Lore of Ilrom

Author's note *IMPORTANT*: This story is original but inspired by Tolkien! If you're interested in an original fantasy adventure, then this is your story. Otherwise, there many other great LOTR stories on this site! This story is long, and if I haven't uploaded all of the chapters, you can read the entire story on fictionpress; just email me for the link.

Please, read and enjoy!

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Prologue

The surface of the world is a haven of life, a vast ground where imagination seeds creation. Those who dwell on the surface enjoy the abundance of warm sunlight and fresh air, and the pleasure of delicious food and clean water. The people have been blessed with freedom, beauty, and intelligence, and it seems that they needn't worry about any dangers beyond the realm of their own overheated disputes.

This Vast World is sickly rich in more ways than one. The land is a thriving, prosperous sanctuary of agricultural and economical successes. The towns are well settled, and the wealth of the land springs the wealth of the people.

The land itself is presented in gorgeous variation. The beautiful grasslands are glazed in a bright, emerald green, which is only defeated by the deep, blue sky above. The farmers keep busy in their vast fields, whose crops are of a healthy golden-brown, while the creatures in the wild hunt and play in the shade of the tropical forests and the damp jungles. And when winter comes, the open fields are blanketed in a layer of blinding, white snow. There are few swamps, and patches of rubble and scorched earth can be found nowhere, for though the world is well aged, it has not seen the likes of war, struggle, or oppression for thousands of years.

All beings of the Earth are, for their own reasons, drawn to this utopian paradise; those above the surface, and even, those below. For beneath the layers of earth and rock, though little of it is known to those on the surface, there exists another world, a darker, Compact World, whose rivers flow not with the water of the Vast World above, but rather with the thick, fiery, magma of the Earth's core.

This blacker world below is a haven of darkness, a dwelling for restless evil, where merciless demons and pitiless nightmares lurk in the shadows of deep-seated dungeons. These ancient evils do not sleep or play, rather they plot and scheme, for they too desire to walk the face of the Earth. But they do not seek beauty or light, and their intentions on the surface are of a much darker kind; to rise and roam freely, ensuing chaos and destruction; to conquer the Vast World, and usher an era of darkness.

Where earth quakes and mountains form, evil can surface. . .and it will.