> Shrug.
> "I've never been one for world-traveling. But assuming I get home, maybe some day I'll come back here again, with something from my lands that you or whoever else would be positive didn't come from here. Though, truth be told, I'm not sure I need to spend much time here anyway, I only started wandering around my lands because of this thing..."
> Raise the broken sword up a little bit, being careful not to dislodge it from its fitted state.
> "...and suddenly I'm here instead of there. I'll be glad to get out of your hair, but I gotta ask, since you had some unexpected reactions to it. Could you tell me the story behind this sword, what with it giving me dreams of megalomania, our local blacksmith claiming total inability to restore it, and you seeming to suggest doing so would be a really bad idea?"
>"Very well," says the man. "That weapon one belonged to Prince Edmund of Cornwall. Few men have matched him in his tyranny, and certain none of them from these lands."
>He looks up toward the sky while continuing. "Cornwall's prior king had spent the last years of his life as an invalid, and between his many bastard sons, cousins, and so on, there was no clear successor. There was much time to sharpen knives for the coming war for that throne, and few prepared as early as Edmund had. By the time the king had passed away, he had already sent many of his relatives to the grave through more means than I care to recount. Amusingly, he likely prevented a bloody war that might have lasted til this day through his actions. The pools of blood he had waded through put him in as a clear favorite for the throne by the tender age of sixteen, and he quickly secured it and had the rest of the claimants dealt with permanently."
>The man shakes his head. "The man was a tyrant on a level that I could not hope to express. It was said that Prince Edmund never bowed his head in prayer in his life, lest he admit there some greater authority than himself. And I could believe it. He had druids ran from his lands, their lands sacked and turned to firewood. He dictated a code of law so thorough it detailed what ways were proper for a man to mount his horse, with stiff penalties for those to who violate. His pervasive guard freed the land of much of its crime, and he efficiently built a strong military. He was able to quickly cow many of his neighbors into submission through shows of force and machinations, and soon became quite the threat to the whole land.
>"Eventually, King Pendragon could ignore him no longer, and we moved to strike him down. The Bloody Prince was a brilliant tactician, and soon had us outflanked and surrounded. Any wise man would have surrendered or retreated. But our dear Wart, ahem, our dear King had vowed to stop him then and there, and so we attacked him directly. It was...amazing how quickly that the Bloody Prince's forces crumbled. He himself took to the field, and had the honor, if you could call it that, of being struck down by Sir Percival. Mmm, let this be said about Percival, as you likely will say you don't know of him: if can be said you are playing the buffoon, it can also be said that for him it is not merely a game."
>_
