2022-08-27 06:10
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description
<p>"Wake up, dear. We have things to do."</p> <p>The light was scarce. Dark was everywhere.</p> <p>A man who could not remember his own name opened his eyes for the first time in ages and could see nothing. He was lying on what felt like marble, cold to the touch, and he wondered how long he had lain in near-death? The question bothered him as he stepped off the marble, and one bare foot down onto slippery flagstones.</p> <p>Even as he did, he heard whispers from the edge of the darkness.</p> <p>His sight returned. The air here was musty and ancient and filled with a heaviness, making it difficult to breathe. The man could remember very little, only that he'd fought a dark figure with gleaming red eyes. He had been in a battle, a terrible struggle, he thought. He had not fallen there but instead lingered on for a time. The thought wasn't reassuring, and his feet stumbled as he walked. Consciousness returned, and realization dawned.</p> <p>"I am not dead." His voice spoke the thought, and he realized he did not even recognize it. Had he been dead? Was that why he could not remember anything? He was holding something in a death grip, and he raised it.</p> <p>It was a long black sword, gleaming with a red light, the only reason he could see at all. What concerned him more was that he was shirtless. It was freezing in this place, and he shuddered. He'd have to do something about this. A semblance of memory returned to him. He raised the Black Sword, muttering an incantation of power under his breath. As soon as he spoke the words, the sword burst into a red flame, and his arms and chest felt the heat. The fire illuminated a sizeable round chamber with crimson light.</p> <p>The walls were of black stone, and had many pictures on them. Armies were marching across a river as great battles waged for glory and honor. Friends bled out their life upon the fields and returned in a monstrous new form. All were in elaborate detail upon the walls. There were long journeys, stretching across oceans, and over mountains. He realized that he was looking at a vast number of interconnected stories. Many people in more than one tale, but there was one figure who always appeared. A knight, tall and with long flaxen hair, wielding a black sword and holy magic in defense of the innocent. That knight came to a bitter end, facing a shadowy figure with black claws, wings like a dragon, and glowing blue eyes.</p> <p>He was that knight.</p>
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