Cronin Kingdoms: The Ten Staffs

Prologue

It was one of the darkest nights Erik had ever seen, and it was the latest he'd ever stayed up. The heavy rain was pouring, the thunder was booming, and Erik could only see a few feet in front of him despite the dimly-lit lantern in his hand. Erik and his father, George, had been trudging through the muddy forest for a good while now, and they hadn't found anything of importance, much less the artifact George had heard about around the village, and ever since he had heard word of it, he became near obsessive. He constantly referred to it as their "only hope". Erik didn't understand. His life wasn't perfect, but he knew of no looming threat that his father kept mentioning in passing.

"If we find it and the legends are true, I don't know what we'll do with ourselves." said George.

George was slowly trotting on his horse Midnight, while his son strolled apprehensively by his side. Every footstep was accompanied by a "squish" of the mud as the dirt trail stretched on, and on.

"Father, what is it we are looking for again?" asked Erik.

"You will see soon son, all in good time..." the boy's father replied. "All good things come to those who wait..."

It took a long while but after another hour or so of traveling to the sounds of the wolves howling, the father and his son found what they were looking for. They slowly entered a circular clearing in the forest, surrounded by dead trees shaking in the bitter cold, howling wind. Vine tendrils and gnarled tree roots snaked along the ground, and the emptiness was incredibly unnerving, but it was almost like someone else was there too. In the middle of the clearing, there was a worn and dirty stone coffin on top of a pedestal, just waiting patiently to be opened.

The overall eeriness of the place was enough to make Erik immediately shudder. He cowered behind his father.

George dismounted Midnight and told his son to wait with the horse as he slowly approached the ominous coffin.

"Are you sure about this dad?", Erik asked nervously.

"I'll be fine son. Just because something scares or worries you doesn't mean that you should always be afraid of it."

"But father, I-"

"Son, please, I am doing this for us, for you. Please just stay here and wait for me."

George trudged through the twigs and overgrown roots covering the clearing's floor. He looked back at his son and smiled meaningfully before proceeding to the coffin. He paused and took a deep breath, knowing that the risk he was about to take was colossal, but he had to do it. To escape from them...

He slowly opened the coffin, and the lid fell off of the shoddily made hinges, making a sharp clattering noise against the pedestal.

Inside the coffin was a skeleton with a contorted look on it's face. It was barely even recognizable as human, or human-like, but in the corpse's bony hand was a long black staff, with glowing blood-red symbols engraved on the side. A jagged crimson shape emerged from the top.

George glanced back at his son again. He said nothing, but his expression told Erik he cared about him more than anything, but he had to know the staff's power. The father slowly pried the dead being's hand open, it's rotten fingers falling off in the process, freeing the malevolent staff. George reached out. He knew there would be no going back, but the only thing worth living for anymore was family, and he didn't have much of that left. He had to see. Maybe, just maybe, the staff would protect them...

George quickly proceeded to snatch the staff, and suddenly chaos in it's purest, most evil form broke loose. George's eyes rolled back in his head, but the whites of his eyes turned black. A black mist then rose around the clearing, and George began to levitate in the air. The black mist turned into thick fog that nearly consumed Erik, who backed into a tree and had no escape.

The fog began to surround him, making it difficult to breathe. There was a faint burning in his lungs, and a strong corruption flowing into his heart. Erik suddenly thought it easiest to just, let go. The boy sank to the ground, as his life started draining.

But all of a sudden, Erik spotted his father in the mist, he almost shined through the fog. Erik snapped out of his haze, but he expected for his father to turn around and have those horrid eyes, but instead, for a few split seconds, he was George, Erik's father, himself.

"Son!", he shouted. "Run, run far and run fast!"

Upon hearing his father's commands, Erik mounted Midnight and rode away quickly, teary-eyed and lost, wondering where he would call home next.

'Erik, I love you." whispered George. "Goodbye."

But the fog once again overtook George and Erik never heard his father's last words.