The great saga opens with a happy occasion in Rabanastre, capital of the Kingdom of Dalmasca. Amid great pomp and ceremony, a wedding procession winds through cheering crowds lining the streets of the royal city. The parade celebrates the marriage of Her Royal Highness Princess Ashe (daughter of Raminas, King of Dalmasca) to Lord Rasler (heir to the throne of Dalmasca’s eastern neighbor Nabradia).

This is more than a marriage of convenience; Ashe and Rasler are truly in love, a fact that seems to bestow a sacred, joyous air to the proceedings. In the city’s great cathedral, the high priest seals the union with the name of the God of Light, Faram. With that, the bordering kingdoms come together in a peaceful union.

But visions of a hopeful future quickly fade. Basch, captain in the Order of the Knights of Dalmasca, soon brings disturbing news to the king’s war room: Nabudis, capital of Nabradia, has fallen beneath Archadia’s westward surge. Surely Dalmasca is next.

King Raminas sends Basch and Lord Rasler to rally Dalmascan defense forces in the border fortress of Nalbina. There, the fight is desperate, furious, and ultimately lost when the stronghold’s “paling,” a defensive magick barrier, falls. Archadian troops overwhelm the great citadel; in the process, Lord Rasler takes a lethal arrow to the chest. Basch barely manages to escape on a chocobo with the mortally wounded prince.

Back in Dalmasca, Lord Rasler is laid to rest, along with the hopes of the entire region. Here begin the memoirs of the Marquis Halim Ondore IV. Listen carefully to learn how King Raminas agreed to terms with his Archadian conquerors and reluctantly traveled to now-occupied Nalbina Fortress to sign the treaty. The Marquis Ondore’s entry ends with some chilling words: “The Treaty would be signed with Steel… and Writ in royal Blood.”