The Dark King of Kotalis

Chapter 2

The newly revealed father-son duo sit silently in the throne room, Callum sitting slumped on the throne with his crown off to the side and Viren sitting on the ground before it, his head leaned back against the arm rest.

Callum breaks the awkward silence first. "So... I guess we have a lot to talk about."
Viren nods. "I suppose we do."
The silence continues on for a few more moments. "We're really bad at this."
"An astute observation." He taps the front of the throne's armrest and a section pops out from the front and Viren pulls out a bottle of whiskey. "Might I controversially suggest some liquid courage to ease the conversation?"

Callum simply eyes the secret compartment. "How long has that been there?"
Viren pours two glasses. "Since Kotalis was founded, I'd say." He passes one glass to Callum.
"I really shouldn't... but just one can't hurt."
He throws his head back and down the entire glass, concerning Viren. "Careful, that's sipping whiskey."

The burning in Callum's chest would concur and his voice becomes raspy. "So it is. Another one." He passes the glass back for a refill. "You're a bad influence."
"Oh believe me, I will be emptying this compartment later. This is a one time thing."
Callum nods, sipping his drink. "Fair enough."

Half a bottle later, and the two are now sitting on the floor before the throne and had sufficiently loosened their tongues. "You know Viren, I'd always admired you. You had this-this," he waves his hand around "aura around you. I thought it was cool." He hiccups.
Viren places an unsteady hand on his shoulder. "And I admire you, son. You have an unprecedented level of skill and natural talent with dark magic. Of course, as my son, that's to be expected."
"Oh and you're modest too. You know, I don't get why Opeli doesn't like you."

Viren waves his hand in an aggressive manner. "Bah, I don't like her either. She's all about traditions, while I look to the future!" He gestures dramatically, spilling from his glass. "I am a man of VISION, and she is... Opeli."

"Yeah well, I think you're awesome. I mean, you saved two whole kingdoms from starvation. I grew up hearing that story. But it never made me as happy as everyone else. It was always just the story of how my mom died. But, maybe now it can be the story about how my dad saved thousands of people."
Viren slow blinks, drunk and stunned by the suddenly heavy topic before inspecting the bottle. "This stuff really works."
Viren's inspection of the bottle actually reminds Callum of something. "Hey, I just realized. First drink with my dad! Super important milestone!"
"I'll drink to that!"

When Callum wakes, he feels like his brain is trying to claw its way out of his skull. "Ughhh, my head." He puts one arm over his eyes and lets the others play out. And that's when he realizes that the bed he's in is way bigger than he's used to. Still shielding his eyes, he looks around with a squint. "This is Harrow's room." If he dwelt on that much longer he'd probably start thinking about how this is the room his step-father died in. Thankfully his head hurts too much for his thoughts to linger.

Hearing a groan, Callum flops over to the edge of the bed and sees Viren, unconscious and drooling into the carpet next to the bed, still in his High Mage clothes. As the sun's morning rays peek through the window, Callum hisses while Viren begins to stir. "Dad, as your king, I order you to blot out the sun for... ever." In his hungover state, Callum doesn't notice the slip.

Viren uses his staff to stand. "As interesting as that would be, I have a much less extreme solution." He grabs two vials from a nearby drawer and passes one to Callum. "Hangover potion. Drink."
Callum gulps down the liquid and the pained creases in his brow almost instantly begin loosening. "Ah, that's much better." Looking out the window, the sun is only just rising. "We were blacked out for the whole day!? What did we do?!"

He turns to his father. "Vir- woah! What... what HAPPENED to you?" Turning to Callum, his son gets a better look at his face, now pale and covered in purple veins.
Viren's eyes widen. "I could ask you the same question."

Looking down at his hands, Callum sees the same purple veins that now plague Viren. "Viren... what the fuck happened to us?"
Viren narrows his eyes. "First of all, language. Second of all, this is a... side effect of using dark magic. But this doesn't make any sense, you shouldn't be showing signs like these until much farther in the future. Dark magic takes a toll on the caster, doubly so the first time. The fact you managed to cast a strong enough spell to do this while drunk and still live is nothing short of a miracle."

"We HAVE to find out what happened yesterday. But first, I need to cast a glamor on us so we don't attract any unwanted attention." He opens a nearby portrait like a door, exposing a secret tunnel. "Follow me."

Wandering through the tunnels, Viren shows Callum a secret study full of various dark magic ingredients. He opens up a secret compartment full of glowing butterflies. And takes one in his palm, crushing it while uttering the spell. He guides one into Callum's palm. "Considering it's obvious you've already done some very intense dark magic yesterday, you try to make the glamor."

Hesitating for only a moment, Callum crushes the butterfly, uttering the same incantation, his skin retiring to its normal tones. "Wow. That's amazing."
Viren sits in a chair while the butterfly compartment closes. "Indeed it is. Congratulations, you're officially a mage."
Stars light up in Callum's eyes. "I'm a mage? I'M A MAGE!"
"Nobody likes a loud mage."

With their glamours up, the two mages begin their trek to Viren's more public study. If Callum did a spell, and nothing is out of place in the dungeons, then that's the only other place to do it.

Entering, it's obvious the place is a mess, books, times and paper scattered everywhere. But of course, that's not what gets their attention. What gets their attention in the glowing green orb on the desk with the twin headed soulfang circled around it, who raise their heads at the sound of the door. "Soul-via, Soul-vester! You're ok! Come to papa." The serpent obeys quickly, slithering onto and across the floor until they climb up their master's body and settle around his shoulders once again. "Much better."

"Callum." The king turns to Viren, who is rapidly flipping through pages. "Do you have any idea what we've done? According to these notes, we extracted the devoured souls from our incredibly lethal friend and harnessed them, turning them into," he gestures at the glowing green orb "that. Son, while we were blackout drunk, we invented a new type of primal stone. A dark stone."

As insanely cool as that was, unfortunately Callum still had his normal kingly duties to attend to, so he would have to leave the experiments to Viren. But first, changing out of yesterday's clothes. Getting back to Harrow's- technically now his- room was a cinch with the secret tunnels. But when he got there he found a parcel placed at the end of the bed. Callum was cautious, but ended up opening it.

Inside was a whole new outfit, along with a note from the tailor. Apparently part of his and Viren's drunken adventure was a trip there. Putting it on, Callum is amazed. It was a black ensemble with golden stitching. The top ended in coattails that emulated Viren's cloak, with the fastening having a green stone rather than purple. 'Looks like black is the new red and blue.'