• The Dreamer's Glass

    ~Prologue

    Fitting. Born in these desolate wastes, only to return to them to die.

    He didn’t want to look up at the sun. He’d seen too much of it in his life, and the harsh winds billowing across the top of the tower, its roof opened up to the starry sky, were all too familiar. Sweat gathered under his brow; they hadn’t bothered removing his armor or other gear, the metal plating and black and gray items of cloth chafing his deeply tanned skin. It was irritable to a near agonizing level. He gnashed his teeth, his wrists aching as his arms were pulled apart roughly by the chains linked to the thick granite slab, and instead directed his ire ahead, at the six who stood before him.

    “The justice of Selesctia...” he growled. A dark smirk spread across his face as they stared impassively, ethereal white flesh seeming to reflect the dim moonlight. “No trial for me? And after all this vaunted talk of justice..." He bared his teeth in a deranged, half-smirk. "It seems you're just a pack of hypocrites. How fitting.”

    “Your crimes far exceed those of any common criminal,” answered one. He wasn’t sure which that one was; they all looked the same, white-clad servants of their pathetic Order. The only particular differential between the ringed six were the crests on the front of their robes. The uniformity of the ethereal beings only served to stoke the flames of his rage to a higher caliber.

    “You have invaded Selesctia, and attempted to usurp the rule of the Royal Family,” another declared. “All in order to invade the most Sacred Grove and claim the ancient Timepiece, which is given to the Adelpheia's alone.”

    “We have foreseen what destruction you may bring to the world should that happen,” a third spoke, and he chuckled.

    “Seems that brat tattled on me,” the prisoner growled, shaking his head in mocking woe. “Good thing I killed her before anything else could happen...”

    “Your powers of sorcery and dark intentions are clear,” spoke the first of his captors. The blessed entity raised a hand, and a gleaming white blade of light appeared, hovering in the air, whirling to face the bound prisoner.

    “Gendalf, Lord of the ancient Arrabi tribesmen, by the will of the Four Pinnacle Goddesses, the late Adelpheia, and the Royal Family of Selesctia, we Sages of the Order of Delphei have ruled that you cannot be allowed to live. We do not condone death such as this, but you are too dangerous, and both your crimes and the will behind them have made your life forfeit.”

    “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Gendelf muttered seethingly, clenching his teeth in rage. This was not how it was going to end, was it? Executed while chained to a slab of rock in this desolate corner of World he once called home?

    Without another word, the Sage gestured, and the sword of radiance flew forward, lancing the center of his chest. Gendelf let out a snarl, the blade thrusting out his back, wedging itself in the granite formation behind the Arrabi, and slumped in his chains, hissing a curse at the Goddesses, the Sages, that damnable Princess of Selesctia, and most of all, at the little girl garbed in the tunic of the Adelpheia's of past, who had brought him down to this.

    His rage, diminishing as he felt his life force ebbing slowly away, suddenly flared to new life. The Arrabi lord’s mind raced with a thousand negative emotions; refusal to accept his death at the hands of these immortal men, clothed in shimmering white. The harsh desert wind, the sandy, hot currents he hated so much, blasted against his face, and Gendelf clenched his fists, pure malice filling his body.

    I am not dying here! I am not going to be killed by you! I will rule Selesctia! I will kill you! I will kill you ALL!

    The chains shattered, and the Sages recoiled as Gandalf shot to his feet, the Lord of the Arrabi snarling in enraged triumph. Shining light burst from right hand as he reached up to his chest and grasped the holy blade. With a savage, inhuman laugh, the usurper king tore the blade from his chest and raised it into the air, howling with victory. Gleaming illumination burst from the chest wound as the light from his right hand intensified, and power surged through his entire body, intoxicating and impossible.

    “But... How did..." one of the horrified Sages gasped. “Where did he get...”

    Gendalf didn’t know where this sudden surge of raw, unmitigated power came from, but he knew what to do with it.

    In an instant, the Arrabi had leapt across the distance between himself and the Sages, and the sheer strength surging through his hand pulsed and attacked as his fingers closed over the face of the nearest spirit. With near casual ease, he simply snuffed the Sage out of existence, blasting him apart in a shower of broken light, a simple lamenting song accompanying the fading spirit.

    “I am Gendalf!” he shrieked to the heavens. “I will not be denied!”

    But the Sages, those damnable, Goddess-blessed beings, were not called such for just any reason. Even as he raised his stolen blade to cut them down, Gendalf felt something brush against him, not unlike the sand that rammed against his tanned cheeks, and realized why they had chosen to execute him here, at the Arbiaititis Cashoros, the ancient Maven Grounds.

    The Dreamer's Glass!

    After his near usurpation of the Royal Family, and the brutal murder of the Adelpheia, the item must've been moved to where it would be watched over by the Six Sages of the Order. The ancient artifact that had been used both to transport criminals across both time and space, and to bridge the gap between worlds, hummed to life at the bidding of the Sages. Gandalf railed in fury as he was driven backward, his body and spirit being dragged ruthlessly toward the very stone that had confined him. The Sages had not intended to use the sacred item in this manner, but they were taking no chances. There was to be no escape for one as evil as Gendalf.

    “Banishing me...” Gandalf snarled as the sword was torn from his grasp and swept into the vortex of silver particles. “The darkness won’t be able to hold me forever, Sages!” he roared.

    And then, even his new, mighty power could not hold him in place, and Gandalf’s body was swept up, lifted into the air and hurled backwards into the breach between realms, screaming in denial and fury as he was banished from the world of the living, disintegrating into billions upon billions of minute blackened particles...

    ...and cast into darkness.