“Prunikos, in all her wisdom, created the whole cosmos, and the Void. In the Void there was total freedom, and the stars were created as beautiful sparks to bring joy to her children, the daemons. In those days humans were among the daemons, for they were the brothers and sisters of the daemons, and they knew neither pain nor suffering. They had not been shackled by mortal bodies, for the whole Void was their home.

“Then Saklas, the fool, was born from the Void. Saklas had been born without sight, and with a body made of stone. He felt as if this restricted his freedom, and as such he wanted others to suffer as he did. And so Saklas created Erets, initially with no Firmament. He made it so beautiful that humans, in their curiosity, couldn't help but come down to see it. Once hundreds of humans had come down to Erets Saklas created the Firmament as a means of trapping them. He forced them to live through mortal lives of suffering, in bodies made frail and temporary. He created sickness so that they would know his misery, and separated them from Prunikos.

“But Prunikos' wisdom lives in the hearts of all those who have not truly forsaken her. In that way she exists in this world with us. She whispers her words of kindness and comfort, and guides us all to a better future. It is because she is in our hearts that we are able to bring daemons through the Firmament to help us fight for our freedom. For as long as we live and keep Prunikos in our hearts there will always be hope.”

Elspeth, the Grand Witch of the temple “Cill Dara,” inside the walls of Therion's castle, always held such moving sermons every first of the week. Cory and Boanne were attending her newest sermon, honored that they were allowed to finally hear Elspeth speak the oral traditions of their faith, but furthermore excited because a Vescora was about to take place this day, a ceremony which initiated young people into the faith.

Elspeth was an old woman, with long, white hair and a soft, kind face. She wore sky-blue robes with over-sized sleeves, and the four-pointed star, made of iron, as a necklace. Her voice flowed, as if she were singing rather than speaking, and her bright, green eyes were full of mercy and kindness. She held in her hands a bowl with a lid covering what was inside. Those who had previously attended a Vescora already knew the contents of the bowl, but the three children who soon joined her on the stage in front of the congregation had no idea.

“Thousands of years ago, a lion-headed daemon named 'Allocer' gave to our people the seeds of the kelipot tree. Our people planted the tree in the land of Nihilus, in an age long before it was called Nihilus, and the tree has grown only in our lands ever since.” Eslpeth uncovered the bowl to reveal three small, round, dark blue fruits, with skin like apples but no apparent stems. “The sacred kelipot fruit strengthens the influence of Prunikos in your heart. Come forth, children, and eat the fruit, and you shall be all the wiser for it.”

The three children approached and each picked up a kelipot fruit and sank their teeth into it. The flavor was sweeter and far more delicious than any fruit they'd ever tasted, and the deep purple juice from inside of the fruit ran down their chins as they savored the flavor of the kelipot fruit. Each of them ate the fruit down to the core, where they were startled to find seeds that somewhat resembled very tiny eyes.

“The seeds speak to the fruit's true nature,” Elspeth said, having seen initiates react to the strange seeds many times before. At least this time none of the initiates dropped the fruit. “Now that you have eaten the fruit of the kelipot tree your eyes have been opened, more than ever before. You will understand more than you ever have, and Prunikos will speak to you more clearly from this point forward.”

The crowd in the Cill Dara cheered, roaring their sounds of joy and support for the two new initiates in the faith. Boanne and Cory joined in the applause, happy to see these three young people take such a big step towards growing up.

Elsewhere in the castle, Therion met with his three most trusted generals; Lorna, Meriel, and Qenneth.

Lorna was a master of underhanded arts and sabotage. Under her leadership agents of the crown had infiltrated and uprooted countless bandit gangs and rebel factions throughout the kingdom of Nihilus.

Meriel was great at creating terror and destroying the morale of the enemy army. She understood all the ways to attack enemy soldiers psychologically, and all the ways to cause them to lose their nerve and retreat or surrender quickly. She was known to make banners out of the flesh of her enemies and have her banner bearers wave them about as they charged out in front of her platoons. Her armor was made from the bones of many foes she'd personally slain in battle, even her helmet was made from a man's jawless skull. Her soldiers knew better than to disobey any order, because those who had been insubordinate she either sent on suicide missions or had flayed alive.

Just as terrifying as Meriel was to the enemy armies so Qenneth was encouraging to the soldiers under his charge. Qenneth, when he was young, was one of many soldiers who were sent to put an end to a bandit gang that had been robbing trade caravans. The platoon he was in was ambushed, and it looked like they would surely die, especially when their leader was struck down. Though he was only an infantryman at the time Qenneth took charge, and after a stirring speech convinced the men that they could survive. It was thanks to his leadership that any of them made it out, and that the bandit gang was weakened enough to later be destroyed by another platoon. For this Qenneth was promoted, and he'd earned a reputation time and time again as a great hero, the sort of man who could grasp your hand firmly as his comrade and convince you that you could do anything. Qenneth always led his cavalry charges from the front and encouraged his soldiers to ride out with him, to fight beside him rather than simply for him.

Therion met them in a private room, one far away from the outer walls. It had no windows and only one door, which no servant or guard was permitted to enter under any circumstance. “Glad you all could make it,” Therion began. “Now let us discuss our plans for Arx, starting with you, Lorna.”

“Yes, Sire,” Lorna said, with a bow. “I'm assuming that you are familiar with the breed of daemon called a 'seeker?'”

“Indeed.”

“The seeker's most important ability is turning humans into its thralls. When made into a thrall a human loses all free will and is under the seeker's total control. I propose two plans involving seekers, and for the first of these I will need your approval, your Majesty. The first part will be making use of those men and women condemned to life imprisonment. All those murderers, thieves, smugglers, and heretics who have broken the law and as such lost their rights to live. I suggest that rather than letting them rot in prison or executing them we make use of them by allowing Seekers to turn them into thralls, making them into unwilling platoons. Every army needs its expendable soldiers, ones to make the initial infantry charge, and to occupy the archers on the tops of battlements, these criminals can be ours. Granted, the warlocks or witches who summon the seekers will have to keep them here perpetually for this to work, and said warlocks and witches will be totally exhausted, but we'll watch over them in our own soil, and have attendants take care of them.”

Therion smiled at this idea, “Brilliant! Put their worthless lives to use! Yes, you have our permission to carry out this project.”

“Thank you, Sire,” Lorna continued. “I already have warlocks behind enemy lines in various small villages, and even infiltrating castles in Arx. They will conjure up Seekers and other daemons when they feel the time is right and start conquering Arx's countryside, one village at a time. Undoubtedly this will not be enough to destroy Arx, but with all the resources the young Arxian king will be forced to use up, and with all the people who will likely be accused of black magic and executed, his forces will be weak enough for Meriel and Qenneth to invade.”

“Very clever, Lorna. This pleases us, but we would ask more of you.”

“Yes, sire?”

Therion shifted his weight a little, to lean on his other leg. “Recently a soothsayer has been brought to our attention. According to her Arx's greatest threat lies within, so we want your spy network to pursue multiple possible avenues in this vein. The current Chancellor must, first of all, be assassinated. Our spies have tried to buy him off before, to no avail, but I believe the next one elected can be bribed, especially if the bribe is mixed with threat. If we can get one member of the Council in our pocket we can work on deposing the King. If the King is deposed then his cousins will likely fight over the throne of Arx, resulting in a civil war that will weaken them even further.”

“It would take a lot for the Arch-Bishop or Grand Duke to lose favor with this King. He is a paladin, making him both part of the army and part of the church.”

“How right you are. Which is why we will need your spies to find out whatever they can about the King, any little thing that they can expose about him that may earn him the distrust of one of the other two Council members. If there is nothing then tell them to make up lies, but ones that are believable given the King's behavior.”

“I'll send the word, Sire,” Lorna said.

“Good. Now, Meriel, what do you have planned for our enemies in Arx?” Therion asked.

“The March of Muri is the most obvious first target in the invasion. Since it is on our border, there's no avoiding it if we want to conquer Arx. The last general to attempt to take the March of Muri went straight for the Marquis' castle. He believed that striking at the head would be the best option. He soon found that this was a terrible idea when his forces were utterly destroyed before they could even breach the walls.” Meriel shook her head, remembering when she learned of this history as a young girl. “It would take a great force to capture the castle of Muri, which we have, but it would leave us too weak to take the rest of Arx. The better plan would be to capture the surrounding farmland, begin taking their crops, burning the fields, and slaughtering the peasants. This will lead to one of two outcomes; either the current Marquise will have to come out and meet us in the open field, or we'll starve out those in the castle. If they elect the latter, we can wear down their morale by using trebuchet to launch the bodies of those we've butchered into their castle each day. We could potentially set up the trebuchet, launch the bodies, and then leave the field before they have any chance for a major retaliation.” Trebuchet were a new form of catapult, capable of launching boulders or other missiles over a much greater distance than regular catapults. “Once we have Muri the rest of Arx will be struck with terror that their first line of defense, the strongest line, save for the capital, has fallen.”

“Excellent,” Therion said. “Now, Qenneth, how do you hope to lead our soldiers to victory?”

Qenneth had been so horrified by Meriel's account of what she planned to do to the people of Muri that for a moment he didn't even realize that King Therion had spoken to him. Once the shock had worn off he regained his confidence and said, “First of all, your Majesty, I was hoping for your cooperation in making my soldiers believe that your new soothsayer has foreseen their victories.”

“What if she has foreseen no such thing?” Therion asked.

“That doesn't matter. I find that more often than not if an army believes it will be victorious, with no doubt in their hearts, they will be. We can use this soothsayer's reputation to give them the confidence they need.”

“If you wish to lie to your soldiers then by all means, but if you tell them something was predicted and then it doesn't come to pass you'd better be ready to explain to them what happened.”

“I'll come up with something,” Qenneth said. “Furthermore, Sire, I would like your permission to embark on a sacred quest.”

“What do you seek?”

“Thousands of years ago Sulaiman, a king of Nihilus, created a ring that functioned much like a Blackstar Talisman; Sulaiman's Seal. It's said that this ring could summon Malkira, a lord of daemons, and the legions at his command. With Malkira's support we could easily win this war while suffering minimal casualties.”

Therion laughed. “Sulaiman's Ring? Wasn't the castle King Sulaiman ruled from lost during the Deluge?” The Deluge was a flood that had happened shortly after Sulaiman's reign. Mountains in the far east had seen countless cold winters, and had been packed with many layers of snow. Then one of the mountains, apparently a dormant volcano, erupted. The heat melted the snow, bringing mud and ashy water cascading down over Sulaiman's castle. According to the stories this was an act of the Agalmites' God, a blow against the righteous king who was a threat to his power.

“That's true, your Majesty, but I have heard reports from explorers and archaeologists who have ventured into those marshes. They say they've seen the tops of the spires of his castle jutting out from the murky waters. More importantly they claim to have seen angels there.”

“Angels?” Therion turned pale just at the thought of angels being in Nihilus.

“Yes. So I must ask, what are these angels guarding if not something important, perhaps something that's a threat to their power? Attacking with a full battalion would likely just lead to a bloodbath, but taking a small contingent of soldiers and warlocks with me I might be able to sneak in and find the ring.”

“Even if the ring is not there these rumors of angels in Nihilus are worth checking out,” Therion said. “Very well, you have our permission to pursue this quest.”

“Thank you, Sire. I would like to request one more thing from you, then.”

“So demanding today. What do you want?”

“I've heard of Cory, a young warlock currently living in this castle who has a very powerful Familiar, Ormond. I want to take Cory along on this journey. Having such a powerful Familiar at our disposal would make the quest much easier I think.”

“Very well, we grant you permission to take Cory along. We certainly have little use of him here, it is usually Boanne who is the most help translating the soothsayer.” Therion turned his attention again to the whole group of them. “You all have your assignments now, we expect you to make it happen. The soothsayer's visions have foretold that we are on the edge of change, get to it.”