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DIFTW Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2024-01-06 20:20:08 +0000 UTCAges ago, in the time of the shattered kingdoms, before the fall of man, there lived a king. His name was Brennan Mosgrave, and he was a mage of unrivaled power. Upon the ashes of his enemies, he had built the kingdom of Mosria. And it had spanned many leagues.
While other nations fought each other, and suffered under the constant threat of the untamed world, Mosria stood as a beacon of safety. Its tall walls, and expansive army, provided protection from the many dangers of the outside world. The people were happy, content with their lot in life, and all who lived under the protection of the Mage-king worshiped him for his benevolence.
At the time, the elves were still in isolated tribes, at peace, and living in harmony with the forests. But they were not blind to the rise of Mosria. They watched as the walls were raised. They saw the towers being built, and the land razed to make way for farmland. For the elves, it was like watching a child grow up from across the street.
Over the years, tensions rose between the elves and man. Mosrians would violate the elven lands with impunity, and the elves watched from the shadows. But when the Mosrians started to chop down the trees which the elves had come to call family, a call was sent out. The tribes of the area sent their leaders, and a meeting was held in a mother tree residing in the forests south of Mosria. For two turns of the moon they conferred, and then a decision was made. A border would be demanded.
All at once, the woods became impenetrable to the Mosrians. Anyone who went in, didn’t come out. For one week, the elves made their point in blood. Then, they sent a message by using a captive. A young woman was released, and given a scroll. Cursed with a geas, she was told to deliver it to her leader.
Frantically, she made her way through the walls of Mosria. Like a madwoman, she begged to be brought before the mage-king. Every hour they delayed, she suffered under the pain of failure. The geas demanded it. Eventually, the mages of Mosria realized that she was cursed, and they listened to her story.
She spoke of forest demons. Tall shadows, with spiked ears. Civilizations hiding in the trees. She wept as she recalled the fate of her hunting party. The forest demons were a nightmare given from. She clutched the scroll case with shaking hands, and begged to be able to deliver it.
Three days they waited. All the while they cast spells and charms, trying to free the poor woman. But nothing worked. Not until the mage-king left his tower. He tired of hearing the reports, and went personally to hear the woman’s story. Upon entering her cell, he saw her collapse in relief, and the scroll case rolled to his feet.
No enchantment or spell could penetrate the case, and his advisors whispered words of caution. But the mage-king feared nothing. He opened the scroll and read what the forest demons had to say. They demanded a meeting to discuss a border. Until then, the forests south of the kingdom were closed to Mosrians.
The mage-king personally went to meet with the local elven leaders. At first, he presented himself with pride and vanity. He believed that he was the most powerful being to have ever lived. Rather than make peace, he made demands.
But his hubris was unwarranted, as the elves had been around long before man, and they were not without magic of their own. They ripped from him his mana, and bound him in chains for his offenses. Broken of his pride, the mage-king agreed to a peace.
A border was decided, and a buffer was agreed to be left alone. Man and elf could enter, but no fighting was allowed within the neutral territory.
Along their border, the elves grew a bramble wall. No man or beast could pass it, and the elven forests were safe once again.
As is the way of the world, time passed. While the elves stayed in their forests, the mage-king grew more powerful. He had never forgotten the insult he had suffered, and he spent his days researching every aspect of the ether. With the aid of his magic, he slowed his aging, but couldn’t stop it. After all, no one can fight time, and he grew older.
For the elves, the passage of a thousand years was barely worth noting. But for the mage-king, it was more than a lifetime. Everyone he knew from his youth was dead. He had watched his kingdom grow, and fought many enemies. Yet, every time he heard talk of his ‘unmatched power’, he thought back to the elves. Like an old wound, he couldn’t take a step without feeling the echo of his defeat at their hands.
With his heart full of anger, he planned how to steal the secrets of magic from the elves. In the dead of night, he personally went to the southern forests. Like a specter, he waited. And when he saw a young elf alone in the woods, he struck. Secreting his captive back to his citadel, he began his plan.
He had created a machine to transfer his soul into another body. And with the body of an elf, he could pass the border. He could learn the secrets of elven magic.
Mosria’s council of magic watched as he ripped the poor elfs soul apart, making room for his presence. The very sky’s wept at the affront to the natural order. As lightning crashed against the citadel, the mage-king was reborn. But his plan was doomed from the beginning.
An elven body, even a young one, was too large for a human soul. A hunger he had never felt before clawed at his psyche. The mage-king in his new body lashed out, destroying the citadel’s tower along with his council. In the aftermath, he looked out onto his kingdom, and wept.
With the hunger corrupting his mind, he built a new machine. With the aid of his magic, he enchanted it to steal the souls of the living, and use them to fill the empty space in his soul. At first, he took the captives, and few of his citizens objected. But it wasn’t enough.
The elves saw what was happening. They listened to the world crying out for aid. Nature itself began to rebel. The kingdom of Mosria sat under a cloud of darkness, and monsters began to stalk the streets. And while the elven leaders debated what they should do, the mage-king grew more powerful.
While working a great magic, he summoned a tear in the fabric of reality. From the forests, the elves watched the sickly green portal appear above the ruined citadel. From leagues away they could hear the citizens of Mosria screaming.
Realizing that they were out of time, the elven leaders called their armies. They marched on the now desolate city, intent on putting an end to the madness. Like a silver tide, they left the forest, fearless in the face of the horrors that awaited them.
What they found was beyond imagining. Animated bodies, devoid of life. Souls trapped in rotting corpses, unable to master their physical minds. Bodies, mutated by the necromatic energy pouring out of the rift. The only thing they had in common was their hatred of the living.
Undeterred, the elves pushed forward into the heart of the city. For seven days they fought through the streets. They did their best not to weep, as their dead rose to join their enemies. After much trial and error, they learned that they needed to destroy the body to truly free the soul.
The elven army eventually made it to the citadel, and looked upon the ruin that had once been the jewel of Mosria. And while the army held back the hordes of the hungry dead, the elven leaders made their way to confront the mage-king.
They found him sitting alone in his throne room, looking over his empty court. His madness evident in his red eyes. He screamed at the elves, blaming them for his troubles. He demanded they tell him how to fill the emptiness consuming his soul.
The oldest of the elves, whom one day would be known as their king, approached the mad mage-king. He looked upon the rotting elven body that the human had stolen and said, “A soul is only meant to visit this plane, not to stay here. It is time that you move on. You never should have opened to door to the afterlife, as the souls there are not yet ready to be here.”
The throne room was filled with pale green miasma, the raw potential of souls, empty putty waiting to be given form. Each elven leader recoiled at the realization of what they were witnessing. Raw essence, devoid of purpose, waiting to latch on to any semblance of life. It was madness.
You see, the mage-king had tried to feed his soul directly from the outer planes. He had found where the dead rested, and opened a portal to their home. But without bodies, without minds, all he found was the hungry dead. He had erred. He had erred greatly.
The ensuing fight was tremendous, as the mage-king had gown powerful over the years. But in the end, the elven leaders prevailed. Together, they destroyed the mage-king’s stolen body, and sent his soul onto the afterlife. Yet, they had one more task to complete.
Emerging from the ruined citadel, they gathered to work a great magic. Even the hordes of undead paused their war on the living to watch the gigantic spell-form build. The elven army watched with reverence as their leaders closed to rift.
But, their victory wasn’t without cost. Many elven lives had been lost, and the ground of Mosria would spawn the hunger for many years. The very land itself had been changed. Nature remembers what has happened, and only time will heal its wounds.
The elves fought their way back to their forest, and retreated behind their bramble walls. What was left of Mosria would continue to host the hunger, and as far as the elves were concerned, they were welcome to it.
And as is the way of the world, time passed. The elves watched to land reclaim Mosria. Slowly, the miasma faded. Until one day, a man emerged from the ruins. He claimed to be lost, and beseeched the elves for aid.
The elves were surprised, but the world is large, and oddities happen from time to time. So they brought him through their walls. To be careful, they teleported him far away from the ruins of Mosria. And ever cautious, they watched. They let him tell them his story. They let him show them his magic. They let him live in peace, and patiently waited to see what kind of man he turned out to be.
Now he sits in my parlor, asking for an elven body.
As one of the elven leaders who fought the hunger so long ago, how do you think I should respond?
