Billy Bobertuton

You have traveled many miles and many years to reach this point. You first discovered her in a cave, for shelter was rare for you then. As you made your way through the caverns with your torch, hunting for food, you stumbled upon a mural. It was drawn from coal and blood and it showed a woman with hair like night, riding a mighty dragon, one arm outstretched above her head holding a great broadsword. Below her was a city burning to the ground. An inscription near the crude painting read: "The sea is black and the sky is red for the Raven Queen rules over the dead." An old rhyme that your mother told you when you were small. She told you that is why the world is a shadow of its former self. You thought it was just a lie to make you sleep at night, you grew up thinking that there was no Raven Queen and that the world had always been a cruel place. But this, this gave you the most powerful thing in the world: Questions. For when we start to question, we begin to change. What if there was an actual Raven Queen? What if the myths were true? Was she still alive or dead? Either way, she would answer for her crimes. You crawled your way out of the cave and began to explore. You asked whoever would listen whether or not they knew of her. Most of them shook their heads, others nodded and mumbled something about a nursery rhyme that they were told when they were small. Useless. All of them useless until you stumbled upon a secret hidden in plain sight. A dead city in a valley, its pillars and statues stood like gray trees. As you walked its bur + streets, you wondered what it was once called and how it was destroyed. You reached a large temple, giant holes littered the walls and bricks were scattered all over the ground. You walked among alters, pews, and decaying corpses of holy books. A statue had sunk into the ground at the center of the temple. Though weathered with age, you could still make out that it was indeed your Raven Queen. Her face was beautiful and stern, her hair was dark and glorious. Even if her stone self was frozen half buried into the earth, she remained as fierce as ever. Next to the statue was a a torn piece of paper, a scavenger from one of the books. You unfolded it and you saw a map. A map, you would soon discover, that led to her homeland. A land that was hundreds of leagues away, but you would get there sooner or later. You picked up one of the books and furiously tried to read them, but their pages were all burnt. You ripped it to shreds and roared in anger at the sky. You killed the fisherman quickly with your blade. He made a small gasp as you sliced his throat. You threw him into the water and made his small vessel your new home. Thank the Gods your mother taught you how to sail. You rolled and tumbled for months on the waves, drinking only rain water and eating only raw fish. Through storms, you strapped yourself against the boat. It is through sheer luck and willpower that you have survived. It is only until your hair had grown long that you reached the shores of the Raven Queen's land. Your world was horrible, but hers makes it look like paradise. For years you explored her land. Traveling from hot, dry desserts, to bone-freezing icescapes, to ruined cities, and dead jungles. It clung to life as if it were hanging on to the edge of a cliff. This world of horror, this world of despair, this world called Golgotha. You asked every person you could find about the Raven Queen. They shook their heads and furiously told you that they dare not speak of her. After receiving enough of your stolen coin, they gave you scrapes of stories that had been told for generations. Each one getting farther from the truth with each person it was told to. Finally, someone pointed to a mountain nearby. The person told you that inside of the mountain dwelled a great sorcerer. He has lived there for eons and he knows all of the Raven Queen. You climbed the mountain with every fiber of your being. Your muscles ached as y --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app