⚱️ Year 30: The Quest ⚱️
An ancient city. A promise of power. A path deeper into darkness.
The Proposal
Thirty years of hunger. Thirty years of feeding the craving that never quieted. Xanther had tried everything. Channeling chaos magic daily, sometimes hourly. Studying ancient texts. Consulting healers, mages, priests.
Nothing worked.
The addiction only grew stronger. His golden eyes now glowed even when he slept. The bracelet on his wrist had fused with his skin, Talveran's chaos magic inseparable from his own corrupted soul.
Then Diaglo came to him with a solution.
"I know of a place," Diaglo said.
"A city lost to the Shifting Sands. Ancient beyond measure. The texts speak of an artifact there. Something called the Obsidian Heart."
Xanther leaned forward. "What does it do?"
"It amplifies chaos magic. Perfects it. Makes the wielder..." He paused. "Complete."
The Temptation
Complete. The word echoed in Xanther's mind. That's what he'd been seeking for thirty years. Wholeness. Satisfaction. An end to the gnawing hunger that consumed him from within.
"Why tell me this now?" Xanther asked, suspicious despite his desperation.
Diaglo's expression remained neutral. "Because I've watched you suffer for three decades. Because you're my King and I serve the throne. Because..." He met Xanther's glowing eyes. "Because the hunger is getting worse, isn't it? Soon you won't be able to hide it from the court. From Relana. From your sons."
The words struck true. Last week, Xanther had nearly lost control during a council meeting. The chaos magic had surged unbidden, warping reality around him. Only Angelo's quick thinking had covered the incident.
His five-year-old son had asked why Daddy's eyes glowed in the dark.
Xanther clenched his fists. "Where is this city?"
The Journey
The Shifting Sands lay three weeks' journey south of Nexus. A desert where reality bent and twisted, where space folded in on itself. Landmarks appeared and disappeared. Travelers who entered rarely returned.
Perfect place to hide something powerful.
Xanther took a small contingent. Angelo insisted on coming, of course. Loyal to a fault. A handful of guards. Diaglo as guide.
The hunger grew worse with each day in the desert. As if the Sands themselves called to the chaos magic in his blood. By the second week, Xanther was channeling power constantly just to keep from screaming.
Angelo noticed. "My King, perhaps we should turn back. You don't look well."
"I'm fine," Xanther lied, golden eyes blazing. The bracelet burned against his wrist. "We're close. I can feel it."
He could. Something ancient pulsed beneath the sands. Something that resonated with the corruption in his soul. Something that promised completion.
On the eighteenth day, the city appeared.
Obsidian towers rising from golden sand. Architecture that predated the gods themselves. Walls carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly.
And at the city's heart, a temple.
Inside that temple, something waited.
The Discovery
The guards stayed outside. Too afraid to enter. Even Angelo hesitated at the threshold, his protective wards screaming warnings.
Xanther walked in alone.
The Obsidian Heart sat on a pedestal in the temple's center. Not literally a heart, but close. A crystalline structure that pulsed with dark energy. Chaos magic in its purest, most concentrated form.
Beautiful. Terrible. Perfect.
Xanther reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the Heart, knowledge flooded his mind. This wasn't just an amplifier. It was a prison. A container for something ancient. Something that had been sealed away for good reason.
Something that was now merging with him.
Renaldo had lied.
This wasn't a cure. It was the next stage of corruption.
The Obsidian Heart didn't satisfy the hunger. It made him hunger for more. Bigger. Darker. More destructive.
But Xanther couldn't let go.
The power felt too good.
The Return
When Xanther emerged from the temple, Angelo took one look at him and went pale.
"My King... what happened in there?"
Xanther smiled. His golden eyes now flecked with obsidian. The bracelet on his wrist pulsed in harmony with the Heart fused to his chest, visible through his robes as a dark crystalline growth.
"I found what I was looking for," he said.
Behind him, Diaglo watched. Calculating. The first phase complete. Xanther was no longer just corrupted.
He was becoming something else entirely.
Something that Lumina would eventually have to destroy.
Or try to.