A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"If he survives? A bold assertion. Does that mean you mistake me, Dominus? Are you not the prized dog of my enemy?" The mage regarded his armoured hand, turning it over as he felt the weight of it. It seemed he was satisfied, though it was impossible to tell.

The divine energy continued to flow towards him. Dominus had not anticipated that so much would manage to make its way over, not without a collapse of some sort, some kind of dispersal. But, as luck would have it, that was exactly when Ingolsol chose to make his appearance.

"The Curse of Despair," Dominus said, more to himself than anyone else. But the others heard, those that were watching finally understood. Nila called out to Beam, as his heart continued to beat, and finally breath was drawn into his lungs.

"Indeed, a fitting ending, do you not think? That was how that boy's story began, and that is how it will end," Ingolsol said.

"And the mage?" Dominus asked.

"Gone," Ingolsol said, gleefully. "You defeated him without even swinging your sword. A rare victory for you, is it not?"

"I would not call this a victory quite yet," Dominus said, he accented his words with a point of his sword. "You've disturbed quite the many lives, God of Despair. It is only fitting that I remove that head from your shoulders – even if it is a mere ghost of your true form."

"Attempt what you must, mortal, but know that Claudia sees through my left eye. You'd be ending her as well," Ingolsol said, and then he laughed at the expression on Dominus' face, as he froze in a pause. "Always doubt in you mortals, always doubt. Though my mood is pleasant, so I will dismiss it for now. Come, come, let us play. This has gone on far too long.

If we do not hurry, soon the sun will come up, and the people will begin to forget the true heart of the nightmare."

"Dominus..." Lombard began a question.

"A fragment of Ingolsol, I'm sure you're aware," Dominus said, without turning around. "Through the Curse he inflicts on them, he's able to have them carry out his will. Though, this is the first I'm hearing of him properly manifesting himself."

"Do not flatter yourself. This is merely a drop of blood, from mine and Claudia, united in a delightful vessel tinged with despair. You've seen something like that before, have you not? Ahh… yes, you've been toyed with by the Gods a little, haven't you? Did Pandora not pay you a visit through the guise of her Goblin? Tut tut.

Falling to something so soft – the country had expected better of you."

Dominus said nothing, but his face had hardened into stone.

The last of the divine energy ran its way towards Ingolsol, as he was finally allowed the opportunity to take the stage. Francis life was snuffed out as mercilessly as a candle in the wind. The power that he reached for, and endlessly filled himself with, had quickly bitten back.

He died a death that many would claim worse than dying. The Dark God that he worshipped consumed him. In the moment that Darkness flooded his body, and he could find no respite in his madness, he found only fear.

He heard Ingolsol's voice for the first time, and it was like a knife to his soul. The God that he had loved and cherished, who had offered him what he had, the moment their souls made truest contact, and he heard the command to "kneel" terror consumed all that he was.

He had thought he'd known the danger. He'd heard the whisper of Ingolsol many times before. But never spoken in his soul like that, never threatening to consume his being.

He found himself wondering how any could have resisted that merciless power, and he came to the conclusion that none could, and so he died, in a fit of despair, his consciousness hanging around just long enough to see Beam draw his first breath.

"Ah…" he said, in a whisper of what remained of his voice, as Ingolsol's laughter boomed in his head. "So there was a difference between us after all.

The difference between the darkest night and the brightest dawn, was the gap the world was created between? Was it the strength of the brightest stars that gave the greatest warriors their strength, or was it the deepest darkness of the world's most impenetrable caves?

The Stormfront people knew a tragic and war-torn history. A story only too common in too many places, and too many times. The people did battles with the sword for tens of thousands of years before the first God could claim to have given them that power.

Of course, they still knew their Gods back then, just as the men of the current day know theirs. But there was never power granted by them, at least, not power that the men could see. It was their own bodies and minds that gave them their strength, their own spirits, their own aims.

The first God that the ancient scriptures write of is Pandora. She who saw the first veil of evil, a thin line of terribleness that ran on the edge of everyday life. She noted the burned villages, and the fly-covered bodies, and when she reached out, she found that those corpses were the ends of her own fingers.

Not in the sense that they were truly her hands, but they were part of her. The evilness ran through her. She understood her position, knowing that she had always been there, ever since man first drew his sword – but it was only at that time, all those thousands of years ago, when she first made that thought.

She claimed the evil of wars, and made it hers. She felt no emotion as she sculpted it, and gave it a face. She shaped green flesh, and gave it yellowed eyes – she did not even give it a name.

And so came to be the Pandora Goblin, and so came to be the chest upon its back, as man after man was slain by it. The culmination of their planet's evils, a creature of deceit and trickery, a goal to be overcome, for the ultimate good, or whatever vague notion they had of it at the time.