the Griffin's Mane
It is a ring handed down from father to son through countless generations of the Skie family. I received it upon my father's death when I was sixteen years of age. None had yet to discover it's true purpose, for the ring works strange and wonderous things on it's own whim, until one night shortly after inheriting the artifact, and while pondering it's mysteries off the coast of the Astorian Peninsula, I inadvertantly fitted a piece of it's puzzle together.
When the mists cleared, I heard a call from the shore and lit upon a gnarled old tree was perched a griffin, it's emerald pelt sparkling in the moonlight. As I watched the creature, it shifted it's eyes in my direction until it lifted from it's branch and soared the distance to perch atop the center mast of the Darkhorse. It was then that my eyes caught sight of something else in the fog, the figure of a man standing beneath the branch which had held the griffin.
Seemingly older than the world itself, the old sage vanished from my sight as quickly as he had appeared, only to show himself at my side, in his hand a simple, wooden box. Muttering the name Anabandine Rhoxx, he bowed slightly before presenting me the box. After I accepted the offering, he wandered away, the griffin with him. Upon closer inspection, I found the box to have no hinge and no clasp, yet something truely was inside it. I left it be for a period of no less than three weeks, after which time the box opened of it's own accord one night while in the dead of the sea...
Startled from my sleep by a mysterious howl that only I appeared to have heard, I opened my eyes to look into those of a wolf. His coat laden with snow, he appeared more visionary than true to life and as I reached up to wipe away the mist clouding my vision, that very smoke became what had once stood eye to eye with me. Whispered in the air about me was the name of Trion, and since that night, the wolf remains as both guardian and guide.
Two years passed, I sailed idly hither and yon with little clues as to what my quest was. It was then that I was visited a second time by the old sage and his griffin, this time on a muggy night off the Isadorian coast. At first sight of him, I thought it a mirage, a figure standing among swirling sands, glistening around him in a warm afterglow, but when he pointed to my ship, the wooden box I received two years prior once again spewed forth two more relics before closing for good. The old man disappeared shortly after, leaving me once again with no answers and little clues to guide me. I soon realized that the star of iron, if worn about my neck, seemed to ward off intrusions of the mind, keeping my secrets mine alone. The pentagram has since proven itself a compass of sorts, glowing and spinning round until pointing itself in a certain direction. I assumed it is trying to lead me to the Millstone, and artifact my father and grandfather once told me of. It was then that the old man paid his third, and final visit. In words lighter than air he instructed me to find the ancient Millstone and the seven bearers of the elemental seals to activate it, yet something in my heart tells me that no good will come of it...for my new guardian tells me that evil...knows evil...
