Stepping onwards along the gravel roads, the man was dissatisfied with the sword’s silence. The only clue he pieced was when he became bound to the sword in the Haddleguard ruins. A disturbing memory that questioned why his curiosity sought refuge in those ruins away from a battle that claimed his comrades. Nevertheless, the sunny weather comforted his olive skin. It would be a few days journey until he found the ruins. 

Days passed, and the man rested in his own camp. Traveling alone was dangerous, but he wanted to use this vulnerability as a means to get the sword to speak. Surely, if the man became threatened, the sword would react, knowing its life intertwined to his own.

Sleeping in the tent, the man uttered terrified mumbles, “Elbar, Corzeph, and Itsvan.” Names lost to the war between opposing kingdoms. Names he couldn’t save in time. 

Meanwhile, as the sword transformed and the man slept; the gallop of horses roared like thunder drowning the chirping of crickets. It sped past the tent, creating a hefty breeze to shiver the man’s body. Awoken through sound and touch, the knightly man bore witness to a foreign man. 

Perplexed by oddity, the knightly man spoke, “Who are yo-?” He struggled to finish his statement, as a loud thud erupted in his eardrums. It sounded like a crash, and when he exited his tent, his assumptions were clarified. 

Before his dilated eyes, stress tensed the knightly man’s muscles. A horrifying scene splashed in the red grime betwixt large splinter, driver, and horse. The crackling trees tottering to the ground, soon smashed the carriage. 

In that instance, the man reached for his sword, pulling nothing from his scabbard. 

He remembered the foreign man and shouted in his direction, “Blast! You thief, but…” 

Quelled in cognitive reason, he understood not the sword’s disappearance. Despite its loss, the foreign man present equipped no arms. Still, the knightly man lashed at him in a booming echo:

“How dare you! Stealing from a Knight is punishable by death.” Swiftly, the knightly man picked up wooden debris from the carriage’s carnage. He wielded it like a mace. But before he could pace a blunt stroke at the foreign man’s temple, he heard screams.

“Help! Someone help me!” A man’s yelp. It sounded coarse, as if the wood stayed to his chest. Faced with two difficult choices, confronting the thief or saving the man; he decided to abandon the makeshift blunt weapon.

In service to the kingdom, the knightly man always believed in its chivalric values. Heavy religious tones regarding compassion for one's fellow man too inspired his ethic. So, he took his effort in sprint towards the crash site. He lifted the tree up, but the man inside could not move. While he held the tree steady, he needed someone else to pull the man from the tree’s clutches.

He called out to the supposed thief, “Help move this man!”