The bard spoke lightly between sips of his ale, a dark, heady brew he kept close to his mouth. He had promised the patrons of the tavern a story in exchange for his drink, a promise which they were doggedly beleaguering him to keep. He drank the rest of his litre of ale, setting the hinged mug gently upon the bartop. Flipping the palms of his hands to the sky, he called the patrons unto him to gather around to hear his words. He cleared his throat, a smile playing on his lips.
"I must thank you for the gracious generosity you fair folk have bestowed upon me." He said, gently crushing the bellows of his concertina," But stay and listen to my tale, I plead, for I guarantee you'll hear no equal."
The air seemed to run with honey as he spoke like a waterfall of sweet, gilded words was spilling out from his mouth. It imparted a sense of dereality to those that heard him, a feeling that the impossible could become possible. His sharp features molded into a mask of a smile, the storyteller licking his goatee-covered lips, lubricating them with his mixture of spit and ale to begin the story properly.
"I would tell you the tale of that ancient giant Jo-Ur. So instrumental was he to the forging of the Belthegorian empire that even the lowliest peasant in that nation venerates his name. So important was he that they named the mountain where the stones for their castles were quarried from after him. You have heard, I would assume, the tales of Maurice the Shiv, the Honorable Thief, how skillful was she with a knife, the story of Bensrah Liadon, the Living Lullaby, how he lulled a dragon to sleep with his beautiful music, and the story of Sadhanas Sheol, the Whirling Dervish, the way his curved swords cut through the air as he spun like a top. This story, I promise, is better. More brutal and bloody than all three, more passionate than every story. It is a story of warfare and feats made, of bloody battles and heroic deeds. But to tell this story of war, so horrible in its depictions, the death of comrades and the life of a soldier, I must entreat the goddess Denmer for a blessing. To her, I say this: let not my tongue fail me in the story of death, let not my mouth falter upon any detail, allow me every gruesome particular of that cycle of life and death. Let me tell the tales of the many you now claim, the lives and deaths of those erst-worthy soldiers. Allow the story of Jo-Ur to be told again, that giant who could cut down companies of warriors with one swing of his wickedly curved sword, that giant who could use bolts of lightning to shear boulders from the mountains, that giant who had no heir, who left his sword for a progeny he never begat. I thank you.
"Jo-Ur was a giant born before the world was as solid as we understand today, before most nations' names had ever been spoken. In those years, before the rise of the fair city Elenthar, those ancient years which are only told of in books of yore, crumbling and turning back to dust, the world knew one country centered about the tree of worlds. That country was Restenel, that country which laid claim to the principality of the world and left the small, ancillary islands to the native people. Jo-Ur was born in what is now called Kennat, though if it were known by that name then, even the most learned scholar could not say. He was born into a family of giants who walked upon the clouds and breathed in even the briniest abyss, that could leap through the sky and swim through the oceans. Jo-Ur was exceptional among them for his strength, capable of wrestling his father to the ground at only six months of age. He grew quickly, as well, reaching his full height of thirty feet in a mere year. Jo-Ur knew that he was a man, then, and left his home in that house beneath the seas of Kennat to make his fortune. He worked as a soldier for the armies of Restenel where he aided them in an ill-fated war that broke their empire to pieces. When that empire fell apart, he had lived sixty years of the life of a soldier. His armour and sword he laid down in the lands of what was Restenel, asking of a fire giant by the name of Djullveig to forge for him a sword which had no equal, and a set of armour capable of protecting Jo-Ur in battle, not just in battle with humanoids like he had fought before, but battle with other giants.
"Djullveig was a master of a forge so colossal in size that it took up the crater of one of the few lava-filled mountains, those terrible volcanos, and worked with the heat of that great blood of the earth. He was born to a family of giants that valued the power of craftsmanship the most. His hall was built inside a volcano which allowed him to work with the hardest metals, and he was known for the most hard-wearing weapons and armour. Djullveig employed many other giants of all kinds, but hill giants he greatly enjoyed for their blind stupidity and great strength. The 'gluttonous fools', as he called them, were frequently only paid in living cattle that some would gulp whole the moment they were allowed them. This force of workers enabled Djullveig to practice his hand at being a skiltgravr, cutting runes into sheets of metal and practicing manipulating their effects. He had done as such for years when Jo-Ur approached him and decided that to truly forge a sword with no equal, he would need to cut these runes into the blade. It took four years before the armour and sword were completed, etched with runes along the length of the blade and upon practically every inch of the armour. Center to them all, on both, were runes cut to ensure the solidity of the steel for thousands of years. No damage, no rust, nothing could come to pass that would harm the integrity or beauty of Djullveig's craftsmanship. All this meant, too, that the runes upon the blade could never be worn off, save for those, cut the deepest in order to ensure that his armour and his weapon would stay in like-new condition through any brutal battle. Djullveig warned Jo-Ur that if that rune was ever marked in any way, scratched, or worn away, it wouldn't be effective any longer.
"Djullveig was paid in extravagant gems and pure metals cut from the mountains of modern Belthegor and Kennat, gleaming, lustrous nuggets. He was paid, additionally, in livestock. The greatest payment for Djullveig, though, was his new standing in the Ordning as a result of his craftsmanship. Djullveig's mountainous hall was adorned with a tale-carving of the forging of the blade, to remember the story for the thousands of years to come. Jo-Ur was sixty-five when he received the sword he would carry for the rest of his life as a warrior, but sixty-five years is a very short time for giants. Jo-Ur was approached by one of those farly-touched humanoids, Belthegorians as they were called even then, and that man asked of him to become a warrior for their small kingdom. That man's name was Zederkof Renoir, the first king of the Belthegorian empire. While they were partnered together, Jo-Ur fought many battles, chief among them a brutal battle against the native Goliaths of the Ark Isles when Belthegor was establishing their claim to the land there. He had worked with the Belthegorians for four hundred years, and among that time had aided in the construction of the castle at Mannon, calling lightning from the clouds overhead to shear rocks from their cliffsides. Those stones are more than a thousand years old now, but no weathering touches them. Jo-Ur paid a stone giant named Beathag, a master skiltgravr, to carve runes into them to make them last as long as the empire. Those stones have done as they were told, and I expect that castle's destruction to mark the end of that empire."
The bard closed his lips, the quiet music coming to an end as his concertina whined its last few breaths out, looking about at the bar patrons. Many of them looked like they were hungry for more of the story, their eyes sparkling with wonder. The younger among them especially wished to keep hearing more.
"I must apologize, you fair, fine people, but I have to relieve myself. My voice is exceptionally strained, as well, so I believe I would leave it here." He says, looking toward the crowd he had amassed. He kept his smile, watching their faces flit through despair. He had understood that he would have a crowd that wanted to keep hearing him speak. It was all playing right into his hands.
"I would leave it, that is, unless there was a full litre of that wonderful ale when I returned from the bathroom." He stated as he stood, moving toward the back of the crowd to find himself a place on a newer, colder seat.