The Revenge of Kalis Owynn is a semi-historical folk tale known widely across the Kingdom of Estion, dating from the last days of the Gerovian Anarchy.

Kalis Owynn was a man from a minor noble family that supported the Gerovianist forces during the Anarchy. His family was ennobled in title only, but possessed very little in the way of money, presiding over only a small town that’s name has been lost to time, and was wiped from the map during the course of this tale.

Kalis Owynn’s father was a lowly Viscount from a lowborn family ennobled during the Anarchy, but without much land and money to their name. He and his family were well loved among the people of their small town. They were kind to the working folk, and often worked in the fields with the farmers they had once been a part of. Every hand was needed while the country was in flames.

Kalis was always a skilled magic user, though he was untrained. He had a rare talent for manipulating magic with song, using a fiddle to control magical flames, he sought to practice his pyromancy at one of the magical colleges in Xiar. But his family could not afford the cost; not alone.

In thanks for the kindness shown by the Owynn family, the townsfolk gathered up as much money as they could scrape together, selling belongings and heirlooms as needed, to be able to pay for Kalis’s magical education.

Kalis went off to Xiar for four years, and mastered the art of pyromancy, controlling the flames like a puppet master with his music. He had become incredibly skilled at the fiddle and the flames. Once he graduated, he vowed to return home and show his family how much he’d learned, how powerful he’d grown, and how he wished to use his powers to bring peace to Gerovia and protect his home and family.

But when Kalis returned to his town, he found that the buildings were gone. Only bodies remained, hanging from gibbets in what was once the town square. Kalis tried to determine if these bodies were his friends and family, but they were so badly burned, rotted and mutilated that it was impossible to tell. The fields had been left alone, but they were now worked by new people from a new village down the road.

Confused, scared even, Kalis went to the town, known as Baracus, to inquire of what happened to his family and friends. He learned from the headman of this town that the old village had been destroyed toward the end of the Anarchy.

The headman explained: one day, a Royalist war band led by Marquis Velsan Gryffydd, who served the now King Belchor descended upon the village that had been known to support the Gerovianist faction. They slaughtered the townsfolk, killed the Viscount and his family, and burned the settlement to the ground so that no trace would remain.

The land had since been given to a Marquis by the name of Velsan Gryffydd, Marquis of Baracus, and it was he who founded the town, and built his estate upon the lands that had once been Kalis’s family’s.

Kalis sought revenge for the kind folk and family he had lost.

He spent six months in the town, posing as a musician and building a report with the townsfolk. Each night he played at the tavern until word of his skills as a fiddler spread to all corners of Baracus. No one noticed the flames jump in the heart as he fiddled his jigs and folk songs away into the night.

Kalis gathered information as a musician, and eventually, earned an invite to meet the Marquis that had killed his family.

The Marquis summoned the young bard he had heard so much about. For the Gryffydd’s daughter was soon to be married on the last day of summer, to the fourth son of King Belchor. The Marquis heard the beautiful tones of Kalis’s fiddle and knew his music would be perfect for the event.

Kalis was hired.

In exchange, the Marquis offered Kalis two choices–a large sum of gold as payment, or the granting of any boon that Kalis could ask for. Kalis chose the boon.

So Kalis plotted his revenge. For all the nobility that supported King Belchor and the king himself would be there to witness the marriage of a royal prince.

Three weeks later, the wedding was held at the castle of the Marquis, and Kalis played his beautiful song that echoed through the halls of the castle, from the ballroom where he played, right down into the kitchens and cellars…

…the very cellars he had planted a magical trap, one set to catch fire to the wooden furniture and alcohol stored there. Stoked on by his magical music, Kalis intended to burn down the entire castle and everyone in it–including himself.

Kalis played for the better part of fifteen minutes before anyone noticed the smoke rising out of the cellars–the kitchen staff hadn’t noticed as smoke in the kitchen was not abnormal during a day of heavy feasting and much roasting.

Kalis had magically locked the doors so no one could escape. People screamed, yet still Kalis’s song grew faster and more wild. The flames roared and burned the stone, almost melting the thick walls of rock with their intensity and power.

The Marquis screamed for his wife and daughter, who by now–like many of the guests–were slowly succumbing to the smoke that was starting to enter the room and choke out the breathable air.

This was no normal fire…this was a fire fuelled by magic and hatred.

Faster still Kalis played, faster and faster with the fury of a thousand infernos.

The flames continued to burn their way through the halls, enveloping the ballroom and starting to burn their way past the doors.

People coughed, screamed, collapsed, or were crushed by the mob attempting to escape. People threw themselves from the windows to their death in the courtyard below.

Finally, after playing almost twenty seven minutes–one minute for every household of his town murdered by the Marquis during the Anarchy–Kalis, caked in sweat, grime and soot, walked over to the Marquis.

Standing over the dying, coughing lord, Kalis spoke only one phrase: “I have come to collect my boon; your death is the boon I ask. For my family, and for my people. Your lives for theirs.”

Kalis was said to have then disappeared into the flames of the ballroom, never to be seen again, engulfed by the very flames he had stoked. It is believed here he died, his body reduced to cinders.

When the soldiers that surrounded the castle in the encampments of the nobility finally got the fire out, the castle had been reduced to a pile of warped, charred and unrecognizable rubble. Glass and metal melted, stone warped and cracked. It was not a castle, but a grave.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, lay dead in the carnage. Burned beyond any form of recognition, or reduced only to piles of ash and fractured bones.

The king and most of his family were killed. Many of the guests as well. Any who survived the flames were dashed against the cobbles of the courtyard and killed or permanently crippled.

Such was the fate of the heir to King Belchor, who took the throne as Belchor II when he recovered. He became known as Belchor II the Broken, and because of his injuries that day, he could not father any more children after losing his own and his wife to the flames.

His death triggered a succession crisis that led to a civil war between two of his paternal uncles and his mother’s father, each trying to seize the throne for themselves.

Some say this is proof of the Curse of Gerovia, cast upon the king who murdered the Gerovian loyalists.

Others say this is nothing but a story of revenge against a tyrannical lord.

Republicans call it an injustice against the common folk, who also died in that blaze because of the feuding between Imperialist and Royalist factions.

Whatever the meaning one takes from this story, one thing is certain: every so often, on the last day of summer, if you go at dusk to the spot where the castle once stood–still charred, dead and barren to this day–and you call out Kalis Owynn’s name, you will be greeted with the faint sound of fiddle music, and a warm breeze will start to blow.