Pact of Darkness

World History

Today is my birthday, 45 years ago I was born. Up to 75 years ago our world was defined by large metropolis with hundreds of millions, or even billions, of inhabitants. Towers with thousands of floors above ground, floating twelve meters above gardens illuminated by the calm light coming from them. Rooms up to 60 times larger inside than outside. Short-distance portals teleporting people to a destination up to 300 meters distant, as common as common doors. Long-distance tunnels connecting every one of those cities to every other in the globe. Food produced in absurd quantities on narrow rings around those majestic monuments of human geniality. All that thanks to High Magic.

Given selective breeding and magic blessings 1 in each 6 individuals in those urban areas was a mage in potential. And all sorts of educational institutions flourished, granting all those potential mages the best imaginable chance to develop their gifts to the highest possible level.

All that is gone. One day the energies from a deepest and up to this time unknow layer of the Abyss fluctuated, entering in harmony with the teleportation portals used by humanity. Consequence was the generalized fracture of such teleportation instruments. Outwardly energies, and predators, inundated the streets from every portal or tunnel, the very air between the connection fractured too. Reality collapsed in one instant. Everybody in those cities died as consequence.

To prevent the entire destruction of our world the mages responsible for those portals activated a last **** resource. Isolating the cities from their surroundings with protective circles to contain the energies and the invading hordes in the limits of those magical farm rings.

It didn’t ´prevent people from enter the urban areas, but as those who tried soon realized that is suicidal. The treasures of our High Magic Ages are lost for good.

After decades, small fractures started being detected in the containing circles. Energies, small but deadly monsters, bestial or with some verbal intelligence, would escape. Causing disaster and devastation in the surroundings.

By this point very few still lived at a day of distance or less from what had been the home of most humans.

In my young days many old people still alive had walked through those marvels of High Magic. Nowadays there is practically no one alive who remember that experience.

Life was unforgiving for the survivors during the first decades of this new reality.

All institutions our daily lives gravitate around now are less than 45 years old. Or faced a transformation so radical and deep ever since that is as if they were completely new. For most purposes, humanity as we know it now was born with that disaster.

Before, this region was part of a nation so large that a man mounted in a giant bat needed 3 days to fly in a straight line from border to border, in the smallest extension. Which was East-West. Now, you would not need 3 hours to fly over all 1.000 islands in Puzzle Archipelago, and that is for all practical purposes our “know world”.

Each island being a independent nation in its own right, or in some cases several.

That place is as far away from the lost metropolis as possible, and, by consequence, we are more fortunate than most people.

Life is based in hard work, and recovered techniques from remote times. High Magic is lost, and what is left from its lesser and older variations has only a secondary role in our affairs. Mainly as instrument of security and war.

The average person will tell you about the Adepts. A secret society, or religious sect, know to practice magic for martial purposes. They are divided in countless sub-groups and fight mysterious wars against each other, endless. Or so common person says.

Their magic can be of two sorts: **** or Life. A rare number of those who practice Life know how to use their spells to heal others, most of them only can heal themselves.

Adepts are few, most only saw a few of them walking in a festival or passing by at distance. Mercenaries and soldiers deal with them in more regular basis, since this odd religion seems to seek war fields constantly. Never explaining why. More often than not you will find them in the most dangerous missions, in both sides of a large military campaign.

There is a lot the average human being don’t know, and more that he do not understand, about this world. The event responsible for end the last High Magic Age caused as much chaos and destruction in the know regions of the Abyss as it caused in our reality. They may have lost even more than we did.

Another thing most don’t understand is that adepts are not priests. When they act like priests they are doing so more to satisfy lay expectations than for any other reason.

They are people born with supernatural gifts that, when developed, grant then huge advantages over the common warrior. They use this, like any other mercenary uses. To make a living, seeking a better fortune for their descendants than the one life granted to them.

What sounds like cryptical religious teachings for those who lack the innate gift for their Powers are mere practical instructions and exercises for adepts. Once they have learned how to properly interpretate them.

Another thing almost everybody ignores completely is the fact that there are no just 2, but 3 Powers. The existence of that last one is ignored even by most adepts.

I was born in the same day of year when the human world collapsed, but 45 years after than tragic event. I used to believe that was a sign of bad luck. I was probably cursed with a tragic **** and misfortune in life. I do not believe in that anymore. My life as no more cursed than the life of anyone else, and I am already older than most people will ever be. Specially when you considered men, and even more when we exclude those men who walk away from wars instead than searching them.

I am an adept. I am safer in the middle of battle than most soldiers or mercenaries, but that does not mean those are not dangerous places for me. Besides, **** the adepts who intend to fight for the enemy before battle is standard practice nowadays. I am lucky to be making this birthday. Even if I must celebrate it by myself, alone in an improvised camp, in a barely deserted island. Writing a manuscript no one will ever read.

System

Powers:

****:

Blessing. The power of improve your weapons and armours.

Aura A shield that involves the adept, pushing enemies away, making harder to hit him, specially with ranged weapons.

Curse arrows of **** hit the targets with impact.

Life:

Healing: self-healing. Protects the adept against poison, sickness, and heals wounds.

Shapeshifting: improve the body, granting super-human senses, strength, reflexes, stamina and natural armour.

Vitality Well: improves core vitality, making the adept even harder to kill, no mater his present shape.

Vampirism: the power to steal vital energy from others to recover your own, weakening your target.

Darkness:

Mind-Shield: protection against mental manipulation, by powers of darkness and other sources.

Mind-Control: the power to influence and **** the other minds.

a: beasts, b: people, c: shadows

7 steps in each Power (****, Life, Darkness)

7 steps in each branch.

Learn the steps of the branches require more specialized instructors. However, it is easier and provides significant improvement in power. You just learn Blessing, of ****, for instance. Or only Vitality Well, from life.

Comon soldiers, mercenaries, and other men usually have some resentment and distrust directed to adepts of Outwardly Doctrine. It is understandable, given the mysterious nature of those followers of secret mysteries. They don’t say much about the source of their powers, and are clearly above other humans in many ways. Without being necessarily nobles by blood.

The opinion about adepts varies from region to region, and from person to person. However, few would go to the **** of deny the utility of having some of those powerful fighters by their side.

According to general believe adepts are members of a social society. In reality they are born with an open passage to outwardly abysses in their spirit. That makes them **** to many dangers, but allows then access to rare powers. Given proper training, strength of purpose, and dedication. Those who don’t get the training in time die ugly and painful deaths in childhood, or grow to be mad monstrous predators controlled by alien influences.

Two powers are know by all adepts, at least in the most basic level. **** and Life. Each one has 7 “steps”, representing the levels of expertise achieved by the adept.

Most will reach only the 3 lower levels, or less, in their principal focus of dedication, and one in the other power. To reach the step 4 is enough to make a person object of admiration among the adepts.

Level 3 in **** you make any armour you wear as effective as it would be if the materials were twice stronger, or thicker. Any blade you hold becomes sharper, bites deeper, and resists a lot better to brake or lose the edge than it would in the hands of a normal warrior. Any blunt weapon will hit harder. Given your aura is harder to anyone to hit you with arrows, rocks, or anything else throwed from distance. It can be sustained for a minute, interrupted and reinitiated as the adept pleases. Then reactivated after a rest of about five minutes. The curses hit with the impact of a club, or pierces like an arrow, and reaches long distance. The adept can attack a dozen times, before rest for few minutes.

Since Step 1 the adept can move very small objects at distance, pushing then away or pulling them in his direction. By this point he can have learned how to ignite a campfire with a gesture, and hold things about as heavy as a domestic cat for a few instants. Those things are too weak to be used in combat, but one can find purpose for them upon ocasion.

This combination of gifts does not make the adept invincible. He can always be murdered if caught out of guard, about as easily as any normal man can. Most who reach that step have also reached the first step in Life, which grants them some additional physical resistance, and healing powers if they get the time to concentrate in healing themselves. Still, they can be killed by common men armed with ordinary weapons, and that happens constantly in battle fields.

Naturally, put one adept in that level down costs the lives of many warriors in a battle. The adept is not just trained in his strange powers. They also train with the same weapons used by other men-in-arms. After half an hour using his powers intensely, an adept in the Step 3 will find himself reaching his limits. If he saved his energy the bless of armour and weapons can be sustained for a couple of hours, but that means not use the other gifts. In any case, once the powers reach their limit, and until the next day, after proper rest, the adept has to fight like any ordinary men.

Life is equivalent to ****. However, while **** is ideal for ranged combat, and provides some advantage in close combat, Life provides practically nothing for ranged fight, except for the strength to pull a heavier bow. It is the path to master melee combat, and is way more effective than **** in that regard.

One advantage of life, that has a dangerous side effect, is that it gradually changes the body of the adept. Permanently. You will shape for yourself an alternative form. Bestial in appearance and super-human in attributes, in Step 3 that modified version of you will be impressive. You must transform in this beast, and shapeshift back. However, each transformation changes your normal body a little more, gradually, making it stronger, more like your bestial body. Your mind is affected as well. After years you start looking less human, and thinking more like a talking predator than normal people. Eventually, some lose all human thoughts and became wild beasts with outwardly powers.

Vampirism is a power few who focus their development in Life learn. It is a secret doctrine, reached by the study of Darkness.

Generally speaking, **** is a choice favourable for those who are more cerebral. It gains more from intelligence and sharp-mind than from physical skills. Life serves better those who are more impulsive, and more oriented to exercise the body.

Darkness is also a Power. However, few know it exist as something accessible for mortals in this world. And less have any idea about how to start searching for ways to use those powers.

Practitioners of Darkness are taken by supernatural entities, of Evil inclination, generally speaking. Or assumed to de possessed by forces beyond human comprehension. Again, Evil in nature by default. That when they are not dismissed as mere fantasy.

Rare individuals have reached steps above 4 just by practicing the conventional levels. Some legendary masters achieved level 7 in one Power that way, but they are legendary figures. A handful of names in the entire History. The key to develop the Powers to levels higher than 3, is found in the Power of Darkness.

Those who find out the power exists, possibly for having access to secret tomes kept as family secret, and don’t choose to avoid it, seldom go beyond step 1. It is enough for obtain some protection against mind-manipulation from shadows, and completely shields the adept against most lesser strategies to manipulate the will.

Master spies, assassins, and knight orders dedicated to fight supernatural treats sometimes learn step 1 of Darkness as a door to develop as much as possible the Mind-Shield branch.

The strong mind can see trough most lies, and speak one in their presence, while subjected to their gaze, becomes nearly impossible for most people.

Those who reach step 2 can give simple commands, and if they get the proper initiation they can learn the vampiric gift of Life Power. That is very useful, but also very hard to master, and disturbing both for the enemy target and for the adept using the power. Few have the strength of spirit to use the power and not grow madly suicidal.

Contracts with shadow entities are used to help the development in the Shadow Power, by those who are extremely obsessed by the possibilities. Those contracts almost always end with the adept being consumed by shadows, devoured from inside, and turned into a **** at best. An empty shell for a colony of shadows, in the worse cases.

Main Character

Prologue

Main Character is an adept, born with special affinity with the Darkness. He was conceived in the Abyss, both his parents were masters of Darkness, in step 5. They lost themselves in the Abyss, and his father was destroyed up there. Only his mother managed to reach the normal realm again, pregnant of him. She was depleted of her magic, a sign that she had lost a definitive battle against another master, or mistress, of darkness.

Her mind was broken, her powers gone, and she died a year after give birth to him.

The character was raised as a servant in the house that used to belong to his parents. His heritage was stolen by former servants. Who behaved like the owners of the house. They didn’t throwed him on the streets, but sometimes would hurt him without reason, just because they had feared and hated his parents.

When the character was 7 years old his potential to became an adept was noticed by a travelling mercenary group of adepts. They took him as apprentice.

Story

Begin

There was practitioners of Life and practitioners of **** in the group. The character choice of mentor was oriented by the desire to learn the Power he wanted more. He didn’t seemed to have special affinity for any direction. Would probably be one of those cases who go Step 2 in both Powers and never reach the 3. That was what most imagined.

The apparent lack of any particular talent leads the character to dedicate himself more than most adepts to conventional skills of combat. Such as sword, spear, bow or crossbow. By necessity he needs to be smart, conservate his Power and apply it carefully in the right moment. Where it will lead to more meaningful results.

After the character choose a main Power, reach step 1 in it, and face a few battles by the side of his band, the character is informed by older adepts that he is being followed. They separated him from the rest of the group a few times, on purpose, to confirm he is really the one being followed. He swears he has no idea about why secret police or sinister agents of criminal organizations would find his humble person so interesting.

Finally a noble knight makes contact. His order fights shadows and entities arrived from the abyss. Some intelligent, most just bestial predators, gorging in defenceless people and animals. He gives the mercenary band a contract, a series of incursions in the forest to hunt bandit camps and barbaric cannibal cults. The real purpose is observe the character and test his moral compass.

The knight knew the character parents, they worked together many times. He knows the character has a gift for darkness. Suspects that it can be a talent ****, possibly too dangerous to worth the risk of allow the character to live.

If the character passes the test the knight will offer him a place as his apprentice. And if he accept he will learn the first step of Darkness as an aspirant to the Grey Shadow Order. If he rejects the offer, the knight will kill the character’s mentor and try to kill the character. Shadows will attack, and an Adept of Darkness will help the character escape.

She was an “apprentice” of his parents, or so she says. In reality, she was a former enemy. Defeated and reduced to a mind-****. Useful enough to be kept with her mind mostly intact, and allowed to keep some of her powers.

Since her masters died in the abyss she has been trying to rebuild her former self. She intends to manipulate the character. As heir to his parents he can free her from the Power chains placed in her mind. She must first teach him the Power of Darkness. After he does what she needs, she intends to avenge herself, by destroying the son of her hated enemies. Taking his power as fuel for her own and slaving his mind.

If the character fails the test, the knight will let the mercenary band go, after paying them. Later, he will send assassins to kill the character. The Adept of Darkness saves the character in that case as well. Just here the character mentor survives.

Options are: join the Grey Shadow or become apprentice of an Adept of Darkness, who remains independent.

Middle

Advantages differ from one path to the other. The Grey Shadow concentrates training in mind-shield and fight. The solitary mentor teaches more mind- control. In both cases the character gets a chance to know more about his true origins. And in both cases the learning journey ends with the mentors trying to kill the character. He escapes with his life once more, and is now hunted both by his former mentor and by the other side.

In the case of the Grey Shadow problem is that the character will inevitably fail to reach their standards. The mechanism of his gift makes necessary for him to mind-control people and use them for his purposes. In ways the Order cannot tolerate. He has the vampiric gift, without having to learn it, and is even able to use it from distance, as only those very advanced in that particular branch of Life can.

After the character gain power, and defeat his former mentor once, he can finally go back to his family home. Take it back from those who have stolen in from him when he was a child, And, punish them for their abuses.

End

As an Adept of Darkness advanced in power the character enters the abyss to face the half-shadow woman who defeated his parents and killed them.

After winning this war, forcing the Shadow-Woman to retreat and leave her fortress in his hands, he takes advantage to his special affinity to the abyss in order to finish a portal between the dimension and his home in the normal world. With that advantage, he manages to take the city, and build an army strong enough to have defeat his enemies in this reality.

Things became bad to the character when the Shadow-Woman comes back with powerful reinforcements. And he must fight a war in two fronts.

To avoid defeat he must choose one side, move all his remaining forces to it, and close the portal for good. Then he can fortify his position, and reach a Peace Treaty that will make him sovereign of his small newly created nation.

That’s how our story ends.