Where did it begin? Innocently as a child? Father slain in the war by Mids. Mother forced to sell herself to feed her family. Murdered by a customer. Sister taken as a slave to the Hibs?
Weak. Useless. Coward. Turning to the church for answers. Asking to be made a priest and ward. Another failure as examinations revealed nothing but hatred and no understanding of the concepts of love and faith to a god, even had he believed, he would not have loved but only hated.
Homeless, hungry, empty of soul, he turned to the dark place beneath the Church of Albion. There for a price those who survived would be given power and another god, Arawn, Lord of the underworld.
The priests turned an indifferent eye on the applicants as they gathered to swear their oaths. None of them were of any import unless they survived.
Each of the applicants swore an oath and ate a meal containing questionable grey meat. Then they were taken to the crypts and placed inside coffins were they lay naked face down upon fresh corpses. First they gave the sacred kiss and then were forced to continue the lovemaking process with the corpse. Many refused and they were sent away. After the ceremony those who remained were sealed into the coffins, on top of their dead lovers. The coffins were lowered into the ground. There were tubes which fed water into the coffins and those within remained for 30 days.
Day after day the screams began from within the coffins and the hammering on the wooden lids from within. At times the screaming and hammering was constant and at times dimmed to silence. There were tides of noise and silence, as one lost soul began and another joined. Day after day, no food, no light, only water from the tube to drink. After 2 weeks very few coffins made any noise. After three weeks there was no more noise. On the 30th day the coffins were opened.
None of the coffins contained the living. 37 held dead corpses. 2 contained shades, living flesh transformed into the form of a necromancer. Those transformed had gone mad. They had eaten their dead lovers, leaving partially gnawed corpses. They had passed through madness into union with the dead.
Relvinian did not know what the light was, the sun was nothing to him. His anger, his fear, his previous life meant nothing. All that remained was death.
The priest looked with satisfaction on the two who remained. "Now you begin your training, " he said.
Albion was burning. The relics were ripped from their keeps. The Mids and Hibs had stripped the land of all fortresses. Death was nothing new to Relvinian. The shade form was so close to death as to be one with death. What was a little nudge over the edge?
But dimly through all of this, and through his quest for vengeance-- there had always been hope and a dream of a united Albion. Once there had been a king with his sword, Excalibur, who had united the land. But no more.
Albion was rife with greed and a sickness of spirit. Hatred of the enemy was soon hatred of all. Death for the enemy soon meant death for all.
Embracing death and hatred, Relvinian swore that from this moment on he would call no man friend and would only befriend hatred and death.
If death had a shadow, he would become that shadow. DeathangelsShadow.
Albion burned. Ancient relics, the holy talismans of the realm, were in the clutches of the enemy. The hordes of Midgard and Hibernia had razed every border keep. The cries of the dead and dying filled the once proud streets of Camelot.
Relvinian smiled to himself. Death held no mystery for him. To embrace the shade was to pull the grave to his bosom.
But even in the cold, dark grip of the underworld, the dream of a united Albion still burned fiercely in his heart. The one true king had died in pursuit of this dream.
In the hollow echoes of the king's shattered legacy, Albion suffered. Hate eclipsed hope, and war destroyed the very memory of peace. The shades of the sepulcher that whispered in the dark places of Relvinian's mind hungered for the realm of the living.
Relvinian's smile broke into a grin. Let death come to Albion. The weak would perish and the cowards would flee. He would thrive. In that moment, Relvinian made a pact with himself. He would call no man friend. To the underworld he committed his allegiance, and to wrath he gave his soul.
In death's fell shadow, Albion fell to its knees. And in that darkness he walked without fear. DeathangelsShadow.