Heral was a small town, one that did not have many visitors.  Perhaps it was due to the self-sufficiency of the town, or perhaps it was due to the lack of any real exports.  It may have been due to the marshy terrain or the hazards of traveling on bandit-filled roads.  Most likely, though, visitors stayed away from the town because of a dark rumor that was whispered in the shadows of the darkened taverns in the region.  It was said that the sleepy hamlet of Heral was built very close to a temple from ancient times, and within these ruins dwelled demons with bodies harder than iron and stronger than any human. 

    It was these very rumors of evil that brought a traveler to the town this day.  She was clothed in a pale blue shirt with matching trousers, with some pouches hanging off her belt that seemed to carry her supplies.  Across her shoulders was draped a darker blue mantle which fell almost to the ground.  This exotic garb combined with her raven hair and youthful face lent an air of mystery to the traveler.  She strode into the town early in the morning, and looked as if she had traveled all night long.  The news of the arrival of a traveler made its way across the town quickly, and within half an hour of her arrival, most of the inhabitants of Heral knew of her presence.

    The traveler meandered through the town, interested in seemingly everything about the place.  She was friendly with the inhabitants of the town, and spoke to them freely of her journeys and her purpose.  She was a sort of priestess who served the God of Water, and had come to the town to spread the faith to this place that was forgotten by the rest of the world.  This priestess spoke with passion of the goodness of her deity and the miracles that he wrought for those that served him.  The townspeople, however, were somewhat skeptical of this new deity that she spoke of, for the gods of their fathers had sufficed for many years and were known to have protected the town from disasters that occurred elsewhere.

    The traveling cleric in blue stayed the night at the tavern, which had an empty room or two available to rent to the few travelers that passed through.  The following day, she was out and about in the town, speaking to all of her deity, seeking to turn any she could to the service of her god.  On this day, too, the people of the town listened politely to her words, yet adamantly resisted the change she sought to bring about.  For weeks her attempts at turning the villagers to her god continued, until it became almost a normal facet of life for the townspeople of Heral.  None of them changed their ways to follow the God of Water, yet the priestess never relented.  She eventually built a small shack on the outskirts of town, and bought her produce from the farmers in the town marketplace.  So life continued on in the village of Heral as it always had, though a new inhabitant now graced the village with her presence.

* * *
    The priestess sighed dejectedly.  The villagers here seemed so intent on following after their weak gods, deities that had been long forgotten by the rest of the world.  They politely disbelieved her claims about the God of Water, yet had no evidence that their own gods acted on their behalf.  She had not given up hope or faith in her god, she worked earnestly every day to make his ways known to these people, yet results of any kind were non-existent.  She felt like she was trying to plow solid rock, exhausting herself day after day with her work yet never making any progress.

    She tried everything that the Temple had taught her to make converts of the people of Heral, yet none of it worked.  The family of healers in this village surpassed even the High Priests of the Temple of the God of Water in skill, and so any healing that she performed in this place was looked upon as something to get by with until a visit to the village healer could be made.  Magic didn't work either, for enough vagrants with skill in the art had passed through over the years to strip it of its seemingly supernatural aura.  She could try oracles, but she did not yet have enough insight into the people of this town to make reasonable guesses -- let alone accurate predictions -- about the future.  And so the priestess known as Farla went to sleep that night frustrated with herself and even beginning to doubt the god she worshiped.

    That night, she had a vision.  Farla dreamed that she was in the town square again, pleading her case with the locals as was her habit of late.  Out of the corner of her eye, though, she saw a blue light flicker.  She turned abruptly to see what it was, and beheld a human-like form made entirely of blue and green light.  This figure told her that he was the God of Water whom she served.  He took her by the arm and led her westward from the town, across the marshland.  Eventually they came to a ruin covered in vegetation.  Into the ruin they went, and there Farla was shown a way to turn the village of Heral to the worship of the God of Water.  Inside the ruin slept demons with skin like steel who sought to utterly annihilate any who sought to disturb their home.  Her god told her that some village children had discovered the ruin the other day, and that in two days time they would return and accidentally awaken the demons.  The god would lend her strength, and with that strength she could repel the demons and make his greatness known in this place.  The vision faded away, and normal dreams came forth to occupy her mind that night.

    The next morning, Farla discovered an amulet of silver with a large blue gem set into it.  She was not an especially gifted magic user, yet even so she could discern that it was an artifact of great power.  As she looked at the artifact, memory of the previous night's dream flooded back into her.  Memories came back to her of the disbelief of the townspeople, the ruins in the marshes, the sleeping demons, the meddling children...and the god's promised strength that would destroy the demons.  Suddenly, the cleric knew exactly how she was intended to convert the people of this town to belief in the God of Water.  Her faith restored, Farla went out to the town that day and eagerly spread the news of her god, but made no mention of the demons that would be awakened.  The amulet she kept in one of her supply pouches, for she knew that someone would notice it as new if she were to wear it.  The priestess of the God of Water kept up her daily routine as she patiently waited for the demons to fall upon the town, causing a crisis that would inspire belief.

* * *
    Three young boys ventured through the marshlands, intent on reaching the ruin that they had found a few days past.  This was an adventure for them, something rarely found in the sleepy town of Heral that promised new things to discover and great mysteries to explore.  The oldest of them was twelve years of age, the youngest eight.  They had come to see what they might find in the ruins, never dreaming that they were about to unleash a horror unlike any the village had ever seen.  As they entered the mouth of the ruin, the boys noticed that it was too dark to see by inside.  They had prepared for this eventuality, for each carried with him a torch.  The oldest took out a fire-starting kit and lit their torches.  Inside, they saw smooth walls of metal and the scattered forms of things broken long ago.  Into the darkness they strode, torches held high to allow them to see where they were and where they were going.  They examined and even touched some of the things that they found, mostly unrecognizable lumps of metal.  They continued on, looking for something interesting to tell their friends about. 

    Eventually, they came to a long corridor with a single door at the end.  They opened this door, only to find a room filled with sunlight.  Above them was no longer a metal roof, but one of glass.  Daylight poured in, and at first this blinded the boys.  In time, however, their eyes adjusted to the light, and they looked around them to see what was inside this unique room of the ruins.  The young explorers found themselves in a lush garden.  Water flowed in from some unknown source and sunlight shown down from the glass ceiling, allowing the plants to thrive as though they were in the marsh itself.  They looked up at the glass roof, and saw...things...dark forms...moving about on it.  The wondered about these forms, but turned again to the gardens since they could not get onto the roof to find out what those things were.

    The gardens were filled with all sorts of plants.  Some were the familiar plants that grew naturally in the area.  There were many others, however, that were strange and new to them.  They looked and touched a few that looked safe, but many looked dangerous enough for the boys to leave alone.  At the center of the room, they found a small garden that was separated from the rest of the room and contained only a single kind of plant.  This plant was strange to them.  It resembled one of the weeds that commonly grew in the area, yet somehow seemed to be an herb of some sort.  Around this small garden was a fence that had signs on it every three feet.  The fence and the signs perked the curiosity of the boys, and so they looked at the herbs more closely.  One worked up the courage to reach across the fence and...

    The ruin came alive.  Lights turned on, and a siren wailed.  A disembodied voice speaking a strange language seemed to shout all around them.  The boys were filled with terror, and they ran out.  The one who had reached across the fence still held a handful of the herbs that he had hastily snatched when the light and sound startled him.  They ran from the ruin as fast as they could, as though demons from the darkest abyss were chasing them.  Every once in a while they would see dark forms that seemed to watch them and then disappear.  The boys fled through the marsh and returned to Heral as fast as they possibly could, none of them imagining what it was that they had unleashed.

* * *
    A host of demons awoke with a start.  Mortal infidels had invaded their temple and stolen a plant sacred to their creator.  The demons' leader called them together, and spoke to them in their own unique language.  He entrusted them with the task of finding the infidels and completely destroying them for their brazen acts of sacrilege.  Demons of all shapes and sizes left the ruin that day.  Some of them crawled across the ground like insects, some walked on legs like beasts, and some flew in the air like birds.  All of them moved eastward with one intent in mind: seeking out the mortals that violated their sanctuary and annihilating them in order to protect the sacred plant that their creator had commissioned them with protecting.  The mortals that had invaded their sanctuary had managed to elude them while they had been awakening from their age-old slumber, but their scouts had found the humans.  The young infidels had fled back to their own dwellings.  It would be there, the leader of the demons had decided, that the demons would exact their revenge upon the mortals.  The town would be the battleground, and the demons would teach the mortals a lesson that they would never forget.

* * *
    The people of Heral went about their business as though nothing was special about today.  The young children played, the older children worked at learning their future craft, the responsible adults spent the day working away at their chosen craft, and the irresponsible adults drank the day away using other peoples' money.  At some point after lunch that day, strangely enough, people were seen running across the town heading east screaming.  Almost everyone either ignored the first few or laughed at the oddity, but after a few repeats of this performance, people took notice.  At about that time the first of the demons arrived in the town marketplace.

    The evil being creeped into town, hugging the ground like an insect of some sort, its jagged carapace seeming to absorb all the light around it.  It had two large pincers for stabbing and a number of mouths that breathed light magic.  Behind it came a multitude of other demons of all shapes and sizes.  Some looked like birds, some looked like insects, and a few looked almost human.  All of them wielded light magic which they released in beams, and most bore some kind of melee weapon as well.  The bird-like demons had claws, the bug demons had pincers and sharpened appendages, and the human-like ones wielded swords, lances, and other implements of death.

    A few of the town guards rushed forward to attack the demons, but their swords broke upon impact with the skin of the demons.  Children threw rocks at the demons, only to see said rocks bounce off the demons and fall harmlessly to the ground.  What little magic the villagers knew was able to damage the demons somewhat, but not enough to come even close to kill them.  Seeing that any weapon they could wield was absolutely useless, the people of Heral fled eastward, abandoning their homes to the marauding demons.
   
    One person, however, stood firm against this assault.  The young cleric in the blue mantle stood her ground before the attacking demons.  The amulet that her god had given to her several days before now hung about her neck, and shone brightly as she concentrated her will into it to bring forth the wrath of the God of Water.  The demons simply looked at her, unable to comprehend what manner of lunacy prompted her to stand against them.  Here stood a human that did not fear them, and even tried to fight them with her puny magic.  One of the humanoid demons stepped forward to make an example of her before any of the humans who remained, but was struck down as a globe of magical water formed about it and compressed.  The sphere of water crushed and dented the skin of the demon enough to let the water into its body.  Once inside the demonic body, the mystic waters flooded internal parts of the demon.  As the power of the God of Water dissipated, the humanoid demon spontaneously burst into unholy flames before falling to the ground, dead.

    The townspeople heard the noise caused by the duel between the cleric and the demon, and ceased their flight to watch in amazement.  A few seconds of stillness passed after the demon died, its comrades incredulous and becoming increasingly enraged.  Finally, they burst forth as one to destroy the one human who possessed the power to fight them.  They were stopped in their tracks, however, as magical water engulfed the lot of them and pressed.  Unholy bodies with seemingly invincible skin broke open under the pressure of the magic, and holy water rushed into the demons themselves.  When the magic ended, the unholy army fell to the ground, never to rise again.

    A cheer went up from the people of Heral.  The cleric whom they had not heeded had saved them all from the demons.  The priestess spoke to them again of her god, whose power had saved them all from the demons that day.  Every person in Heral turned to the God of Water that day, for now it was obvious that he cared for and protected them.  A few of the townspeople went to examine the bodies of the demons out of morbid curiosity, and discovered that the demons' bodies were made of an incredibly hard metal.  So the demons that had plagued the town were from that day forward referred to as the Steel Demons after the legendary metal that someone in a far off kingdom was rumored to have created.

    The townspeople cleaned up the bodies of the demons after having thanked the priestess.  They piled these bodies outside of the blacksmith's shop, so that he could melt down the profane beings and turn them into useful tools to serve the town and their new god.  They celebrated that night, every person bringing out the best food from their pantry for a feast the entire town participated in.  So that night they feasted, and then slept, not even caring to think that there may have been demons that had not yet died.

    The following morning, the pile of demonic bodies that was in front of the blacksmith's shop the day before had disappeared.  The people panicked, thinking that the demons had survived and would attack them again later.  The priestess calmed their fears, however, by announcing that she would stay in the village from that day forward to protect them.  Their fears assuaged, the townspeople went about their business again.  Later that day, three young boys delivered a mysterious herb to the village healer, claiming that they had found it in the ruins before the demons attacked.  The healer experimented with this herb over the following months, and discovered that it was a healing reagent of amazing power: it had the capability of curing many diseases that were previously incurable.

    Thus, the legends of the Steel Demons of Heral and the Miracle Herb of Heral were born.

---

[Note from the Author: This story was intended to be a background story for a something I began writing a while back entitled Angel of Heral. However, I never managed to finish writing that story because I always got writers block midway through, and always at the same point. As things stand now, though, I'll probably never finish that story, so I decided to make this story stand-alone. Hope you enjoyed it.]