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There was once a man who had been touched by the magic of the elflands.  The story isn't important, but it had turned his hair a bit light, almost gray, but more like silver.  He may have been blond once, but his hair was lighter and more silver than anything else.

He decided to make a sword.  He had a sword blade that a friend had brought back and given him once.  So he decided to make a hilt, wrap the hilt in shark skin and have a sword.  What he would do with a sword he hadn't the slightest idea, it just seemed like something to do to pass the time as he lived alone except for his daughter in a large and empty house.

So he ordered a wooden blank of cocobolo wood and was very careful with it.  The wood is beautifull, but the dust is bad for you.  He cured some shark skin and carefully ground the surface so it would not be too rough (he sanded out some rough places in the sidewalk and driveway with it).  Placed into the grip were also two menuki, one of a sharklike chinese dragon, one of dragonlike japanese shark.  They were of a silver-gold alloy with a rich patina on them.

The blade was 29" long with a deep tang and a stormy wave temper line.  All told, the finished sword was much prettier than one would expect.  The man didn't have much to do with it other than to put it on the wall after finishing a rowan wood sheath for it, but he was happy he had made the sword himself.  He took pride in good work.

With the left over wood he made some bullets.  He had a gun made by a company called Glock that was all plastic and carbon fiber.  He had casingless bullets, but he decided that he wanted non-metallic slugs.  By the time he was finished, he had no metal at all in the gun, not even in the bullets.  It was a difficult task, but it filled his lonely time while his daugher rode her horse.

Then one night there was a terrible storm.  In the middle of the storm he heard the strangest noise, right after lightning almost struck his house.  It was an uneasy noise that made him pick up his hand gun out of its locked case.  At the last moment, without being able to tell why, he put it in his pocket and grabbed the sword and went out to see what had happened.

There, in the side yard, was a place in the air that was almost burning from where the lighting had struck.  It drew him with a memory that wasn't a memory.  Without thinking, dressed only in his jeans, tennis shoes and a shirt, he jumped through the shimmering spot and found himself in the wooded elflands whose magic had touched him once.

He could see the spot behind him, so decided to take a quick look around.  As he was walking he could hear grunts and the ring of metal on metal.  Carefully he looked out from behind the trees he had been walking through.  There he saw six pig like creatures, armed with swords and wearing bright orange colored armor (brass, though he didn't know it) facing down a slender maiden armed with two swords.

Now he knew enough to know that what looks fair can be foul and what looks foul can be fair, so he didn't judge, but he did not stand aside and he did not run back through the portal that had brought him this far.  He stepped out, one hand on the sheath and one on his sword sheath, coughed, and said "excuse me."

That was enough for him to find out who was what.

Two of the pig creatures turned and came at him, grunting something that sounded strangely close to "now we will eat even more."  

He cast the scabbard aside and stepped towards the priggia (for that is what they were) at a 45 degree angle to their line of attack, striking a passing blow with his gajin-to katana.  The priggia convulsed and died, burning as it fell, from the bite of iron.  As the other priggia turned, he caught it with the reverse blow and it went down as well.  The other four had been cautiously pressing in on the maiden, hoping to overbear her without risk.  The sounds they heard distracted them and one went down even as two more turned to attack the man, leaving one to face the girl.  One was not enough.

The other two were armed with brass and he met the first sword edge to edge as he stepped off at 90 degrees.  His sword sheared through the priggia's blade and then through its armor.  Again, the merest cut was enough to kill, even though he had sought only to disarm.  The last one faced him with more caution, only to be surprised by the maiden from behind.

She thanked him for intervening when he had no duty.  They would have eaten her, and fey though she was, that would have been enough to put an end to her.

There had been omens of something fell, and she had been on her way as a messenger to an oracle when she had been ambushed by the priggia. She could guide him to where her father held court over his small space to return with the message that she had obtained.  She assured him that in these elflands time went much faster than in the mortal realm so that only seconds had passed and that all would be as it was when he left.  She sketched out runes in the air about the portal to keep it open and to hide it from others and invited him on.  Finally, she gave him a handkerchief that could also double as a short cloak.

So he went with her.

The oracle was clear.  A fell troll had arisen, with power it drained from the earth and skies.  It was gathering power in the heart of an extinguished volcano to the North and East, drawing priggia and others out of the waste places and the cracks of the world.  It was a threat, but one that was no worse than many others.

The elves liked the man and gave him armor (glass woven into chain mail, backed with something like dense sponges, and a clear circlet that magically let him see in the dark and worked as a helm).  They invited him to a party.  Something warned him and he declined.

It was not spite or evil that motivated the elves.  Just as their realm has fast times, it has slow ones as well.  An elf hill party would last a night in one world, a hundred years in another.  Reaching into such a party would take the man safely past the time of the fell troll.  

The oracle had said that he could be used to neutralize it, but the term did not necessarily bode well for him, and they liked him, and surely another solution would come if they waited long enough.  The fey often use men ill, but just as often seek to shield them.

So he accepted a call to adventure and found his guide.

And so he escaped his first trial -- that of friendship.  

Two more trials ensue.

At last he and the maiden came to where the fell troll was.  They fought past the two guardians he had placed at his gate, and his armies were on the plain, headed towards the elven lands while the fell troll wrought the magic he hoped would give them victory.

The final barrier was of molten rock at the heart of the volcano.  The maiden shot her arrows, but she could either reach enough magic for the arrows to fly true or for them to pass the heat -- not both, so they either missed or burst into ash long before they reached the troll.

Then the man took out his pistol.  The fell troll laughed.  It is known that metal, especially worked metal, quenches fire. That is why so many technologies fail in the elf lands where magical rules reign.  Metal wires quench the electrical fire. Metal guns quench the explosive fire of the bullets in them. So gunpowder works, and makes the best of fireworks and rockets, but guns do not.  Except this gun had no metal in it, and the cocobolo wood was poison to the troll, so as each bullet struck, he did not regenerate to heal from it.

Seven bullets struck the fell troll and its power slipped from it.  So it dropped the fire walls about it and came at the man, and he took his sword and met it in a passing attack.  The two blurred together and then both stood facing each other, great rents in the man's armor where claws had cracked the glass, but only a bright line across the troll, until it suddenly shrieked as it fell in two.

At the same time the man struck again, taking its head off and stealing its power into the sword, drawing down the cold fire from the stars and the hot fire from the earth into itself, like a dragon's breath.

And that is how the dragonshark sword gained life.

At the same time, the oread who was the heart of the mountain was released.  The man gave her the handkerchief (in its larger cloak size) to cover herself with.

The man had to choose.  He could stay with the elf maiden, he could rule the fell troll's place, or he could return.  

From his own time he had only been gone five minutes, but that was five minutes too long for him, and back to his daughter he went.

But it was only the start of the adventures.