The Legend of Apollo

Our story begins as most tend to, I could begin with once upon a time, or even in a land from far, far away. But I suppose I could be content to just begin with a background. The land of Keene is a fantastic and surprising place if you only know where to look. There are the lush golden plains which can grow the food for the thousands of people who inhabit the land. The deep blue seas that surround them provide the island nation of Keene with fresh fish and safety from the hostiles of the other nations. To the west of the plains is the salt desert with salt so pure and bleached that it looks a cleaner white than you have ever seen. On the east of the plains you will find the Rolling Hills that take on almost a life of their own and have their own almost mystical presence among them.  If you travel slightly to the south you will find the Mysterious Forest where certain villainous types tend to wander, or even those who have lost their way. To the south of this, at the very bottom of the island you will find the Pass of Destiny, where heroes have been made and broken, and very few are brave enough to attempt the trial.
         But yet it is in the Mysterious Forest that our story started when our story began, when a young man and a beautifully talented girl first met. They were out looking for adventure and as the fates would have it, they found it. In a world of troubled romances this could not be more classic. While searching for treasures unknown amongst the animal dens in the forest, they bumped heads in a competition to see who could find more. The young man being the rebellious teen that he was, was so cocky and arrogant that he had already lost the game before it had even begun.  A feud, born of stubborn pride, would only to be broken by the strangest of circumstances.
         The young boy was out hunting in the forest one night for food when he heard a scream that chilled him to the core. Grabbing his bow and arrows he deftly darted towards the direction of the screams. After a couple hundred yards the boy slowed his pace to try and get a sense of his surroundings. Sneaking to the clearing ahead he realized that he had just entered a troll camp. Thankfully, these were not full adults, but still, even an eight foot troll is not to be taken lightly. The large sharp tusks and the teeth that protrude from their mouths are like tiny daggers. Now take fifty of them and put them in a mouth. Not a fun feeling. Even at this height the trolls were probably about forty years of age and had the strength to pull your arm right off, which apparently, they had. Two of the trolls had decided that dinner was supposed to start and grabbed one of the six people they were holding hostage and ripped the arm clean of the body only to use it as an instrument with which to stir the cauldron.
         The boy had a count in his head of the six prisoners, one of which was now wounded, and bleeding profusely. More than likely this poor man was going to die and nothing could be done for him. With just his one bow there was no hope of managing to take out the dozen or so trolls that were at the camp. But seeing as the cauldron was simmering nicely and the trolls were starting to stir, it was time to make his move. Stringing the bow tightly and knocking an arrow, he loosed at the nearest troll. The arrow flew straight and true and lodged itself in the troll’s skull and dropped him without a sound. So far so good, only another dozen to go. Right now would be a good time to know the magic that he’d heard the ancients in the Salt Desert could use. Blow them all sky high in an instant, but alas, he only had his bow and his sword. Taking aim he loosed an arrow at another target slowly making his way towards the one guarding the cage.
         Only one more troll now stood between the boy and the cage, the problem being that he only had the arrow that had chipped on the tree while he was hunting left. Knowing that the arrow no longer had the capacity to kill the troll anymore, the boy fired the arrow not at the troll, but at the trees behind him. The slight noise was enough to distract the troll, and as he turned around he was skewered from behind. The noise the troll made in its death throes was enough to rouse the remaining trolls and they turned in the direction of the noise to find the boy hacking with all his might at the ropes holding the cage shut, imprisoning their food. With the trolls coming towards them the boy grabbed the prisoners and fled with them. Knowing the area of the forest and the traps that lay ahead the boy grabbed the girl he came to rescue and hauled her into a crevice that opened up into a large cave.
         Knowing the local tribes as he did the boy knew that there would be ample supplies of arrows, food, and wood lying in preparation for the winter. The crevice was too small for the trolls to get through but hopefully, they would continue chasing the others instead of the boy and the girl he had just saved.
         Even though they had gotten off to a rough start due to a teenagers pride and the inability to perceive others, a week stuck in a cave with nothing to do but wait and see what the trolls would do gave them time to start over. By the end of the week we might even call these two friends. Soon after the boy lead the girl through the pass and out of the Mysterious Forest and back to the lush Golden Plains in the center of the island of Keene. While walking home the girl told the boy about her customs in her tribe and invited him to come and visit on a date to be predetermined later. The boy agreed and when they came to the fork, they hugged and promised to see each other soon and went their separate ways, and eventually home to be welcomed with open arms and cheers.
         Well as luck would have it, and with teenage boys being as dumb as can be, the date they would meet came and went and the boy never showed, he never even sent a letter. He let his fear of the differences of the tribe scare him into indifference and he never went. Who really knows why he didn’t go? Could be any number of reasons, the only one who can answer your question is the boy himself, and as of today nobody really knows where he is.
         Many years have passed since the fateful meeting. The boy became a peddler and traveled the lands of Keene learning and honing his technique in the arts. He never married and wanders from village to village helping those he is able and sharing his knowledge with those who ask. He still remembers the girl that he spurned out of fear, how could he forget? She became the queen of the island of Keene. She also turned out not to be human, but a fairy that had married into the nobility of the court and found herself seated in the throne a few years later. For many years between Queen Lissema and her husband, peace had reigned throughout Keene and the villainous tribes had been forced into hiding in the wood where she had once been saved so very long ago.
         But the reign of peace is over. When Queen Lissema’s husband died many of the old prejudices that she had overcome at her husband’s side had begun to resurface.  Many on the court thought that she hadn’t been fit to rule being that she was a fairy. But without her husband some of the more prominent nobles decided to take it into their own hands to remove her from the throne. Unrest was now prominent among the villages and cities, and all the blame was falling to the queen. Those who had been once forced into hiding and scavenging for food among other creatures such as the trolls were starting to take whatever they could get their hands on and sow terror into the towns.
         Due to treachery among her court and the various cults beginning to emerge from the wood there was going to be a full scale war for control of the kingdom, and if that happened then no matter the winner, the land of Keene would suffer a setback such as the people had not seen in over a millennia. Sadly, however the war could not be avoided and soon fire and destruction was being sown across the lands surrounding the immediate area of the Mysterious Wood. The Queen sent her armies off to combat the tribes in the wood. The armies could crush anything in their way on the open ground of the plains, but once they entered the wood, they suffered defeat after defeat and soon had to settle for patrolling the outskirts of the wood to try and contain the tribes from wreaking havoc upon the surrounding towns.
         Lissema knew that her forces would not be able to outmaneuver an enemy that had spent several years gathering their strength while surviving in the Wood. They had hidden there since she and her husband had taken control of the crown. There was however one person that she knew of that could bring them the victory that she desired, or at the very least he could help turn the tide of this war and bring an end to the stalemate before the tribes managed to build the boats they would need to challenge her fleet. She hated to break open the old would upon her heart by bringing the boy from her childhood back, but without him this was would only turn more gruesome and more terrible. The only problem was, nobody knew what happened to the boy. He had disappeared shortly after he had abandoned her. But she had to try. Queen Lissema sent word out to all the couriers to find this man and bring him to her alive and unharmed.
         For days she waited for a courier to come back with him and for days she was disappointed. Maybe he had died. If so, then this war would get worse and eventually one side would gain the upper hand. Then one day after she had briefed her council on what to do to continue tying up the rebellious tribes in the south she went back to her room only to find the door unlocked. This immediately put her on her guard as she entered the room because no one was allowed in her save her and her alone. She called the guard to her doors should she need them but asked them to wait for her call because there were several things in the room that were patiently kept secrets and objects for use in an emergency only.
         To her surprise the only thing out of place that didn’t belong in the room was a man of middle age, probably about twenty-five to thirty-four, sitting in the chair about twenty feet away facing the door. He was dressed in average dark clothes with a low hanging black duster on over them, with a low brimmed hat obscuring his face from view.
         “Who are you?” the queen demanded of the stranger, “and how did you manage to slip past my wards?”