“The Neon Demon --” Guiro explained as Thomas kept running into the dark “was a warrior of old, before the Nine became the Four, divided. He was one of the elemental warriors, once whole and now ever-shattered if not incorporated into the whole of the four then the eight then the four into two. He was sent to another world -- whisked away as payment. Payment for the deeds of the Four that became Eight that became Four, divided. Supposedly he was the greatest of warriors, though I find it a strange hiccup that in none of our history was he mentioned.” Guiro shook his head while Thomas found himself above a cavernous river running steadily below. He sidled up to the hair thing ledge and pressed himself there, still hearing an approaching horde that he had no wish to engage. Guiro continued.
“The matter of the Gods is, shall we say, a controversial thing -- even before the great sacrifice. We did little our whole lives, as exiles of the world, to pray to them -- but my father was quite clear why. They had abandoned not only us, but those they proclaimed to protect. They had left those who had claimed to serve them. Again, I must confess a bit of ignorance in regards to this, only oral tradition and one of an old man at that. And even then I cannot bring myself to hate them fully, for this is a story of trickery”
“What is the story?” Thomas asked, shimmying his way to a dip in the cliffside path and dropping onto another.
“You’ll want to walk by the river, it will lead you out to one of the edges of the island and from there we may leave this place. But -- ah yes -- the story. It was long ago, we are a long lived species and it all happened when my father was very young himself. It was told to him from my grandfather, a sage that I had never met. Plague got him, though my father never truly conveyed belief in that statement.
“Once, the world was a place of worked stone, a place of bricks and buildings in a place where creatures of the living element shaped a home for their King -- Goridan. Goridan was a tyrant, excusing his actions as a matter of course to rule over the nameless and mindless creatures of the four elements.” began Guiro. Thomas decided to try to ‘launch’ his arm at the other wall, but couldn’t quite get it to work. Disappointed he stifled a sigh and made his way down the hard way. It smelled of old pine tree. The sound of rushing water played as background to the tale of Guiro.
“But Goridan was a tyrant in full, whipping the creatures of the earth and the ephemeral flame to do battle for each for his entertainment. They became as volcanos and Goridan laughed. He bid the wind and the water to engage in war with each other. They became as storms, hurricanes and lightning strikes, and Goridan laughed. He bid earth and wind to do battle and made great deserts. Goridan did not laugh as much at that. And Goridan bid earth and water to do battle and they made a graveyard of swamp -- and at that Goridan smoldered with annoyance.
“So Goridan took his most trusted soldier, given only one task so far, and raised it above his head. ‘Ephemeral Fire!’ commanded Goridan, ‘You who forges the clay of my great palace, and smelts the metal of your stupid older brother! I command you to smite these, your brothers and sisters! In my name strike them down and you shall be all there is in this world, for your brothers and sisters make trivial things that do not do me service!’ and fire obliged. He struck at his brother earth and made the badlands, cracked and molten. He struck at his sister air and wildfires burnt away the rest of brother earth. Yet when he came upon water she could not be struck so -- and she convinced him of Goridan’s wicked ways.
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“So it was that water and fire rebirthed wind and earth -- resuscitating their siblings back to glorious life and doing so with intent and purpose. They went to Goridan and struck him from his seat of power, taking the throne -- but Goridan was a vengeful awful creature and struck them all in half. This was the making of the original eight gods, with the ninth a cast out Goridan.”
“Okay -- I don’t really see how this relates to you summoning me.” Thomas said, hanging off a ledge and letting himself fall to the next. He had made it close to the end of this leg of the journey, only needing to shimmy a bit further to make it to the river and then finally out of these caves.
“I’m getting there. Also, look out -- I’m sure that the beasts will grow tired even with the prodding of the warden, but I’m not quite sure.” instructed the ghost -- looking up at the top edges of the cavern that he had climbed down. The river was close now, small shrubs and ‘greenery’ -- though Thomas couldn’t currently see in color -- jutted out in odd grown angles as they reached their way towards the oft-distant gray light at the end of the tunnel; a pinprick of the stuff. Thomas shuffled further along the wall’s edge, and soon found himself able to drop down into too-cool water that made him shiver even through the porcelain skin his body was clad in.
“Goridan was angry, even with the sundering of the elements into their parts he plotted revenge from the void; where even the twinkle of stars wouldn’t shine. His fury was such that the dark shook with his rage and all shadows quaked for what had become their master. So, through unknown means, Goridan brought monsters to the world. He reached his hands through the shadows themselves and ripped open the whole of the world that had become under the domain of the Eight.” Guiro kept looking at the edge where the beasts were to arrive, and Thomas could hear them in their fury bounding through the tunnels with breakneck precision -- that was to say none at all.
“He summoned the first demons here, and the eight grew worried. So they abandoned their place in the middle of the world -- where Goridan once ruled -- to cast out the demons and left their original peoples there.
“From there it is a story of despair for my people, but one of deals for the gods. The eight became two of four and found themselves convinced of the other four’s collusion with the demons, for the demons whispered secrets in their ears.
“I do not know much from there, I only know that they have fought every two hundred and fifty years to destroy each other and cast out the demons. But I do know this, they have kept demons in their courts, demons in their lands, and demons in their hearts. Goridan still lives, king no longer of the elements but a tyrant of the shadows and demons themselves. And that his generals, his right and left hand, his twin eyes are in the north and the south. That is why we called you here, with our last breath and our lifeblood. To strike at the heart and lungs of Goridan and finally defeat him, to make it so that this world knows of our people not as the slaves of the darkness that wrought the world once, but to be the servants of the eight even when they are led astray by the very demons they purport to fight.
“And, of course, to rid your own world of the Neon Demon -- of the sacrifice that I suspect Goridan made to be able to interfere with the summoning of the [Hero]es of the world.”