Very enjoyable, thank you. I shall look forward to the other parts.
Roughly 500 years ago the County of Safreti was a peaceful place to live crime was low and conflict almost unheard of. Prosperity and propriety were the order of the day, as people flourished nurtured by burgeoning health and respect for one another. The beautiful capital of Safreti, called Marevos stood right upon the shoreline. Due to its maritime nature Safretians lived mostly off the bounties of the sea. All enjoyed these bounties, even those landlocked and far from any port. Farms and mines supplied the land making it a hub of industry and commerce. Everything was going well until one day.
The city Marevos was as lively as always and people were drinking, dancing, laughing and having a good time. It was getting dark and people started heading for their homes. The guards patrolled their usual routes on the castle walls of Marevos and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Only one thing was not like it used to be, there was a silence in the night that was unusal. Suddenly they started hearing faint strange sound coming from the forest North-west of Marevos.
The guards in the area assembled to investigate the origin of those strange sounds. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Once it had stopped, the guards started discussing and came to the conclusion to send out two guards to check out the cause of those strange sounds.
No one wanted to go. No one wanted to enter that dark forest. They argued for a long time, trying to decide who would enter. Then a pair of friends named Brad and Tore said they could do it. The two guards each picked up a torch and started walking towards the forest, each step slow and cautious.
About halfway there the sound returned, this time louder.
They looked back to their compatriots and saw the others motioning for them to continue, to go on into the night. , When they reached the treeline the sound was deafening, at least three times as loud as it had been. It resembled the cries of an animal but was unlike anything they had ever heard before. The guards back at Marevos could see the flame from the torches being swallowed by the huge dark forest as the two brave guards went further into the darkness.
As they continued to walk towards the sound that grew louder and louder with each step they took they could also feel the temperature dropping, a chill entering their bones. At that point both were shaking, hands clinging to the hilt of their swords, blades rattling against sheaths, halfway drawn.
They walked further until they could hear that they were very close, the sounds were akin to something resembling growls, emanating from multiple animals. Their breath froze in midair as each step took them closer.
Faint light filled their vision, illuminating the hilltop where the sounds seemed to come from. Swords gripped tight, They started walking up the hill towards the sound. Grass crunched underfoot, as frost-rimed leaves of white green shattered. Their lungs burned with each frozen step, exhaustion threatening to consume them.
The sight that greeted them atop the hill was enough to send chills down their spine, like an icy dip in deepest winter. It froze them down to their very core and they could not move.
Creatures, the likes of which they had never seen nor heard tell of. So bestial and violent were these apparitions, so terrifying that they knew they had to get away, if they wanted to live.
Just as they were about to turn their backs and run, the two friends caught a glimpse of where the light was coming from. The creatures had gathered in a circle, blacker than midnight, around a man made out of stone, his hands alight, burning with unholy fire.
When they were just about to turn and run they spotted where the light came from, it was a man made out of stone forming some kind of black big circle with some kind of flame blazing around it from the hands of the man in stone.
One of the creatures walked out the circle, slowly, a predator sniffing for prey. Fear's grip was torn loose by the rushing of their heartbeats, adrenaline coursing through their veins and the cold prickling in their guts. They turned and started running.
The frozen ground had turned slippery from booted feet and Brad slipped and fell, crashing to the ground. It was loud enough to make the creatures notice them.
Tore helped Brad stand and they began running. They ran the way they came, the creatures behind them, growls growing stronger than before. Sliding down the hill they lost sight of the creatures but they could still hear the heavy growling, so loud that it was ringing in their ears, they had no time to think about anything other than running.
As they got halfway through the forest the sound of growls came closer. The creatures were larger than them, so they could hear the sound of their footsteps as drew closer.
After about 10 minutes running they were starting to feel tired but they were nearing the edge of the forest when suddenly Tore tripped his foot catching on the root of a tree. Brad saw the edge of the forest and kept running as he left his friend behind in the dark forest.
Clear of the treeline, Brad started waving his torch, screaming at the guards to open the gates. They opened and he slipped through before he screaming at them to close the gate behind him.
The other guards asked him where Tore was, but got no response. Brad then rushed up on the wall to see what was happening, to Brad's surprise he could see Tore limping towards the gates.
But as Tore reached the halfway point between the forest and the gate, they could see two creatures, five times his size, chasing after him that just jumped out of the forest.
Tore starts shouting for them to open the gate, but the creatures where catching up rapidly. The archers gathered atop the wall and started to fire arrows at the creatures, but it was futile, the arrows didn't slow them down.
Tore reached the gate and started knocking as hard as he could, banging against that threshold, but the guards knew that if they opened the gate the creatures would also get through.
The archers did all they could but it was too little too late, the rest could only stand and watch as one of the creatures leaped on to Tore, ripping him apart with long, sharp claws. The creatures started clawing at the gate, trying to clamber over the walls, all the while the archers kept shooting at them.
After a while they managed to kill the two creatures that had almost managed to break through into Marevos.
Brad was exhausted, horrified and terrified but he did his best to explain everything that had happened. Those who listened turned pale as they heard the tale.
The guards gathered Tore's remains and proceeded to repair the damaged gate as fast as they could, After hearing Brad's account, they knew to expect more attacks.
Once that was done, they went to take a closer look at their monstrous assailants. One of the guards mentioned that he might know what they were. He'd seen something similar as a child in an old book.
“Those are Daemons!” He shouted.
Months went by and all over Safreti there were reported attacks by Daemons. Settlement by settlement fell under those claws and every day that passed the Daemons numbers increased.
Requests were sent out for assistance, to the Duke of Arkadia, to all neighboring lands but no help ever came. Safreti was doomed, not worth saving. Salvation would cost more lives than it might save. The Gods had spoken. So the leaders decided to abandon Safreti, to flee.
All the citizens of Safreti were gathered behind the walls of Marevos cowering behind them for safety. The number of daemons in every attack increased daily and too many soldiers fell in every attack.
Everyone knew that doom was at hand and risks had to be taken or else Safreti and all its citizens would be reduced to ash. Brad had told everyone about the man of stone and the black circle where the daemons came from. It was decided, send out half the troops from Marevos to destroy the man of stone, with Brad leading the attack. The day after the decision they launched the attack.
The soldiers rushed into the forest and tried to sneak past most of the daemons, but one after another they were ripped apart by the dangerous daemons lying in wait.
When they reached the hill they noticed that, now, the whole area had become frozen. They walked up the hill and Brad was the first one to see. It shocked him just as much, if not more, than the last time.
The black circle had increased in size, four times as large as it had been when last he'd seen it. It also became clear to Brad why the ground was frozen, The circle was pulling all the heat from the ground to produce the fire surrounding it, he could feel his own warmth being drawn to it.
They did not have time to think, since the whole area was swarming with daemons, larger and more vicious than the previous ones.
A new daemon started to appear, slowly emerging from black circle, shimmering as it solidified. The daemon was huge, towering atop the hill, the largest they had ever seen, it filled the entirety of the circle and the ground shook beneath them as it came into view.
Brad shouted, urging the few remaining soldiers to rush and destroy the man of stone before the daemon could materialize and come through, Most where picked off by the swarm of daemons, but Brad and two others reached the man of stone.
They started beating on the stone man, chipping away as small chunks of stone dislodged. The towering daemon was solidifying right before their eyes.
Brad knew that it wouldn't be enough, that they would not make it in time. He put all his strength into the next blow, aiming for those hands covered in unholy fire. To his surprise, the blow connected and the hands cracked, falling off.
The circle started to waver shrinking and fading. The huge daemon could not break out, it let out a roar of defiance, trying to break through the shrinking barrier but was forced back.
Breathing a sigh of relief Brad turned to look at the remaining soldiers, a huge grin on his face. They'd done it! They'd won! The soldiers weren't there, there were only the scattered remains of what they'd been, ripped to shreds by daemons. Brad heard something behind him. He turned to face the closest daemon, knowing it was the end.
The attacks on Marevos grew smaller after the circle was gone, but everyone was still trapped, forced to stay safe behind city walls. Crops in the fields rotted and animals starved, unused to surviving on their own. With no supplies coming in the city began to starve. And although the scale of the attacks had gone down, the soldiers were tired and rundown from constant fighting and starvation.
Fishing was the only salvation they had, supplementing the city's dwindling stores but it was not enough. The city of Marevos managed to hold its ground for two weeks until the panic and despair rampant among its citizenry reached a fevered pitch. They knew they wouldn't last much longer. People started loading their pockets with stones and drowning themselves, threw themselves from the city walls, anything just to make this hell stop. Hope abandoned them and some suggested that they open the city gates to let the city die.
Fifteen soldiers were all that remained to guard the city, not nearly enough to protect, to guard. All semblance of control was lost as riots erupted and crime reached an all time high. Citizens starved to death in the streets and were left to rot.
One week later, there was nothing left to repair the gates with and only five soldiers remained.
On the next day, the daemons attacked. They broke through the gate and the streets ran red with blood as daemons ran rampant through Marevos. It was a total massacre and not a soul survived. Marevos was left as a husk of its former self, filled with naught but the dead.
To this day there are rumors of a man who had lost his wife in a fire, blaming Daemon, the Qin of fire for his loss. So pervasive was his hatred that he spent decades directing it towards the qin. The man went into the woods, to curse Daemon every day, until he was struck down by lightning. His soul travelled to the Akashic Records but it was so hateful and filled with spite that it was sent back to his body, but his body was dead and no soul could revive it. Instead it turned to stone and the soul's malevolence and power led to the Fall of Safreti.
Thus Safreti fell, five hundred years ago.
If you want to learn more about the county Safreti you can check the CoE post here: County of Safreti (EU)
Also if you are interested or have any questions about Safreti you can join our discord: https://discord.gg/KEZ3VT8
