My home, Grendhill, was always a prosperous land. I imagine the reader is familiar with it, so I need not tell you of the singing hills or friendly people. We always had peace, generations at a time, only a few minor internal perturbations punctuating the passage of the centuries.

Pardon me, allow me to introduce myself. I am T. Solmi Pedramon. I grew up in Grendhill, then a music student of the royal Sageman and now a traveling musician. Bard, some might say, but that word properly has more emphasis on the poetry. I certainly do that of course, but my focus is truly on the music. But enough about me.

My best boyhood friend, Domido Farella, and Mifalla Tormi were born into this heritage. Domido was born as the crown prince of Grendhill, and Mifalla as the daughter of a farmer. Domido was never weird about being royalty. It never stopped us from pulling the occasional practical joke, or getting in trouble together.

Mifalla was quite distinctive. She had loved Domido ever since she was old enough to say the word “love,” and we grew with her chasing him around and the Domido and I constantly scrambling to get away from her. That is, until he started noticing that she offered a kind of companionship I could not. They came of age and married while still young. Life was good and they were happy together, and they let me come around and play my music. Domido always tried to lend me an ear, at least.

But this is mostly their story, not mine. It was they who had it all stolen away from them. If we go back to before events started, I was there, and you will see that I appear from time to time. For the most part however, I have constructed the events as best I could, leaning on the accounts of people who took part, and personally knowing the majority of the key players and being familiar with how they would behave in a given situation.

The first significant wrench in their lives then, was that they found themselves unable to conceive a child for several years. They anxiously looked forward to bringing fresh little people into the world and teaching them the way of life in Grendhill, to help them live happily and thrive, but Domido and Mifalla could only wait and hope for that opportunity. Meanwhile, they had time on their hands to learn the ruling craft from Domido’s father and mother. As time rolled on, when Domido completed 30 Turns of age, his father gave him the throne, the Seat of Grendhill, and retired.

King Domido was excited beyond words when he and Queen Mifalla found themselves expecting a child not long after. As the queen’s belly expanded, soon enough they realized they were expecting more than one child. When the children decided it was time to arrive, there were five little quintuplets. My old friend was happy but nearly overwhelmed.

Before I go on with the Farella’s present account, you must understand that as Grendhill prospered it must also have been protected. After all, where there is a prosperous people, there are envious people who would take it all from them, if possible. You might know of such people or countries in your life.

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Grendhill sits near important trade routes and had rich natural resources. Furthermore, it is the home of the Thallenrose, the stone-like platform that functions as the gateway to travel and trade with people in other worlds. The Thallenrose was the only means and the only point in all Tasala to travel off-world.

Grendhill, then, was protected from greedy outsiders by an ancient power placed upon the Farella household at Grendhill’s founding. The nation was formed by the unification of three towns that lay near the Thallenrose, Gren Farella having shown himself a hero and saved them all on three separate occasions. The sagewoman Thallwren Aguneg pronounced at Gren’s coronation that the children born to the ruling King and Queen of the Farella line would be born already prepared to follow Gren’s legacy and protect the land. According to legend, Thallwren Aguneg lost the Sage’s gift that day, and she died shortly after.

But oh, her pronouncement certainly did not die with her. Since that time, for hundreds of years, when the princes and princesses of Grendhill were born, a weapon immediately took shape in their hands out of the air. Attendants always immediately snatched the weapon away and a trusted friend was charged with hiding the weapon away on another world until its owner was old enough to wield it, its location secret to all except the King and Queen and a few other trusted close friends…like me.

Throughout these generations, more than a hundred such weapons had appeared, been hidden, reclaimed, carried throughout life and, upon death, passed on to the Royal Guard of Grendhill. The original masters, those of the royal family, were ever the most skilled with these weapons, but in the hands of others they were still sharp, never rusting, never denting, and always feared in combat. The Royal Arms were well documented and tracked. Few of them went missing, carried off by one dissident prince who thought Gren’s Seat should have been his, and a few of his followers, who were never heard of again.

As a natural consequence of Grendhill’s history and Aguneg’s Gift, though others might envy its tranquility and prosperity, they did not dare attempt to challenge it.

I am rambling. I’ll return to the account of Mifalla and Domido, who, you can now understand, was a swordsman by birth. Five wonderful, healthy children greeted them on the day I played my part. Domido asked me to be ready and naturally I was.

I stood in the corner, ready to carry the newest Royal Arms to a secret location on another world, hiding them from even their rightful owners until these had grown old enough to handle them.

As the newborn children opened their eyes to the world for the first time and found a weapon in their hands, they were named, and the Sageman I mentioned earlier as my music master, Reedl, informed the parents of his Perceptions of them.

Domire came first, a boy wielding a sword, inclined to become noble and wise.

Valkyr followed, a girl holding a longbow and a quiver of arrows, determined to become swift and precise.

Tido was third, a boy with an axe, destined to become strong and confident.

Misolfa, the penultimate, a girl with a hammer, would become good-hearted and unstoppable.

Aton, the final tiny child born that day, was a boy. He kicked, looked around the room, and started to cry. He was not holding any weapon.