It was a dark, morbid day with grey storm clouds covering the sky like a turbulent sea, blotting out the sun and hope alike. The dying valley was completely silent with only the occasional roar of thunder and soft rustle of metallic chains clinking against one another.
There were two scrawny boys chained to another around an old, broken, stone pillar. One had startling red hair and crimson eyes that made people think his head was on fire, his name was Hunter. The other boy chained on the other side of the pillar had hair as black as the night sky without any stars, and eyes akin to pure gold. His name was Eclipse.
Hunter pulled lightly on the old and rusting chains that bit into his wrist, drawing a slight trickle of crimson blood. "I'm scared."
Eclipse reached out and grabbed his little brother's hand that was chained to his from the other side of the pillar. He said nothing to Hunter to try and ease his worry because truthfully he was terrified too.
The two of them had been chosen by the village as a sacrifice to the beast that woke from its slumber once every decade to feast and satiate it's hunger. In fact, their own useless man of a drunk father had offered them up as sacrifices when he heard the village offering a reward.
This didn't surprise Eclipse as his father had always been a drunk who was abusive and took out his anger from work on Eclipse and Hunter. To Eclipse, their father was no different then the monster that would soon awaken and eat them.
If only he was stronger. If only he had the will to take the kitchen knife and slit his father's throat while he was sleeping. So many times he stood over that sleeping buffoon with a knife, but each time he raised the blade he couldn't stop trembling. In the end it always ended with the clattering sounds of a knife falling to the floor and the hushed sound of crying that soon followed.
Eclipse hated his bad luck that the monster was awakening now as he was only two months away from turning 16. Once he turned 16, he would be old enough to leave the village and apply as a climber where he could hunt monsters to gain experience and level up to gain a class. If only he had been able to gain a class he could fight this monster head on.
"Concentrate." Eclipse muttered to himself to break the trance of "if only" his mind had fallen under. He then took a look at himself and the surroundings. He and Hunter were chained standing around a pillar with an old and rusty manacle per each of his arms bound to the arms of Hunter on the other side of the pillar.
Taking a closer look at the surroundings around him, Eclipse soon realized to his horror that they were standing on a pile of broken bones that encompassed the entire pillar. The bones white and worn on soil soaked dry with blood over the years were clearly distinguishable as humans, dwarves, and elves.
As Eclipse looked among the rubble, something grey near his foot reflected the setting sun into his eyes. Upon closer examination he realized it was a metallic item that must've once been a beautiful trinket, but was now misshapen after being crushed by something big.
"Hunter, start to slowly crouch towards the ground with me. I see something but I can't lower myself while my arms are bound to yours." Eclipse whispered to Hunter.
Hunter compiled without even asking, trusting in his older brother that had protected him all his life.
After sliding downward towards the ground, Eclipse reached out apprehensively with his right hand towards the metallic object. All of a sudden just under a foot away his hand stopped as if a wall stood in the way.
"Why can't these chains just be a few inches longer?!" Eclipse exclaimed. By now fear began wrenching his heart dry and he started to become even paler than he already was.
"Eclipse, is there something wrong?" Hunter asked out of both concern and fear.
Eclipse wanted to reply by saying "Obviously there's something wrong, in fact the entire situation of our father selling as sacrifices for money is even wrong!" But he bit back his retort as he didn't want his little brother crying now while he's trying to concentrate.
Ignoring his brother's question, Eclipse sank back into deep thought about how to solve this crisis. "If I can't reach it with my hands, I need another way to reach it." He thought to himself.
"Of course, the answer is so obvious! I'm an idiot!" Eclipse exclaimed as the solution dawned on him.
Without saying another word, Eclipse slowly kicked out his leg. He then carefully swung his foot around the metallic object and dragged his leg along with the ensnared piece of deformed grey metal back towards him. Eclipse then reached down and grabbed the metal piece in front of him. He then stood up almost dragging Hunter up with him, blinded by joy.
All of a sudden a new sound joined the rhythmic rumble of thunder throughout the valley. "CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!" The sound of metal hitting metal eventually stopped when at last the old and rustic chain connecting the manacle on his right hand broke. By now the sun was nearly gone and the sky filled with storm clouds became an even darker shade of black.
"Eclipse, let's quickly run away before that monster awak-" Hunter quickly stammered before being interrupted by the ground shaking and rumbling. Slowly the dust and bones on the ground 20ft away from the pillar began to shift and rise, as if something was moving below and clawing its way up.
"Hunter grab my chain with your hand and pretend we are still bound to the pillar!" Eclipse quickly shouted while grabbing a long bone with a broken and sharply pointed end. He quickly tucked the bone behind his back, part way in his pants, and then went back to leaning against the pillar and facing the slowly rising mount of dust, bones, and death.
"Are you mad?!" Hunter exclaimed. "We need to run now or we're both dead!"
"Trust me." Eclipse said as if that explained everything.
"I'm going to kill you if we die here." Hunter muttered quietly under his breath.
Truth be told, Eclipse wanted to run away also. But he didn't because he remembered a story told by one of the village elders that said a man once escaped his manacles at sunset and ran away. It didn't take long for the monster to track him down by scent and slaughter him since he ran away with so little time before it awoke. Needless to say, Eclipse and Hunter had even less time to run away then the man from the stories.
"There's only one way to survive this now." Eclipse thought to himself. As he thought this he recalled the words of a climber that was passing by the village awhile back.
Back then the climber, a man in his mid 30's that was bald with a short brown beard, asked Eclipse a peculiar question at the campfire. "If a monster had a hide too thick that spears won't pierce, or scales too strong that swords can't cut, how do you kill the monster?"
Eclipse thought on this for a moment and responded with "Magic?"
"That is true magic could help turn the tables." The man laughed in response. "But what if you can't use magic for some reason or run out of mana, then what?" He asked.
Seeing that Eclipse was stumped, the man answered his own question saying "Look for the monster's weakness, they always have one." He then took a swig from his flask that reeked of booze. "If it's a bigger monster with good defense, I like to personally aim for the eyes. Can't go wrong with that." He then took another swig, belched, and then said "Well at least you can't go wrong aiming for the eyes if they have them, though this trick doesn't work on some of the stronger or unique monsters like the undead. Can't stab in the eyes if they don't have any!" He laughed.
While recalling this one joyous moment in his head, the monster finally rose from the dust and bones revealing it's bulky form. It looked as if a dog had been shaved clean of it's fur and it's skin was replaced with dark green scales. It's mouth full of sharp pale teeth like a shark. Not to mention that it was the size of an elephant standing at around 12ft tall.
It casually approached the two boys as if nothing was wrong. It clearly didn't notice that they had broken one the manacle's chains, and that Hunter was merely holding onto the chain to mimic being still bound to the pillar.
As it approached, Eclipse could smell the revolting scent of rot and death coming off the creature from it's past meals. It soon towered over the boys merely a foot or two away from them as if it was taunting them. It then opened it's jaw big enough two bite a man in half and clamped down on Eclipse with enough force to even kill a low level climber.
However, to it's dismay it only tasted air. In the next second before it could process what had happened a shadow appeared next to the side of its face. As it registered that this shadow was indeed Eclipse, it saw something white streak through the sky. The next second it felt an intense pain that it had never felt before and couldn't see out of it's right eye.
The creature roared furiously as Eclipse stabbed it's right eye out with the broken bone. It quickly yanked it's head up into the air while he was still holding onto the bone, lifting him off the ground. The pull was so quick and powerful it snapped the old and rusty manacle's chain on his left hand connecting him to Hunter right off as if it were a flimsy rope.
Though shocked by the quick change of events, Eclipse held on tightly to the bone with both hands. He then slowly began pressing his body weight onto the bone pressing it deeper and further into the monster's eye.
Blood started to splatter out of the wound all over Eclipse, drenching him in a shower of crimson blood as he pushed the bone even further into the monster's eye. As the monster flailed about to fling him off, Eclipse continued to hold on for dear life while pressing the bone in deeper and deeper. All the while, as if out of instinct, he began twisting the bone around in a circle as if he were using a drill, trying to dig further into the creature's eye.
"RRROOOAAAARRR!" The creature screamed a bone chilling cry of pain and anger that sounded like a metallic roar. The sound was so intense that it pierced Eclipse's ears and blood started to drip out, with a noticeable dimness to the sound around him.
"JUST DIE!!!!" Eclipse screamed while being tossed about like a ragdoll on its face. Soon the bone was almost completely gone from sight, disappearing into the depths of the giant eye. As a result, with so little space left to hold on to the bone, Eclipse was finally tossed through the air like a rocket.
Slamming into the ground over 30ft away, Eclipse got the wind knocked out of him and struggled to regain his breath. Meanwhile, the creature slowly stumbled towards him, determined to kill the pathetic human that dared to injure it so gravely.
Each step caused the ground to shake and dust to stir. With every thud of the heavy footfalls, death loomed closer and closer to Eclipse.
As the monster lumbered about five feet away from him, it reached it's head down, mouth wide open. Even without one of it's eyes, the creature knew there was no way it would miss the human before it now with how injured the pathetic human was from being thrown by it
Slowly as Eclipse stared at the sky a mouth soon took up his entire field of vision. He closed his eyes satisfied that he at least was able to injure the monster before he died.
He slowly waited for death with his eyes closed but nothing happened, he felt no pain or suffering at all. "Am I dead?" Eclipse wondered after waiting with his eyes closed for a few seconds. He soon opened his eyes and saw the monster with it's mouth wide open above him, as still as a statue.
After staring for a few moments he finally realized what happened and said in disbelief "That bastard died standing over me about to attack." The monster had finally succumbed to the bone that had pierced through its eye, and under the pressure exerted by Eclipse, into its brain.
Even though he was bloodied, battered, and crying from the pain of his wounds, Eclipse couldn't help but start laughing out of pure joy and relief from the built up tension he had accumulated. All of a sudden he heard a ding that sounded as if it came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and then something unexpected happened.
"Congratulations Eclipse! You've been awarded the unique class **The Forlorn Lord of Death**!" An angelic voice rang out as the golden encrusted words pierced the night sky and illuminated the pale, tears and blood soaked boy.