of the empires military was scattered, but after the princess rose to the occasion at the imperial capital and slew a dragon, word spread faster then a dragon could fly and soon many of the soldiers who had ran returned to ask for her forgiveness, which she gave and they gave their renewed loyalty in a commander who had slain a dragon. The marched to the fort, finding it destroyed as well they descended into the tunnels and retrieved all the magic equipment to arm them against the dragons’s army. A week later they clashed with the dragons’s army with the princess leading the charge, she single handedly slew the three dragons that had been part of their force before facing the commander of that army a small dragon-halfling who called himself Krastle, despite his small size he was powerful and immune to the damage of even the magic weapons they had, the only thing that could harm him was the swords the princess welded. The battle was long and hard, eventually she managed to get the upper hand but it cost her, in her last strike Krastle managed to deliver a mortal blow of his own. While the solders tended to the princess the best they could all that could be heard over the now quite battle field was Krastle wines, cries and curses at how he could fall to a human girl. Her last request was that Cyriacus place her armor and swords in the vault to keep it out of the dragons hands, she also gave one last command to her troops that they were to keep the magic arms and armor to protect the land from the dragon’s minions.
         “And I hid like a coward this whole time, while the princess was fighting to protect us all.” Iulianus said in anger focusing it at himself.
         “If you want to do something for her, you should live, live and do not run again when you can fight your enemy. But again do not blame yourself so much, for when I first saw the dragon at the palace even I froze, I over came that fear when I saw her do what I could not, you did not have that benefit here, when we arrived here we found everyone long dead, if you had you would be part of them.”
         With that a fire seemed to be lit in Iulianus’s eyes that perhaps he was meant to do something more, have an effect on the world. “Alright let us finish what you came here to do, then I am going to watch over these ruins to make sure these are safe until they are needed again.”
         “That is good to hear! We will place them in this chamber here, they will be safe until one of us retrieves them.” They placed the armor and swords on the stands in the room and locked the door behind them, they would latter return to stock the vault with regular weapons for future use, after they finished the closed the vault’s door, and went their way, but not before they made complete maps of the tunnels for their future use.
         Iulianus settled down near the ruins of the fort, eventually marrying and having a son whom he named Christophorus. As for Cyriacus he stayed around the region for a while watching the ruins with Iulianus but eventually he decided to head east before he did he left his copy of the map with Iulianus to do with what he wished. Cyriacus eventually settled down in a new town out east he helped found, Corsica.