25 February 2006

Mindsgate: Introduction

Many years ago the Empire of Mellas was faced by devastation and collapse, enemies both internal and external worried its borders with war, ravaged the city-states deep within its territories, and allowed monstrous denizens to maraud its lands. The good but young Emperor was beside himself and knew not what to do, until one day a bent cloaked figure was admitted to the Imperial court. The mysterious being told the king that it had a gift that would rid the Empire of its woes, but only one of the ancient blood of Mellas could use it to do so. With that it drew out a large sepulcher black opal, the Midnight’s Hunger. The Emperor was greatly intrigued and asked that this gift be bestowed on him. The cowled enigma responded saying that although the Midnight’s Hunger was a great and powerful gift, these powers came at great cost to the wielder: The Midnight’s Hunger could consume the evils of the land, but these evils would be trapped in the heart of the Emperor. Despite his loyal council’s dismay how little was known about the gift or the giver, the desperate Emperor said he would accept the gift.
The stooped shadow mounted the stairs growing taller and more menacing as it approached the Emperor the Midnight’s Hunger thrust before it in a claw-like hand. Now towering over the Emperor, it retracted its hand and then plunged the ebon gem deep into the Emperor’s left eye. With an unearthly scream the Emperor fell, clutching his eye from which a foul ember smoldered to the accompaniment of the cloaked figures cackles of mad glee. The Emperor’s bodyguards struck the figure down, only to find the remnants of a dark and tattered cloak on their blades. The Emperor lay pale and senseless on the ornate floor, bloody tears falling from under his quivering lids.
The Emperor was brought to the Imperial chambers where he lay senseless and feverish for many days. Finally, the Imperial Magus, Daerrus, and the Imperial chirgeons could wait no longer declaring they would examine the left eye of the Emperor entered his chambers and were never seen again. The Imperial Vice-Magus, Hasjan, sealed the Emperor’s left eye with spells and instructed the new physicians to tend their liege with care. For many weeks, the Emperor was delirious but with time came healing. Finally, he rose from his sickbed, pale and worn but ready to face the invasion by a small goblin kingdom to the North.
Riding to the North, the Emperor surveyed the goblin encampment pried off his eye patch, and the despicable horde vanished in a maelstrom within his left eye. With time more enemies fell to the Emperor’s dark devouring eye; the wyrm Grimspyne among others, the Sprayspawn barbarians and brethren tribes, the rebel lord Nolduran and his allies, as well as other criminals both enemies of state and ordinary murderers, thugs, and the like. Peace began to return to the Empire of Mellas as disquiet was sown in the mind of its Emperor.
Ever since receiving the “gift” of the Midnight’s Hunger the Emperor had increasingly intense and frequent headaches along with dark visions. His mood changed along with the fading joy and prosperity of the Empire. Now the source of the Empire’s despair came not from without but from the Mellian Throne itself in the form of increasingly heavier taxation, foul edicts, and brutal reprisals to perceived threats. Increasingly the disintegrating gaze of the Emperor was cast upon the unjustly accused. The Emperor was rumored to be mad.
Meanwhile Hasjan had been questing the Empire and beyond, gathering lore about the Midnight’s Hunger. What he revealed horrified him, the Midnight’s Hunger was not simply a magical pearl but the bitter, pitch black heart of the demon prince, Naberaxus. The Empire of Mellas had been established by a pact with this very demon but the Emperor’s ancestor had tricked Naberaxus and slain him. With his dying breath the demon had cursed his own heart to be used as a weapon against the Mellian Throne. The demon’s vile essence had survived within that opal prison for millennia. Naberaxus’ vile heart would devour the Empire at the willing hand of it’s own Emperor. Hasjan returned to the Mellian Throne only to provoke the wrath of the Emperor with this grave news. The Emperor tore his eye patch from his face, but before he could cast his ravenous orb on his faithful wizard, the Emperor’s sister, Larassa, leapt between the two and was consumed.
The Emperor went near mad with grief but felt his control over the essence of Naberaxus slipping further along with a shattering pain within his skull. A pain that he could only relieve by opening his left eye and absorbing more lives within its dusky confines. Hasjan knew not how to remove the Midnight’s Hunger but devised a plan to split the essence of Naberaxus that rode the Emperor’s shoulders and store it within several loyal retainers of the Emperor.
As Hasjan placed the arcane mirror before the Emperor and his valiant vassals to perform the ritual that would split the essence of Naberaxus, the demon prince struck, forcing the hungry eye of the Emperor to open…

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