The world didn't fall into darkness. It was pushed.
I still remember the day it all changed.
Back then, Aldric was a name spoken with respect, even fear.
As King of Umbrenor, his wisdom and mastery of shadow magic were renowned far beyond our borders.
A fragile, uneasy peace connected the three realms:
Solhen, the realm of light, ruled by the ruthless Azrael.
Tharok, land of brute warriors under the command of the pragmatic and fearsome Gravus.
And our kingdom, Umbrenor, the quietest, but by no means the weakest.
We believed in that peace. Naively. Until the day Aldric declared war.
I was in the palace that day. A silent archivist, unnoticed, watching history unfold before my eyes.
No one expected it.
No one saw the storm brewing in Aldric's gaze when he coldly declared his intention:
to unite the realms under one banner, his own.
Gravus was the first to react, striking immediately.
His barbaric legions rampaged across Solhen's border villages and our outposts alike, leaving nothing but ruin.
Azrael responded just as swiftly, mobilizing his radiant troops to crush all resistance in their path.
But Aldric's growing power and his elite shadow mages, stalled their advance.
The war dragged on, and casualties soared.
In desperation, the two enemy realms formed an unlikely alliance.
They issued a chilling ultimatum:
Surrender your king, and your people will be spared.
That was when Seran, Aldric's most trusted general and closest advisor, did the unthinkable.
Driven by a hidden thirst for power, and a jealousy long kept buried,
he plunged his blade into the back of the man he once swore to protect.
I still remember the look in Aldric's eyes,
not anger… but sorrow.
Seran claimed he acted to save us. But I knew the truth behind his lies.
The promise made by Azrael and Gravus was never honored.
With Aldric dead, their armies descended on Umbrenor like vultures.
They slaughtered every mage strong enough to resist.
Aldric's son was killed before my eyes.
His daughter, powerless, was miraculously spared.
Our kingdom was left in ashes.
Years later, Aldric's daughter gave birth to a child.
She hid her in a distant forest village, where no one knew her bloodline.
That child grew up. Married.
And gave birth to a boy named Rael.
Today, thirty years have passed. A tense, uneasy peace lingers.
But I feel it again, that familiar tension in the air, like the breath before a storm.
Solhen now stands as the mightiest of the three.
But it hasn't forgotten the savagery of Gravus.
The world may have changed…
But the scars remain.
And me?
I'm just an old archivist. A relic no one listens to anymore.
But I know what's coming.
And this time, the darkness won't wait.