Clandareth

Renaldo stood at the edge of Known—that impossible space between dimensions where reality itself waited for instruction. In his hand, he held a small orb containing the essence of a single human. Just one. Plucked from the source of first human life with barely a thought.

His sapphire eyes gleamed with curiosity as he gazed into the vast emptiness of his new dimension. Unnamed. Waiting. His experiment. His test.

With an idle grin, he crushed the orb.

And Clandareth fell into existence.

The transition was violent. One moment, Clandareth existed as pure essence—no body, no form, no awareness. The next, he slammed into a physical body on barren ground so hard the impact knocked the wind from lungs he hadn't possessed a second ago.

He gasped. Choked. His hands—hands? I have hands?—clawed at rocky soil.

Cold.

The first sensation that registered was cold. Biting, merciless, seeping through thin clothing he didn't remember putting on. His teeth chattered. His body—this strange new body—shivered violently.

Clandareth struggled to his feet, legs shaking. The world spun. Mountains rose in the distance, their peaks sharp against a sky turning orange and red. To his left, a forest of trees he didn't recognize. To his right, an ocean that stretched to the horizon.

"Where...?" His voice cracked. The sound startled him. That's my voice. I have a voice.

And then he saw him.

A figure stood twenty paces away, as if he'd always been there. Long black hair. Sapphire eyes that glowed with something between amusement and scientific curiosity. An expression that suggested he was watching an insect under glass.

"Who—" Clandareth's voice broke. "Who are you? Where am I? What's happening?"

The figure's smile widened. "My name is Renaldo. And you, my friend, are the first."

"First what?"

"First human in this dimension." Renaldo gestured at the empty world around them. "I have given you magical powers beyond mortal comprehension." He said it casually, as if discussing the weather.

Clandareth looked down at his hands. They looked... normal. Human. Trembling with cold and fear. "I don't understand. What am I supposed to—"

"What am I to do?"

Renaldo's laughter echoed across the barren landscape—a sound too loud, too vast, as if the dimension itself was laughing. His sapphire eyes sparkled with delight.

"Whatever you want to."

And then he was gone.

Not walked away. Not teleported with a flash of light. Simply... gone. As if he'd never been there at all.

Clandareth spun in a circle, panic rising in his chest. "Wait! WAIT! Come back! I don't know how to—"

Silence.

The sun continued its descent toward the horizon. The cold deepened. And Clandareth stood alone on a planet in the outermost region of nowhere, in a dimension that had been empty until thirty seconds ago.

The first human of this dimension had arrived.

And he had absolutely no idea what to do.

Clandareth stared at his hands. "Well ok then," he laughed nervously. "I suppose I shall start with a friend. A woman."

He looked down at his hands. Nothing happened.

"Well shit, he didn't explain how to use these damn powers."

Night fell. The cold became unbearable. His body shivered violently. He sat on the frozen ground, curled into a ball, and prayed—to whoever would listen—to be warm again.

Slowly, warmth spread through his body.

He opened his eyes. A warm jacket covered his shoulders. A blanket wrapped around him.

"Maybe these powers only work if I draw upon my innermost energy of need."

He stood, focused on the need for shelter and food. When he opened his eyes, a small cottage stood before him.

He squealed with delight. "Ok, this is fun."

It took Clandareth three weeks to get warm. Another month to figure out how to create food that didn't taste like ash. Six months before he stopped accidentally setting things on fire when he sneezed.

Magic powered by "need" was surprisingly difficult when you had no idea how to need correctly.

But eventually, he mastered the basics. Shelter. Food. Warmth. Safety.

And then came the loneliness.

Clandareth stood in the center of his modest cottage, hands outstretched, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. "I need a companion. Someone to talk to. A woman. Beautiful. Intelligent. Kind."

He felt the magic surge through him—that strange warmth that meant something was happening. His eyes flew open in excitement.

A pile of rocks sat in front of him.

"What the—" He kicked at the stones. "I said a WOMAN, not... geological formations!"

He tried again. Concentrated harder. Need. I NEED companionship. A living, breathing person who can—

A chicken appeared.

It clucked at him judgmentally.

"Oh, come ON!" Clandareth threw his hands up. The chicken squawked and ran outside.

Third attempt. Fourth. Fifth. He created: a very confused deer, seventeen potatoes, what appeared to be a sentient blob of water that immediately evaporated, and—most disturbingly—a half-formed hand that crawled around for ten seconds before dissolving into smoke.

That last one made him vomit.

On his forty-seventh attempt, something finally worked.

Clandareth felt the magic drain from him like never before. His knees buckled. His vision swam. And when he looked up, gasping, there stood a woman.

She had dark hair that fell to her shoulders. Hazel eyes that blinked in confusion. Hands that trembled as she looked down at herself, then at him.

"I..." Her voice was soft, uncertain. "What...?"

Clandareth scrambled to his feet, tears streaming down his face. "You're real! You're actually—" He laughed, a sound bordering on hysteria. "I did it! I finally—"

"Who am I?" she whispered.

He froze. Stared at her. Realized he had absolutely no idea. "I... I'll call you Sapphrine. After the sapphire eyes of the man who left me here." He paused. "Your eyes are hazel, but... close enough?"

She smiled tentatively. "Sapphrine. I... I like that."

For three years, it was enough. Clandareth and Sapphrine built a life together. They explored the world. They created children—a slow, careful process that only occasionally resulted in extra limbs that had to be... adjusted.

But Clandareth couldn't stop thinking about the power.

I created her. I created LIFE. What else could I create?

One night, Sapphrine woke to find his side of the bed empty. She found him outside, hands glowing with magic, eyes wild with ambition.

"Clandareth? What are you—"

"I'm going to make us a kingdom," he said, not looking at her. "An empire. We shouldn't be alone out here, Sapphrine. We should have subjects. Servants. People to build great cities and sing our praises."

"We don't need—"

"I want to be KING."

The honesty of it stopped her cold. The raw hunger in his voice. The way his hands shook not with fear but with desire.

"And I'm going to create them perfect," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Not like me—fumbling in the dark, making mistakes. No. Perfect strength. Perfect beauty. Perfect intelligence."

"Clandareth—"

He raised his hands to the sky.

The first guardian materialized from pure magic and will. Albis. Silver hair. Silver eyes. A sword appearing in his hand as if it had always been there.

He knelt immediately. "My King."

Clandareth's breath caught. My King. The words were sweeter than honey.

He created another. Merideth. A healer with gentle hands and compassionate eyes. She curtsied with perfect grace.

Then Thorne. A warrior with a shield that could withstand any blow.

Then more. And more. And more.

By the time the sun rose, one hundred and forty-seven guardians stood before Clandareth and Sapphrine. Perfect in every way. Flawless.

Clandareth staggered, drained but exhilarated. "Rise, my guardians. You are the protectors of this realm. You are—"

One of them laughed.

It was a woman with red eyes and a smile like broken glass. "Protectors? Oh, how precious."

Clandareth blinked. "What?"

Another guardian—a man with black eyes and a cruel smirk—stepped forward. "You wanted us perfect, didn't you? Well, some of us are Perfectly Good." He gestured at Albis and the others.

The red-eyed woman grinned wider. "And some of us are Perfectly Evil."

The air went cold.

Sapphrine grabbed Clandareth's arm. "What did you do?"

"I... I asked for perfection. I didn't specify—" His voice cracked. "I didn't think—"

"That's right," the cruel woman—Vexria—purred. "You didn't think. You wanted perfect beings. Well, congratulations." She spread her arms wide. "Evil can be perfect too."

"Perfect" does not mean "good."

Albis and his allies stepped protectively in front of Clandareth and Sapphrine. The Perfectly Evil guardians laughed—a sound that echoed across the kingdom that hadn't yet been built.

And Clandareth realized, with creeping horror, what he had unleashed upon his world.

Power intoxicated. But power without wisdom?

That was a poison.

The tension had been building for months. The Perfectly Good guardians—noble Albis with his silver sword, compassionate Merideth who healed the wounded, selfless Thorne who protected the weak—could no longer stomach the presence of their counterparts.

The Perfectly Evil guardians made no secret of their nature. They tortured for pleasure. They enslaved the mortals Clandareth had begun creating. They burned villages to watch the survivors weep.

Albis stood before Clandareth's throne, his jaw set with determination. "My King, we can no longer coexist with them. They must be stopped."

Clandareth, still innocent in those early days, nodded slowly. "Do what must be done."

And so the first blood was spilled in this dimension.

The battle erupted at dawn. Albis led the charge, his silver blade singing through the air. The clash of steel rang across the plains of Laderan. Magic crackled—order against chaos, light against darkness, good against evil.

The Perfectly Good guardians fought with strategy, with honor, with purpose. The Perfectly Evil fought with rage, with cruelty, with the joy of destruction.

But good had one advantage: they fought for something beyond themselves.

One by one, the Evil guardians fell. Albis's blade pierced the heart of their leader, a cruel woman named Vexria who laughed even as her blood poured onto the earth. Merideth's healing magic, reversed, withered the flesh of those who sought to harm the innocent. Thorne's shield became a weapon, crushing skulls with righteous fury.

By sunset, it was over.

The Perfectly Evil guardians lay dead upon the battlefield. One hundred and forty-seven corpses. Every last one.

Albis stood among the bodies, chest heaving, blade dripping crimson. "It is done."

The Good guardians began to celebrate. They had won. They had purged the evil from their realm. They had—

The first corpse twitched.

Sapphrine, the Guardian Queen, saw her husband slipping into madness. She went to Renaldo, desperate for answers.

"What can counter Eldritch magic?" she begged.

Renaldo's response was simple, cold, and true:

"The only way to counter Chaos is with Order. But it will require much more work and sacrifice than that of Chaos. Because all things naturally go to chaos. Order is only achieved through an input of a lot of work."

And so, Sapphrine made the greatest sacrifice in the history of the dimension.