Author's Note: Not much to say here, just trying this out myself. If I fail, it doesn't much matter to me. As far as I know a set amount of time isn't given between the death of the old Overlord and the awakening of the new, but if it is, I apologize for getting it wrong. As usual, flames will just amuse me and let me know that a feces flinging troglodyte wasted their time.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd have more games in the series in the works. Therefore, I obviously don't own it, and I'm broke, so there's no point in suing me.
Music for this Chapter:
Warrior – Disturbed
Call Me When You're Sober -Evanescence
Kingdom Come
By: BlackLadyCharon
Chapter One: Awakening
His mind was broken, shattered beyond repair in many ways, bits and fragments spinning around with no clarity other than the occasional color. He didn't dream, but he didn't wake or truly sleep either, lost in the whirl that made no more sense to him then advanced neuromancy would to the average peasant. Eventually he tired of it though, and sought something, anything within the chaos that would give him a hold. For the longest time, there wasn't anything. And then, when thumping and scraping and vague sounds from above prompted him to open eyes he'd never realized were shut, it came. The first thing he forgot and the last thing he could remember.
I am Alain.
And then there was light and blurred forms, and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent hiss of shock. So long in the Dark, trapped in the Dark and the Silence, going from complete isolation to the world again nearly snapped his fragile, newborn connection to his self. Alain's mind didn't even register the sounds the creatures above him were making as words, too intent on keeping his body from seizing in reflex to the sudden changes in its limited world. The creatures above him paid this no mind, it was hardly the first time they had ever seen such reactions. Granted, usually the victim had only been under such conditions days or weeks instead of spell bound in them for years, but they'd seen it all before. It wasn't near as much fun as a good pot of boiling oil, chains, and a virgin. The oldest one elbowed the others aside, looking down at the man who was trying to focus on him now.
"It's him." The creature's tones were calm, matter of fact and intelligent sounding as opposed to the other's almost happy gibbering. "Rub some acid in his eyes, that'll freshen him up." The other creatures cheerfully pounced on this job, ignoring the hands that gave feeble pushes at their claws while they did so to try and prevent the small nicks and scrapes they were causing. The elderly creature studied Alain as he finally caught the edge of the stone sarcophagus and wrenched himself out of it, landing on the ground and hacking due to the dust this action raised. It would admit it was no judge of human looks, and this human had the look of someone who ought to be a day dead despite the spell's keeping him in relative good health. There was a faint undertint of gray to the tanned skin, the deer hide hair was dull and matted, and the lips were blackened and peeled back from white teeth while the man coughed. The eyes though, were the most curious, pale silvery gray that glowed ever so faintly from extreme magic contamination in the light, with the proper helmet or darkness around him the human would be as eerie as a cat. Though with that much magic having pooled around him that long, the creature would be surprised if the man even remembered his name.
"Now, what to call you, what to call… Urk!" The creature had just found out that the half dead looking human could move pretty damned fast when he wanted to. Long fingered hands wrapped around its throat, not tight enough to be dangerous yet, but tight enough to make it clear that he wasn't doing the spastic chicken for air only because the human willed it. The pale mage eyes blinked, Alain's head tilted like he was studying an interesting colored bird or rabbit instead of a small wrinkly goblin like thing. After a few seconds, he dropped the thing absent mindedly, poking at the pile of armor the other creatures were cringing near now. His voice when he spoke was rasping and soft, like an unused, rusty door hinge.
"My name is Alain, thing. Remember that." The Minion shook himself off after being dropped, hiding his surprise that the human even knew what his own name was. That long in isolation the overgrown castle ape shouldn't even be aware he was a human. Perhaps his mind and will were stronger than most. That, or he'd already been far enough off his rocker that the better part of a decade in a small stone box couldn't really make him any crazier. Gnarl watched as the man bent down and began dressing himself in the leather tunic, breeches, and boots near the armor, signaling the other creatures to aid him into the armor once Alain was finished. Two of them tugged the knots out of his hair as best they could with their claws, tied it crudely into a braid coiled at the base of his skull, and then started to slide the helmet on. Alain smashed it from their hands, however, and then knelt to pick it up.
"No, not yet. Not until I actually require it. I am not putting up with a bread oven on my head one minute longer than I have to." Gnarl was beginning to feel a slight twinge of alarm. Most Overlords were, while not precisely docile, willing to be guided in the arts by him. They were silent, stoic figures of fear and oppression that terrorized anything and everything around them. The ones that weren't… well, while they certainly broke the monotony, Gnarl remembered the last one. And the giant rabid weasel. Still, it wasn't like there were suitable candidates lining up outside the Dark Tower for the job, so he was stuck with this one.
Alain, meanwhile, had ceased paying attention to Gnarl, save to tune out what was obviously a well rehearsed speech. He sincerely doubted that the land was quaking in fear already, save for the few gifted with precognition (it should be noted that such souls had screamed with horror approximately a week before his awakening and rapidly moved as far away as they could, ironically mostly to Heaven's Peak just in time to be locked in for the plague. Death is a sick bastard like that.), and most of the peasants and nobility were probably going about their usual lives. Instead he focused on the slightly damp tunnels around him, and on the cavern ahead. Alain stopped to consider putting a boot up Gnarl's fourth point of contact at the comment about him having been asleep for a very long time. That hadn't been sleep, as far as he was concerned. He looked about the area instead, noting a stream that fed into a carefully carved pool, an area of poisonous plants, an area magically filled with lava, and a smaller alcove of the cave, all containing raised daises, only one of them occupied with something that looked vaguely like a bugs hive. Alain started when Gnarl poked at him, drawing his attention from his surroundings and back to the matters at hand.
"Master Alain, were you listening to a word I said?" Alain nodded, sifting through the information he had absorbed somewhat on autopilot for what Gnarl wanted him to prove he could do. Ah, there it was, point at the little magical gate hole and call out all of the little Minion creatures living in it. Having the distinct feeling that Gnarl was treating him like a baby just learning to walk, and a particularly stupid baby at that, Alain snarled and closed his fist, making a jerking motion with his eyes fixed on the gate. Three little brown Minions, each one indistinguishable from the next, came popping out of the gate all at once to land right at Alain's feet, all three faces wearing the exact same expression of shocked surprise. Gnarl's jaw was hanging open, and the other Minions were making pleased little cries while he rehinged and relocated it.
"Ah, look at those keen little Evil faces, ready to loot and pillage at your command! Truly sire, you are one of the quickest on the uptake!" Alain tuned Gnarl out again, already tired of the Minion Master's fawning babble. The ancient Minion was clearly trying to ingratiate himself with him, and that fact was starting to scrape on Alain's nerves. Deference he would have tolerated, servile sucking up was an entirely different thing. He grabbed Gnarl by the neck and brought him up to where he could look him in the eyes. Gnarl gulped at the bland expression and pissed off eyes.
"Enough with the ingratiating, you're pissing me off." Alain dropped Gnarl, ignoring the babbling as he strode towards an open area and sunlight. After however long in that damned stone box, he craved fresh air. Alain stopped in the small meadow, the Minions seething around his legs with soft and inane babble and the occasional obscene noise reaching his ears, and waited for their new Master to get sick of the wholesome natural scene and move on. They were about to get a distraction, though. With a rattling of bells, a Minion attired with the stupidest clothing Alain had seen so far landed in front of him, cackling.
"I think the sleeping beauty's a bit rusty!" Alain was already seeing red at this new, annoying Minion, and Gnarl's sighing behind him didn't really help matters. It was loud, it was annoying, and those bloody bells were causing something inbetween his eyes to vibrate in sympathy with their wretched chiming. The other Minions were gibbering in annoyed outrage, making it clear they weren't fond of this one either.
"Our court jester, Sire. I really should have nailed him out for the crows long ago. Teach… Gack!" Gnarl dodged a casual fist aimed at his head as Alain lunged for the Jester, chasing him about the clearing and using the other Minions to keep him cornered with snarled commands and the occasional pointed finger. After ten minutes, the Jester was on the ground whimpering in pain, and Gnarl was really wishing he hadn't opened that coffin. Alain was not inclined to listen to him, not one little bitty bit. And now the newly awakened and thoroughly out of Gnarl's control Overlord was headed for the throne room at a pace more suited for castle ape sized legs then Minion ones from the rate his Browns were scurrying. Gnarl hastened to catch up, wheezing indignantly as Alain looked about the ruins in disgusted shock. "This? You expect me to live and work in this? Do any of you have the slightest idea of how fix this mess?"
The Browns all gave Alain the same 'Eh?' face, and Gnarl decided intervening was a good idea. From the look on Alain's face, they might be short three Minions soon, and Gnarl was rather fond of Giblet, Grubby and Gash. "Alas, one cannot be a bastion of Evil these days without so called wretched heroes lining up to take prove themselves, Sire. That last lot were particularly troublesome, killing your predecessor like that, they also looted and destroyed much of the Tower, Sire." Alain cut him off.
"I can see that, Gnarl. And rather then trying to repair it, you've been sitting here with your thumbs up your asses and playing Poker while time and nature do even more damage!" Anger brought a dull swatch of red to his cheeks. "Thus it's going to take more effort to fix then if the lot of you'd actually bothered to try something. So, what do I have to do to start getting this place in somewhat better shape? And no fawning, groveling, or long winded explanations that treat me like I'm a small child with a learning disability!" At this point, Gnarl gave up on sticking to his carefully rehearsed speech. It wasn't going to do one bit of good, and a useless tactic was better abandoned for one that worked.
"The most important artifact missing is the Tower Heart, Sire. It controls the wards, the spells, regulates Minion activity and creation, and runs the Tower Portal. Without it, we've only enough energy for one jump, but that would be to where it was taken to when the Heroes left. Perhaps we'll be lucky and the one who got it in his cut stayed nearby." Alain nodded, and then strode through the portal before Gnarl could stop him. The Minion Master sighed, and looked at the Jester as it pitifully dragged itself into the throne room.
"Evil always finds a way, Jest. I just wish that it wasn't occasionally so bull headed."
*End Chap One*The end of chapter one, and I find myself hoping that this will please my readers. Note that from here on out, while the bones of the plot will run the same as the game (I.E. Alain will find the Tower Heart, go to Spree etc.), conversations will not be lifted word for word from the game, and Gnarl will not be rather 'lead you around by the nose and point things out in mile high letters'. While useful in game the first time, and when you haven't played in three months and don't recall your axe button from your spell casting, it just doesn't work that well for me in fanfiction, since it gives it a cookie cutter feeling, and I want you all to wonder what's going to be said next, what Alain is going to do next, and how things will progress from there. Basically expect some of the initial meeting to go the same, but after that, where the muse takes me is where it goes.
Random fact for this chapter: Alain's name is the possibly French for Alan, meaning precious or little rock, but it could also be derived from Elwyn, meaning white, fair, or holy. Ironic for an Overlord, and even more-so for this one.
*Chapter 2: Tower Heart has a tentative release of July 15 2011. Feel free to aim rocks, torches and Minions at me if it takes too much longer.*