"......in my opinion the monsters and magical creatures that roam our world are not major threats to mankind, although they cause massive loss of lives when they appear I believe that they are simply acting as is their nature, their minds are simple hence they mean us no grudge but act as their instinct instruct, if we were to take and tame them as we do other animals their threat may vanish.

What then? you may ask, what is the real threat to mankind? I believe our threat to lie in the hands of what some regard as mystic. Demons.

Many of the people believe the words of the Cult of that man executed decades ago to be Pathos, and while I believe these 'Ascenders' as they call themselves to be slightly lost in thought or deep in drink, I am forced but to share a singular point of belief with them, belief of the existence of demons.

I may not be able to prove my sentiments at the moment, but I have seen it in my visions and I urge us to be wary against this enemy to all sentient life, and prepare thusly for the war that is bound to come."

- Former Prince Gregory Avos, Former Seer, Former Knight of the Kingdom, Former Heir to the Avosian Empire in his Weekly Scrying report to the King

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"It is common knowledge amongst the nobility that there exists only Five races and Five Kingdoms, as told by common Housewives to their children in stories, The Goblin Tribe, The Elven Spirits, The Dwarven Huntsmen, The Brenkan Smiths, and us, Mankind.

It is also well known that until a decade ago we were at constant war with each other over matters so far back we have forgotten, my brother himself led the charge in several battles against each one of these races allowing mankind the room it needed to grow.

Had it not been circumstances which forced us to unite against the Greater Dragon Asalvok, I fear we may have still been at war today.

My brother is a hero. Though at peace now, we once warred and would have killed off the other races to the last child just to secure our interest, but now we have come to understand that although not of the same race we can come to care for each other.

My brother however has seen far too much war

I believe that years of constant war has warped his mind so much so that he has begun to crave an enemy where there is non, thankfully it has not gone so far that he is unable to distinguish friend or foe but his talk of 'Demons'. The housewives who tell the tales know better than to believe it themselves but he has begun to sing of them up every street and down every alley, the drunks of the city are well acquainted with him as they now share a hobby, his servants tell tales of him talking to walls and paintings when alone, they also report that his temper has taken a violent turn

Reports say he has a room in his estate where he refuses to let anyone into, but when the servants were asked in the name of the King they confessed that he often goes there after which they hear shouting coming from within, they have learned not to wander too close to the place to protect their lives so they cannot distinguish his words but just this should be enough to show my brother's fragile state

I love my brother and this Empire, my brother's mind was lost at war, I pray father that you do the wise thing and not let the broken reflection of what my brother tarnish the image of what he once was any longer"

- Former Second Prince Jinathan Avos, Now Heir to the Avosian Empire in his private letter to his father, the King.

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"We NEED Help, I can't explain it, some of the men simply went mad when they saw the red smoke, we believe its some signal of sorts, they dragged off several of the men who later came back fighting and laughing alongside them, No matter how much damage we do they heal quickly, they also have some sort of mind magic, most of my men went mad before they even touched them, I felt something creeping in my head so I fortified my barrier, send help if you can, but if you don't hear from us again in an hour then don't bother to waste your men, We're already dead."

-General Octavious Joad shortly before the disappearance of him and his men from the Northern Frontier Watchtowers

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"If I were to tell the truth, I do not understand what we did. As I stand before you my mind is far clearer than it has been for years, and in this clarity I realise that the zeal and fervor with which we pursued the casting of this spell was beyond anything we have ever felt. I was conscious of the going on's yet felt removed from them, like it was a dream and I its spectator, now I realise that although our actions seemed prudent at the time and though we may have justified it but we may not have actually chosen as we thought and we may have just made the greatest mistake in centuries"

- Arch-Mage Tolfider, after he and the other adepts cast the Dream sleep on the World to the East, and in their words 'Awoke from the dream'

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Ishtar has been following me around ever since that day, she takes my hand and guides me from bumping into everything as i'm still blind and she treats me as one would a father or grandfather, at first it felt awkward but now i'm beginning to see her as sort of a daughter too. Vali still isn't speaking to me, and Alexander is still always constantly busy, I've found a hobby in manipulating the energy in the air but unlike the one inside me it seems resistant to my manipulation and doesn't seem to be able to form just anything, its like a willful child, curious when you try something new, but easily distracted and bored of whatever you're doing

The blindness is either progressing or getting worse, I sometimes lose even the energy vision I have been making do with, and occasionally I can see slightly, its blurry and just at the point where I can barely see my hand in front of my face, but those moments are few and inbetween, I cant just fix the problem because the external energy doesn't react to my imagination the way the internal one does

I found out that Ishtar is uneducated, not that I can do much for her seeing as I cant read and seeing as i'm blind as well, she seems to be very intelligent and crafty street smart too, ive lost count of the number of pickpockets who tried to steal from us that she's given advice to. I was curious about her past and she told me, her father was a farmer who drank away all the coins they had, sold all the crops they harvested to get more drink and when they couldn't afford it anymore, sold the farm, she was an only child which reduced the burden on her mother as they had to survive without his help, then one day her mother collapsed from working too hard and malnutrition so she had to increase the income she made to pay off her father's drinking debts which were piling, she had met the guy I saved her from, he gave her gold which he claimed were a gift to pay the debts then he had her sell him things she heard in the city, then he taught her how to pick pockets, and soon she was working for him, her mother died soon after and he promised to take care of her, right until he tried to sell her, she had escaped and had been surviving since then

Ishtar and I have been wandering the Town in the last few days, it seems I underestimated the size of this Town, Ishtar claims to have lived here all her life and she says that the buildings I saw after entering the gate are simply small stores in the town not the entire town itself, that further in there is a Forest within the fences of the town, there are Large Estates where the nobility live amongst other things, she also told me that the inn we were staying at wasn't for nobles as I thought, it was too cheap and uncomfortable for, in her words, "their powdered arses"

I've found that although the energy made me slightly stronger I wasn't as monstrous as Vali and Alexander in fact one could call me feeble as evidenced from the pain in my back right now, I sat down and asked Ishtar to let me take a rest to which she affirmed and went elsewhere in the park to rob people I presume

As I leaned on the tree to rest, hoping that I could recover my vision and energy to stop me from being so weak I noticed the energy around me vibrating ever so slightly, I watched as a crevice opened in the ground allowing shadows to crawl out, I saw the other people around me not reacting even when the shadows pounced on them, the crevice seemed to be struggling to stay open though and after a few seconds it closed dragging most of the shadows back into its depths, but as I looked around I saw some of the people who had been pounced upon and within them I saw something new

Darkness.

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Authors Note: Sorry for the low quality of the chapter, I was in a hurry cause I need to be in an office meeting soon, I still don't have a viable internet connection and I was moved to a desk right beside my supervisor, I also don't have any more music to write with, and I'm pretending to be working on an office document as I type but cant afford to do so long enough to have someone read it which explains the length