-Prologue-

Darkest Before the Dawn

"A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself.

Can make a heav'n of hell, or a hell of heav'n"

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

It was the screams that were the hardest to forget. No matter how many hundreds or thousands of times she would be reborn, she would never be free of them. Not entirely.

It was silly to fear demons. Jaela was the Adherent of Erathis. The hand of her ineffable will. And it wasn't fear demons made Jaela feel. Demons are those who have succumbed. Who have looked in the seemingly infinite hopelessness and darkness of the gods who would do mortals harm and have believed what they saw to be the inevitable. Jaela was a being of belief. Belief and hope given form, given flesh, given purpose. To hear the demons scream was to feel mortals give up all belief. To lose sight of what they might build with their great gods together and to slide into an ultimate unending apathy.

And everywhere she went, Jaela heard the demons and their screams. Everywhere mortals still dared to pick up swords, they were immediately and unendingly confronted by the demons and their terrible, terrible screams.

But Jaela fought. As she had fought in a thousand life cycles and would for a thousand more. As long as Erathis' will was manifest on this plane, she would be an instrument of that will. But she could feel the strength of mortals she fought with against the very forces of the nine hells diminish. First she stood with millions. Then with thousands. Then hundreds.

This was the apocalypse. The final end. Jaela refused to put that growing feeling she had into words. To ever acknowledge it as a possibility let alone a truth she was ignoring. But it was everywhere. Every face screamed this inescapable truth as terrible as any demons screech.

No, it was not the fear of demons that made Jaela feel. Fear was good. Fear pushed her. Fear was something she could fight, overcome, defeat.

It wasn't fear. It was a deep dark terrible acceptance.

And so, after killing nearly one hundred demons in this life cycle and not feeling she had yet made a significant impact in humanity's last stand. Jaela strapped her halberd to her back and began to walk back towards Pelor's Hope.

She was still the Adherent of Erathis. And while there was even one other person with her standing against the darkness, she would stand strong with them. So when people looked to her, their Adherent, walking the near empty streets of Pelor's Hope, she would smile at them. Exort them to carry on. To endure. To thrive. To cling to Erathis. But the well from which she had for a thousand life cycles drawn her strength seemed closed to her for the time being. With an emptiness she could never before remember knowing, she walked into the first tavern she saw.

"Erathis. Grant me strength. I don't know what to do."