For a thousand years, the Undying Empress ruled the Jeklein Empire. It was said her magical powers were unmatched and that she was truly immortal-nothing could kill her. Once upon a time, she was a kind Empress but millennia on the throne had made her cold and cruel. Dissent was crushed whenever it stirred and the Jeklein borders continued to expand slowly under her patient, methodical guidance. The Empire eventually encompassed most of the continent until it reached the western kingdoms. The Kingdoms fought and feuded incessantly and yet as soon as an outside force threatened them they banded together without hesitation or complaint. Each had its strengths; Narell had its wyvern riders, Carlilis had its spies and agents, Vouran had its strange terrain which they turned against any invaders and finally, Raliec had the Obsidian Guard. They were the greatest order of martial magic casters on the continent, they recruited those of the greatest magical power from the populace into this prestigious group and trained them with ancient secrets.

These powerful kingdoms had spent centuries testing their magics in battle against each other and when the Empress sent her forces the kingdoms drove them back time and time again. The Empress would surely crush them if she ever came in person but it was a great distance from her throne to where the western kingdoms marshalled their forces. There was too much that demanded her attention. More wars in other distant parts of her vast empire that she needed to pay attention to. She had worked hard to ensure her empire needed her on its throne and in doing so had ensured great loyalty. Thus she was tied to her throne because of the needs of her empire and its need of her guiding hand.

But the Undying Empress was patient, she could wait and plan for a hundred years. So she did. She schemed and planned. She sent spies and assassins and told them to spend their lives infiltrating the kingdoms and that she would call on them to complete their missions in time. Decades would pass before the Empress was satisfied with the number of her agents that had infiltrated deep into the four kingdoms and where they had placed themselves. She gave her signal and her agents acted and so began our darkest day, the day of the purge.

She did not try to usurp control of any of the kings or their bureaucracy instead, her agents all on the same day attempted to assassinate and destroy everything and anything that gave them strength. The Obsidian Guard were slain by treachery at a ball thrown in their honour. Knives descended into the sleeping forms of everyone magically powerful enough to be deemed a threat. The wyverns were poisoned as their riders were murdered. Kings died, their heirs slaughtered. It was a night of blood and panic. As people who had been reliable stalwart allies for decades turned on their friends and neighbours. With nearly a hundred years of planning and three decades of infiltration and preparation, it was a masterstroke. Mistrust and suspicion spread to every corner of the western kingdoms. And only days later the news arrived to the kingdoms that the Jeklein were marching west in great numbers, they had come to claim the crippled kingdoms.

But soon they were rumours of a strange individual moving rapidly east towards the invaders. In all the tales it was said she wore a porcelain mask and on her clothes, she bore the insignia of the Obsidian Guard. The purge had missed one. At every town, city and village she visited any remaining agents that had lingered or escaped were found dead by the end of her first night there and by morning she’d be off again heading east. She carried the rage of the people of Raliec with her as well as the fury of everyone slain by treachery in the night of the purge. She held no conversation and moved swiftly and inexorably east. Always east. Stories raced ahead of her, they called her the ‘Obsidian Witch’, talked about her in hushed hopeful tones.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Meanwhile, a force had rallied despite the confusion caused by the kingdoms near collapse. The king of Narell had survived the night of broken trust, though his son had paid a heavy price to save him, and without his Wyverns, he was mostly toothless. But still, he marshalled his forces and moved to help defend Vouran and its maze of twisting valleys. He called anyone who had suffered from the purge to his side and they came in great number. But they were angry citizens who showed up and few soldiers. The Empire held great portions of the world in its sway. They could field vast armies of trained and disciplined troops. The forces King Jour had assembled were vastly outnumbered and outmatched by the advancing Jeklein but they held hope that if they could link up with the Obsidian Witch that they could somehow win. But they underestimated the breadth of her rage, everyone did. She strode past Jour’s forces paying them no mind, she strode straight for the advancing Jeklein army.

She stood alone against them and found the collected might of the Jeklein Empire wanting. She kept walking, heading further east, leaving behind her a vast field of corpses. What manner of spell she had cast or the details of the struggle were lost completely. No warrior, general or messenger had escaped her wrath. Yet still, she walked east, she wiped out the border forts as she crossed into Jeklein lands. She made no effort to hide or evade detection, she brazenly and openly marched swiftly through Jeklein territory slaughtering everything and everyone that tried to stop her. A task force of the greatest mages in the empire was assembled and nearly completely wiped out the moment she laid eyes on them. The greatest and most talented of the Empire fell before they even had time to cast a single spell. They sent dragons after her and she reached out with her magic and tore them from the sky and tossed their giant broken bodies aside like a kid discarding a ragdoll. It was then the Undying Empress began to realise the nature of what she had angered and for the first time in a millennium, she trembled in fear on her mighty throne. The path east the Obsidian Witch was taking, from which she had never deviated, lead directly to the capital, it lead directly to the Empress.

Carried by her rage the Obsidian Witch reached the Jeklein capital. Every scheme and every attempt to slow her down had failed utterly. The Undying Empress had gathered her strongest assets and forces to her. But there was fear in them for the Jeklein had come to know the Obsidian Witch by her actions. She had instilled in them a new almost primal fear. When the battle started and the Undying Empress who had previously been believed to be the most powerful magic user ever to live clashed with the Obsidian Witch the world shook. Windows cracked and shattered back in the western kingdoms half the world away. Magic beyond imaging was cast again and again. When it was done the Obsidian Witch crawled from the ruins of what had only hours before been a great city. Wounded she made her way west. Nothing of the Undying Empress was found, she was gone. In a panic, the remnants of the Empire’s leadership shut its borders and cut all communications.

But as time goes on and it becomes clearer that the Obsidian Witch won and the Empress is gone more and more stories emerge from their borders of a nation on the verge of collapse. But the Western Kingdoms are no different. We have lost so much magical knowledge and talent. Crowns have been left without heirs. The age of grand magic has ended, it has ended with the greatest magical duel in history, but it has ended nonetheless. We are entering an age of empty thrones, an age of regents. Yet I find myself asking where has the Obsidian Witch gone? What has become of her?

-Lord Fredrick Latchkey on the beginning of the age of regents.