"Your majesty! I beg of you! Restrain yourself from casting the scroll into the Great Hells!" The squire yelled out from the bottom of the mountain; though yelling hadn't done him much good, as the sounds of the belching lava below them drowned out any other noises. Even had the uproarious Great Hells not cloak the pleads of the squire, King Eldrin the Power-Hungry, suited in his dark, ominous, spike-surplused armor would've ignored everything other than the scroll in his hands.
Old tales tell of a great king who had the ability to make any ambition come true by writing it on a scroll fragment and submitting the piece to the flames of the Great Hells, a vast cavern, deep into the ground, filled with the largest bodies of molten lava and fire ever known. The cavern was believed to be the entrance to the underworld.
The royal line of elves were never a greedy bunch. King Eldrin, however contrasted this greatly. An arrogant and rather nasty fellow, King Eldrin, upon and even prior to coronation, had built quite the reputation of himself as, hence his title, a power-hungry individual.
King Eldrin the Power-Hungry had felt a strong connection to the Hells. An odd bond that gave him a feeling of home whenever he was in their presence. The most plausible reason being that King Eldrin was similar to the Great Hells themselves. Both took what they wanted, when they wanted, and couldn't care less of who they had to hurt to get it. Both had passion that seemed as if it in itself had the power of 1,000 armies. It's quite odd to compare a Power-Hungry elf king to a mere cavern in the mountains, but it would explain why no fear was felt by the king when he was holding the scroll over the Great Hells. The same could not be said for his squire, whose voice was starting to fade from having been used to its full potential in the young adult elf's countless futile attempts to lure his master back from the fire.
"By the Ones Who Watch Over... The Powerful.. I, His Majesty Eldrin, First Heir of His Name, King of the Royal Elves, hereby sacrifice the Scroll of Desire to the fiery nightmares of the Great Hells, and in exchange request for the great strength my army requires to take control of the Land of Elves!", the king announced, his deep and loud voice bouncing off the environment.
With those final words, he released the scroll from his grip, watching it descend into the depths. The fire roared as it swallowed the parchment, the letters beginning to glow a soft, gold glow as they burned. After the scroll had perished, the entire mountain began to crumble before the two elves. Pebbles began to fall from the ceiling. The lava had become angrier by the second, a few droplets bursting upward and splashing onto King Eldrin, causing the king to screech in agony.
The sounds of King Eldrin's painful screams filled the air as the aggressively-behaving mountain starting to collapse. It was at this time that the king's squire had fled just before the mountain came to rubble, leaving his master inside.
They say that if you visit the remains of the Great Hells, you can faintly hear the sounds of King Eldrin's skin burning off of his bones overlapping his piercing screams. No records of hearing these sounds have been found, however, as any and all remains have since been lost. Until, of course, the War to End It All started.
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In Shining Armour
FantasySeveral kingdoms, handfuls of civilizations, countless regions, and a plethora of species. Some living in better coexistence than others. A tale of quests, peril, action, and war. "In Shining Armour" entails wizardry, betrayal, adventure, mythical...