Long ago, it was prophesied that 12 wizards would be born to the Runiverse, their souls pure light. These “Lightborn” would band together, and return the Beasts back to their prison, and bring peace to the Runiverse once more.

Ryland was most assuredly not one of these lightborn. Not only was he not a wizard, but he was also not very nice.

He was, however, the last of the descendants of the blood of Hercules, and as such, he was quite strong. Not very smart, but incredibly strong, and very happy to sell his strength to the highest bidder (or in fact, anyone bidding anything at all).

He recently signed on to a small raiding party led by the wielder of the 24-Karat Crowbar, a bandit leader by the name of Rachel. The artifact imbued her with great power, and she led Ryland and her bandits on many successful raids, often without losing a single raider.

Though Rachel led the band, her orders came down from a shadowy figure. He had never seen the two communicate, but anytime someone brought it up, Rachel killed them. Ryland learned early on not to even concern himself with such things.

He was quite content literally punching people to death. He punched,and Rachel made sure the rest was taken care of.

And though his adventures with the raiding party would take him all over the runiverse, from the big wizard cities to the forgotten ruins of Atlantis, Ryland really didn’t change much.

From day one, punch punch punch. This little fact made him quite popular among the other raiders, who were known to pay Ryland to punch random things.

One time, someone dared him to punch a sleeping dragon, not expecting him to do it all. That would be the last time anyone would think he was capable of sarcasm.

He would go on to punch this dragon so hard, it’s head exploded. It was a right mess, blood, brains and bone bits went flying, and some even got in his mouth. Ew.

This little stunt would earn him the nickname ‘Dragonpuncher’ and the respect from the entire crew. Even Rachel had to admit she was quite impressed with the gore from the impact of the mighty punch.

Now, some would think Ryland wasn’t doing anything special or important (maybe quite the opposite) but he was an instrumental part of a much bigger plan that was going on behind the curtains.

Rachel’s shadowy benefactor would send them on raids that often made little sense. Seemingly targeting innocuous relics, the team had actually been curating some of the realms most outlawed artifacts.

And in many of these cases, the blood of the ancient heroes who had locked away these artifacts were needed to set them free.

One such case was the Helm of Hades, which grants the wearer control of the dead, locked away by Hercules long before the Runiverse would be formed.

The purpose of the helm would go unknown to our beastly basher, but to the benefactor mentioned earlier, it would be the key to bringing a dead city back to life.

Rylan’s blood released ancient seals that not only loosened the crown free, but also gave Rachel and her benefactor access to the river Styx, allowing them travel to the underworld. This would come into play later on down the road, and Ryland would forget about the whole thing pretty quickly.

He’d go on to successfully lead the raiding party in Rachel’s occasional absence, and eventually helped accrue a level of wealth usually only seen by the nobles in the wizard capitals.

Eventually, the time would come where Rachel and her shadowy benefactor would retreat within the walls of this fabled city.

Though most of the other raiders had been killed in their sleep, Rachel spared Ryland, for he had kind of grown on her during their raids.

He would go on to serve as a personal bodyguard to Rachel within the walls of this new city, and would live a happy, but somewhat boring life (until he got the gumption to try and steal the 24-Karat Crowbar…but that’s a different tale for a different time!).

Entered by: 0xf13F…3FBF and preserved on chain (see transaction)