Legend of the Sleeping Prince

Once upon a time, in a far away land lived King Eldar Cervum his beautiful wife Queen Ione and his son Prince Olan. The King and Queen were renowned upon the land to be fair and just and their subjects loved them so, and they raised their son to be true of heart and have courage beyond no other. The Kings people nicknamed him ‘ The Tutor’ as he taught them to how to be good people, and the Queen ‘ Bene’ which means Good, as she always made sure her subjects didn't go hungry and the prince ‘The protector’ as he was brave and protected the walls of the realm with his great army. The whole family had magical powers as they were Alshanti, which is an ancient elf, and they put some of their magic into magical items. The king had a magical quill, which helped him talk in different languages and understand people who couldn't speak elven. The Queen had a magical pot called the Vascopia, which she made to sit in her great hall, so when her people needed food they could come and take what they needed, no more, no less. The prince wanted to see his enemies coming from afar and even predict what they were going to do, so he had a magical eye, like a crystal ball. The kingdom was great, beautiful and peaceful until one day the prince met a beautiful woman named Elana. Prince Olan fell in love with her and she with him and they planned to live together forever. However, Elana had a friend named Maleficus. He had known her his whole like and unbeknown to her he loved her with all his heart. Now Maleficus saw how Elana looked at Olan and Olan looked at Elana and was overcome with rage! Maleficus was an elven wizard and had been learning a new special kind of spell called a ritual. He only knew the first part of the ritual and he wanted to make Olan ugly so Elana wouldn't want to be with him anymore. One night he watched the couple from afar hidden beneath a bridge. He carried out the ritual and struck Olan with its ancient power. Olan didn't look very different. Maleficus was confused, Olan was meant to look hideous! He wanted him to look ugly and deformed! He was quite new to being a wizard and he thought he mustn’t have carried out the ritual properly, packed up his things and began to shuffle away. Suddenly he heard the prince cry out! ‘ Elana! Elana no!’. Maleficus turned, to find his beloved Elana laying on the ground covered in disease and the prince wailing ‘ She’s dead! What has happened here? She is Dead!’. Maleficus looked upon what he had done and was filled with so much pain that he turned to the raging river and threw himself in. The Prince was very ill because he was cursed with a very ancient curse that no one knew how to fix. And because Maleficus drowned nobody knew where the curse came from, so they couldn't think of a cure. Every time the prince touched someone they would die of disease. Every time he touched food it would turn rotten, every time he drank the water would turn to sand. The physicians wrapped him in bandages so that they could examine him without touching his skin, but even some of them fell ill from touching his diseased bandages. The physicians realised that even though the prince didn't look diseased he didn't have long to live as he couldn't eat and drink and his body was getting thinner and he was becoming more and more tired. One physician asked his friend a Wizard if he couldn't help with the curse but he told them that no one can lift a curse without the original scrolls and the cure written upon it. But he knew a way of delaying the princes demise, so they would have longer to find the scroll. In the castle grounds were tombs, already built for the royal family for when they passed away. Alshanti live a very long time, so the tombs were built from the strongest stone to last the test of time. The wizard cast a powerful spell over the tomb which put the prince into a ‘Death Sleep’. This meant that his life wouldn't continue to decay but he would only be in a very deep sleep. He put a special password on the tomb so that he wouldn't be woken up easily and placed an automaton guard in front of the tomb to guard it for as long as it took them to lift the curse.