The Hag's Contract

Aye, them was the days, lad. I seen sixty winters, and my pappy seen sixty-five, so I figure it must’ve been eighty, ninety years ago when Ulrich Graben sailed into Alber Harbor. He didn’t have no fancy titles for him or his men, no Grabentod Raiders, like they call ’em today. In those days, they was just pirates, plain and simple. They lived by their wits and conquered by their swords.

Alber weren’t much of a city, then. Maybe few thousand folks lived here, and there weren’t much of an army, neither. It was perfect for plundering.

So, like my pappy told it, one winter Captain Ulrich Graben—aye, the great-grandfather of our own king—sailed into the harbor with twelve warships and near a thousand men, and there weren’t nobody to stop him. He declared himself the true heir to the Grabentod throne, marched up to the castle like he owned it. Weren’t nobody there to argue. The old regent and all his relatives had run off to the hills, and nobody heard from ’em again. Reckon the goblins or the Hag got ’em.

Anyway, there was King Ulrich Graben, sitting on the throne, and bless him if he didn’t get respectable. He set up a proper court, got a bride from Grevesmühl—a noble-born lady, even!—and set about being a king.

That, my fine lad, is how pirates come to rule Grabentod. Now, let me tell ye a real story…