Chapter 5: 7 Days of Preparation : Prologue to the Fall

“Why….oh why has this happened….”

The king cried as he touched the bed of his daughter, vague memories of what happened plagued his mind. This was obvious to the eye as was his grief. His sons, Loren and Kalvin stood beside him with the same looks of misery on their faces. They were similar to their father down to unsettling detail yet at the same time were different. Loren Halter Solvanis Astraea had long blonde hair which was hastily tied into a ponytail, his strong green eyes were filled with sadness as he wore his golden armor which had a mixture of blue and red within. Loren sighed as he picked up the flower that had been laid on his sister’s bed, he smelt it and soon within seconds the flower had turned into nothing but ash. His brother wasn’t as calm as Loren he quickly punched the wall in anger, Kalvin Halter Solvanis Astraea had the expression and look of a wild man. He had short ruffled blonde hair, with his mother’s blue eyes he wore a mostly red armor with a great sword located on his back.

“Dammit!DAMN THEM ALL!HOW DARE THEY KIDNAP VESTRA!!FUCK!!”

The king slowly rose up as he had stopped crying with the two quickly sensing something within the king.

“My sons you are the only ones I can trust and give me hope. Prepare the armies, tell the people of the imminent danger but do not mention what has happened inside of this place”

“Yes Father”

“Sure thing Father”

“Tell the priests especially High Priest George to pray continuously for the nation and that we may need the protection of the Lord Almighty Zeumaxis”

“As you wish”

“I will purge the earth of those demons and take their land for myself”

The king spoke with a voice of vengeance and mercilessness.

☆

The floundering cinders of the flame were the last evidence of the great spell that had taken place in the near cyclopean darkness which was only pushed back by the blue lit candles that were stationed ceremoniously within the room, it was a single unified breath of released sighs that kept and bound together the group who had been watching the dying throes of the great flame that had been here once a moment ago. The room was filled with arcane symbols, the ground which the flame had been laid to rest had been covered in a circular magic ring that had occult signs that were related to the dark arts rather than the usual arts of magic. The ordinary man shunned the idea of the occult power of the dark arts, the mysticism was removed by the church as these were abilities and spells of devils and demons who dwelt in the Dark Continent. But people still used these spells, albeit in secret, they knew that the mystics that magic was based off of held great powers. Necromancy, Pyrokinesis, Telekinesis, Apportation, Materialization, Psychometry, Remote Viewing,  Retrocognition, and divination were amongst the abilities that the dark arts had bestowed hence why the church loathed such abilities and spells. They shuddered at the great witchcraft that these people might do, once there was a witch who conquered an entire nation by thought alone and made those who had the greatest of magic and talent stripped of their innate abilities and given to her, she vanished after getting bored and the nation fell after no one could rule the nation as it was devoid of complete rational thought. It devolved into the barbarian tribes that are still in the north today, and it is used as a cautionary tale as to what will happen if a witch acquires too much power. One must hope that such a day would not come, to those of the dark guilds it is a wish that they may reach such stages of power, needlessly to say may have tried and failed to replicate this power to manipulate through thought alone. The only ones succeeding were the ones within the room, through the use of the creation of the magical item whose sole ingredients were the eye of the previous demon king and a magic stone encasing it with several dark smiths to build it into a shape. 

The eye of Balor as they called it was powerful to manipulate the thoughts of the very people and it had fallen into the hands of the current Demon King. The one who would bring about the Age Of Darkness, it was probable that it was destiny that it would fall into his hands hence the collective sighing of the figures inside of the room.

“My husband truly is a fool. He doesn’t realize that the circumstances are different”

“But mother is that not expected of him?”

“It is. I would rather live than die, I did not want to dabble into the dark arts but I am rather forced to in order to survive. It is of utmost importance that we live, we cannot die, we must live even if it means our social status falls.”

“And to think you were the one who refused to let us study the dark arts”

“I wanted a better path for my daughters so they may live happy lives”

“Are the lives that we are living right now not happy?”

“My husband whom used to be a fat pig has been blissfully turned into a young woman using one of the spells that I have learnt, it was easy to say that he died and left behind a heir through mental suggestions that telepathy can incur within the minds of the people.”

“A witch will be a witch mother even if they are royalty”

The descendants of that witch merely vanished into the nobility system, though the witch herself was still alive and well somewhere because of her enduring immortality. Her children were mortal and thus decided to live rich and fulfilling lives all while researching ever deeper into the mystic arts. It was only until recently that the witch’s children had become royalty, of course the King and his sons never knew this, how could they?This was something that mother and daughter would know, the first princess Vestra the first born of Veronika was blessed with demon like intellect. She was blessed by the predisposition of advanced calculation and brain processes, if she were not playing in the role of the cute dumb princess she would be the pioneer of a new sort of system all together and now more than anything else she was aiding the Demon King as a collaboration with the dark guilds. She was set free as were her sisters and mother, respectfully each sister was involved with a different part of the dark guilds. Katya Ekaterina Astraea was involved with the Assassin’s Guild, she had been raised to be a perfect assassin by her aunt Avtonoma Graceling in pure protest of her mother, she had an average face that could be compared to any person and did not have a lasting impression on those who saw her, her hair was dyed black and cut short to lower the costs of maintaining it and disguising purposes, she had the same blue eyes as her mother. Her appearance made it possible for anyone to mistaken her for a commoner making her assignments all the while easier, she could bring out the face of the second princess with some light makeup and adjustments to her face if she wanted to however she chose to stay the way she was because Katya favored the face of the assassin known as the Blackest Night the most. It was her destiny to be within the dark confines of the underworld, in her blood was witch’s blood which would be often snuffed out by the church’s dogs had they known, but she was lucky her mother in some form had married the prince who would become the king. She of course had the aptitude of being a mage but she used such to become a great assassin, with spells that could render her completely invisible, footsteps completely unheard, presence, breath and life force all erased she climbed the ranks and became the guild master of such an organization all while becoming the housewife of a powerful marquis family that allowed women to find happiness in jobs and childcare. 

Where Katya chose not to go Raisa Valeria Astraea went, Raisa the last born and youngest of the three princesses of the Astraea royal family became a witch just like her mother and the ones before her. The occult and mystics most interested her, she was not given off to marriage yet but the process of such happening were underway. Despite her age she had managed to master all magic and was called a genius within her school but she was a researcher of the mystics, where other noble girls would play with their dolls and gossip she would study the death scream effects of the mandragora to replicate it into her own arsenal of spells.  Where other noble girls were interested in boys from their classrooms she would be torturing the slaves in effort to realize how far could a person go being chased in the darkness by beings who could see them like it was daylight, and transplanting monster body parts into humans to see their effects. She wore magical glasses that enhanced her eyesight to see the magical leylines and veins of the land, her violet eyes were transplanted from a person who had the Demon Eyes of Destruction ,a student who had great aptitude for flame magic a person who had planned to use them to gain a high position in the Mage’s guild but ended up having them removed as a result of her foolish actions, of course Raisa was kind hearted to give her a different kind of magic eyes known as the Demon Eyes of Petrification in return for her becoming a subordinate of hers, she also had the white blonde hair of her older sister which hung loose on her shoulders. As such she became the guild master for the dark guild of witches, warlocks and wizards. 

These three were the princesses of the kingdom of Astraea had the people realized their true personalities they would have revolted and burnt them at the stake. One was a sweet princess who loved her people, another was a princess who busied herself for the happiness of the family she had been married into, and finally was the youngest who was a prodigy and often wanted to be like her older sisters. But worse was the mother of the three, Veronika Alina Lana Astraea the Queen. If one was to age Vestra up to her early thirties, made her hair longer, and had her eyes an even colder shade of blue that would easily describe the mother of the royal family. A lady who had connections with all three guilds from the beginning, she was the one who had secured a place of safety for herself and ended up having three very fine daughters who ended up following the paths of darkness she didn’t want them to go, she protested even tried fighting them out of it however the eclipse of the Demon King changed her mind. This was the right course of action, she who was estranged with her daughters began to enjoy their presence, and scoffed at her sons who were about to enter into their deaths.

“Maybe, the eclipse was the sign that I should have never left the darkness.”

“That’s right mother”

“It is as you say”

“I shall make the preparations to talk with Vestra and make sure we too get kidnapped by the Demon King, the knowledge of the witch must live on. It might even aid him”

“Indeed”

The room became empty and silence covered it once more as the blue lit candles all flickered out just as the trio left the room.

☆

The room was filled with smoke and the odor of alcoholic drinks, maps scattered on the desk, people coming in and out of the place with a sense of emergency within their hearts. Sounds of men arguing and debating could be heard within the room and it was deemed natural as this was the war room of the generals and tacticians of the Astraea Kingdom. One of them bearing a high resemblance to Isaac slowly snuffed out the butt of his cigar, he lightly felt his mustache as he began to sink back into the seat he was in, he was the very much alive father of General Salvatore forced to take his position after his son’s foolish act of madness, Abraham Salvatore clearly did not want to participate inside of this war. He was anxious yet the old soldier’s blood within him roared that he should. He left little to no other heirs as they had died in wars with Isaac being the last one remaining from the children he had and now he was all alone. He breathed a sigh as he looked up at the painted ceiling which showed the image of a man trampling a demon under foot and holding a mighty sword into the sky.

“What fools we are”

“Well we are forced to go on the defensive right here. Had we known we could have staged an attack that would allow us to make our forces rush into the Demon Continent but they have our precious princesses and we must seize them back”

“I could have done the same had I known my opponent would take no chance of attacking me. Well then Drake what did you come up with?Have the forces at the forts gather up?”

“What do you think?”

Drake Vincent blew out another puff of smoke that floated into the air, as the servants instantly changed his cup of coffee replacing it with fine whiskey which he downs in a second.

“They’ve only managed to group in the surrounding villagers and took the able bodied men of course. Severely short handed and are unable to muster up a great wall that would serve to create for us more time”

“Precisely”

Drake snortled, he was a rather large man with bulky fat that could be mistaken for weakness inside of the army but these muscles had their purpose. The man called Drake Vincent hid a secret that no one knew but those who did often praised his ideal of maintaining the facade of a fat general. But the lack of hair on his head was a source of many a ridicule such was his fate.

“This Demon King, Alastor as they call him, knows the way our armies work. In a terrifying manner so. He knew it was hard to basically gather up our forces so easily thus he struck whilst the iron was hot!A veritable genius!That or we have a mole who informed him of the ways we do our things, as for the capture of the queen and her daughters that is another thing I worry about”

“As a way to keep us reined in, obviously we could tell our allies to help us however”

“That brings in the trouble that the demons might do unspeakable things to her Majesty and her daughters.”

“Exactly. We must play by the book of this new Demon King who rose two years after the last one got killed.”

“As for the heroes?”

“Scott went back to the Theocracy, and John to the Magic Kingdom. We only have Lucas to save us from the onslaught”

“What do you say the odds are?”

“If we make every man and woman in each city warriors and supply them with weapons we might have a chance, but given the incredible distances that we need to do such I believe it is futile. At most we can just teleport our troops in each city to provide the men with armor and simple weaponry like swords, clubs and spears we cannot give them any more than that”

“What a shame. Let us hope that Lucas will aid us with his knowledge of the demons and push them back to their hell hole”

“Indeed. I might as well sleep just like Edgar over there”

“Leave him alone he has been stressing out the plan of protecting the royal capital with a barrier and has been working for nights on end to ensue that nothing goes wrong”

“Poor chap, this certainly does take a toll on the body”

“Now then, back to areas where they can likely attack”

“Indeed”

These two were amongst the shouting crowd of middle aged men and youngsters who were bickering at each other and silently looked at the map placing chess pieces on where the enemy would strike.

☆

Whispers and rumors started to float about as the people were uncertain about their future, as a dark cloud was now looming over the kingdom. Knights were stationed in each large city with a reasonable amount of weapons and armor, as the men were conscripted into the army by force each would have to fight to protect their cities. As for villages each were experienced soldiers who fought in wars giving them instructions on how to construct weapons with raw materials such as wood, flintstone, bone as well as some degree of guerrilla warfare knowledge, the towns had seasoned guards with fort tactics who equipped each man with the knowledge of how to shoot arrows from the high walls, placing large cauldrons of hot oil or water that would be dropped onto the demons. Of course the adventurers would be recruited where their help was needed but most of them chose to flee the nation because the air was that of a lost country.

The high priest of the church of Zeumaxis within the capital was to give a speech that would bring hope to the people tomorrow, everyone wanted to hear words of assurance they would live through this. They wanted to hear that Zeumaxis had not abandoned this nation and his love was unending. However in the first sign of the morning a scream rose amongst the nuns of the church, then the reason why she screamed was broadcasted by the spell that the high priest was supposed to use to spread his sermon across the nation. There he lay torso split open, his intestines exposed to the already red floor, his eyes gouged out of his head, his priestly robes devoid of any holiness and ripped into shreds but worse was the message he wrote on the altar. It had read “DOOM”. The footsteps of death were slowly beating their way to the kingdom and everyone knew that death and despair awaited them in this war.