The Slave Knight Part 1: The Dagon

Prologue: The Return of Magics

It was a world torn apart. Apart by many things and maybe too many to count, but torn apart it was. We can first begin with what tore it apart, and that was the tearers, or terrors, however you want to describe them. The ones who had torn the world to nothing more than thin shambles of cloth. The leaders were the terrors, or tearers, if at all, and it starts with the Orange Man. The Orange Man with all his bust and bumble, his threats against all who opposed him and all who would denounce him. A brash man that the masses flocked to with promises of greatness and elevation, but it was all a lie. It was all a farce and it was all nothing, as the world gained nothing more than they had with him at the head. Some would even argue that him being at the head brought the world back some. Further than it should have, but at the end of it all, the Orange Man, along with all the others, would bring the world back to where it originally started.

To nothing.

His finger forever on the trigger to end it all, threatening violence and death to all who would oppose him.

Another terror that the world had to suffer was the Rocket Man, aptly named by the Orange Man. The Rocket Man had the whitest smile, the thickest jowls and the worst hair a man could muster. He ate well, while his people ate dirt and shit, giving nothing to no one, except those who have pledged complete fealty, generation to generation. If your grandfather had opposed him, you were better off dead. If your father had opposed him you might have been in fact dead. If you opposed him death would never bring you or your family the solace you craved. Thus, he was a pestilence at the top of the world in his place. He shot great rockets into the sky hoping to instill fear into the Orange Man and those he ruled, showing that he was in fact as strong as he believed himself to be. Unbeknownst to most, he had rockets that would reign fire and death at the flick of his wrist or the tap of his finger and his finger was on a trigger that no one believed he had, but he did, as the Bear Man had given it to him.

The Bear Man, another oppressor of sorts, that had his iron law stamped down upon his people. He ruled through lies and deceit. Through spies and assassination. Through sleight of hand and mystery, that led many a state and their leaders to despise him and his land. He would cross borders and hurt those who posed threats. He would sneak and slink about like a snake on the hunt. He would decimate those who dared cross him, claiming it was all for his people. A people who were garish and hungry themselves. Who preferred drink rather than whatever drek their leader cared to give them. Who wanted to be whisked away and be free. But he held a trigger and that trigger could annihilate the world, if he had a fancy, and he did.

There were other men who were terrible and wonderful all the same. Each had made their mark on Mother Gaia trying to take it for their own. Caring not for who or what they left in their wake, and a lot of such men were alive and not so well to do, if you cared to know. The Yellow Men with a million man army stood strong and fierce and had staved off the ever push of the Orange Man. The Sand People had sacrificed much for their greater good and their greater gods, but more likely than not hurting themselves more than others as they could never settle their border disputes, their bickerings as to their land, or debates over inconsequential points of their laughable religions. The Miners had similar problems and had been eager to emulate the explosive nature of the Sand People, constantly in fits of war and desolation. The Old Country, while refined and better to never have the gall to retake what was taken from them by newer countries to instill a better world, persisted behind their iron curtains, waiting for a chance, that would never come to strike.

Countless lands, countless people all vying and arguing and fighting, for what? For nothing it seemed. Creating chaos and destruction wherever they set foot and all but the ones at the top suffered.The abuse of Mother Gaia created wildfires in the west that lapped up brick and stone and metal as it was mere parchment, hurricanes and typhoons in the east that drowned whole cities and towns without a care. Earthquakes that sunk island after island with cities disappearing in a day and the metropolis of the world faltered, while all lived in fear.

The fear led to revulsion. The revulsion led to hate. The hate led to civil unrest grew throughout the world. No one was willing to provide an answer to any for it all, save for death. And the world's people suffered ever the more for it. Leader blamed leader, lines were drawn, weapons were brandished, and the world was on the brink of destruction until finally it was destroyed. Who finally fired first? We know not, but they finally fired which pushed others to fire harder and stronger weapons. The coasts were annihilated within a span of days, the inland within two spans of days and by the end of a month or so, winter had come early and has stayed ever since. The death toll loomed into territories only known by the great wars, that none knew of any longer. Those who did not die sooner, rather than later, were worse off than ever. Those who did die, received the only mercy a world such as this would ever be willing and able to give.

The initial wave of death came from massive explosions that disintegrated man and beast in an instant. Fire rolled like waves from east to west, followed by a heavy wind that dashed all away in its wake. It darkened the sky and created ash and cinder on the ground, with none the wiser. The fires raged unending and unyielding until the lands became barren. Wastelands rose up, where once fertile grounds and cities, teaming with populations so vast and unyielding you would gasp at the numbers.

Thereafter, poison killed the land. The air had become rank and uninhabitable. Sores and cancer sprouted among those who tarried too long. Some could no longer bear children. Others outright died after a long and suffering sickness. Many grew mad and dangerous still, and the world had begun to signal its death knell. Mother Gaia, in a last attempt to retake what its people had squandered, cracked open. Giant fissures from the pits of hell cut across the land, so vast and wide, that it is said, people who fell into them are still falling until this day. Others believe that they popped up on the other side and were spit out without a scratch. But none are sure.

What they are sure of is that all manner of beast erupted from those fissures, some kind. Most others less so. A legion of dragons, fiery winged beasts were expelled in a tumult of volcanic ash and sludge. They devoured those within eyesight and burned much and more to nothing. Trees, thought long dead, had risen up and began to speak in deep croaking and creaking voices, yelling blasphemy against man and woman alike. Golems as tall as the eye can see, rock trolls, and goblins, orcs, men that were not men, but animals came about, with claws and teeth to bare. All manner of beasts had erupted fervently and frighteningly. They reigned destruction taking back the world in the name of Mother Gaia.

However, other, less troublesome, beings came about. Halflings and dwarves had walked down from the mountainsides all gruff and gristle, looking for greener pastures as the dragons had taken up residence in their old abodes. Elves, in all manners of color and hue, had been awakened and rose to the task of taming the trees once again. Resolving to better the world with all their magics. The common vampyre and werewolves and other lycanthropes, had arisen and staked their claims in the world. Some more civilly than others and with their appearance came a new air.

Maybe it was an old air, but it was new to the man who had ravaged the land for over ten thousand years. Or a million if you believed some. This new old air was as everyone had believed it to be. And that was magic.

Magics had returned, formless and void, and without guidance it was abused by man and man alike. Calling the likes of fire and wind and earth and water down upon the world for selfish gain. The elves and dwarves, who had a better ear and eye for it, had used it for more selfless and altruistic purposes, but only within their specific race. However, man had other plans. Once man got hold of it, their magics were furious and unrelenting. Nothing compared to the power of their betters, but truthfully, there is power in chaos.

As time passed the magics of man grew, and they further abused and debased it for selfish gain. Some attempted to learn and gain wisdom, yet only a few were allowed into the eleven and fae courts. Those few were permitted some wisdom of the magics of yore, and even less were allowed to leave the fae realm after entering. So man was left to their own whims when it came to magics.

Man learned from himself, and magic thrived and replaced all that the old world had left behind, or had destroyed, and a new world emerged. In the midst of this the remnants of the Orange Man, the Rocket Man, the Bear Man, and all others dwindled and disappeared. Their influence and strength were trumped by the magics of old. In this new order the world changed and thrived.

Mother Gaia retook what was lost, the sun was dashed away into a cloudless ruin, and the lives of men dwindled in favor of the fairer and more earth friendly races. Yet, as a cockroach not caring to die when it should, the race of man lingered and the savagery they had expelled for near on ten thousand years, or over a million, if you were to believe some, continued on.