The Myth of the Dark God

The Wanderer (Part 1)

“This cave is so... strange,” the Wanderer thinks.

He reaches up to touch the glass tablets so delicately set into rough stone. The clink of metal armor gently echoes as the owner of the hand draws away and steps back from the glass, sighing as he slides down the opposite wall. All around him are the sediments of the earth, decorated lavishly by the rotten stench and gruesome color of blood, accompanied by the corpses of disgustingly large rats and insects.

The armored man rests his tired arms and legs for the moment, breathing heavily, as he had just fought through hundreds of these enlarged insect and rat creatures to get here. And yet he did not truly understand why he had fought so hard. It was just that voice- that lonely, sorrowful voice that had pleaded him to come. So he, the Wanderer, had come to this isolated cave by the seaside. No, this wasn’t a cave. It was a labyrinth, one filled with rats and insects that were… abnormal, to say the least.

It was that voice that was pulling him deeper and deeper into this labyrinth. The man rises once again, for he feels a tremor through the earth, one that undoubtedly announces the arrival of another wave of enlarged beasts. He grabs his sword, the only one of its kind, the legendary sword Horizon,  made by the God of Blacksmiths, Wldrigarn, in a time long past but not yet forgotten. But the Wanderer does not know that. He only knows that his sword is special, and that it has been with him since the time he woke from his amnesic slumber.

The earth all around the Wanderer slowly stops its shaking as more beasts file into the narrow corridor where he stands. Soon, the Wanderer finds that all around him, in the dim light of the magic crystals that line the entirety of the cave's passageways, are hordes of the same creatures akin to the corpses all around him.

The sword in the Wanderer's grasp slowly begins to glow, light, shining through the runes etched on its blade of crimson Starsteel, floods the cave as far as the Wanderer can see. For a moment, the Wanderer shuts his eyes, knowing that if he opened them, he would be blinded, and that the nocturnal denizens of the cave would also be blinded, and stunned, if he was lucky.

When the light starts to dim, the sword reverts to the color it always does when the Wanderer begins to fight- black. The Wanderer lifts his sword to his side and, without hesitation, runs into battle against his stunned enemies, his black armor not slowing him down in the least.

He lets his body do the fighting, his movements showing his fighting experience. Lithe, elf-like movements and spirit-like speed makes him all but a blur as he extinguishes life after life. He slashes at the vitals and weak points of his opponents, ripping open the stomachs of his mammalian enemies and utilizing brute strength to disconnect the limbs of the insects, before smashing their heads.

Soon, the once intimidating creatures of war are but corpses, joining their fallen comrades one by one. The Wanderer only stops to rest when all his opponents have died, and leans on his sword for support as he recovers his breath. Then he moves on, deciding to avoid further confrontations and head straight to his objective.

With his bloody sword in hand, the Wanderer heads in the direction with less blood and leaves the crystal-lit corridor for a thickly layered glass chamber. He pauses, not knowing what to do, as the chamber is a dead end. Hearing a rumble, he turns to see that the entrance to the chamber is being shut by a thick glass wall.

Alarmed, the Wanderer positions himself in a fighting stance, expecting almost anything to pop out of the ground- or from any other direction- and attack. And suddenly- the voice. It resonated throughout the chamber in the same lamenting tone as when the Wanderer had first heard it. Whatever the voice said seemed incomprehensible, as if it were an archaic language. But its effect was immediately recognizable, for the Wanderer felt faint and collapsed soon afterwards.