The Sovereign Crown

Chapter One: The Dandelion Inn

The great sea of knee-high crabgrass stretched along the horizon under an angry morning sky. A massive weather front had passed through in the night, but hadn't fully died away as could be observed by the swift creeks that overflowed their banks and the fierce winds still whipping about. When the wind did rise throughout the valley, the grass stirred and rustled as if it were alive, and when the wind died back down, the stillness of the valley returned but not before the wind lashed out at the grass and howled like some beast in the night. Behind this now-passing storm, more dark clouds pressed the horizon and had clearly decided to make a beeline for the valley; the cool weather of autumn had finally come.

Rising majestically along the coast, the mountains of the Silverspires were known to hold many outlying cities and villages of the land of Phaelondyr. In one section of the mountains, several smaller pathways converged onto the main trail way that cut through the valley from north to south, another east to west. Where the two intersected, a walled city-Alunos- could be found, made up from several villages that had merged over the course of time. Houses made from sun-dried bricks of sod and hewn stone wedges huddled together in a circular formation that spiraled outward until it gradually thinned out. Beyond the town proper, just outside the city walls, scattered farms dotted the landscape, coming to an abrupt stop at the surrounding city's forest barrier. The woods were the most dominating feature within the mountain-cradled valley. Wandering in from the northwest was a fast moving creek-the Albadine- and wound itself lazily around the city before disappearing once again into the southeast. Sunrise had come for the city of Alunos, with ringlets of smoke snaking out from nearly every chimneystack, one predominantly more so than the rest this early morn.