The Storm of Mercy

The Second Age was still young when Maula first set foot on the world of Comalan. In this first excursion, known as the Wave of Death, Maula earned her moniker as the Goddess of Death through a campaign of blood and famine. It is known to all that this onslaught was quelled by the ancient champions of Resta, Helen Winstrom and Nicholai Desmond, with the cooperation of the elven queen Orion and Artix Maloran, the prince of Resta. It is also known that she was defeated with the help of a golden halberd of their invention, but what isn't known is how the Storm of Mercy came to be.

When a desperate king, Rolan Maloran, first reached out to the Champions, he was desperate for exemplars of the values of Chaos and Serenity, the deities who parented the Goddess of Death. One was the patriarch of the Desmond Clan, a fearsome warrior who perfected the instinctive combat style taught to all modern Restan soldiers from the halls of Blackstone Monastery to the hallowed tower of Hem Academy to the rugged camps of the Royal Army. The other was a huntress from the southern district of the kindom, renowned for protecting innocents on the western frontier. The union of two powerful heroes was hailed as a beacon of hope for the people of Resta, who lived in terror at the onslaught of maulan butchers.

When the initial efforts of the champions to defeat Maula, the king dismissed them, much to the protest of his son, Artix. When Helen and Nicholai left the capitol, the prince followed them, acting as their guide through a temple pilgrimage until the gods truly acknowledged their destinies as champions. Along the way, their efforts were antagonized by a cult from Tanis known as the Sickle Society, a Maula-worshipping sect of Elders from Star's Point--a city which would later be renamed after the cult's leader, Orion, after she became queen. The Sickle Society would clash with Artix Maloran and the champions nine times before the Prince's reasoning broke through to the elven queen.

With Orion won over by Prince Maloran, the Sickle Society combined its knowledge of Maula's weaknesses with the champions' strength and devised a strategy to drive Maula back. Using magical energy of an opposing nature to Maula's mortal body, they crafted a weapon that would be able to kill her. The metal supplied by Nicholai's sword, Helen's spear, and Orion's chains were melted down and reformed into a new halberd, which was then coated in gold. This new artifact carried the magical residue each of the three champions had accumulated in their respective journeys. It was also runed, curiously enough, with symbols that would later go on to become associated with Kerun, despite the fact that his existence was unheard of when the weapon was forged.

Helen Winstrom, the champion of Serenity, was the one who wielded the weapon against Maula for the first time on a stormy winter night in the village of Solan. With a divine artifact in her hands, she was able to fight the goddess in mortal form to a stalemate that had lasted all night. When the champion finally got the upperhand, she looked upon the goddess in her pathetic state and dropped her weapon in a moment of mercy. Maula might have killed her then, but fortunately managed to create an opening for Chaos' claws to descend from the sky and snatch his daughter from the ground.

The champions picked up the discarded halberd and smiled upon their handiwork. Holding it up into the rain, Helen named the artifact for that very battle, the Storm of Mercy. However, the champions knew that a weapon of its power could be used for destructive purposes if it continued to exist. So, the Storm of Mercy was melted down yet again and reforged into newer versions of the weapons that had comprised it. The champions then separated the sword, chains, and spear throughout Resta, promising that they would be there should the Storm of Mercy be needed again.

When the Storm of Mercy resurfaced, it was in the hands of a new group of champions. When it was once again used, this time by the Champion of Chaos, to send Maula back to the divine realm, the champions decided that the Storm of Mercy should remain available without going to the trouble of reforging it again. So, they hid the Storm of Mercy until it was needed again. Unfortunately, the events that inspired Seth Midas to bring it back out into the world ultimately caused the weapon's destruction. 

Now, the Storm of Mercy exists only in shards, which are coveted by collectors. The most pieces of the ruined weapon currently lie in the possession of Gyanda Maloran, a descendant of the prince who helped to invent it.