Hello all, and welcome back to the gates of Enverdolmal!
I hope -as always- that this new chapter part finds you well.
I have some news for you all:
I started a YouTube page for this series!
It has the same name as the Book, so worry not.
It will take me some time since I am doing it all solo lol but I will do my best.
I will even try to find a Spanish-speaking individual to narrate the Spanish version!
I will be doing my best to read/narrate not only the Chapter Parts and character dives, but everything else for you all there.
(It is more for people who may be too busy to read or maybe just don't care for it, but still would like to hear the story.)
That doesn't mean ALL of you can't go enjoy it as well lol.
I won't keep you all for much longer, I know what we are all here for lol.
Just know that I really do love and appreciate you all for your continued love and loyalty to One Last Knight.
Lets keep this boulder rolling together folks.
I will write for a long as you return to read!
You have more word.
See you all back here at the gates soon enough!
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-70 years before present day-
Kyric drifted in and out of his unconscious state.
He couldn't tell where he was...
He couldn't stay awake long enough at first to even try to decern his location.
Wherever he was, it was pitch-black.
He didn't try to move just yet.
He didn't know if he was hurt, nor how bad if he indeed was.
Flashes of memories came and went as his mind reeled, trying to make sense of it all...
He recalled his bed.
His desk.
Chemical drips...
Blurred and pulsing images of his mirror.
Cold water against his face.
The bookshelf.
THE BOOKSELF!
The weird Deamonology book...
Colors swam before his vision whenever he opened his eyes, so he kept them shut.
Something felt...off.
He was nauseous
His head throbbed.
The air around him was to hot.
Stuffy.
He could smell...sulfur?
He tried to focus...to access his Aether pool.
He calmed his breathing and turned his mind inward.
Internally, he felt it.
A faint yet palpable pulsating energy.
He willed forth a Low magic healing spell.
He felt its effects sooth away the pain in his head.
"A...Teleportation...spell?..."
He said softly, weakly to himself as soon as he could think clearly enough to must the words.
Or so he had thought.
From somewhere off in the darkness, across the...room?
He couldn't quite tell just yet...
A deep and rumbling voice responded to his rhetorical question.
"Yoooouuuu. Booooy. The spitting image of your father..."
It was a voice that he instantly recognized...
A voice that he instantly dreaded.
All at once he knew three very distinct things:
Where he was, why he was there, and who had "summoned" him.
The voice continued.
This time its words dripped with hubris and amusement.
"Ooooooh whatever are the odds!"
Kyric's head began to throb once more and his healing spell was all but undone.
This time the pain was nearly tenfold.
He fell into a deep and all-consuming sleep.
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-Kyric's dream.-
An eight year old Kyric sat perfectly still behind the long, deep-blue curtains of his fathers study.
His little heart beating very nearly out of his bird-like chest as his fathers hard-soled, black boots marched by with great and measured steps.
He loved finding new places to hide from his parents.
He enjoyed startling them as they went about their day by leaping from said hiding places and giving a sudden and loud shout.
His plan was to do very much the same thing today.
He could practically SEE the look on his fathers face already!
The man had in fact been looking for him for the better part of five minutes at this point, and he knew that he would either find him soon enough, or move on to the next room.
Kyric would jump out just as his father would go to move the curtain before him.
His prank would be complete.
But alas, his father did not move to the curtain, choosing instead to close and lock the door of the study with a soft click.
Maybe he was just trying to box him in, the boy though to himself as he stifled his laughter.
Why else would he lock the door?
Kyric's father was perpetually busy.
So busy in fact, that the boy rarely got to see him...
His father was always hard at work either off at Garth Verlore, working late into the night as a Sigil and Runes ES -Educational Scribe- or locked here within the walls of this very study, seemingly doing even more work for the flourishing school in his own time.
Kyric hated it...
Yes, he has his mother... But she was ALWAYS around.
To play with him.
Read to him.
To love and protect and comfort him...
His father though... He was almost the exact opposite of all of those things.
For whatever reason, he just never seemed to have enough time.
So whenever Kyric DID get personal time to spend with the man, he tended to take that time very seriously.
With all of this in mind, the boy terminated the game of hide and seek and stood slowly, still hidden behind the heavy curtain.
He was angry.
Hurt.
Saddened.
Why did he have to work right now? Of all times?
Tears began to well up in his small, round, brown eyes.
HIS time was HIS time!
It wasn't fair!
He was always working...
Kyric balled his tiny hands into a pair of tinier fist.
He would would -here and now- give his father a big piece of his little mind.
He made to pull the curtain aside, but froze in place as his father began to think aloud to who he most likely assumed was just himself.
"Time...there is never enough time in the day."
He huffed as he fell heavily into his padded chair, behind the large Arcadian wood desk.
-Kyric popped his head out from behind the curtain just enough to see what his father was up to.-
With his back to his son, the man opened the drawer to his right and from it he produced several thick and heavy-looking scroll cases.
With another huff, he sprawled them out on the desk before him and picked from them a thinner, long scroll case.
This one was very unlike the others on the desk in every way that Kyric could conceive...
The majority of the thing was a deep and foreboding black.
Blacker still than any black that the boy had ever seen.
It's top and bottom were capped in shimmering gold plates, and similarly shimmering letters covered the black surface, appearing to move and shift even as Kyric looked on in amazement.
His father spoke again as he lifted this scroll case to his face, staring intently at it as he pondered what he was about to do.
"Work, work, work... never enough time for my wife... my child...my hobbies..."
"My first and only child..."
The words were heavy in the child's ears...
They were heavier still on his little heart.
Kyric listened. Drinking in the scene with watery eyes.
"Never enough time...Until now."
The man bowed his head just a bit and closed his eyes.
A single tear rolled down the side of his face.
A tear that Kyric would never see.
His fathers hands trembled as he gripped the protective cap of the scroll case and twisted it ever so slightly.
With a soft hiss and a sudden wave of heat, black, twisting smoke began to flow over the rim of the case.
The man tipped it over, slowly pouring the living smoke onto the desktop before him.
Kyric didn't understand what he was seeing, but it felt wrong.
So very wrong...
The anger and pain and sadness that had been in his chest quickly morphed into a heavy knot of fear and confusion.
He couldn't look away.
The smoke began to spin and swirl on the desk before his father and before the stunned boys very eyes.
It spun and spun and became blacker and darker with each passing second before it finally collapsed in on itself, folding and twisting more until it solidified itself into a simple shape, one that resembled more of a long, single piece of paper that had been torn from a book than an actual scroll.
This "paper" was just as black as the smoke that had birthed it.
Just as black as the case from which it had come.
And like the case, it was almost covered from top to bottom in hauntingly beautiful, golden...letters?
No.
These were different...
Kyric didn't like different.
These were less letter and more shape.
These were what his father had referred to as sigils.
Magical, Aether-infused symbols that -if used correctly- could alter the outcome of nearly any situation -over time- that one could dream up.
More of a "suggestion to the Aether" than a flat-out "call to action" which in turn was what runes tended to be. Sigils worked with time, whereas a rune was far more instantaneous.
Think of an avalanche vs a lightning bolt.
Kyric had never known his father to dabble in the dark side of magic, but he could feel -even in his innocence- that the thing in front of his father was evil...
He was pulled from his thoughts by his fathers voice.
He spoke to the piece of paper directly now, his hands flat against the desk to either side of the thing.
His words full of conviction and authority.
"Come ole dark and devious deity! Keeper of the Door!"
He began, his back straight, his head tilted slightly back.
"Come and do my simple bidding as our pact calls for!
Kyric could feel subtle waves of his fathers Aether flood the room, pulsating as they passed over him.
His little hands and feet tingles and itched as it moved through him.
Such power.
The paper before his father began to vibrate violently before it lifted itself up and off of the desk and held its position just before the mans face.
The sigils began to jump and dance over the page, growing and shifting as they did before coalescing into three orbs of glowing gold.
Two eyes and a mouth appeared where once there had been dozens of sigils.
Kyric had never felt fear on this level.
His little knees shook.
His forehead was moist with droplets of sweat.
His mouth was bone-dry.
The glowing eyes rolled about several times before stopping and focusing on his fathers face.
A deep, cold chuckle dripped from the "mouth" that was the third and final orb.
The voice that followed that chuckle caused young Kyric to piss his little britches.
He prayed silently that the trickling didn't grab the attention of the thing or that of his father.
"Yoooooou wake me human..."
It nearly spat with distain for the boys father.
Obviously displeased by this summons.
"Whaaaat could be ever so important that yooooou would risk my wrath?"
The deities voice boomed around the room.
Kyric's father seemed unphased by the things ominous presence and threatening tone.
He interlaced his fingers on the desk before him and stared intensely into the orbs that served as the deities eyes.
He spoke a single word.
"Time."
The thing from the scroll case laughed aloud this time, the paper shook with its merriment.
"Time is relative oooooh wishful human...relative and valuable...what.."
The man cut the thing off midsentence.
"I know your price..."
Kyric's father continued, progressing the conversation to its next phase.
"Give me just a bit more time, and what you seek will be yours oh daemon mine."
With that the man reached within his breast pocket and produced from it a small glass tube.
This tube appeared to be filled with blood.
Kyric hoped that it was not human...
His father lifted the tube above the paper and slowly swung it from left to right and back again.
The golden orb-eyes followed intently.
The paper spoke again.
This time a bit softer, a bit less demeaning.
"Oooooh Virgins blood... how DO you do it?"
It asked with a knowing and condescending chuckle.
The eyes seemed to glow a bit brighter.
A golden "tongue" appeared from within the "mouth" and made a licking motion over what would have been its lips.
Kyric's father was still and unamused.
The tube stopped its swing.
"How?"
He whispered so low that Kyric could hardly hear.
His fathers head hung a bit lower now.
"Not without shame..."
He answered.
The mouth-orb of the daemon twisted into the equivalent of a cruel smile.
A deal would be struck.
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Thank you all again for your time and loyalty.
I can't believe that I just passed 13.7K views this morning!
And 6.2K Spanish views as well!
You all are amazing...
You have no Idea how much you all mean to me as my valued readers.
I will see you all back here soon enough, there are many locations to cover with World Lore, and much more content to dish out in Origins of the world parts and the likes. I hope you all continue to return and watch the world grow and evolve as time passes.
I will bee you all again soon, yeah?
Until then"
Stay safe.
Stay healthy.
Stay vigilant.
Safe travels my friends.
-Redd.