70 years before the current day.
The night was nearly pitch-black, obscuring the sight of nearly all living beings of this plane.
The rain fell heavily in punishing waves, blanketing the land and turning the ground under the terrified man's feet into slick, slippery mud.
The winds blew and rolled over the land relentlessly, threatening to tear trees from their roots and bring down all but the best-built homes.
Kyron Blacklore ran for his life amongst this tempestuous chaos.
He ran and ran and ran.
It seemed as if there was never enough space to be made between himself and the monstrous daemon that pursued him...
The infuriated, seething, betrayed daemon who the world knew only as Belirox.
The sorcerer was in a tight place, one that he would surely die in.
The trouble that he had gotten himself into was beyond fixing this time...
No amount of his child's virgin blood could reverse the betrayal he had initiated.
No amount of ill-gained time.
No words of manipulation or bartering or pleading.
Kyron was a dead man walking, and he knew it.
His only goal now was to take the damnable daemon with him.
That was all he could do to...
To TRY to undo some of the evil that he had poured into the world.
He was not a good man.
He was not a kind man.
He was not morally balanced.
Oh, no.
Kyron Blacklore was a combination of all of the things that were the OPPOSITE of those things.
He was a crook.
He was a liar.
He was a swindler.
If his actions did not gain him something, then he simply did not take those actions.
He had masqueraded as a caring father, a loving husband, and a devoted employee for so long that he had started to believe these things, but the unworldly monster that now chased him through the forest and over the plains would most likely say much to the contrary.
Kyron had been trading and dealing with Belirox for just over two years, and in daemon time, that was quite the amount of time to perform any sort of mutual exchange with a lowly human or any other humanoid.
The sad and sorry excuse for a sorcerer had somehow managed to summon the daemon to his plane of existence during a failed portal ritual, and by the skin of his teeth -and some sort of ungodly luck- had managed to form a pact with it as well.
He would give the daemon doses of virgin blood.
His son's blood.
In exchange, he would be given droplets of daemon blood, blood that could and would extend his life by amounts just large enough to counteract the painful and limiting deteriorative bone disease he lived with.
He had bartered with the portal daemon in order to save his own life.
Not for more time to spend with his wife and child.
Not for more time to finish his unfinished projects.
Not for more time to dedicate to anything positive or helpful in any way.
No.
He was a selfish man.
A self-centered man.
He was a Blacklore, and Blacklore's rarely did anything that didn't better them in some way, shape, or form.
Tonight would be the first and only objection to that rule, and hardly that.
Kyron had betrayed the daemon who now hunted him relentlessly, yes, but even that had been a selfish act.
His wife had begun to grow wary of his stories about their child's health, and he would soon be forced to come forward with his real reasons for the constant tests and blood draws that he subjected the small boy to weekly.
That would mean telling her all of his dark and dirty secrets, including the existence of a pact with the daemon known as Belirox...
Including the fact that Kyric was, in fact, not sick at all.
That simply would not suffice.
His one and only chance now to save himself... No, to save the world, was to try his best to either send this monstrosity back from which it came, or do his best to seal it away somewhere where it had little to no chance at escape.
It would not be salvation, no, but maybe a chance at a sliver of redemption.
Belirox could not be allowed to roam Enverdolmal freely; it would mean the end of all things.
So, he ran.
His goal?
Reach the old abandoned mineshaft that none of the locals ever ventured into.
Belmens Grotto.
It was dark and deep and neglected.
It was desolate and unbothered out on the very outskirts of where any of humanity dared roam these days.
Out in the wilds, at the base of the Masakorg mountains that lined the eastern edge of Enverdolmal from Kopstad to just before the border that crossed over into the crater coast.
It was a place where not even wildlife was inspired to go.
Not a creature, beast, nor humanoid.
No Elf and no Dwarf.
It was the perfect place to lock away an old secret that one would rather not have come to light.
It was the perfect place to seal away a bloodthirsty portal daemon who would open as many daemon doors as he could if he got his hands on Kyron's blood or that of his son's...
It was also a lot further away at the moment than he cared for it to be.
If only he could...
Wait.
Something hit him.
Something that he feared trying before, but as the raging daemon closed the distance between them, he grew less opposed to the possible negative outcome.
He would summon a portal.
It was his only hope.
He had just enough Aether to do so, and to force both himself and the destructive creature through...
It would ultimately mean his death, but what other choices did he have?
It was either him or the entire world, and as selfish as he was, it was far from anyone else's fault that he was in this situation, especially his wife and...
And his boy...
His one and only child...
His Kyric...
He ran all the harder.
-----
Belirox chased.
He chased the lone figure before him like a daemon out of Hellz.
The one thing that he happened to be...
Belirox was beyond rage.
Beyond fury.
Beyond any range or emotion.
His vision was cloaked in red.
He tore through the saplings with ease, their thin branches snapping beneath his hulking form.
He racked his long, sharp claws over the fuller, thicker trees that would not give way to his bulk or strength.
He pumped his muscular legs with such force that had the ground not been muddied, it would have cracked and broken beneath the weight of his efforts.
The puny, simple-minded, gutless coward of a human had deceived him!
HIM!
HE, OF ALL DAEMONS!?
Belirox would consume him alive.
No...
He would chew the man's head off and drink every single drop of blood that his pathetic corpse had to offer.
He would have his revenge, even if it meant he was trapped on this miserable plane!
HE WOULD CONSUME THE MAN AND THEN CONSUME EVERY LIVING THING ON THIS SHIT BALL OF A PLANET!
But first, he would have to catch and kill the one man who could stop that from happening.
The one man, no, HUMAN that he had ever ventured to make a deal with.
The one and only human who would ever succeed at betraying him.
Belirox chased.
Alas, he grew bored far quicker than he did amused, and his rage was burning through his adrenaline more than the daemon cared to admit.
He had been trapped in that stupid facking sorcerers' tome for far too long, and it had drained him of a significant portion of his Nether energy.
He would have to kill this pathetic human quickly and before the sun rose, or he would be sucked back into that wretched tome for another half century at least!
He could not, would not have that.
He picked up the pace, closing on the human more and more with each pounding step.
His bulk made his feet sink several inches into the rain-drenched earth, slowing him more than he realized, and the crafty sorcerer had managed to blast half of his left wing off just as he had torn himself free of the bloodied pages of the tome.
Curse him!
"CURSE YOU TO HELLZ!"
The daemon roared into the night before leaping forward.
-----
T.B.C in Shadows and Sorrow. Part 2.5.
-----
Thank you all kindly for your time and energy!
I hope that his random chapter drop finds you all well!
I love and appreciate all of you!
So does the world of Enverdolmal.
We are here for you, okay?
Remember that.
Stay safe.
Stay healthy.
Stay vigilant.
-Bluu.