For thousands of years, the dark dimension remained unchanging. Castles villages dotted the landscape under a deep Sangria sky. The endless expanse of land had long been conquered by the dreaded Dormammu, one of two exiled Faltines who had corrupted the Mhuruuk king Olnar and taken advantage of his greed to weaken the realm. When the exiled Faltine first arrived in the Dark Dimension it was much smaller than its current state. Despite this the Mhuruuks, magic humanoid beings from this other dimension were happy. Magic naturally flowed through both Mhuruuk and their lands tying them to the dimension in ways their neighboring dimensions could hardly understand.
Before the time of Dormammu they had received various visitors from a neighboring dimension from the third planet floating in a strange space. The visitors spoke of a world taking on the shape of a sphere, something that almost drove them made when they realized the dimension they traveled to was not governed by the rules of their native lands. In order to save the sanity of the visitors, the Mhuruuk taught the humans their secret arts, magic.
Their first student was so confused by the trip he no longer remembered his own name, but he adapted quickly to the use of magic. It was as if some greater power had coded something into the people of that planet to be something greater if they survived the change. Within years he had master the magic that usually took Mhuruuks decades. There came a time when he needed to return to his own world and so the All-Seeing Agamotto returned home as his world's first Sorcerer Supreme.
Perhaps it was meeting humanoids from another realm that made King Olnar susceptible to Dormammu's influence. When the beings of pure energy first arrived in the dark dimension they were seen in much the same fashion as the humanoid Agamotto. It was the Mhuruuk who helped the two achieve physical form bending dark energies into something more solid. Prince Orini was immediately taken by Umar as she gained her physical form moments after her twin brother Dormammu. He was thus distracted while Dormammu began whispering of expansion into the ear of the King. What if the Dark dimension could be much larger than its current state?
Thus began the long wars that became known as the expansion. With Dormammu and his sister leading armies of mages, the Mhuruuk conquered pocket dimension after pocket dimension adding land from each and growing the dark dimension with each expansion. On the night before the planned invasion of Earth, something unique happened and a damaged being of metal fell through the portal damaging it and closing it off for years. The being claimed to be a Celestial, a fallen one who had been banished from its true dimension.
The Mhuruuk found the creature injured and almost completely drained of energy, unable to fight back even as the mages bound the creature in the bands of Cyttorak. The mages bound the Fallen to their world even as they bound themselves to the creature. Its body became the land on which the Mhuruuk built their cities. Magic energies transmuting the top layer of metal into the soil from which a variety of plants would grow. Olnar built his capital far above where the heart of the beast would have been, far below the palace an orb of mystical energy pulsed spreading life throughout the new world.
The Prince had argued the expansion had been enough, that it was time to relent and build on what they had achieved. It was in this time that Dormammu knew his long plan had finally snapped into place. He tricked the King into one final invasion, meant to be an easy one to seal the glory of the dark dimension forever. Instead, it brought ruin.
As the King opened the portal to the final dimension they had planned to invade a strange almost featureless humanoid creature stepped through the portal. The creature with skin like Obsidian marched forward despite the hails of greetings which quickly turned into warnings. A line of energy where the creature's eyes should have been pulsed with energy as it grabbed hold of the King. No words were spoken as the creature crushed King Olnar within it's rocklike hands.
As the life and magic energy of the king dispersed, Dormammu rushed forward to claim it absorbing the lingering energies even as the mindless monster turned it's attention to him. Other creatures followed the first as mages desperately began trying to fight back the tide of mindless creatures. The Mindless ones made no noise as they marched through the armies of the dark dimension destroying everything in their path until Umar managed to trick the creatures placing a lasso of energy around their midsection. With the deaths in the thousands, the two Faltine dragged the Mindless creatures back to their portal but found it impossible to seal again.
Umar expended a great amount of energy to form a wall of mystical energy around the creatures that they could not pass through. This cost a great amount of energy allowing her brother Dormammu to gain absolute control of the Dark Dimension. The years passed and the Mhuruuk people began to recover from what had become known as Olnar's folly. Cities were built that stretched across the lands stretching as far as the eye could see. This great expansion suddenly stopped without warning the night that Dormammu once more took on his Faltine form, a being of pure energy ruling from his castle in the center of the newly acquired empire. Even Umar knew that this would not be enough for her brother for long as he turned his attention to Earth and attempting to repair the portal that once connected the dimensions.
It was in this time that Umar and Olnar began seeing each other while the dreaded Dormammu was distracted by his new project. This culminated in disaster as a disgusted Umar threw Olnar from her bedchamber. She found herself disguised both with the act and with Ulnar and finally decided to return to her true form as a Faltine only to find she could no longer return to her energy form. She came very close to killing Olnar until she became aware of another being inside of her. It was an alien feeling to the magical being and it only cemented her eternal hatred of Olnar and the child she was carrying. While trapped in her humanoid form Umar gave birth to a half Faltine half Mhuruuk child whom she quickly passed over to Olnar.
Umar found the experience had changed her completely and she was no longer able to turn back into a Faltine again. Umar in great despair began working for her brother again and finally found a way to break down the barrier between the dark dimension and Earth. Through the portal floated a much stronger Agamotto who had taken on the name The Ancient One. Despite Dormammu's great power, he was defeated by the human mage who then once more sealed the portal between the two realms. This would not be the first time that Dormammu attempted to invade the realm but over the years the dreaded Dormammu found himself unable to accomplish this one task. Instead of invading himself, Dormammu found willing vessels in the mortal world of Earth to be his instrument. Each failed in their task of creating a large enough breach for the armies of the Dormammu. There was a great despair until Dormammu found potential in the creature known as Heinrich Krowler who sought revenge on his enemies after a great war had spread across the earth.
It was Dormammu's energies that lead Krowler to Nikolai Mordo. When Krowler attempted to absorb the power of Mordo to increase his own he found out that he could only do so with someone of his own bloodline. Krowler's own daughter was sent to seduce Nikolai leading to the birth of Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo. After temping Sara Krowler into killing her own husband Dormammu manipulated the woman into sending her child back to her father to be trained in the arts as he grew into a vengeful spiteful man. Mordu would then go on to Tibet to train under the current Ancient One as a seed planted to grow into a terrible fruit. Dormammu waited biding his time for the day when the Ancient One would pass on the eye of Agamotto to his minion thus opening the doors for one final invasion from the Dark Dimension.
This is the world from which Clea was raised, spending her days avoiding her uncle and his devoted servant, her father. What little joy she gained came from observing Earth and watching how the humans were adapting to their world. Every now and then she was able to send some type of help to the human who had found himself in the Dark Dimension, Agamotto. As the years passed she continued this contact with the Ancient Ones and Sorcerer Supremes that followed, only Agamotto had been fully aware of the identity of the one who helped them. It was through her crystal ball that she became aware of a human from a strange place called Nebraska who possessed an untapped magic ability that rivaled even Agamottos. The child was named Steven Strange.
It was Clea who noticed the demons that had been sent after the child and it was Clea who helped defend him and his sister. Her last contact with the child was on the death of his sister, Donna Strange, an event Clea blamed herself for not being able to stop and one that had sent her into despair for years. She always wondered what happened to Steven Strange.
Hidden In the mountains of Tibet on the planet Earth, another group of mages pondered their fate. It had been some time since the dreaded Dormammu had attempted to invade Earth and so the descendants of Agamotto prepared for what would come. Ever since the disaster with Kaluu, the Ancient one knew he would need to find a replacement. The battle with his longtime friend had damaged him in ways he even now was unwilling to admit. Over five hundred years ago the two were born on the same day in the village of Kamar-Taj.
It was Kaluu who introduced Yao, as he was known at the time to the mystic arts. Neither knew just how far that simple introduction would take them. For many years the two friends trained in the mystic arts until Kaluu met with Varnae a survivor of the Atlantis Vampires. It was this gross deformed vampire that would introduce Kaluu to Darkhold, an ancient Tome over a billion years old. Written in the blood of the Elder God, Chthon, when he was forced to flee from earth or be consumed by the Demogorge. Before retreating from the earth he left behind a tome of all his spells and deeds written in his own blood on sheets of his own followers skin. Over the years the Tome evolved and adapted changing from skin, to stone and finally paper so strong that no steel could damage.
Over the years the Darkhold had gathered other names, the book of the damned and the book of sins. It was the Darkhold that helped warped the deviants from the creatures they already were into monsters long after the Celestials had changed them. It was the Darkhold that helped set Atlantis on the path of destruction when the same Celestials crushed it under their fists. It was the Darkhold that took Morgan Le Fay and twisted her turning her against her stepbrother Arthur. It was the Darkhold that helped jumpstart magic on earth again when it sent a lost human to the dark dimension. This lost human returned as Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, Agamotto. In the hands of Kaluu, the Darkhold took a different path, twisting and warping his mind with a desire to control, to rule that matched Dormammu's own twisted dreams.
Kaluu and Yao the newly appointed Sorcerer Supreme fought for years over Kamar-Taj as Yao's old friend attempted to dominate the mages of the hidden village. This Civil war between the mages of Kamar-Taj extracted a heavy toll as the mages of this hidden city lost the gift of the Mhuruuk, Immortality. Kaluu himself would flee to another dimension along with his closest followers leaving the mages of Kamar-Taj to heal. While their immortality had been stripped from them the people of Kamar-Taj still retained incredibly long lives and thus Yao became the new Ancient one.
For five hundred years Yao protected the world from threats both internal and from other dimensions. During that time the dreaded Dormammu made many attempts at invading the Earth and each one was met with failure at the hands of the Ancient One. Over the years, however, Yao began to notice his magic was weakening and no longer strong enough to retain the title Sorcerer Supreme and so he put aside his combat role to take on the role of a teacher for he needed to find someone to replace him.
It was then that a young student from Eastern Europe arrived, Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo, sent by his grandfather Viscount Heinrich Krowler. The outsider quickly adapted to the magic of Kamar-Taj with frightening skill and speed. While the mage was strong enough to become the Sorcerer Supreme something about the young man had disturbed Yao, and so the Ancient One waited.
It was when Yao had almost given into despair at finding someone to replace him that a stranger appeared on the road to Kamar-Ja. It was a lost man who sought healing after losing much of the use of his hands in a horrible accident. While the man could only see his crippled hands, Yao saw potential in him. This man thought that magic could heal what science could not and so he devoted himself to the study of magic with as much fervor as when he studied medicine.
When Baron Mordo had exhausted all of his patience with Yao, it was this man who saved the Ancient One. Despite being a rookie Dr. Steven Strange managed to protect the Ancient One from Mordo's assassination attempt. It was then that Yao knew he had found someone to become the new Sorcerer Supreme, and perhaps he had found someone to defeat Dormammu himself. It was only after the battle that Yao took the time to recall that the Cloak of Levitation had chosen Dr. Strange. While searching through his private collection Yao found a painting of the first owner of the Cloak of Levitation. She was beautiful and at once he could see the features of the Mhuruuk around her eyes and in the aura that even her painting possessed. Long blonde hair so light as to remind him of snow-draped around the dark red of her ruby red cloak. It had chosen no other since it was left by it's mistress. Many magic users had tried to win it's favor, but all of them failed. In that time it had only allowed Dr. Strange to wear it.
When Yao showed the painting to Steven Strange, the young man was puzzled. His photographic memory had retained every single detail of the woman in the painting. He remembered her saving him, pulling him from the water that he nearly drowned in. It was the same lake that had taken the life of his sister. He remembered a hand of flame pulling her away from him as he lay on the shore and his helplessness as he could neither help the woman or his sister that day. As Dr. Strange studied the picture he wondered what happened to the woman and if he would ever see her again.
Sir Clive Bentley was desperate. Something was hunting him and he had very little time to get a warning out. He had been trapped in the family manor for a week now and that long siege had taken its toll on his servants both mystical and physical. They were all exhausted as creature after creature attacked the manor but thankfully with very few casualties. He knew he had one single chance and that lay with the Ancient One and the new student that Yao had been training. After spending a moment to create a magic letter to send to his daughter Victoria Bentley, Clive then composed one to Yao desperately asking for his assistance in defending his family's home.
Clive was so focused on his writing that he never noticed the mage sneaking up on him. He felt a stab of pain in his back and knew he only had a moment to release the spell on his letters to send them on their way. As he lay dying he watched as Baron Karl Mordo stepped into his view grabbing the letter to his daughter before it could fly away, the mage made no attempt to stop the one to the Ancient One. With the last few breaths left to him, Clive dipped a finger into his own blood and reached under his desk writing out a single name that he hoped would help provide the undoing to his murderer. His last thoughts were of his wife and daughter as his breath slowed and finally stopped.