Once ago in the remote northern kingdom of Snjórland, a princess was borne into the reigning royal family, however she was quite unlike any princess raised within that prestigious dynasty as far back as their records began. Born with a crop of striking red hair, doubtlessly inherited from her grandfather King Brons the Bloody, and dubbed Jern, first scion of Stål, the peculiar princess shewed a greater interest in subjects one might not typically associate with a girl of the noble caste. Growing up, Jern preferred taking part in rough sports with the sons of palace servants to attending lessons in social dance with her stuffy tutor, and revelled in sagas involving valiant warriors smiting great evils while only displaying indifference at best for poems of long-lost loves.
Eventually, Jern would even go on to develop a keen interest in the military arts, procuring every book she could find in the castle library even remotely related to the topic and poring over each one from cover to cover at least twice, from weapon techniques to field tactics to records of battles waged abroad. Though this became a source of concern for the red-haired princess' mother that her eldest daughter may have been developing what she perceived as an unhealthy hobby, her father simply hand-waved it off as a passing phase, that is until Jern would request a sword of her very own as her birthday gift for that year. Though taken quite aback by the ask, King Stål would nonetheless honour his eldest's sincere wishes (after
much
persuasion with his spouse) and commissioned a personalised blade suited for the young princess' proportions from the court blacksmith to present her with on the appointed day, much to her ecstatic delight, however would only allow her to handle such a hazardous implement if she agreed to take the time to be properly instructed in its use personally by her father, who himself was quite the accomplished fighting man in his youth.
And for almost every day thereon, Jern spent at least three hours, often more, in sword practice, and continued to do so even after her ageing father was long since been unable to keep up with his daughter's youthful energy. In that time, the princess also honed her body to compliment her burgeoning skills, performing fifty push-ups, completing fifty squats and jogging fifty laps around the castle courtyard as part of her basic warm-up before each of her drills, and expanded her repertoire to include other weapon types, notably spears and battleaxes, all the while naturally growing at an impressive rate with a rapid series of pubescent stretches that continued until she was about six and a half feet tall by the time of her eighteenth year, exceeding the height of both her parents (believed to have been another trait she inherited from her grandfather), and having to constantly upgrade the dimensions of her equipment throughout her teens as a consequence, much to the chagrin of King Stål's treasurer.
Jern made for a strapping young woman upon her ascension into adulthood: long of limb, with each plus her stomach and back solidly bolstered with firm muscle developed over years of exercise that would have made most soldiers envious, but still retaining fetching features that were a perpetual fixture of her femininity, even if it was partially hidden underneath a layer of sweat and dirt throughout most of the day. Her characteristic red hair was always kept cut very short to her skull, a decision made early on in her practices after she found her longer tresses to be too distracting in the midst of her intense routines even when tied back, as well as influenced by hearing tell of fighters meeting their untimely end after an enemy caught them by their flowing locks during the frenzy of battle.
With age comes ambition, and Jern, who now considered herself to be a more-than-capable fighter in her own right, yearned to explore the rest of the land that she would one day inherit the right to rule over and test her mettle in true bouts of skill and strength just as those heroes whom she so idolised had done before her after having grown so very weary of besting members of the local regiment in countless spars, but the extent of her unfettered exploration without an armed retinue acting as an escort was strictly restricted to the perimeters of the kingdom's capital (with perhaps the exception being its infamous Monster District, where the majority of non-human residents resided), and she knew her position and parents all too well (her mother especially) that a princess like herself would not be permitted to freely set out into the rest of Snjórland unattended, if at all, on a journey possessing even just an element of peril (or 'excitement', as Jern preferred to call it) should she entreat the King and Queen upfront about considering otherwise.
It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, as they say, and Jern decided to steal away from the palace and capital in the dead of the very night of her eighteenth birthday carrying little else but a pocketful of gold coins, the armour on her back and a freshly-whetted sword on her hip to venture forth into the wider world with, meeting disappointingly meagre resistance by the time she reached the city limits, but nevertheless exhilarated once she passed through the gates, uncaring to how furious her father would not doubt be once he found her missing come the morrow.
It had been some weeks since then that Jern had been out on the road, always remaining one step ahead of the search parties King Stål sent out to scour the country in an attempt to retrieve her, a fact which brought her no shortage of mirth each and every time she eluded their efforts. With no particular destination in mind, and indeed not even with a map or compass in hand to help guide her, the impetuous princess passed through many villages and small towns where their ordinary commoners were none the wiser as to her noble identity, challenging any and all therein who boasted even a modicum of martial ability, and subsequently defeating each and every one in single combat, some being as effortless to overpower as an infant while others proved to be close to an equal match for the aspiring heroine. Spontaneous duels were not all that Jern involved herself in during her wanders however, as she also took the time to right more than a fair share of wrongs where she believed her expertise could be of use, asking only for food and shelter as reward where she needed it, whether it be as minor as helping bounce a couple of drunkards being just a tad too rowdy for a tavernkeep's liking, to more dangerous endeavours like the slaying of a pack of timberwolves who had been making off with a farmer's livestock in the wee hours of the morning.
One day, Jern found herself passing through a humble hamlet known as Ósterklig, and while she was occupied quenching her thirst down at the local pub with a frothy pint of beer bought with her last few remaining copper pieces, she quickly came to learn the community was currently experiencing harassment from a small gang of slippery goblins who had been sneaking into the village every night for the past week or so and purloining various possessions from its residents, from a couple of coin purses here to entire sackfuls of food there, before safely retreating back to wherever their refuge was based faster than the first light of dawn could glimmer over the horizon. The princess was prompt to promise Ósterklig's authorities that she would apprehend these evasive rogues in exchange for a minor monetary recompense, even though she had yet to personally encounter a goblin herself and was unfamiliar with the typical tricks their kind employed, only knowing them to be a race of small folk who were not particularly renowned for their physical brawn, though with keen cunning and nimbleness, and almost always possessing a mischievous streak.
Not a day after she made her claim, Jern believed she was successful in tracking the ne'er-do-wells down to a cave halfway up a large hill about a mile out from the village's borders, and was confident enough that she alone was capable in capturing what she estimated to be no more than five individuals at the absolute most who belonged to this thieving band without much trouble that she did not require to spend needless time returning to Ósterklig and back for redundant reinforcements. Lighting a torch with a tinderbox to illume her way, Jern fearlessly delved into the cold, gloomy cavern as dark as pitch in stark juxtapose to the warm, early afternoon when she had discovered its entrance. Although the stone tunnel was long and winding as it descended steadily downwards deep into the hill, it remained mercifully unbranching save for the occasional minor recess in its walls.
