Beneath the rubble that was his kingdom of Castle Honestria, Honestria Sheltz, with his long white maine that flowed past his shoulders and his golden eyes that could trick an ember apple to be afraid of its skin, pushed heavy boulders of himself as he wiped fresh blood from his pale forehead. The assault on his kingdom was a byproduct of the cultist activation of the mystification of the Eternal Dark; to the lack of his knowledge, the cultist activation was that of a one and done ordeal—for the chance of its succession was nigh closer to failure than failure is closer to itself.
Honestria rose above the ashes, and was born anew as the mysterious, ultramarine blue liquid around him congealed into the wounds around his legs, closing the blood clots and repairing old clothes. This was the Vast Ultrium Chamber, a lair in an underground cave system that the now one-hundred-five Honestria used as a youth fountain, of which he kept secret from the rest of the world for its corrosive properties. Such properties include mania and a heightened sense of self-importance; delusions of grandeur and all the rest were meant to acquaint the user of the Vast Ultrium Chamber.
Were the days of Honestria’s youth to subside, his skeleton would be bountiful and his kingdom’s one and only ruler could rest gracefully. Notwithstanding the sheer amount of casualties endured through this mass-scale destruction of his kingdom from Cothbrenias’ pervasiveness, Honestria knew that the only safe place of refuge was the place that could restore balance and order to the byproduct of age: maturity. With every visit to the Vast Ultrium Chamber, Honestria heals himself of all mortal illness and transcends mortality itself, living long beyond those he was ever enemies with; and he intended on outliving Cothbrenias so that he could one day seek retribution against every person falsely killed off for no good reason other than the illusion of coincidences that connected Castle Honestria to the Eternal Dark.
Honestria arose from the rubble, walking around the debris that was scattered with royal furniture and other fancy ornaments that had caved in upon the Castle Honestria’s collapse. About the ruckus were a few dozen corpses, all mangled from being squashed by heavy boulders or impaled by the Knights of Cothbrenias. Honestria’s eyes peaked when he swore he could have heard ragged breathing somewhere beneath the rubble. Heading in the direction, Honestria braced himself for whatever the source of the sound may be, even if it was a survivor.
“Can’th thoueth hear’est meh?!” Honestria shouted, his formal tone cracking beneath the pain his body actively endured during periods of regeneration. “Screameth soh that I mayeth locate thee!”
“Here’th!” a disgruntled voice called back from Honestria’s west direction. “Rubble’s gross’ed my feet, crushing them’eth!”
Honestria’s hair whipped past him as he ran over to the direction to see a bloke whose legs were crushed beneath a boulder of at least a thousand pounds. Ignoring the man’s screams of agony, Honestria placed his left palm on the rock’s surface, causing the area around his hand to glow with a particular ultramarine incandescence similar to that of Vast Ultrium Chamber. The boulder immediately shattered into a billion pieces, but the damage had already been done to the man’s legs.
“Thou hath lower limbs no mor’eth!” Honestria said, appalled by the sight of mangled flesh and bones. “I shalt place misery out’eth thee!”
With that, the man winced as Honestria formed a glimmery, sharp, ultramarine scythe from above his head, swinging it down on the man’s abdomen as his eyes closed.
Honestria held his scythe tightly in both hands, causing his fingers to turn a cream yellow as he did so. “Rest’eth beyon’ed—for art thou an eternal’eth somnambulist of heaven’s gate.”
Honestria shouts as he repeatedly slashes the ground with his scythe, panting quickly as he draws close to exhaustion, the anger keeps him going; like a lion whose food got snatched away by another, his very being was permeated with vengeance for his people. He vowed that his previously held vendetta for Cothbrenias would expand.
Bumping his head on a doorway that stood 7 foot five inches, Honestria stormed one of his old rooms for the pantry of food he had stashed in case of a doomsday. This, although not entirely a doomsday, came close to the leanness of Honestria, who was accustomed to near-ending world conflicts; as he was completely immune to the Eternal Dark, the now common illness was made impervious to him thanks to the Vast Ultrium Chamber.
Honestria hears a sound that he least expected to hear: distant horses followed by the creaky wheels of a carriage on fresh cobblestone. Honestria rushed out from the Vast Ultrium Chamber ruins, placing its location to memory in his mind, and climbed up as he hoisted himself above several rocks that allowed for reaching the zenith of destruction. Mounting the ruins that formed a cliffside, Honestria oversaw a single carriage approaching his kingdom in ruins.
It was Luxthforthian and Bernadette, rushing through several passageways of rubble before the carriage stopped with a painful screech of the two horses as they were whipped by their respective operator knights of Cothbrenias.
Upon leaving the carriage, Bernadette looked up and noticed Honestria perched not so far away. “Is that Honestria up there? He didn’t even try to hide from us while he was brooded.”
“Why does every ruler have long hair like mine?” Luxthforthian followed her inquiry with his own as he leapt from his seat and exited the carriage.
“Our Lord…” the first knight said.
“Yes, Brinsole?” Luxthforthian inquired, glancing over his shoulder.
“Be careful. Honestria is a formidable ancient with the power to wield any weapon his twisted heart desires.”
“Wait, you two aren’t going to accompany us?” Bernadette feigned pretend confusion.
“The King ordered us to strictly drop you off here, not prowl around alongside you both,” the second knight scowled.
“He is correct, Our Lady,” Brinsole added, albeit with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “We will be on our way now. Come back in one piece. The two of you will make it out alive.”
With that, the carriage did a full 360, and then began to speed off in the direction it had come from, leaving Luxthforthian and Bernadette stranded in the ruination of Castle Honestria, a hellscape of rocks and corpses that the world still blames for it lack of light thereof.
Bernadette cleared her throat, then shouted in Honestria’s general direction, “Hello, can you hear us!”
Honestria stood there, his ivory hair billowing in the breeze to the right of him. It was a spectacle that they were even able to see him, but from his staggering height and silhouette, the Eternal Dark could not conceal the person that they accuse of being responsible for it.
“What did he say?” Luxthforthian inquired as he reached down and tightened the laces around his leather boots.
Bernadette chuckled nervously. “I don’t know, Lux, but I have a bad feeling about this place.”
“Tell me about it. I can barely see anything compared to when we were at Bastion Cothbrenias.”
Bernadette reached into their satchel, rummaging past the packed food until she found two glowsticks form them, which were five inches each and contained a small firefly inside that would be awoken upon shaking the device, illuminating the distance ahead of them for about 10 feet.
“Be careful, it’s bright,” Bernadette said while she handed Luxthforthian his respective glowstick. “I wish I brought some sort of eyewear to protect myself from the brightness, but at the same time, I’m glad to see some light for once.”
Luxthforthian waved his glowstick in the air, watching the firefly flicker on as it woke up. “What do you think my father meant by me being the last light left?”
Bernadette cackled. “What a poet, ammirite?”
Luxthforthian gave her a serious expression.
“Ah, I believe he meant that you’re the last hope for humanity or something. I mean, what king wouldn’t say that to their own kid that they hope one day continues their legacy?” she answered, waving her glowstick as well.
Honestria made his way down the cliffside, inching every way closer to the duo as their lights inched closer to him. Suddenly, the staggering height of Honestria, who was a five or so inches taller than Cothbrenias, stood before the two of them, holding an ultramarine dagger in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other.
Honestria stared at Luxthforthian, watching as Bernadette cowered behind her best friend. “What business’eth is it’eth of thou and thy alliance?”
Luxthforthian looked up at Honestria as he shined his glow stick light up at him, causing the latter to cover a part of his face from its brightness. “We came here because Cothbrenias told us this would be the way we bring the world back from darkness.”
Honestria’s eyes lit up at the name of the king he just so happened to hate with every fiber of his being, then dropped them back to their apathetic expression upon hearing the actual reason they came.
“Cothbrenias sen’eth thee and thy acquaintance?” Honestria asked, switching his dagger to his scythe in an instance, causing its glimmer to make the urine-color light from glowsticks to become inferior to its ultramarine incandescence. “Suprised, I am not’eth!”
Honestria wacks Luxthforthian’s glowstick out of his hand in one swift motion, the fragile source of light shattering in an instance, causing the firefly to escape before it was yanked out of the air and squashed in Honestria’s palm.
“The dark,” Honestria began, “Is the new world’eth. Any attempts to ri’d the world’eth of this Eternal Dark is meaningless’eth, and you both’eth knoweth that!”
Luxthforthian steps up and smacks Hoenstria’s calves. “Hey! I needed that and you destroyed one of our precious sources of light! Light is so vital to this world, it should not be denied—for it is like food! Food is precious, so let the light follow in its footsteps!”
“Doth father knoweth you weareth his blade?”
Luxforthian looks over his shoulder at Hexarexachrona, seeing its rubies glisten in Bernadette’s glowsticks’s light. “Yes, my father bequeathed this blade to me!”
Honestria analyzed Bernadette as she clutched her glowstick tightly. “Is she’eth thine consort?”
Bernadette cackled. “What? CONSORT!?”
“No!” Luxforthian responded, face flushed.
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“Thou and thy alliance art merely that, an alliance?”
“It’s not your business what we are!” Bernadette shouted, slightly annoyed.
Honestria’s scythe dissipates into thin air, and he clasps his hands in front of his lower abdomen, turning around in the direction he came from.
“Where are you going?” Luxthforthian asked, snatching Bernadette’s glowstick before he turned back to face Honestria as he walked off into the distance slowly. “We still need answers, help!”
Honestria, without turning around, simply responded with a grunty, “I could’eth care’eth less.”
“What!?” Luxthforthian and Bernadette shouted in unison, charging at him as the latter tightened the sack with all their food and equipment around her shoulder.
“Careful subjects, knoweth thy place.”
Honestria sidesteps them both, causing them to trip into a huge underpass and allowing them to hit the floor back first. As the two of them regained their bearings, they looked up and spotted Honestria’s silhouette staring at them, which was a black outline with two golden eyes.
“Knoweth thy places in the abyss as I’eth stare back of thee!” Honestria shouted, gesticulating his arms in the air as he walked backwards out of their view before shouting, “And if’eth thou and thy acquaintance escape, I’eth informeth thee and thy alliance of information vital to thine father!”
“You can easily help us back out with that height!” Luxforthian shouted back in defiance. “Why does everyone nowadays have to be so confrontational!”
Bernadette’s glowstick dimmed as the firefire inside began to die. “No!” she shouted as she held the glowstick close to her chest.
Honestria cackled, his throaty laughing echoing throughout the darkened underpass. “In a world’eth gov’t by the Eternal Dark, light’eth thy nigh only consolent of conformity!”
“Shut up!” Luxthforthian shouted. “If you are as innocent as I believe you to be in all of this, then why not help us!”
Honestria’s laughter ceased as he heard what Luxforthian said. Suddenly, he reached down and scooped Bernadette up before her glowstick light dimmed; he did the same for Luxthforthian.
Now that they were on the same surface, Luxforthian gritted his teeth and raised his fist. “That was not a cool move, Your Highness! Not cool once so ever!”
Bernadette brushed her ebony leather pants off. “Yes, it even ruined my favorite pair of parents Bastion Cothbrenias personally made for me in less than five hours.”
Luxthforthian turned to her. “They made that in your size and measurements in five hours?”
“Well, not exactly,” she said, dusting herself off. “It was more than that, but I like to complain; it’s something that makes me feel like I belong in this darkened world, y’know?”
Luxthforthian nodded and turned to face Honestria, whose demeanor exerted nothing but calmness and tranquility despite his initial action of inadvertently tripping them into an abyssal hole in the ground.
“You both have cracked through the facade that is my kingmanship,” Honestria said in a calm and collected manner, his language entirely changing to match theirs. “Now, I must tell you two of the dangers of your quest to bring the sun over the moon’s head again. It requires sacrifice and ascendency; those two are concepts that Cothbrenias preaches about all the time with his holier-than-thou sessions of concord. However irrelevant, they impose a massive amount of entropy upon the situation that this Eternal Dark presents us with—that situation being who is the rightful one to bring the moon down and return the earth to its former sunshine.”
“I was told by my father that it was I who would be able to do that,” Luxthforthian stated, unsheathing Hexrexachrona from his back as he bent down to hoist it out.
Honestria analyzed the sword in the ultramarine incandescence that surrounded them.
Bernadette notices the glow. “Wait, so you form weapons from your imagination? That’s actually something interesting! That means we live in a world where powers exist! I wonder what mine is!?”
“Silly girl,” Honestria muttered before clearing his voice. “I was cursed by the destruction that is the Vast Ultrium Chamber, a de-aging fountain that restores my youth and cleanses my body of any illness or injuries.”
“What and huh now?” Bernadette questioned, rubbing her shivering arms and glancing at Luxthforthian’s direction.
“The Vast Ultrium Chamber is what restores my age or body from common mortal flaws you two face; from illness to injury, the Chamber has restorative capabilities tenacious enough to repair my aged form. That is why I have befallen the tragedy that is my existence—for I have seen countless come and go throughout my years of expansion. It was Cothbrenias who destroyed all of this for no reason other than to find a scapegoat for his people’s ire.”
“My father…” Luxthforthian said, playing with the words in his mouth. “He is the one who is responsible for all of this misery here, not you.”
Honestria nodded. “Indeed’eth! Thine father’s accolades art responsibl’eth!”
“How does he do that on command?” Bernadette joked. “Okay seriously, that’s messed up for him to kill all your people because he blames you for the way the world is.”
“Cothbrenias was not’eth this wyeth always!” Honestria screamed into the darkened sky above him. “He, like many others before their reign, was once impressionable and young.”
~~~
February 19th, 1445 (35 years earlier)
Cothbrenias woke up from his nap, his short ebony black hair and rosemary-colored acne a hallmark of his introduction into his adolescents. Being sixteen years of age finally, Cothbrenias was now in the lineage of right to rule the throne to Bastion Zoloto. His father, Zoloto Von Clorixiousness, a staggering man of lean and tenacious proportions with ideals of an overzealous philosopher, entered his son’s room, long blond hair swaying from left to right as he bent down to the latter’s bedside.
“‘Tis thy enormous nychthemeron, Child!” Zoloto remarked, a sinister gaze in his teal eyes. “‘Tis the nychthemeron for thy mother’s child’s renewal ceremony!”
Cothbrenias was dragged out of his bed by three Knights of Zoloto, and then was pushed into the hallway, barefoot because he had no time to put his boots or socks on.
“Thy footwear is irrelevant,” Zoloto chuckled, clasping his hands behind his back. “Begin thy walk, thou hath a lot to learn now.”
The seven foot Zoloto turned away, his blond locs swaying back and forth as did the ebony chains around his belt. As his figure grew more distant, Cothbrenias’ expression became more wary of where it was he was being taken by the Knight of Zoloto.
“Where are you taking me,” Cothbrenias asked, tone breathy as he saw them nearing the endless flight of stairs that lead to lower floors. “And why is my father treating me like property?”
A large, burly knight with curly brown hair yawned while he escorted Cothbrenias on his left arm, exchanging looks with the blond knight that supported his escort on the other. “Your father demands that we bring you to the arena for specific reasons that we are unable to disclose at this time. Please understand that this is nothing personal, Our Lord, and that this is strictly an order—an order so vast and meticulous, it might as well be an act of sedition.”
Cothbrenias scoffed arrogantly. “Of what accord do you four have the right to escort I, royalty incarnate, outside into a place designed for combat?”
The blond knight shot a cynical glare at Cothbrenias. “Excuse your personal attention on the matter, Our Lord—they come to be known by others around here as irrelevant,” he said, applying more pressure to his shoulder. “It should be appreciated that upon your birthday you receive the programming needed to birth a king rightful to rule someday.”
“It’s not your opinion to decide whether or not I’m ready to rule someday!” Cothbrenias shouted as he broke free from the grip of the four knights, dashing down the flight of stairs as he heard ragged breathing behind him.
“Code Red!” the curly-haired knight shouts, alerting the knights on the following floors of the situation.
Cothbrenias rushes into the corridors of one of the rooms one floor five, sprinting past three cooks on standby as they gaze at him like they have never seen anything like it.
Cothbrenias inched his way closer and closer to his coordination, an arena, just without his knowledge. Cothbrenias lived a life of luxury up to this point, one where leaving his room was never really an option when servants would deliver him meals and extravagant dancers of either gender would move for him as means of cheap entertainment. Were the days to finally close, Cothbrenias would change from a spoiled boy into an impassive king of staggering proportions. Being already six foot four inches, young Cothbrenias finally reached the doorway to the arena, entering inside to see half-naked male and female warriors armoring themselves in revealing protection and damaging weaponry. They all laughed as they noticed him, then continued preparing themselves for the arena that would commence with the blair of a horn. It was inside Bastion Cothbrenias’ built in Colosseum district that let the higherups or lucky peasants to see brutality in real time.
“Where am I?” Cothbrenias asked, tone youthful as he processed his surroundings. “Who are you people?”
A larger male compared to Cothbrenias strolled past him in leather sandals that showcased his callous toes and toned legs streaked with scars, and then responded with a cackle as a female wearing brass bra pads, chainmail around her legs and warms walked up to Cothbrenias.
“We are warriors,” she said, raising her sword at his throat, the tip inches away from his jugular vein. “From the second we are created by the gods and goddesses, our fate is already sealed; we are the dead ones you have read about in those parchments—for we are born to die.”
“That can’t be your fate,” Cothbrenias retorted, crossing his arms. “Why does my father let you fight for the sake of dying for our people’s entertainment? That’s cruel.”
“It does not matter what it is, boy,” replied the man from earlier. “We were born for this. Your purple prose is unable to lift us from a fate that has been sealed before we were even conceived.”
Cothbrenias’s face contorts, gloved hands clenching at his sides. “I may be young, but I’m not stupid enough to realize this is wrong. But I was sent here by my father to be trained.”
The man and woman glanced at each other before looking at Cothbrenias.
“Zoloto sent you?” the man asked, sheathing his sword at his waist.
“What’s it to him to send you, the prince, here of all places where you may die,” the woman added.
Upon entering the arena, Cothbrenias’ appearance differed greatly from that of the men and women around him. Due to the combat standards imposed by Zoloto, it would have been humiliating for the prince to appear bare-chested like the poor peasant warriors. Instead, he wore a black leather combat coat that ended at his waist, with gilded steel pauldrons resting on each shoulder. His high-collared ebony turtleneck lay beneath the coat, its sleek knitted leather texture adding depth to his attire. His arms were reinforced with gilded steel ridges and circular rivets, which contrasted sharply against the dark red bracers meant for additional protection. His black leather gloves were the standard issue for the Knights of Zoloto, giving Cothbrenias some familiarity in the midst of foreign surroundings. At his belt, a single sword—freshly restored from rust—hung inert from his chocolate-brown utility belt, the Zoloto flag engraved at its center. Cross-straps tightened across his chest to secure his pauldrons and add the visual structure Cothbrenias needed to maintain his dignity before the people. He wore black combat trousers with split-skirt panels at the waist for a sense of unity in design. His medium-length raven-black hair was parted into curtain bangs, with the back trimmed shorter to allow it to grow in layered stages as he progressed through his “indoctrination” and eventually became appointed as King Cothbrenias.
The berserker lady from before feigned shock. “I hope you don’t plan on wearing that out there; it’d be a damn shame to ruin that cool outfit of yours with some blood.”
“I’ll try to be careful,” Cothbrenias responded as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Can’t guarantee I’ll survive long enough to be crowned king.”
The jock from earlier approached Cothbrenias, placing a hand on his shoulder. “That is the entire point of why you find yourself here, child. Your father intends for you to die so he can rule longer.”
The lady scoffed. “That’s the process alright, send your son-soon-to-be-king on a dangerous journey and hope he dies, ensuring you maintain the throne until another boy pops out since the only way a girl becomes queen is if she marries a king.”
Cothbrenias unsheathed his dull sword and swung it in the air he clenched it tightly. “That’s not true, I won’t believe that! You can’t expect me to believe in your warrior nonsense!”
The jock gets up in Cothbrenias’ face. “You think this is a paracosm of fanciful delusion? No child, it’s reality—for everything here is as real as you and I am. The only thing that separates me from you is your status. You will die like me someday; it does not matter whether you are beautiful or repulsive, tall or short, wise or stupid—everyone dies.”
Cothbrenias lowered his sword, slowly sheathing it back into its holster at his utility belt. “Then why compete at all? Doesn’t this seem pointless to you, to risk your lives for cheap entertainment?”
“Not quite,” the girl responded, placing her hands on her hips. “We compete for ascendancy’s sake.”
“Ascendancy’s sake?”
The jock crossed his arms as he walked in loops around the two of them, offering Cothbrenias a wicked smile as he did so. “You lack knowledge of ascendancy? Good. We can engrave it into your mind through grit and rigor.”
“Your father will thank us,” the woman said sinisterly. “You must follow us at once now.”
Cothbrenias bowed, then proceeded to follow the male and female warriors down a darkened underpass that was made up of bricked walls and illuminated by sconces.
“Are you ready to eat mainly down here, child?” the jock teased. “Because that is all that is served down here for people like me and you.”
