Attention: Fable Legends Content This article contains information mainly related to Fable Legends and is considered canon to such game. Due to Fable Legends’ cancelation on 7th March 2016, its canonicity status within the Fable series is uncertain. |
Warning: Spoilers This section or article may contain spoilers! |
Fable: Blood of Heroes is the official companion novel to the videogame Fable Legends by Jim C. Hines. It was released on August 4, 2015.
Synopsis[]
Deep in Albion's darkest age, long before once upon a time. Heroes are thought to be gone from the land. So why have the bards begun singing of them once more?. For Fable newcomers and dedicated fans alike, Blood of Heroes delves into a never-before-glimpsed era, telling the tale of a band of adventurers who come together to defend a kingdom in desperate need.
The city of Brightlodge is awash with Heroes from every corner of Albion, all eager for their next quest. When someone tries to burn down the Cock and Bard inn, four Heroes find themselves hastily thrown together, chasing outlaws through sewers, storming a riverboat full of smugglers, and placing their trust in a most unlikely ally. As the beginnings of a deadly plot are revealed, it becomes clear that Heroes have truly arrived - and so have villains.
What connects the recent events in Brightlodge to rumors about a malicious ghost and a spate of unsolved deaths in the nearby mining town of Grayrock?
Unless Albion's bravest Heroes can find the answer, the dawn of a new age could be extinguished before it even begins.Fable Blood of Heroes
Background[]
The book is divided in three parts, and each part contains nine chapters. Although the narration is made in third-person, each chapter focuses specifically in one of the eight heroes that participate in the novel and the main antagonist, the witch Yog.
The novel takes place right after the end of the events of A Tale of Roses from Fable Legends and the heroes that participate in the plot are Inga, Rook, Leech, Tipple, Glory, Shroud, Winter and Sterling.
Plot[]
Part I: The Return of Heroes[]
Inside of a secluded hut within the woods, the witch Yog - much older and weak than she should be – uses one of her latest witchcrafts in order to spy the town of Brightlodge. The witchcraft itself consisted of an enchanted flaming skull which allowed her to communicate with a Skullchuck Redcap named Blue. Blue was sent by Yog to Brightlodge to secretly sneak a “special” ale into the pubs in the town without the owners noticing; however, Blue’s clumsiness caused him to be discovered and he accidentally set the pub where he was on fire before escaping.
The next day, King Wendleglass II sends four of his heroes to investigate the town, in search for the redcap. The heroes Inga, Rook, Tipple and Leech, after helping capture a runaway pig in the streets, were able to track Blue and followed his tracks to the town’s sewers. Inside the sewers, the heroes fought a group of outlaws who were inhabiting one of the underground galleries, and with them they found Blue.
After killing the outlaws and proper capturing and chaining Blue, the heroes found the remains of three killed Redcaps in the gallery; the creatures had their blood completely extracted from their bodies, as Leech noticed. Upon investigating the room and finding clues, the heroes realized that such outlaws were working for the outlaw mastermind known as Nimble John, and that their mission was to deliver kegs of an unknown ale to the city.
As Blue was way smarter than any Redcap the heroes had ever encountered, they were able to tell that he had purposedly lured the heroes to the sewers so they could avenge his fellow redcaps. The heroes were also able to convince Blue to led them to Nimble John’s hideout, as the redcap did know where it was.
Blue led the heroes to the Boggins, the swampy region southeast of Brightlodge, where they found a ferry loaded with ale kegs being guarded by outlaws. After Inga and Tipple raided the ferry, the heroes were able to capture Nimble John, who turned out to be actually a woman, Nimble Johanna, and also rescue a man, Sam, who was being kept as a hostage in the ferry.
Back in Brightlodge, the heroes interrogated Sam, and learned that he was from the town of Grayrock, and that he was captured by the outlaws after following a mysterious figure known as the Ghost of Grayrock who was meeting Nimble Johanna. After discovering that the terrible-tasted (according to Tipple himself) ale the outlaws were guarding was also coming from Grayrock, and that Johanna had been hired by the “ghost” to bring the ale to Brightlodge, the king decided to send a group of heroes there to investigate.
In Grayrock, Albion’s greatest mining town with no particular exciting feature other than its mines and a strange tree made out of stone, the four heroes sent there; Glory, Shroud, Sterling and Winter; soon discovered a bunch of suspect situations in the town. A series of miners had, apparently, committed suicide in unusual and pretty much improbably ways, after the mayor personally requested their services in a secret project. After investigating the mayor’s house, Glory discovered that such project was to dig under the town’s dam, the only thing preventing that the town was flooded by the nearby river.
During the night, the heroes sneaked to the digging site, and found that the hired miners had already dig a tunnel under the dam. Inside of the tunnel the heroes found ten of such men, working as slaves, who were being watched by a female Ogre, Headstrong. Headstrong had not only one, but seven noggins – severed, yet living, heads of other ogres – which she used to watch the miners; thus, the heroes’ presence was soon noticed by the ogre.
After the heroes engaged the ogre in battle, forcing her to flee, they found out that the miners were after a “buried treasure” that the mayor were informed about by the Ghost of Grayrock, the same one Sam was after and who had hired Nimble Johanna. After securing the area so no one could enter the tunnel, the heroes proceeded to ask the townsfolk about the ghost, but only one girl, Greta, was able to really talk about it after Winter gained her trust.
At first, Greta was very reluctant in helping the heroes, which was due to the fact that her brother, Ben, had been kidnaped by the ghost while they were playing in the woods. Greta revealed that the ghost demanded her to spy on the heroes that could eventually arrive at Grayrock. The heroes promised her to rescue her brother and thus Greta agreed to summon the ghost. But before they could do so, the mayor himself tried to arrest the heroes for disturbing his plans, but Sterling was able to verbally confront him; the mayor had no choice but to let them go, as the heroes were able to start turning the townsfolk against him, accusing him of putting the town in danger with the digging, enslaving workers and murdering the ones who tried to escape. Funny enough, the citizens tried to have Sterling become mayor, but the later pompously refused.
Into the woods, Greta, with the heroes hidden nearby, lit up some sticks given her by the ghost, and soon the smoke attracted the creature. The ghost turned out to be a strange nymph, named Skye, who, instead of being linked with nature, had the power to control smoke and fire. Skye showed that Ben had been turned into a magic wooden doll, and as the heroes engaged her in battle, she let escape that she wasn’t the one behind the “whole plan”, which required Grayrock to be flooded by the digging under the dam, but if it depended on her, she would pretty much just set the town on fire.
During the fight, the heroes were able to rescue the doll of Ben and learn that the one behind the plan was someone called Yog, but Skye escaped. With Ben-doll telling the heroes about the witch and her intentions on destroying Grayrock, the heroes had no option but to remain in the town.
Part II: The Green Storm[]
Yog was furious inside her hut. Her plan was starting to fall apart, as Blue was captured by the heroes, the outlaws she had Skye hire were killed, the “special” ale was being confiscated, the heroes stopped the digging on Grayrock, driven Headstrong off the town and Skye had lost the doll of Ben. Turned out that the three creatures were working for her, as she needed three “riders” to properly express the abilities she no-longer was able to do on herself; one rider for each one of a hero’s talents -Blue for skill (thus why Yog magically enhanced his intelligence), Skye for will and Headstrong for strength. Yog realized she would have to hasten her plan if she would be to succeed.
Back in Brightlodge, the heroes Inga, Rook, Tipple and Leech were busy finishing to confiscate all the suspicious ale that had being delivered – much to the townsfolk rage who liked the low prices of such – but soon had to take on real hero duties as the town was suddenly taken over by Greencaps, creatures similar to Redcaps but with – guess it – green caps instead of red ones. It soon turned out that the greencaps were actually citizens of Brightlodge who had drunk the ale the night before and somehow were turned into the creatures during the night.
Leech was able to uncover that the blood of the killed redcaps they found was probably used to taint the ale, and as legends told, someone who ingested the creatures’ blood would be turned into one under the light of the moon, and only with time, upon painting their caps with the blood of their victims, a greencap would become a proper redcap.
After the chained Blue murmured about a possible cure, and with the news from the other four heroes arriving from Grayrock the heroes accepted the redcap’s offer of leading them to someone who might have known of it. Blue led them to a run-down abandoned hut in the middle of the Boggins, but upon investigating it, dozens of skulls scattered around the shack gained life and started to attack them. As Rook entered the hut to try to find the cure, it gained life and elevated itself from the marshes in four wooden legs and tried to flee the heroes, but Rook was able to grab some flasks of what Blue pointed to be the potion necessary to cure the greencaps. This particular event made Inga realize who Yog was based on fables she had listened when she was a child.
However, before the heroes could give chase to the hut, Tipple, having drunk the tainted ale the night before, started to turn into a greencap. In the confusion, Blue was able to escape into the marshes. After knocking Tipple out, the heroes transported him back to Brightlodge where he was treated by Leech with the potion they got from the magical hut. Tipple’s heroic blood and massive size prevented him to fully becoming a greencap, but he was yet to fully recover.
Seeing that they would need more than just their own intelligence to find and defeat Yog, the heroes departed to the Rosewood to find Becket the seer, who had once again run away from Brightlodge. After finding and saving the seer from a group of goodfellows, the were warned by the man to stay away from the witch, as all his visions shown doom awaiting in the future and that Grayrock would fall directly because of their actions. The heroes, outraged by the man’s skepticism on their ability to protect Albion decided to go further with their mission on defeating Yog, and with Becket’s warning about a “coming storm” they set foot back to Brightlodge.
At Grayrock, the heroes had just delivered the Ben-doll to his family who didn’t seem as horrified as expected, as now, Ben was small enough to help cleaning chimneys. The mayor, however, after the heroes had turned the townsfolk against him, was trying to win their respect back by doing shameful acts and promises in public. The heroes, wanting more information regarding Yog and Skye, tried to get the mayor to collaborate but he was displeased with the heroes’ actions in his town.
As unnatural dark green clouds started to form over the nearby forests, much probably caused by Yog, Glory had to step up and convinced the mayor to aid her as she claimed that he had no guarantee from Skye that he could have the treasure for himself, but with her help, the mayor would be powerful enough to find the buried treasure and keep it for him. The mayor, a selfish and ambitious man accepted Glory’s offer and took her to his own personal tower, where she learned about the town’s story.
Grayrock was founded centuries before, by a man who was named William Grayrock, who, according to the mayor, was the one who buried the treasure. After his death and over the years, the town became the main mining center of Albion and after half a century, the dam was built to stop frequent floods. Realizing that the treasure could never have been buried underneath the dam, as it was built way after William’s death, Glory was able to deduce that if the treasure really existed, he would actually be located buried under the unnatural stone tree in the middle of the main square of Grayrock as it was the oldest feature in the town.
The mayor, thinking to have the upper hand, tried to have his man surround Glory so he could proceed with the information alone. Glory gently responded by throwing the mayor out of the window, and he landed on the street many floors below, but didn’t die. The shocked townsfolk erupted in cheers and declared Glory their new mayor, and she, unlike Sterling, accepted the role.
As Glory explained to the other heroes and the citizens that they should dig the ground under the tree to most probably find the treasure, Shroud received a secrete message from the Conclave, the assassin society he was part of, ordering him to specifically kill Headstrong, the ogre.
The townsfolk and the heroes started to dig and by dusk, right as the first raindrops from the enchanted green clouds fell, they found the treasure, a chest made out of stone. As the rain, red as blood, started to heavily fell, the heroes opened the chest and found another doll, but this one also made out of stone.
The heroes took shelter under a nearby roof and before they could analyze the doll, all the inhabitants of Grayrock who were soaked by the rain started to turn into Greencaps, but due to the fact that Yog had to dilute her potion made with redcap blood in order to enchant the giant clouds, the transformation would take more time, hence why the heroes were being attacked by the townsfolk only partially transformed, which made their appearance twisted and brittle.
The mayor itself was one of the people being transformed, and after the heroes defended themselves, the doll they woke up, as it was sleeping until then.
The doll revealed himself to be Kas the Undying, a hero o old, who was married to Yog, the same witch attacking in the present. Kas then revealed that Yog was alive since before the Old Kingdom and she was the one to create the first green/redcaps and since had created a potion to turn more people into the creatures, which she was using, and that she used to hunt and eat heroes to absorb their power, which caused the shortage of heroes after the fall and during the Fallow Wars.
According to Kas, one day he realized Yog’s actions and decided to end her, with the help of another hero, William Grayrock, the founder of the town, they set a plan to destroy the witch; after magically cursing William’s own blood, Kas offered the hero as a sacrifice to Yog, and as she took the first bite off the still living William, the curse was passed on to her, making the witch unable to absorb nor use the powers of any hero anymore. Apparently, the enraged Yog used the last bit of the heroes’ powers inside of her to turn Kas into a wooden doll and after he tried to run away, was imprisoned inside of the chest where was buried by superstitious townsfolk who feared Yog's curse upon him would spread to whoever helped him.
Fearing to rot as he was unable to turn himself back to human, Kas turned himself into a stone doll, and his spell was the cause to both the chest and the tree above also becoming stone.
Concluding that Yog must be after her husband, the heroes parted to defend Grayrock from the newly greencaps, but it soon turned out that the witch had planned the assault in advance, as dozens of fully redcaps were being launched from outside of the city over the walls of Grayrock and the nymph Skye and the ogre Headstrong were also there attacking.
Kas explained that Yog’s goal was to also have all the inhabitants of Grayrock leaving the town, as it was the presence of Williams’ descendants, which shared his blood, in his town that kept his legacy alive and thus the curse strong; this explained was she was trying to have the town flooded.
The heroes soon realized that the redcap army was more than they were capable of dealing with without damaging the town and then decided to evacuating the townsfolk instead of fighting. Seeing that Yog’s plan of making all Grayrock citizens flee was soon to become true, Winter took the opportunity to destroy most of the witch’s army and then destroyed the dam herself, flooding the towns and drowning the redcaps inside of it.
Winter and Kas were also caught in the flood and she was presumed dead, but Sterling and Shroud set to try to retrieve her body while Glory escorted the townsfolk to Brightlodge. Turned out that Winter and Kas were able to survive and hid themselves underwater in a giant bubble of air that was formed inside of a flooded house, and the heroes found her thanks to her powers cooling the water around where she was.
The rescue mission took more time than they planned as Yog herself showed up in a magic flying cauldron to check on the town and try to locate Kas herself, thus forcing the heroes to be way more cautious in sneaking out of the flooded town.
As they reach the nearby edge of the woods, the heroes and Kas were ambushed by no other than Blue, the redcap, who tried to get Kas, but as the heroes posed resistance, Blue threw a small skull at Sterling who skillfully caught it as the redcap escaped, however, Sterling was particularly startled by the skull as he gently guarded it, for some reason, within his clothes.
Part III: The Rise of Yog[]
Yog reunited her riders in her hut to proper analyze the situation. They have failed in bringing her her husband and the heroes had escaped Grayrock, however with Grayrock flooded and the townsfolk forced to move her curse was finally lifted and she just needed to grab a good bite of one of the new heroes to recover her power. There was no better time in the last centuries for her plan to be put in motion.
In Brightlodge, the heroes, Kas and the King discussed a plan to bring the witch down and avenge Grayrock and all the heroes she had killed in the past. Before the heroes could come to an agreement, Blue, having ran away from Yog, stormed the Hall to “help” the heroes once again. Turned out that Blue was always forced by Yog to help lure redcaps so she could kill them and get their blood for her spells, and Blue was most distraught by his betrayal on his own kind.
Blue warned the heroes that Yog was going to the east to capture and kill many redcaps who lived in that region so she could have enough blood to launch a second magical storm, and Kas told them that Yog had hidden a part of her own vital force within her hut. With this information, it was defined that the heroes should follow Sterling’s plan, as he guaranteed that he some cards up his sleeve.
The plan consisted in having the eight heroes who were already involved in the mess to go confront Yog while the others would remain in Brightlodge to protect it. The next day, early in the morning, four heroes; Sterling, Winter, Tipple and Rook; along with Blue, departed to confront Yog in the redcaps lair.
However, just right as Sterling had predicted, Kas betrayed them. Turned out that Kas was never an enemy of Yog, and that William Grayrock had cursed the witch alone in the past and Kas was accidentally turned into a doll by Yog, who was aiming to turn William instead. Shortly after he was buried in the chest by William’s descendants and indeed turned himself to stone. Yog was only looking for him as she wanted him by her side when she recovered her powers.
Despite all that, Sterling already knew that Kas was aligned with Yog, as Blue had warned him by carving “Kas is bad” in the skull he throwed at the heroes when they were fleeing Grayrock. However, Sterling plan required the betrayal, and with such, he, Winter and Tipple were captured by Yog while Rook was sent to warn the other heroes but not without Yog sending her greencap army after him.
The other heroes; Glory, Shroud, Leech and Inga were nowhere else than the flooded Grayrock itself, having sneaked there during the night following Sterling plan. The plan required them to get Ben, who was still a doll and thus didn’t need to breathe, to stay submerged at the bottom of the flooded town, so Yog’s curse would be once again strengthened before Sterling’s group arrived to confront the witch, thus guaranteeing that she wouldn’t eat them yet in case Kas betrayal happened.
The heroes at Grayrock were followed by the brave Greta, who still wanted her brother to be safe, and right after arriving at Grayrock, the heroes had to battle the red and greencaps that survived the flood, who were being commanded by Skye who was sent there to guard the town by Yog. After much effort, the heroes were able to kill the caps army and Glory, aided by Greta, killed Skye for good, and Ben was shoot like an arrow by Shroud to the deep of the flood, getting the curse on again.
Back at Yog’s hut, the witch realized that the curse wasn’t lift anymore and felt that Skye and her army at Grayrock were just killed. After winter turned her offer of becoming a rider down, the enraged Yog, seeing that she couldn’t eat the heroes yet, made her hut, with everyone inside to quickly dislocate itself towards Grayrock so she could turn Ben back into human an thus forcing him to get out of the flooded town.
Back in Grayrock, after an epiphany, Leech realized that Yog’s magical/living hut was somehow linked to the witch’s own vital force, hence why she survived all these years without eating any hero, and thus they would need to destroy her hut in order to properly kill her physical body.
At this very moment, a very bruised Rook arrived at Grayrock to warn the heroes there, and right behind him, were the rest of Yog’s army and the ogre Headstrong. While the other heroes there battled the caps army, Inga and Shroud engaged Headstrong in combat. Soon after, Yog’s hut arrived, and Inga was forced to aid Glory, Leech and Rook in taking it down.
Seeing an opportunity, the ogre tried to run away from the town as she was no match for all the heroes combined, Shroud finished killing her in the woods, as ordered by the Conclave, and it turned out that the motivation behind the assassins’ demand was due to the fact that Headstrong had stolen one of her seven noggins directly from the conclave’s base.
Back at Grayrock, Yog launched herself in her flying cauldron out of her hut while it was being attacked by the heroes, and proceeded to get close enough of Ben to turn him back into a human, as just as he emerged from the water, her curse was once again lifted.
In the meanwhile, Blue, who was also inside of the hut, freed Tipple, Sterling and Winter and together they got out ready to fight the witch. Seeing that she would need to fight all the heroes at once without having consumed any yet, Yog betrayed Kas and bit his doll-head off even he still being made out of stone; thus, Yog gained the force necessary to proper fight the heroes.
With Yog’s powers strengthened, her magic also became harder to fight off, and Winter was the one to take the lead and, with the help of Inga, was thrown towards Yog’s flying cauldron, intercepting it midair. Yog didn’t waste the chance and properly sunk her teeth in Winter’s arm, trying to eat the heroine’s powers, but Winter channeled all her willpower and freeze the witch’s head from her teeth. Yog didn’t die though but with this, she lost control of her cauldron and it rose up in the sky before launching itself down towards the hut.
The impact of Yog’s magical cauldron against her hut was enough to destroy both and with this, Yog died, as her bruises and her frozen head were enough to kill her without the vital linking with the destroyed shack. Winter was able to leap out of the cauldron before the crash and was caught by her fellow heroes. Blue saw the opportunity to escape and reunite with her fellow redcaps without being chained to Yog, and the heroes didn’t give chase, as he had helped them more than Yog during the last days.
That night, Brightlodge commemorated the victory of the heroes under Tipple’s energetically narration about the heroes’ deeds, as Yog’s threat was no more and soon they would be able to replicate the cure for the greencaps, riding Albion from one more evil for good.