The world needs balance between Light and Darkness.
When the forces of Darkness, the Overlord and his baleful army of minions, rise, heroes of Light soon come to vanquish and, more often than not, destroy him. However, when they succeed, there isn't enough Darkness to fight anymore, and the forces of Light start to corrupt themselves, unable to fill the vacuum that they caused... Until a new Overlord rise and cleanse that corruption.
But the Overlord is no more. The drastic measures taken to ensure his fall once and for all dealt a fatal blow to the forces of Darkness. Some cults and madmen did try to get the favors of the forces of Darkness by creating or summoning a new Overlord, but none of them succeeded...
And now, far over two centuries after the death of their Overlord and the destruction of his tower in the Netherworld, only a few of his loyal minions remains as the last part of what might soon only be remembered as a legend, still awaiting an Overlord that didn't came...
...Yet.
He came back to consciousness, his whole body hurting as if a stampede passed on him. He was confused. Where was he? Why was he so weak and hurt? He oppened his eyes, but his vision wasn't clear, his arm being nothing more than a dark blurr in an infinite white. He barely moved before losing consciousness once again, while one last thought passed through his mind.
-"It's... Cold...
So... Cold..."
Gnarl examined the iced horizon, keeping an eye on the minions deployed in fan formation a little further, hoping to see some life, be it living or lost in these montains. Any creature made of flesh would do, given the limited rations that they still had. But the horizon stayed empty, without a single yeti, or even a dahu in sight. Out of hope, Gnarl was about to give order to return to the cave... When Gloob indicated that he found something. It was burried under a fine layer of snow, that the minions finished to remove when Gnarl got there. A human... The movement of his ribs, almost imperceptible, reveal that he is still alive but too weak to defend himself.
-"He isn't that thick, but it still is better than nothing. It is time to go."
Despite the snow, getting back to the cave barely took them twenty minutes. Once inside, Gnarl sat near the fire, making sure that Giblet really did took care of it. They don't have much wood left, which means that they will have to go soon... They still had two or three days, at most. With this though, Gnarl couldn't help but contemplate what was left of the minions by his side... Giblet and Mortis of course, as well as Gloob, Mouldy, Gubbin, Fleas, Grubby, Belch, Moloch, Chuckles, Worm... And also Quaver, saddly. All within this cave, so far away from the lands that they knew. His gaze then went toward the last object that they still had, the Tower Hea... It was reacting to something! Gnarl quickly looked through the cave to find what, before his eyes fell on the humain. With a smile, Gnarl ordered the minions to put him closer to the fire. Yes, the silver marking, the blue skin... How did he missed it?
He was starting to wonder again. Was he dead? Was it already over? He didn't feel the cold anymore, but he still was too weak to do anything. His senses started to come back to him. He was wet, soaked even. He could feel his clothes and his hair clinging to his skin. Then he heard something... Voices? They seemed distant, he couldn't understand any of it. Was he dreaming? And what was that smell? It went with the crackling noise that he could now hear. It made him think of something warm. He tried to open his eyes. He still couldn't see clearly, but he finally recognise what was glowing before him, making the noise : a fire. His eyes closed again, still too weak to wake up, but he could feel his body slowly getting warmer...
He nearly could feel some of his strengh coming back to him...
Gnarl could sware that the human changed in the last few minutes. He wasn't sure anymore that it was a human. His hair seemed longer, he had pointy hears and his fingers ended in claws... Like the blue and silver skin, these traits weren't too unusual for an Overlord... But all of them at once still was odd. And the tail definitly was unusual. It looked like a longer version of the greens' one, but the tip was that of the reds', and its color scheme reminded him of the ones that the blues sported...
He interrupted his thoughts when the eyelids of the Overlord twitched, then oppened slightly, letting him see a faint line made of an orange glow, before shutting down again some seconds later. Gnarl ordered a minion to fetch a piece of meat. They were excited, Giblet already polishing the last pieces of the old armor that he kept during all this time. When Moloch gave him the meat, Gnarl put it to cook over the fire. This should help awaking their new Overlord.
While it took some more time than Gnarl expected, the Overlord finally did wake up, and he was quick to sntach the meal placed before him, using his fang-like teeth to tear each piece apart before swallowing them, barely chewing. It looked like he hadn't eaten in days. While he finished eating, he took conciousness of his surroundings. He was in a cave, not far from a campfire, with strange creatures looking at him. They were a dozen at most, and all looked quite energized. They all were brown, except a blue one in a grimm reaper costume. One was wearing a digger helmet, another, wearing some blacksmith tools, was rassembling some pieces of metal while gnawing on a chunk of wood, there was a dancing one covered in... Burn marks? Tatoos?...
-"Giblet! Don't chew THAT!"
He turned to face the one that talked. He seemed older, and was wearing some kind of cloak, with a glowing stone hanging from a stick over his head.
-"Ah, master, glad to see you awake. I am Gnarl, The Minion Master." Gnarl said while gesturing over to show the other minions. "And you are our new Overlord! We have seen better times, and now that we found you, we can finally start to rebuild our forces. But you should rest for now, the nights aren't safe in these mountains."
While he was a little confused, the Overlord didn't seek more answers. For now, he was in a warm place with these creatures that seemed obedient to him. He used a good portion of the night to rest, thinking about what might have happenned to him before today, but he couldn't remember anything before the pain and the cold. In the early morning, the minions helped him change clothes, putting the armor on him. It was too big an heavy, obviously made for someone more muscular than him, and it wasn't made with his tail in mind. He didn't even had to ask before Gnarl assured him that the next ones would. That was when he took notice of the huge glowing orb in the back of the cave. Gnarl told him that it was the Tower Heart, the most powerfull of the artefact that was in his possession. The only one too. He was a little impressed that Gnarl could read him so well that he didn't need to speak once since he woke up.
When the hailstorm stopped some time before the sunrise, they were ready to leave. It took days to get down from the mountains, Gnarl guiding them toward the last known location of the brown hive. Things got easier once they were in the forest, their biggest worry being to stay far enough from the roads to not gather attention. Even so long after the fall of the Empire, people still were aggressive to magic creatures. And with the Tower Heart looking like a giant jewel, avoiding thieves was obviously required.
It was Gnarl turn to be impressed : despite clearly strugling to walk with the armor at first, the Overlord didn't ask to remove it, even travelling whole days straight without any complains. The constant exercises caused his muscles to grow, letting him fill up his armor far better than barely two weeks ago, even if it was still too big for him. He also needed to sleep less and less. Gnarl worried that he might be pushing himself too much, but the Overlord kept getting in better shape with each passing days.
During the third week, the forest became far less dense and far more rocky, until it was remplaced by a rocky wasteland, the road leading to the bottom of a wide canyon.
-"We lost the brown hive during a landslide further this way. We should be there tomorow, maybe even this evening."
They arrived the next morning, looking all over for clues as to were the hive went.
