PROLOGUE
Dark, beneath the ground. But within it, a sliver of red light. Just barely a millimeter wide, but almost a mile long. Get past this line, and all hell breaks loose. Literally.
The underworld is a strange place, filled with mysterious things, locales, and people. It stretches for five-hundred square miles before petering out on the edge of the vast cliff of Tartarus, where no man returns from, at least with a soul. The strangest thing in the underworld, apart from its location (it is the shallowest underground realm in Robloxia, sometimes protruding into the bunkers of military groups and causing havoc and mayhem all round), is the capitol palace, the Imperium. It is only accesible from graveyards within a five mile radius of the Imperium, and then only to those imbued with the Mark of Lord Finaquadmore.
In this palace dwells the lord of the underworld, who is in fact Lord Finaquadmore. His full name, Gerrilon Recham Jechareth Kineto Polquinwong Finaquadmore XVII, has never been said by any man or woman, except his mother, who passed out and died of air loss at the end of naming him this amazingly convoluted title.
He is, at this particular time of interest, sitting on his throne in the dark Royal Room of the Imperium, in conversation with his chief priest...
"Magalomoc," Lord Finaquadmore said from his high seat, "tell me what has happened."
"Our demons were bested by the king's forces, sir," Magalomoc muttered.
"Even when they were imbued with the Challenger's Magic?"
The priest shuffled back a little bit as if expecting the hand of Finaquadmore to come down on his person.
"Even then," he confessed.
"You are sure they were imbued?" Finaquadmore cocked his helmeted head to the side, greasy two-foot long hair swinging like thin pendulums from under the rim.
"Yes..."
"Then you've failed as the Chief Priest of this realm," Finaquadmore boomed. "Guards..."
From out of the walls, shadows scuttled. Eight legged, dark, and menacing, they came bathed in the full red light of the ruby chandelier. Spydlings grabbed the chief priest and flipped him onto his back. Finaquadmore stood, his hand and arm extended, power unimaginable coursing from his fingertips. Magalomoc whimpered and tried to cringe back, but it was no use. Finaquadmore slowly began to chant an incantation.
"By the power that be within these walls,
Banish this wretch from my dark halls.
Send him down to the pit of despair:
Tartarus, where only the bravest may dare
Venture with weapons drawn shining and bright.
Let him scream at the Maw's gruesome sight."
He struck Magalamoc across the temples, and the priest's body began to disintegrate, patches of fire belching out of the cracks. Soon only a skeleton was left, then not even that, just a pile of robes. Finaquadmore grunted in satisfaction, and the ghastly light receded from his fingers.
"Spydlings, dispose of the pitiful slave's filth, will you?" he ordered.
When he was alone he thought: So, the king has indeed been training his knights, his entourage, his dragon slayers... But what will he do when I tell him that not only he is in danger of losing his life, but also his mark on history. There will never be a King Leonard after I'm done with him... and there never will have been a king Leonard after I'm done with him.
Now, where am I going to get a new chief priest? Damn, I shouldn't have disposed of the man in the first place...