The Dawn of New Magic Prologue: Plight of Kat'roc

Prologue: Plight Of Kat'roc

And thus it shall come to pass, that we the gods, who were once mortal amongst our mortals, were smote by a mortal of equal power. He is as dark as we are light. And it shall come to pass that we the gods, will be forced to leave the earth of our people, and we shall leave behind objects of great power, to guide the populace, and to continue to carry out our tasks on Monotnia... Thera, Chapter II, the Book of the Gods.

His face broke out in a malicious grin, his jagged, pearly white teeth standing out from the shadowy recesses of his face. He had a satchel in his hands, and he tipped it over, dropping the remaining teeth and bones into the fire beneath him. The fire turned green and rose into a great pillar standing before him, illuminating his face. He was unkempt, his dirty black hair tied back neatly with a strip of leather, a tangled mustache and beard grew outward from his face, jutting out past his chin, nearly touching the pillar of flame. But his eyes, a piercing grey color, were his most evil feature. They simply glowed with malevolence. He wore a necklace of bone made from the jagged teeth of a Dringaar, a hairy, elephantine creature that resided in the caves due south from where he stood. His dress was that of the nomad peoples that resided in central Monotnia, coarse wolves’ fur clothing that protected him from the icy temperatures here. The sky was dark, the sun, only remembered in legend, hadn’t risen in well over 1000 cycles. It was light enough outside to see by, but not enough for plants to flourish by, so the nomadic tribes of people had to hunt, abandoning their shovels and rakes for spears and axes, hunting down the massive animals that provided their sustenance, and their clothing. And then the Gods appeared. Six beings that emerged from the heavens and lighted down below the Aurora several hundred years ago. Thera, the woman who was apparently their leader, had decided that the only way to ease the suffering of her people would be to live among them, as mortals, which meant that they were susceptible to disease, famine, and even murder, regardless of their power. The man turned back from his musings to his scrying fire, it began to change again.

A picture formed in the middle of the fire, a group of people sitting in a circle beneath a great and wondrous aurora in the northern skies, an area known as the Aurora of the Plains. And the people he was staring at were the Gods, all six of them.

The Gods normally resided in an immense temple in the only city in Monotnia, the Palace of the Freezing Water, named for the unusual rain that fell there, freezing immediately, keeping the outer city covered in ice. But on this day, the Gods were at the Plains of dying souls, underneath the immense Aurora. The man frowned, wondering why the Gods would take such a serious undertaking.

Today, the man, Killeya, perished, and the demon, Kat’roc, or Malevolent One, was born. He took off due north, heading towards the Aurora of the Plains. He reached the Aurora just in time, for the Gods had begun their ceremony, and were unaware of the danger lurking just around the corner.

They sat in a circle around a fire of their own, which was not only their source of warmth, but their source of power, because the flame was blue, and it coalesced like a river, constantly flowing outward from its point of origin. Each of the Gods’ eyes were closed, they were deep in thought.

Thera, Goddess of Will, sat at the head of the circle. Her sisters, Cerana, the Goddess of Courage and Zabera, the Goddess of Wind, sat on either side of her. Her twin brother, Eflam, God of Fire sat directly across from her, and his brothers, Meryll, God of the Sea and Telamar, God of the Earth, sat on either side of him. Their hands were joined.

Kat’roc drew his drengi, a small dagger fashioned out of the largest tooth of a Dringaar, and he slowly crept forward. He quickly ran the dagger across the throat of Meryll, and his blood ejaculated forth from his throat, quickly evaporating in the heat of the blue flame. He then sent the dagger into Eflam, tearing him in twain from his groin to his throat, a gentle ribbon of blood forming on the edges of the wound, which then cascaded like a great river, flowing downward into the ice, staining it red. He made clockwork out of Telamar, sending his dagger into his gnarled face, piercing his brain through his eye-socket, and tearing it back out with him. Gore and brain matter covered Kat’roc’s arm to the elbow, but he didn’t care. Zabera died next, choking in a pool of her own blood on the ground, and then Cerana, her blood rising like a geyser out of her jugular artery, cleanly severed.

He cleaned his dagger on the snow beneath him, and he gently crept behind Thera, rubbing his groin up and down against her buttocks. His excitement was apparent as he gently ran his blade up and down her body, gently caressing her lips, her neck, and her breasts. He stopped when he reached her stomach, and turned around her, plunging the dagger through it.

Thera cried out, her concentration breaking. She reached down and felt the hole in her stomach, seeing the blood gently rising out of her abdomen and falling to the ground. She looked around and saw her dead siblings. Tears fell from her eyes, and she screamed a lament to the sky…she turned, and her gaze fell upon Kat’roc. She attempted to stop the bleeding with her free hand, and with the other, she grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground. He felt an unseen force enter his body, mind and soul, and his soul was rent from his body and cast deep into the Wasteland of the Damned, to be forever entrapped there. In one final act of anger Kat’roc called forth all of his evil power, and a great mountain reared its head out of the waste, forever raping the skyline with its evil presence.

Thera fell over, exhaustion nearly taking her, but she was far from finished. She again raised her hands, letting her blood flow freely out of her stomach, and a wall of ivory rose seamlessly from the ground, forever blotting out the waste and its vigilante, the mountain. She collapsed from exhaustion and breathed in deeply once more, taking in the scent of the ice on the ground, and the scent of the blood of her siblings. Her blue eyes closed, and she expired.

The spirits of Thera and her siblings rose out of their mortal bodies, and they met above the clouds, in the heavens, the true realm of the Gods.

“Now what are we going to do?” Telamar exclaimed. “The balance of power must be maintained!”

Zabera looked perplexed for a moment.

“I have an idea!” She exclaimed

She turned her hands over and an orb began to form, its swirling mists moving swiftly as though a great wind was inside it.

“I call this an Elemental Orb, let us each place one on the planet for the people to find, let it be a memento of our reign, and a bridge for us to continue our ceremony if the need arises.”

And so the Elemental Orbs came into being.

Thera looked down at the world she loved so dearly, and then she looked back at her siblings, who began to quarrel over who would control Monotnia this Turn. She sighed. A glow formed around her body, and she placed her hands over her heart.

“I relinquish control of Monotnia this Turn to Eflam, God of fire, may his guidance keep the people of the lands at peace.” She muttered.

A key, gilded lavishly with gold from the lands below, suddenly appeared in Eflam’s hands. It was the key to the Diary, a book otherwise known as the Book of the Gods. It was his turn to write his chapter into the book, Chapter III.

“Thank you sister,” he replied and turned to his siblings. “Let the Age of Crystal end, and let us usher in a new age, the Age of Learning.”

For the first time in 1000 cycles, the sun rose over the lands of Monotnia, and the ice and snow began to melt. Creatures that were long thought extinct emerged from their burrows, and life began anew. With the melting of the snow, came the fading of the Aurora, and in its place, a great altar rose outward from the soil, the Altar of the Gods.

“I can only hope that I will bring good things to these lands while I am in control, my sister Thera is anything but naïve, and if she truly believes I can do this thing, then I will try my best to do so. Thank you Thera, for the opportunity to prove myself worthy of this job, and I hope that the world will flourish under my reign…” Eflam, Chapter III, The Book of the Gods.