Dardanus Chronicle; Ch. 1(Complete!)

         Darkness. Everywhere the land was covered in the most dim sunlight, like the clouds had rooted themselves in the sky. A new era had begun on the Dark Continent, more calm and quiet than the last, ruled by the Dark Blood king. This age dawned a new king, Ilmarinen Thanatos II, a young general of 16 from an outside, forbidden land on the western border of the Continent. He was known as Valos, which meant ‘monster’ in his native tongue of Quima. The ruthless conqueror set out from his homeland of Quimalah to conquer his most bitter enemy of many generations, Phaedrus Dardanus, but his conquest, however, was in vain for as he arrived on the black beaches of the Continent, no opposing army waited there for Valos. Instead, as he searched the land, Valos found a wasteland strewn with dead, decaying corpses of humans and ethereal beings alike. As he marched his 800,000 strong army to the capital and citadel, he felt pity on the survivors of the terrible onslaught that had happened and took them under his wing. The remaining people thanked Valos for his kindness, swearing their lives to him and his bloodline for rescuing them from their burden of famine and drought. The people changed Valos’s name to mean ‘savior’ in their native tongue and rumor spread throughout the land of his greatness.

         Soon, nomads from all over the Dark Continent made pilgrimage to the city, which was renamed “Thanatia” after its savior. The city, over a time of three years, grew into a large, prosperous state which held supreme reign over all the Continent and Ilmarinen Thanatos Valos II became corrupted with power. His greatness dissolved into ruthlessness as months passed slowly by. Valos had become the monster that he had once been, killing for his own sick, twisted pleasure and holding public torture events, in which the participants were slowly killed in front of a disgusted crowd. His people were enraptured by fear of their master and king’s reign that no one dared to stand up to King Thanatos. He stayed in the same citadel of his former enemy, Phaedrus, and took pleasure in the dark, morbid collections that he had stored for so many years before his sudden disappearance. The only thing that remained of Phaedrus was a white imp with one wing seared from its back who paced about a small, torn up room with “hope” written on the door in Runes and said only one thing: “The ancient still remains, the new shall be as the ancient was, the new era will falter.”

         Valos tried for days to decipher what the imp kept saying about the new era, the era of Valos. He locked himself in the vast library, filled with ancient books of magic, history, darkness, and vile things of the inferno. Valos learned how his enemy and former keeper of the citadel had managed to rule over his land: Phaedrus had made a deal with Samael, the Angel of Death, Keeper of Souls, the protector and patron of the Dardanus bloodline. Valos also discovered a secret chamber deep underground filled with ancient and powerful magical totes from a ritual that had taken place years ago. He suspected that this room was where Phaedrus had offered a human soul in exchange for the Rite of Immortality, granted by only one demon lord - Baal. The king’s dark obsession with power grew too much at the sight of this room and he, too, wanted to become as Phaedrus had been: one of the most powerful beings to rule the Dark Continent. He set out for the library again but this time, he knew what book he sought. It was called the “Tome of the Infinite,” and Valos knew rumors of the book’s powerful secrets. For hours at a time, he spread his fingers through hundreds of books until at last he found it. Opening its dusty pages, he gazed at a list of names, of who or what had bound themselves to the secrets of the Tome. Valos had heard rumors of its origin- bound in the skins of Adam and Eve, pages made from the ashes of their bodies, and written in their blasphemous blood. He was enthralled as his eyes sang in unholy joy He wanted, needed to bind himself to its power as so many others did before him. With a small dagger, he held his wrist over the open page then slit and let pour his contract onto the old book, reciting an ancient, dark oath- “I bind myself in flesh and blood and soul to the demons of this world, to Baal, master of Immortality, and to Samael, the Prince of the Sky and Keeper of Souls. I bind my soul to the immortal realm, to surpass Phaedrus Dardanus, to rule this world, and to never perish by mortal hand!”

         Valos felt his body burn and tremble, pain rushed through his body and blood. Forced to his knees by the tremendous pain, he screamed violently and writhed on the cold ground, his armor sparking against the stone. Valos felt as if his body were being squeezed by an Iron Maiden, his hands clutching his tormented face in agony as he screamed. Finally he collapsed in exhaustion and lay unconscious in his library for days, alone in the darkness. It wasn’t until the little white imp ventured out of his pacing room that Valos was found. The king felt dead yet alive, like he had been resurrected into a new body that surged with the powers of darkness. With these new powers, Valos swore to rule the world, but in order to do that, he first needed to enslave his people to work. He forced the local villages into slavery- cutting stone and trees, making armor and weapons, sewing clothes, and serving him inside the citadel. One day, the little white imp brought a little girl of only five years before the king, who sat pompously on his bronzed throne. The imp offered the girl into the king’s personal servitude, to which the king reluctantly agreed, and this is where the Chronicle begins.