"He kept a look ever so kind

As he joined the cold

air of the night, with intense pain,

and ineffable pleasure"

-unknown author.

Prologue

Within the high sphere where the gods reside, two deities stared at each other. One, wrapped in ominous purplish fire, with prolonged horns and metallic scales covering his body, stood opposite the other, a dreadful mass of writhing eyes and bubbling darkness. They were the two demonic spirits that ruled over the monster populace and their various races. In the mortal realm, they were seen as opposites, natural-born enemies, but in reality, they were friends. And now, despite the clashing elements that created thunderous explosive reactions, one said in a calm yet slightly impatient voice "I grow tired of your dallying, Zardoz. It is time to mobilize our subjects and consolidate our position as supreme gods."

Zardoz shifted his myriad eyes aimlessly as if concentrating on countless mysteries simultaneously. "The time is yet to come. Our champion is yet to arise. The others wait for our weakness, their all-encompassing deceit still builds the deadly trap. We must be prudent. We wait."

The heavy clouds of darkness dissipated, revealing parts of their heavenly abode. The endless hallways formed a maze around the room they were in, and the black obsidian pulsed with magma veins, etched with an ever-shifting unknown arcane language.

The great demon shifted uncomfortably. "That's what you said last century and the century before that. How long must we give the advantage to those petty good-for-nothings? Should we just get ahead of events, grab a scythe and a shepard's crook?" The all-seeing entity did not respond, occupied with matters that transcended his less-gifted friend.

Meanwhile, a tiny insect moved forcefully on a chess-like board. The great demon's fire intensified as his patience ran thin, and the heat of the flames, strong enough to melt entire planets, burned the little creatures that moved on the board to a crisp. Although the souls they were playing with were vaporized, the board itself remained unharmed.

The figure stood up, revealing himself in full force. "I'm tired of playing games, Zardoz." The thousand-eyed creature finally paid him attention, shifting all his eyes to focus on him. The demon recoiled for a moment under the pressurizing scrutiny of the eldritch being, but his conviction was ironclad. "I will move my subjects, and if yours are not to move, then I'll take the entire planet with my church alone." Before the Scaled One could remove his presence from the room, the other entity raised his voice. "One more game, dear friend. One more bet." The merciless demon, known by his subjects for his iron-fisted tyrannical rule, relented. "One more game."

...

Within the silent central city, the only palette was shades of gray and black. Where the sun never struck and the winds barely reached, the asphyxiating air was polluted with the rancid odor of the Divine Remnant from the era of Terror, a time when the monstrous and deformed inhabitants of the city reigned supreme and unopposed. A time when the gods, the true gods, Sebastos Kharamator and Sebastos Zardoz, walked the earth. A time when the material's transmutation by their divine presence was seen as a gift and not a "corruption" or a "curse," a time when devotees willingly underwent the transformation that being near the gifts endowed, even if it meant death.

A painting depicting the valorous triumph of a weak, unarmed ghoul against a party of foul human graverobbers decorated the meeting room of the Unholy Palace. The bleeding hands of the half-rotten monster represented his unwavering decisiveness to attack and rip the flesh of his assailants, whose dead bodies were piled under the weak light that entered the cave. The oil-on-canvas marked a perfect pitch black in the surrounding areas, and the dim sunbeam illuminated only the ghoul, screeching his victory, and the face of the deceased humans forever morphed into eternal terror.

One of the many nobles who attended the meeting was contemplating the painting, wondering who the artist might have been. He could use some art in his house. While the mundanes have taken the mind-boggling task of depicting the gifted races like him in a shoddy light of barbarism, the truth is that few things bring finesse to the mind like prolonged life or the knowledge of one's short spanned life. The palace was true to its name, and this was only one of the many decorations, perhaps not even the finest one, depending on one's tastes. There were also statues of former regents, carved in both obsidian and alabaster, carpentry works on ebony narrating different stories of conquest, and even magical devices for a more flashy experience. He wasn't a fan of those, really. They lacked the soul of art, even with the fiery thunderbolts or shifting expressions of the characters. The noble sighed at the evidence of their past glory and walked into the meeting room. Others were waiting, all manner of creatures: dark and toothy shadows with penetrating red eyes, white and velvety mistresses of unfathomable, deceiving beauty, half-rotten corpses that somehow kept losing pieces of themselves but never completely extinguished, creatures of bone armored in marble, mages of literature and artifice. There were even those whose gift had rendered them unable to walk on land and were carried by others in wheelchairs, which even in their less-than-graceful state inflicted terror on those who dared look too much at their abyssal aspect.

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They all sat in a semicircle next to the table, some a bit reluctant to sully the magnificent golden damascening, while waiting for him. He walked in almost late when everyone else had arrived, an old man whose body clung to his supernatural youth but whose time had inflicted wounds much deeper, incurable, and invisible. He shuffled his way to the stone throne, fashioned after mortal remains infested by cosmic horrors, and sat, looking uncomfortable. For such is the condition of a ruler, and Sanguine was no exception.

Within the meeting room, the different creatures met his eyes, some with admiration for a ruler who had managed to establish diplomatic ties between former slaves and slavers, some with resentment at his inability to wield the power of the Tenebris and seize hold of the world. After the royal steward made the introductions, the topic at hand began to be discussed, the topic they all knew was coming since the day the first False God rose his filthy hand against them. War was coming.

"We, of the house of Bone, demand that Warlord Chief Commander of Erebus army, Lord Malcolm, takes a preventive strike on the mundane races! We need to take the war to them!" yelled an exasperated figure whose flesh kept shifting around his humanoid body, making his expression of anger all the more frightening.

The others remained unflinching by the otherworldly beauty of the speaker and kept making hypotheses about how to deal with the subject at hand. "I believe it would be for the best if we simply retreated further into the Underground! Leave the mundane to the mundane! We need not their babbles and trinkets, we need not the annoying burning ball in the sky, and we most definitely need not be butchered and defiled by their savages!" said a man, almost indistinguishable from other men, save that his sharp shark-like multiple rows of hungry teeth showed with every utterance.

The abyssal maid scoffed at the man's cowardliness. "Sure, why don't we just fall to our knees and bow to them? They already forced us into hiding inside a filfty hole; if we're not going to resist, we might as well just accept their supremacy." The other nobles at the meeting, whose faces had not been shocked by the many aspects of the Gift, were dumbstruck at the boldness of the maid. The shock was quickly replaced by anger, and the shark-toothed man pointed a finger at her face and said, "How dare you call this sanctuary a filfty hole! And you even accuse us of fear? We are the fear!"

The man got his finger too close to the maid, and she just bit it off. A spray of blood spilled over the table, and all the members of the meeting started yelling at each other. Sanguine stood up and, with a booming voice, commanded, "SILENCE!" The nobles at the meeting all directed their anger at their king, the warmongers for having seeded fear and weakness in their holy race, and the peacekeepers for his having been too lenient, leading to internal conflict that they had to deal with.

"Silence." He sat back and made a gesture to an attendant to take the injured man out of the room; his gift was not strong enough to return his finger, and this was an excuse as good as any to take him off the room, avoiding further stirring of the moods.

A shape stepped out of the shadows and bowed to the king. His prime advisor and high magus of Erebus city, Lord Rival, spoke. "My lord, I have consulted with the high priest of Zardoz, and after deep pondering, we've realized that an unorthodox usage of The Heart could form an impenetrable barrier around the city that no mundane, false god or otherwise, would be able to cross. Furthermore..."

"HAVE YOU GONE INSANE?!" A booming voice entered the room, belonging to a bipedal lion with a set of horns, dressed in his etiquette armor. "Thanks, Kramathor, that the yellings guided me here before your bifid tongue led us into a cliff! The Heart is our last hope, our last gift. Without it, our race is doomed."

Rival rolled his purpled-irised eyes and shook his head. "Lord Malcolm, it's so good to have you in the meeting. Might I point out that your fears are unfounded? Do you perhaps doubt the Heart possesses enough power to sustain both us and a simple barrier?" He looked at the crowd. "Do you doubt our gods?"

Hushing the whisperings, Lord Malcom spoke again, "I dare not use the last Gift for such a petty endeavor," and, making an encompassing gesture, added, "Are we not enough to deal with the pesky mundanes? So far have we fallen that we need to ask even more favors from our divine patrons? If we need to use our last Gift to keep the mundanes at bay, we deserve to go extinct!"

The crowd grew loud again, but this time it was King Sanguine who spoke. Looking at the pale Rival, he asked, "How certain are you that creating this barrier won't destroy the Heart?"

Lord Malcolm made a step forward and put his hand across his chest. "My lord, you're not seriously considering...?" But Rival's defiant smile put a stop to his advance. "I'm one hundred percent sure that the Heart is strong enough."

One member of the council stood up. "This is madness! The price is too steep!" Another added, "We can deal with them! We can deal with them!" And yet another, "The barrier! Trust Lord Rival, when has the High Magus failed before!"

After over an hour of indecisiveness, the king held his hand before him and stopped the meeting. "I have heard all your opinions, and I'll consider them all. Tomorrow, I'll make my decision, which will be final. Thanks, all. Godspeed, and may the gods enlighten our tomorrow." With that, Sanguine retreated into his royal chambers.

None of the attendees were satisfied, and none trusted Sanguine to make a good decision. The high council looked threateningly at Rival, Rival smirked at Malcom, and he huffed in annoyance at the lower nobles. Too many interests were in play, too many destinies to be decided tomorrow. None were willing to give up that power. None were surprised when the morrow came tainted in the blood of the late King, from whose back protruded a very expensive magical dagger of unknown origins.