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The One was a lich of considerable power that ruled over the Four Cubed elementalists that sought to conquer Gaeleth, obliterate the demon god Argunis, and find the fabled Chombadrin, an artifact of Agincoth. The One sought to gain the aid of the Western Alliance in holding Argunis at bay, and in finding Chombadrin. To do so, he sent an envoy whose charming spells and stellar charisma would hopefully win over the Western Alliance. The envoy, Thuledla Duur, was frail and unskilled in the arts of war. To protect his significant investment in Thuledra, the One assigned the envoy a fair honor guard, headed by the warrior Anhest Mordeira.
Anhest's weapon of choice was a wickedly curved, two-handed battle-axe. The guard could throw the massive and unwieldy weapon with considerable force and accuracy, and the axe worked well in close-quarters combat. Upon receiving his mission, Anhest was in a quandry. To fail his mission would mean his death by the agents of the One, as well as to inadvertantly aid the demons under Argunis. Out of fear and self-preservation, Anhest sought out the one of the Four known as Verdredat, the most powerful elementalist of air, and the most compassionate of the Four. With only two weeks before he was to take his guardianship of the envoy Thuledla Duur, Anhest had very little in the way of time -- and even less in the way of bargaining power with the elementalist Verdredat. Verdredat was impressed with the man's audacity and courage, and undertook to aid him, that the One's envoy might be better protected. Calling upon all the sixty-four air elementalists serving under him, Verdredat enchanted Anhest's battle-axe with a powerful spell. Anhest was grateful, pledging his service to Verdredat once Thuledla Duur was through with his mission to the Western Alliance. Armed with an enchanted axe and a lighter heart, the warrior went to the west with his honor guard, and his charge. Trouble started before they were half-way to their destination. The demon Koolvette intercepted their knorr, and sought to destroy them. Enraged that his hard task had begun so soon, Anhest's enchanted battle-axe flew again and again at the demon, tearing his wings apart and plunging the demon into the ocean. Anhest and the crew thought the beast defeated, when it tore through the vessel from underneath, and ripped Anhest's heart from his rib cage. The knorr, called The Unsinkable, plunged to the bottom with the remains of Thuledla Duur and Anhest Mordeira aboard. Buried in the wreckage lay Anhest's axe, Valaxor -- and with it, all the hopes of the One for a decisive front against the demon god Argunas. Never again would the Four or any of their elementalists pour their power into a single weapon, for it had proven useless against a single demon. Reforged in the fiery blood of a demon, and tempered in the cool waters of the ocean, Valaxor came to rest at the bottom of the sea inside the shattered rib cage of its owner, Anhest. As steam bubbled away from the super-heated axe, the bloodied waters of the deep recrystalized the enchanted weapon into something else. The dark magics of the deep had a profound effect upon the axe, working their magic over the course of five millennia. Anhest's spirit, enraged beyond death, remained bound to the axe, the necromantic magic arcing through his skeletal remains, charging and discharging the axe a hundred times a day, and more. During the War of the Undead, another servant of the One was brought back from the grave-- Xemitar, the Dread Knight. Given a ghost ship and a crew by the necromancer Demik Coruth, Xemitar took to the seas, ferrying undead cargo and artifacts that would tilt the balance in favor of the darkness. Valaxor called to the dread knight, as his ship passed into its seas. The Shaping Wars and the Storm Wars had disturbed the wreck of The Unsinkable, bringing it closer to the surface. The siren call of the enchanted axe made Xemitar pause long enough to retrieve the axe, and silence the ghost of Anhest Mordeira by ansorbing it into himself. The dread knight never told his master of the axe, and kept it, against the day when chance would deliver to Xemitar a wielder who could further his own ends. The millennia beneath the ocean changed the axe in more ways than enchantments. The sharp edge of the two-foot long blade is the color of a blued silver, but the rest of the metal is blackened by corals, age, and the necromantic energies of Anhest's ghost. The original handle was eaten through barely a year after the axe settled on the ocean's floor, but Xemitar had a handle of arrow-wood affixed to the axe. Once, long ago, there had been wings engraved onto the massive blade -- but those wings are buried beneath the salty black encrustaceans of necromantic ash and silt. Valaxor functions as a two-handed battle-axe +4 in combat, though its handle is a bit short for dedicated warriors. Seeming overbalanced for throwing purposes, its true power is unleashed once it is released. Valaxor has a range double that of any throwing axe, and is capable of striking targets one-hundred twenty yards away. It strikes as quickly as any quarrel fired from a crossbow, and then flies, whirling as it is thrown, back to its wielder's hand. Against demons and other creatures from the Abyss, Valaxor functions as a +8 blade of sharpness for purposes of To Hit and damage.
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