Legends of Kalvskar: The colapse of an ancient empire

[Empire of Kalvskar]

Long time ago, far from this barren land, there was a mighty empire so powerful that no foreign power dared to attack. Security issues had been efficiently relied on a mesh of feudal lords who recieved tithes for keeping their feuds safe, so people inside could dedicate to less mundane matters, like worship, magic or art. Very few could really call themselves farmers, as the elves had provided a smart way to grow crops by singing beautiful songs.

The marble walls of the Imperial Palace had been built by the skillful hands of the dwarves, as well as the city walls, but the former had been imbued protective spells on by the wisest magicians who dwelled in the High Tower of Control, next to the palace, from where they drew the most powerful magic, amplified by the height they cast their spells from.

Twice as tall as their tower, the Griphon Base Mountain stood as a solid symbol of the indestructibility of Kalvskar. It was not really a mountain (its top was flat) but it had always called the Griphon Base Mountain and the people would not change that. Always covered with griphon raiders doing flight practises over it, it was a warning for any army that might wish to siege the city; whoever attacked the white walls would see a swarm of flying war beasts falling on him.

All in all, though, that was not very usual. The typical sight from the mountain was an endless garden of fruit trees, berries, herbs and anything you can get from a fertile soil; a few disperse mines, from where dwarves extracted the minerals they would use in their gorgeous architecture; and merchant carts full of rare items from distant lands, pulled by horses that had seen their work lightened since the invention of the wheels of lightness, which could carry heavy loads with less effort.

[Empire of Kalvskar]

But beyond the limits of the human sight, no yonder than the elven one, the wise commandments of the Emperor didnot reach the ambitious hearts of the land lords, who became greedier and greedier, and they ended up engaged in war with each other. Once they devastated their own lands with their battles, it was a matter of time that they put their eyes on the Imperial Palace. Factions formed and conspired against he central power; spies and counterspies spread the plans of the many factions, to the point that they unintendedly agreed on a strike day.

However, not every feudal lord supported the crime they were planning to do. In a small feud lived and old noble man called Loram who fairly ran his lands, praising the ancestors of the Emperor for giving them to him, and defended them with a small militia, which included the only son his wife had born, Byte.

One day, after a hard discussion with the other feudal lords, he called his heir appart. "Byte", he gasped, "The empire is in a great danger. The feudal lords will soon strike the Imperial Palace and fight for the crown. Whoever win this battle, will rule the entire Kalvskar".

Byte stared at his father, unable to believe his words, "But...the ancestors are the ones who gave us all that we have", he said, recalling what his father had told him so many times, "We cannot steal his throne, we owe him loyalty".

The old man smiled and replied "We shall not betray our Emperor. We shall warn him about the conspirancy and defend him; with our lives, if necessary".

Byte clasped his hands and turned back. "I will call the army", he said as he headed to the door, "All our men will defend the palace".

"No", the land lord uttered, "Moving the army would delay you. Take my horse, the one with the ironshoe of lightness, and ride to the Imperial Palace. Seek audience with the Emperor. Tell him that he day has come...", his voice faded.

"Father?", Byte turned around just to see his father lying on the ground, his skin getting greener and greener, the evidence that he had been poisoned with goblin spit, a herb that only grew within the borders of his feud. Betrayed by his own men.

"Mother!", he cried, looking to a window, which turned opaque and showed the image of his mother, who was still in the meeting, "Father has been poisoned, we are in danger, see you in the Imperial Palace".

His mother, Elysa, dropped the spoon she was holding in her hands. Nobody in the meeting heard Byte's words, of course, because only Elysa was wearing the magic pendant with the telepathic link to the window, but the people around her turned at the clink of the spoon.

"Are you all right?", somebody asked her.

Repressing the impulse to break in tears, Elysa mumbled "Yes, I'm fine. I only need to go to the go out to deal with that spot on my dress...". She got out of the room, fell on her knees, and vigorously vomited all her dinner.

Meanwhile, Byte had turned the window off and walked downstairs to the stables.

Fidelitas, his father's white horse was asleep, as the other daily animals in the feudal castle. "Fidelitas, awake", Byte hissed, "Come on, good fellow, we have a long journey..."

Fidelitas blinked twice before recognizing Loram's son and lazily stood up. Filling a bucket with the drinking trough, Byte mounted on and emptied it on its face as he screamed "Wake up, there's no tiem to waste!".

The horse felt so startled at the unexpected shower that it forgot to complain and just quickly rode along the way to the Imperial Palace.

[Empire of Kalvskar]

The Emperor was sat on his throne, watching a show the jester had prepared for him with a grim face that showed boredom or depression, you could not tell. The noblemen around him, though, were enjoying the play and, from time to time, they filled the room with their laughs.

None of them payed attention to the guard, who crossed the doors in and approached to the monarch. "Your Imperial Majesty...", he said, interrupting the entertainment. The ruler lazily tured his head to the guard, ignoring the complains of the actors, who were staring at the intruder with anger.

"What matter is so important to disturb the Emperor in his spare time?", he asked.

The guard aimed down in hesitation. He had just realized that he had not knelt down, and he did not know whether he was expected to do so or not; after all, he was a guard, not a visitor; but it was his first day on duty and he was not very sure about that.

"Your Imperial Majesty", he continued, "There is a man, who claims to be the son of a feudal lord, seeking audience. He had said that the day has come, whatever that means."

The Emperor raised his eyebrows and dismissed the actors and the noblemen with a gesture of his hand. "Let's hear what he has to say".

A minute after the people left the throne room, a man in elegant clothes who had disappointingly been dirtied with mud from the roads crossed the doors in. The man walked to the throne and knelt before it.

"Raise, Byte", the monarch said, "You have noticeably grown up since last time I saw you, when you were only one. There is no doubt that your father can be proud of you; you have inherited his noble port and the determination in his eyes."

Byte stood up and widely opened his eyes in surprise. "You know my father?", he asked, momentarily forgetting to use the majestic title.

"Indeed", replied the Emperor in a wide smile, "If there is a trustworthy man among the feudal lords, this is your father", he stated.

Struck by the memories of his father's death, Byte tightened his teeth and swallowed. "He is no longer among us, Your Imperial Majesty, he was poisoned".

The monarch nodded, as if he was not very surprised by the news. "Have all my sympathies, Lord Byte". He intently looked at the man, as though trying to guess if he had realized the fact.

"With all my respect, there are more important issues than my nobiliary title", Byte replied, showing a bit of impatience, "The feudal lords, all but my father, are going to attack the Imperial Palace soon. We must prepare to defend it quickly or we will have nothing to defend".

Once again, the ruler showed no surprise. "So the day has finally come...", he commented, "Your father, may he rest in peace, already warned me that it would happen, before or after... so you are right: we must prepare".

The emperor touched a rune in an arm of the throne and a translucid image of a man in an armour appeared between both men. "General, prepare the troops for an inminent siege", he commanded.

"At your command", replied the image of the general. Pressing the rune again to release the connection, the ruler put a hand on Byte's shoulder. "The lands of a feud can be inherited as well as the title of lord", he said, "But the honor to defend the Imperial Crown as a Paladin if a gift from the Emperor. Kneel down, Lord Byte". The ruler put his hand now on Byte's forehead.

Byte knelt as told and attently listened to the words that the Emperor pronounced. "Hereby, I, Emperor Deja III of Kalvskar, name you paladin of the Empire of Kalvskar. Rise Sir Byte of Kalvskar".

[Empire of Kalvskar]

The siege came three days later. Different feudal factions had chosen different cardinal points to attack from, as though there was a tacital pact not to attack each other before the Imperial Palace had fallen.

But it was not so easy as depicted in their plans. The first day after the official announcements (just a matter of protocol), the feudal armies recieved showers of heavy stones dropped by the imperial griphons as reply. Those rocks were used by the sieging armies as munition for their catapults, but it took one week to demolish the city walls.

During that week, a small resistance mustered by Lady Elysa performed small guerrilla attacks on the feudal reinforcements, preventing the evil forces to replace the casualities, and led the peaceful people of Kalvskar to a refuge a few miles from the capital.

Within the Palace, the people were restless, specially the soldiers in the garrison. Sir Byte, who had joined them in training, had been given the white armour that palladins used to wear, blessed with the most powerful defensive spells. However, even those spells could do nothing against the plages of rats and spiders, which some people blamed on the feudal lords, since these plages came two days after the war declaration. Rumours that the feudal lords had necromancers in their ranks spread among the population.

Finally, the walls fell and the evil forces broke in. Gallons of innocent blood were spilt, but the streets were kept clean by a troop of vampires hired by the feudal lords. Corpses of respected citizens were risen as zombies and joined the armies of the traitors. Meanwhile, the warlocks chanted to dispell the protection blessings on the walls of the Imperial Palace. It was a matter of time that it would fall too.

So the Emperor called appart Sir Byte, who had killed hundred of foes and replaced the general when fallen in battle. "Sir Byte, my most noble paladin, the end is near. They are much more than us and have demons on their side. We must be prepared for the eventuallity that I may fall".

"Your Imperial Majesty", Sir Byte interrupted, "I humbly beg you not to say that. We shall resist and your empire will recover the might it had once".

The Emperor touched his nose and said, "Of course; but, this happens, I would like you to take my crown and lead the people to safer land where they can live in prosperity..."

The ruler's will was interrupted by the ear hurting noise of an explosion. "They are in!", somebody cried. Sir Byte ran out of the room and unsheathed his sword.

[Empire of Kalvskar]

The final battle took three whole days. Many vampires tasted the blade of Sir Byte's sword; other died under the effect of the sun light direct exposure. The defenders soon learned to fight near to the windows, though they were useless at night. The zombies, who needed no sleep and were inmune to the sun light, were the indiscussable survivors, but they fell to the ground at once when the last necromancer was killed.

Trolls, who turned into rock at dawn but restored their nauseabund body at twilight, were the latest to come, and then they found most of their work done. Sir Byte was forced to run back to the throne room to defend the Emperor from trollish horde.

He fought alone against the trolls, taking advange in the thinness of the passage, which prevented the trolls to fight him in groups of more than two. But he could do nothing to avoid a fatal axe to be thrown at the monarch's heart, who instantly died.

Sir Byte, did not stretch the fight. He jumped back, shoved the doors to get a few seconds, and runned towards the recently dead emperor. Behind him, the trolls oopened the doors and raised their axes prepared to throw them at him.

But they did not. An army of fire elementals appeared in front of the trolls, who fled in panic. Minutes later, when  the golem troops replaced them, they would discover that they were only an image created by the holographic projector of the Imperial Throne. By that time, Sir Byte had the time to escape with the crown through a secret corridor, conveniently connected to the refugee base.

[Empire of Kalvskar]

After two hours of crossing corridors full of rats and spiders, Sir Byte reached the end of the tunnel and opened the trapdoor to the surface, just to see that his mother was waiting for him.

"Mother!", he gasped in surprise.

Elysa dropped the lumber she was carrying in her hands and stared at her son. "Byte! I thought I would never see you again...", she broke in tears.

"Mother", he repeated, unable to say anything else, as they hold themselves and cried.

Soon people started gathering around them. Lady Elysa was very popular among the refugees, because she was who had arranged everything, but nobody knew about the visitor in a white armour.

"This is Lord Byte, my son, the last loyal of the feudal lords. He came to the Imperial Palace to defend the crown", she proudly said. A general applause followed, but it did not last long, since the people got petrified as Byte showed the Imperial Crown.

"Peaceful people of Kalvskar", he said in a loud and clear voice, "I have been fighting for the Empire for entire weeks as a paladin, many courageous soldiers have lost their life in their attempt... but the Emperor had finally been killed by a troll".

The crowd kept silent and aimed down. They had already lost their hope and they were just waiting for it to happen as a consumation of the facts.

"His last command was that I led you to safer lands where you could live in prosperity. And be sure that I will do it!"

[Empire of Kalvskar]

It took just one day for the refugees to pack. They always knew their base was not meant to be permanent, so they need not much time to prepare. Byte, who had no luggage, spent the whole day in sleeping while a priest healed his wounds.

There was a magician in the base, too, who kept busy in foreseeing suitable lands. He did not have any success; wherever he looked, the lands belonged to an already existing civilisation, so they could not claim them as theirs, or  were infested with dangerous creatures, like dragons or hidraes.

He was about to give up when he notice a stirring in life underground, next to the refugee camp. Rushing into the tent where Byte slept, he cried, "An enemy troop found the secret corridor, we must leave now!". The scream awoke the paladin, who quickly understood the situation. "How long will it take for them to come?", he asked.

"About one hour", the magician replied.

The paladin put his armour on as he asked "Do we have an alternative hideout to keep out of their sight when they arrive?"

"Not that we can get to by walking, Sir", the magician replied.

"We must move on quickly now that we have one hour advantage", Sir Byte Stated, "Let's go".

[Empire of Kalvskar]

The refugees wandered for many days, followed by their pursuers, who actually were a group of soldiers who had been sent by the feudal lord who prevailed in the siege to kill the rest of the old empire. The refugees finally decided to hide in a cave which happened to have a network of connected tunnels that the Kalvskarians followed for many months, surviving with the mushrooms that grew inside and the underground rivers.

Finally they found an exit cave. The survivors of the underground trip had to spend several days in getting used to the sun light, after so much time in the darkness. During that time, they crowned Sir Byte as a righteous Emperor and made hopeful plans for their new land.

When they left the obscurity, they found themselves surrounded by a barren land, and they praised their gods for its inhospitality, because nobody would ever want to steal their lands, and sealed the entrance to the network of tunnels, just in case their pursuers disagreed.

Sir Byte, wearing the crown the previous emperor gave him, stated in a loud and clear voice:

I, Sir Byte I of Kalvskar, declare these lands a property of the Empire of Kalvskar. Here we shall build our capital city, which will be called New Kalvskar in the memory of the old imperial city.