Warrior of Etheria
It all began with a flash of purple. Bones grew from the purple light of pure creation, a skeleton taking shape in mere seconds. Inside the skull, a small magilite crystal formed, his core, his very heart. That core flared awake, the empty sockets flickering with a purple, sickly glow. There he was, Skellington, then but a nameless husk devoid of life, a mindless tool created for a single purpose: destruction. He wasn’t alone, beside him were hundreds—no, it must’ve been nearly a thousand identical, skeletal forms. Each form was already standing at the ready, weapons at their sides, crude armor draping hollow bones. A thousand pairs of amethyst eyes flickered awake in dark caverns of Etheria, a dimension of chaos created by him.
The air was stifling, toxic to all but the hardiest of life, and suffocatingly hot. The purple, misty caverns seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions, an infinite cage of burning hot mist.
In front of his new army sat the creator himself, the Allfather Demon. He was regal, radiating the power of a true, immortal overlord. He had a skeletal frame too, but his bones… they were blacker than darkness itself. He sat on his throne with the presence of a dark god, an utterly monstrous aura swirling all around him. His amethyst eyes had the glow of pure hatred, like existence itself were his enemy. His chest pulsed purple with a brightness comparable to the very sun, an unimaginable weight within, like his chest held the world itself. Where his heart should’ve been, at the center of the glow, was a crystal the size of a fist. It pulsed with primordial energy, an object of sheer impossibility, of such magnitude that the world shook when he wielded it. Skellington knew deep down that his only purpose in life was to serve this being, his new king.
He and a thousand newly created boneborn just like him were created to form a new legion—a legion to take over the world of Andaril, tasked simply with eliminating everything that was alive. He trained and trained, combat drill after combat drill, learning to fight and follow basic commands, non-stop for a hundred years. His bones, had they not been strengthened by the magic of the creator, would have cracked and worn to dust long ago.
A century later, it was finally time to fulfill his purpose. His legion was ordered to invade Andaril, to search for and kill every living thing they could find. Hundreds of thousands of demons marched and coalesced within the caverns of Etheria, ready to slaughter life itself. The Allfather Demon stood tall, lifting his arms with a pulse of purple light. The air crackled and the mist steamed as large, purple portals formed ahead. It was as if the fabric of the world was forcibly torn, purple magic crackling like lightning. The minotaurids, beastly folk hellbent on bloodshed, screamed as they flailed their axes. The arachnoids clicked their multiple appendages, and the boneborn readied their weapons. Then, he spoke… It was the first and only time Skellington heard his creator speak. His voice was commanding, exuding the confident, silent authority of the supreme being.
“Demons of Etheria!… The time of reckoning is upon us!… The time has come to reclaim Andaril! Find the two missing World Stones! Destroy any who stand in your way! March!… Kill!… and Die!!” His voice reverberated through the endless caverns, followed by the earth-shattering roar of a million demons cheering for the destruction of man.
Led by the nigh unkillable Upper and Lower demons, the legions marched forth. A million demons poured into the swirling, sizzling gates with thundering steps. Dozens of portals crackled with energy, leading from the caverns of Etheria to every corner of the world, every great city of man. There were legions upon legions of rattling boneborn, thousands of hulking minotaurids thirsty for blood. Thousands of crawling arachnoids clicked their mandibles together, the sound like heavy rain. There were thousands of skittering ratlings with poison-tipped knives and arrows, hundreds of thumping chaos golems made out of pure obsidian, constructs made for the purpose of demolishing walls. Amongst the hordes were hundreds of one-eyed, horned culans, their arcing reverse-creation magic lighting up the cavern a sickly purple. There were even around a dozen spectrals: shadowlike demons of unimaginable speed and lethality, capable of phasing through the blades, shields, and armor of their enemies, and even through solid walls. Thousands upon thousands of cat-sized fledgelings flapped overhead in the poisonous, misty air, grinding their starved teeth together, sharp claws extending, eager to rip flesh apart. Slaughter was coming…
Never before had the world faced a threat quite like this, not in centuries, not even in millennia. The midnight moths, an omen largely forgotten by humanity at the time, had been swarming every land, coast, and city for weeks prior, their delicate black wings doing little to prepare the world for what was coming.
Skellington, though he had no name at the time, was a simple boneborn foot soldier, a skeletal warrior out of a million just like himself—the cannon fodder of Etheria’s army, equipped only with rudimentary armor and weapons, expendable trash. While stronger than the average human, not requiring food, sleep, or even breath, the boneborn were nothing compared to the other demon races. They possessed neither the strength of the minotaurids, the versatility of the arachnoids, the agility of the ratlings or spectrals, nor the magical prowess of the culans. Compared to the Lower and Upper demons? Even calling them ants was far too generous. Nevertheless, his legion was tasked with taking over the island continent of Ocula, then a peaceful land of agriculture and trade.
In the year 5 B.L.T. (Before Lumare Time), Skellington marched through the crackling portal, the gateway connecting the dimension of Etheria… to the world of man. His foot stepped through, planting itself into the brown, gravelly dirt. It wasn’t like the scorching, jagged rock of Etheria. Here, the very soil was alive.
He found himself in the middle of a small settlement, a town which would later turn into the fortress city of Ironrock. Screams of terror pierced the air like knives as the legion began its slaughter. Some of the farmers tried to defend themselves with pitchforks and torches, but soon realized it was all futile. Against beasts, pitchforks and fire may have been enough, but against warriors of bone? They may as well have been unarmed. Pitchforks got stuck between ribs, arrows clattered as they hit bone, and kitchen knives did little against reinforced bone and mail. Futile attempts to burn the boneborn with oil and torches only turned them into infernal executioners as the flames roared awake. It was hell, unimaginable terror.
The World Stones 