Kill Yadred… and devour his larvae.
The words echoed in my mind, coiling and twisting like a snake ready to strike. I stared at her, the figure who wore Celia's face but wasn't Celia. Her calm demeanor belied the weight of her request.
"Why should I devour his larvae?" I asked, my voice cutting through the oppressive stillness of the place.
She turned her gaze to the towering palace in the distance. Multicolored lightning cracked across the ashen gray sky, illuminating the landscape in flashes of fleeting clarity. The ground below was a sickly blend of red and black, like congealed blood and charred earth. The palace itself seemed to sneer at the world around it, its jagged spires reaching upward like claws, daring the heavens to strike it down.
She began to speak, her tone carrying the weight of a storyteller unraveling a tale that had been forgotten by time.
"Yadred, Emperor of the Forsaken…" She paused, turning her piercing blue gaze back to me before continuing. "Long before he claimed that title, Yadred was a celebrated prince of the radiant kingdom of Ithelvaire.. a realm famed for its shimmering crystal spires and its people's boundless devotion."
Her voice softened, almost wistful. "He was born as a demigod beneath the rare celestial alignment of the Gotan... where the sun and moon clashed in a beautiful dance of darkness and light... Prophecies foretold his arrival, proclaiming he would either bring eternal prosperity or…" Her lips curled into a smile that was equal parts amused and sinister, "…cataclysmic ruin."
She began to pace around me, her bare feet making no sound against the ground.
"Yadred's brilliance and charisma were unparalleled," she continued, her tone sharpening. "He was beloved by his people, praised for his wisdom and courage. Yet, beneath his noble deeds, there was always… a dark side. Whispers followed him, whispers of doubt, dread, and something darker. For two hundred and fifty-three years, he ruled, his light unshakable... until the war."
Her steps slowed as she spoke, her words tinged with mockery. "A war against the System forced him to make a choice. Desperate to save his crumbling kingdom, Yadred turned to forbidden knowledge. He sought answers in the lost annals of the Nether... a realm where life and death blur and intertwine. There, he found the Forsaken Manuscript, a relic inscribed with ancient curses. It promised ultimate power, but…"
Her voice dropped, the weight of the unspoken hanging in the air like a noose.
"…at an unspeakable cost."
I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised a hand, silencing me with a single gesture.
"Like a fool," she continued, "Yadred invoked the manuscript's power, unshackling the forgotten Void Hands. These beings of the pantheon mocked him, sneering as they 'gifted" or should I say curse him the Eternal Grief.... a curse that planted an accursed seed within his very soul. This seed twisted his body, reshaped his mind, and brought forth a plague of darkness that consumed Ithelvaire. His once-beloved kingdom became a land of darkness, its people transformed into energy bound to his will. Their suffering strengthens his curse, binding them eternally to their emperor."
She stopped pacing and faced the palace, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. "Now, Yadred's mind is fractured under the weight of his guilt and the Eternal Grief's whispers. His despair has become an all-consuming madness, spreading like a disease across this cursed land I call Forsaken Heart. He waits there, in that palace, clinging to the delusion that his destruction might bring peace to this forsaken realm."
Her words hung in the air, heavy and unrelenting. Finally, she turned back to me, her expression unreadable.
"Now do you understand?" she asked, her voice soft but firm. "I want you to kill Yadred and devour his larvae. Is that explanation good enough?"
I didn't answer immediately. My mind churned, weighing her words against the growing unease in my chest. After a moment, I spoke, my voice calm but probing.
"What's the point of devouring his larvae? And how am I supposed to even do that? Won't his curse pass to me?"
She smiled, a slow, deliberate curve of her lips. "It's just like how you devoured your own larvae at the start," she said, her tone light, as if this was a casual conversation. "And no, his curse won't be passed to you. When you devour his larvae, I'll be there to remove the curse."
Her words should have reassured me, but they didn't.
"And the larvae," I pressed. "What's the purpose of devouring it?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stared at me, her eyes boring into mine. For a moment, the air seemed to freeze, the silence stretching so thin it felt like it might snap.
Then, her lips twisted into a cracked smile... an unnatural expression that vanished as quickly as it appeared, as if it had never been there at all.
A chill ran down my spine, but I held her gaze, waiting for her response.