In an age long gone from the memories of even the eldest of our race, our people were known by a different name, and lived very different lives. At one with the land, the sea, the air, and all the creatures that lived therein, we were a peaceful, spiritual race, devoted to learning the ways of nature. Long lived were we, back then, much more so than now, and smaller to. Great heights were reached with the use of magic, and our gods blessed our people with fertility, warmth, and a protective homeland.
Until the orcs came.
Lead by a beast known as Dukagsh, they descended upon our world to claim it as their own, fleeing their defeat at the hands of our distant cousins among the stars. Long had we known of the life above, but never had we cared for it, happy in our ways, upon our land. Of course, that was until that life came to us.
Taking the planet as their own, the beasts slew our children and our wives, raped our land and pillaged our villages. Our world was torn asunder within less than a moon-breath, and they settled into their own villages and towns to re-create their own livelihood where they had destroyed ours.
As slaves we were kept, as sport we were hunted, as examples we were tortured, this race having great hatred for our star-borne cousins. Many tried to resist, to break free of the chain and yoke, but all were slain, brutally, either outright in the streets of what was once their homes, or in cruel arenas, set to teach the beasts to fight harder. We watched as their leader aspired to become one of the gods themselves, and cringed as he achieved his wish, and slew our own patron spirits. Cry after cry we sent out to them, pleading for their help, and in the end they were slain while trying to flee the celestial temple, not even one of them standing to fight for us.
Our people, slaves, grew sullen, and dark. Under the hard labour of the beasts, which had named themselves Scro now, we grew stronger, quicker, able to withstand their beatings, their torture, their constant oppression. Some tried to break our spirits by seeding our women, but found that seed to be rejected, while our own babes grew quicker, stronger, and faster than before, under the constant pressure.
One such babe, known as Kuras, was the strongest of all. At only a score summers, he had grown strong enough to beat their best in one-on-one combat, spoiling their insidious hopes and demoralising their troops. Their lord Dukagsh saw this, and we thought surely Kuras would be slain in cold-blooded murder, but the beast allowed it to go on, thinking in his arrogance one would rise from his ranks to defeat Kuras, and bring glory to his people. For years Kuras fought in the arenas, a constant hope to our people, until finally the beast's hopes were found.
A huge warrior among their ranks, known as Parleth, fought through the other beasts within the arena to receive his right to Kuras, having not lost a single battle in almost two summers. He came before Kuras, intent on slaying him, bloodthirsty paws around a gigantic bladed weapon. Kuras - wise, strong Kuras - also met him with something new. In his training he had made many weapons, perfected many styles, and thought of many strategies for defeating the beast's, should one such as Parleth come, and now was his time.
Kuras entered the arena with almost ten thousand of the bloodthirsty beasts screaming the name of Parleth, as though he had already won, but in our ancestors hands was a new blade, one never seen before, and he walked with a strange grace to his step, the first beginnings of the style of Lareth, which he had not dared used before in view of the beasts.
Parleth and Kuras danced the dance of death, Kuras easily deflecting the mighty blows of Kuras axe. Not once did the axe of Parleth come close to shaving our saviour's skin, while the beast himself had many small cuts all over his body. After what seemed like a sun-span, Parleth became angered, and began to falter in his step, letting his rage overwhelm him. Kuras knew this was the time, and he pushed his offensive, disarming the beast within moments of switching to the offense. Sweeping his polearm in a great arc, the warrior pulled the beasts legs from under him, and with a deft spin, landed the large tip of his blade between the beasts ribs, straight into his heart.
The crowd was deathly silent. Even the slaves, watching from their small caged door in the back of the arena, did not even breathe. The great admiral, as he was called, of the Scro, reared up on his black furred legs, and pointed at Kuras, ordering him to be slain in his anger, trying to ruin the honour of the fight. Kuras ran, and using his polearm, escaped the arena, leaving many wounded and dying scro soldiers in his aftermath.
A thousand of our people were killed in a barbaric butchering the next morning, as example to what would happen to any who harboured who the called the Villain. Kuras, however, was sheltered by slaves within the city, having not fled very far, and the searching of the surrounding breeding camps distracted our enemies long enough for Kuras to train several of our people in the ways of Lareth. One night, they stormed the great admiral's palisade, and Kuras slew him in a one on one battle of great honour. The admiral, as was befitting for his race, even tried to cheat in the last moments when he knew he would lose, pulling a pistol from his trousers where it was hidden, and managed to shoot Kuras in the arm, but our saviour slew him and fled once again, this time to the hills with those warriors he had trained.
There they created a new village, free from the yoke of the oppressive scro, and Kuras taught many of the other styles he had developed, and made other weapons anew. He chose his best warriors and schooled them as teachers, showing each a different weapon and style which best suited his abilities, and sent them out into the world to other breeding camps where our people lay under the Scro chain, to free them, while he stayed in the hills and slowly freed more and more slaves. He used tunnels under the cities to spirit his people away from the Scro, and moved his village within hidden caves among the hills and mountains where the Scro dared not come in fear of the beasts that roamed therein.
And slowly, the free grew in number. As more of our people across our world fought the Scro, Kuras himself lead a raid against their naval shipyards, and stole the technologies to leave the world behind. However, none of our people could power these helms that the Scro priest and battle-mages used. Our gods were dead, and our people refused to turn to new ones, and we had long since lost the lore of magic. In his fourtieth summer, Kuras himself sat upon the artifact known as the lifejammer, and broke free from what was once our homeland in a ship to take us elsewhere. Many others did the same, giving their lives in full knowledge that our people would survive, and flourish, perhaps among our cousins in the stars.
Kuras died, leaving behind his knowledge in those he taught, and we took his name as a symbol of Honour. Men and women among our people were taught his styles, and the codes of honour Kuras taught still survive to this day. We have long since forgotten the location of what was once our world, having settled across the stars themselves. One day, though, we will retake what is ours from the Scro, and destroy their gods with our own hands.
For the Honour of Kuras, the Honour of our people. It will be so.
