"Nightfall.

Quietly it crept in and changed us all

Nightfall.

Quietly it crept in and changed us all

Nightfall.

Immortal land lies down in agony

How long shall we

Mourn in the dark

The bliss and the beauty

Will not return

Say farewell to sadness and grief

.

Filled with anger, a flamed our hearts

Full of hate, full of pride

We screamed for revenge" - Nightfall by Blind Guardian from their CD "Nightfall in Middle-Earth"

The journey to the castle of the Only World Order was long and trying on the new arrival's armor body. The entire trip would have taken merely a few days, but his traveling companion tripled the amount of time and stopped frequently at all the other youja castles. Snarling, their inhabitants prepared to fight them, but once Saberstryke announced, "I come on behalf of the Only World Order" the other youja treated them with perfect grace and courtesy.
"You are both famished," said lord Kapei, welcoming them into his castle. "Feast before you continue on your travels."
Never hesitating, Saberstryke promptly accepted Kapei's invitation and maneuvered effortlessly down the hallways. Arden stared at Kapei in bewilderment and hurried to match the swordsman's pace; he remembered that he was still new to the ways of the netherworld. The new arrival did not understand why the lord of the castle wanted to slaughter them one moment and then care for them the next moment.
Also, Arden added to his thoughts, how did he know we are hungry? How can a youja eat? Those new questions occupied the youngling's mind as he realized that he did feel faint as though hungry. He suddenly missed his tongue, although his body felt no discomfort.
Without warning, Saberstryke stopped his march through the winding hallways. Arden stared curiously from his protector to the sludge-like yellow-orange pool as the swordsman seated himself cross-legged next to it. The newcomer sat a few feet away from him in the same position near the pool. The new arrival sensed something, almost like fumes that touched his mind instead of his nose. Mentally salivating, he greedily consumed the fumes; thoughts and sensations came from the vapors and bubbled inside his trapped soul.
His foes deserved to suffer! Kill them! Watch them kneel in pieces! Pain and pleasure mingled together in a thick dark substance; images of blood and tears floated up to satisfy him.
Arden gasped, bewildered and horrified, as he scurried away from the pool. The sludge-like yellow-orange liquid beckoned him. Yes, he did want to torture his enemies; he wanted to see their blood spray across the ground; he wanted them to suffer. The nether pool desired to satisfy his cravings, but . . .
Metal footsteps clanged against the stone stairway, coming closer with each second. Stopped feeding long ago, Arden glanced up at the shadow that approached. Then, the shadow stepped into his view, revealing a tiny yet muscular youja. Agility was perhaps this youja's greatest attribute - agility and the long knives that existed on top of his gray glove-fingers. His body armor was a dusty brown, and his limbs were of a deep black. Two sharp horns protruded horizontally out of his oval sickly yellow helmet. The sockets were slanted in anger, and the open mouth grimaced into a scowl.
"You are a youngling; am I correct?" inquired the fierce yet tiny youja.
"Yes," with a quick nod, "My name is Arden; I arrived here about a week ago."
"I am Tosura, a warrior for my lord Kapei. You do not have a lord yet, and Kapei does not need any more warriors. I wonder if we shall fight against each other one day."
Feel your enemies suffer, the nether liquid seemed to call out to Arden. "What is that?" the young youja asked with cautious curiosity about the pool.
Eagerly anticipating a future battle, Tosura answered, "That is a nether pool from which we feed. Grief, agony, and hatred from the mortal world collect in the pools. We can summon other creatures such as the spirits and soldiers from these natural gateways between the two worlds. These are our greatest source of power, and hundreds of wars have been fought for their control. No one wants to claim the oceans, however. The oceans belong to the beasts." Tosura sighed, "I unfortunately must wait until Talpa is defeated and his lands divided. I sense intense power laying dormant within you, Arden; you will be an intriguing challenge for me to kill."
Now, was that a complement or a threat or both? Alas, why did the world have to confuse him so much? The new arrival decided to make his conclusion after he became accustomed to the nether world. He glanced at Saberstryke, still feeding, completely undisturbed, cut off from the outside. He wondered how the swordsman and the others became trapped as youja. He still could not understand why a follower of the Ancient would find himself trapped.

Finally, they arrived at the meeting of the Order. A castle existed for that sole purpose and was occupied only during the meetings. "There is an order of youja that wishes for the demise of Talpa and his Dynasty. It is called the Only World Order. To become a part of this order, you must vow never to wage war upon the mortal world. The sole wars that we fight are amongst ourselves of the nether world. That is the meaning of the name of the Only World Order. Only war inside the Nether World."
The new arrival glanced incredulously at Saberstryke as the elder and he entered the room. Arden stared in astonishment at the giant congregation. Hundreds of youja filled the huge hall. He once believed that youja were bloodthirsty and only cared about slaughter, sparing none. Yet these hundreds of youja wanted to spare the mortal world, full of millions! The truly evil and wicked cared only for power and saved no one. However, these hundreds of youja strangely held onto some remnant of virtue, choosing to save the mortal world by containing their warfare solely in the netherworld where they could not reach the innocents.
"This is Justice!" Arden exclaimed, amazed and shocked beyond belief. Suddenly, the congregation spun to face him; the eyes started to glow. "This is Justice, a small part of Virtue!" Arden explained, still in a startled exclamation. Then, he realized they need a more thorough explanation, so he elaborated humbly, "We all become youja because our hearts gave in to evil, yet we still contain a small part of Virtue since we have enough Justice to accept our punishment as youja in the nether world."
"Who is this fool? Who is this putrid wretch?" a stout muscular youja growled furiously. "Saberstryke, you brought this idiot here, didn't you?" The eyes of the congregation were glowing hellishly red - pools of blood.
"He is new to our world and our ways," the lean swordsman said quietly, embarrassed but never losing his calm composure. "He recently arrived a little over a week ago."
The hundreds of youja scowled disdainfully yet accepted Saberstryke's answer. The eyes stopped glowing but strangely never lost their intensity. There could be no other logical reason for the fool's outburst. Arden and Saberstryke waited nervously until the group seemed to calm down a little. The congregation returned to its chattering.
"Well," the swordsman spoke up, relieved, to the newcomer, "I must find some of my former comrades. I hope that you find a lord to serve or a weak lord for you to conquer." Then, he promptly stalked away, his swift and agile movements catlike.
Alarmed, Arden tried to follow him, but after he took a few steps, the elder youja was already hidden in the crowd. Arden stared helplessly at his direction. The congregation continued chattering, ignorant of his presence. "I have to make myself known to this world, I guess," he muttered to himself as he walked off, opposite to Saberstryke's direction. The congregation was divided into numerous smaller groups, and he listened to several.
One conversation consisted of: "Yes, I killed Mordth. His lands increased my power twofold. I now outrank you." "Stupid slaves tried to 'purify' the river; I had to impale all of them. Then, I used all of the extra energy to steal some of Orgmir's lands. I'm still rather powerful." "Any original punishment?" "There are many different places to impale a person . . ."
That rather disturbed Arden, so he went to a different small group. "The weather has been really nice lately." "Yes, it rained, and all of the slaves penned themselves in their shacks for days." "At least you have huge energy pools and still fed. The same thing happened to Anwerath, but he couldn't feed during the storms, so he was forced to yank a slave out of the pens and sacrifice him in the rains."
The conversation next to that group intrigued Arden the most. "We never used to have slaves," instantly caught the newcomer's attention.
"And would you rather we scavenge like beasts?" retorted the stout youja that had yelled at Arden. His limbs were a pale blue while his torso and armor pads were of a darker shade. A long, thin blood-red spider emblem resided in the middle of his breastplate. His eyes were squinted and narrowed in eternal hate. His lower lip curved up with two sharp protruding teeth like snake fangs from his gapping maw, ravenous for more destruction. A streak of black flowed up from the "nose" and then divided in two, resembling a bull's horn. From the top of his bone-colored helmet protruded a single horn like a crescent moon; a deep downward curve split the horn into two sharp points, the lowest point in front of the highest.
The newcomer inquired meekly, "What about us never having slaves before? I . . . I apologize. I'm ignorant of the history of the netherworld."
With little more tolerance, a third youja informed him, "We do not need slaves to consume the dark energy and survive. In the beginning, we relied on pools, which rose or shrank according to the conditions on the mortal world. The negative emotions from humans in the mortal world filled the pools from which we fed, and thus we were able to survive without slaves. However, during the first invasions against the mortal world, humans were brought over here. That's how we got our slaves."
The stout youja spoke up irritably, "And just in case you are curious, young wretch, we of the Only World Order oppose invasions of the mortal world, because our existence is connected to the mortal world. If we invade, the humans will all die from despair. Then, we will have no power source and then we will also die."
Arden bowed slightly, "I apologize for my earlier ignorant and ill- informed outburst. My name is Arden. May I have the courtesy of knowing your name, sir?"
The stout youja stared at him warily with disdain before answering, "My name is Saranbo. Now, be gone."
An inward sigh, the new arrival walked away. He did not want to be near those who disapproved of his presence. He tried looking for the groups that he first encountered in the meeting, but he either could not find them or they also walked off to form new groups and their conversations no longer interested him.
Arden groaned inwardly. Again, he was alone in the midst of a crowd of hundreds. He could not afford to be isolated in a strange and dangerous world. He needed to find an ally, a comrade. The vast majority was too busy talking to notice a new youja. He marched to the edge of the crowd and began circling it to search for a solitary youja like himself that would converse with him and befellow him.
Eventually, he found a bitterly-isolated figure leaning against the right frame of a hallway entrance. The figure's back faced the crowd. The soot-black armor was slender yet also heavily muscular, giving him an almost bulky appearance. Slavery chains, the color of fresh blood, were designed on top of the empty-colored armor. Long strands of scant yellowish-white hair, made brittle by dried blood that would never come out, fell down from the back of the ashen gray helmet. Intrigued by such an unusual presence, Arden approached him curiously but then unfortunately saw that spiteful stout youja standing in front of the alienated wretch.
"So, have you finally come to accept yourself as a spawn of evil, traitor?" Saranbo sneered.
The miserable wretch had his head lowered in humiliation. The slavery chains with the color of bright fresh blood also covered his helmet.
"Pathetic hypocrite!" Saranbo jeered. "You despise youja. Why not claim the cause of virtue and kill what you hate most?"
Slowly, without moving his helmet, the wretched creature spoke in broken tones, "The justice of nature catches all of us in the final throes of death. Punishment and rewards are given in correspondence with our hearts." He started to make quiet hacking sounds as though choking on habitual blood tears.
"Ah! He speaks!" the spiteful stout youja continued.
Arden scowled inwardly and intervened on the wretch's behalf. Saranbo really irritated him. The newcomer tried a somewhat diplomatic approach, "Listen, you need to stop. Can't you tell that he is suffering already? Why prolong his sorrows?"
Eyes again glowing red, Saranbo thrust him to the ground, "Silence, youngling!" Arden was not sure if he lost consciousness or if Saranbo's attack was extraordinarily quick. His awareness switched instantly from standing up to lying on the floor with a halberd ready to slice him. "How dare you interfere!"
Evil energy within began to churn rapidly. Arden became acutely aware of his sword within its sheath. He knew he could lash out at Saranbo even though the halberd would prevent his hands from reaching the heavyset youja. How well could Saranbo see in pitch black darkness?
Before Arden was able to take the new sensations into his mental inventory, two katanas pushed the halberd aside, again saving his life. Both youja turned their heads to look at Saberstryke. "No fighting within the halls of the Order," the leader reprimanded them.
Quietly growling, Saranbo stepped back. "Leader," he spat out, struggling with despised courtesy.
Arden quickly scuttled away as the other two walked off. He had a strange feeling that Saranbo disapproved and barely tolerated Saberstryke's leadership. Was Saberstryke aware of this? Then, the newcomer looked around to find the slave-youja who Saranbo tormented, but the alienated wretch was also lost among the many faces of the crowd.
No warning, the slave-youja shrieked out sorrowfully, "Virtue! You burn me!!"