-Seventy Years Later-

I lived my life alone from there on. My home was isolated, out in the wilderness and far from anyone Damien could hurt. At first I kept in contact via falcon letters, but after all I received was tragic news I stopped sending them. I buried Eileen's remains in the backyard, but they grave was dug up in the night and her body dragged off into the forest. I didn't bother trying to get it back; Damien was getting creative in his torments, and I didn't want to see what he would do with my beloved's corpse.
Nightmares occurred every night, illusion and shadows tormenting me with the faces of people I had failed.

Damien would appear now and again. The question was always the same. So was the answer.

Now I lay there on my deathbed, just as alone as always. Seventy years of torment and restlessness had taken their toll, even on my divinely enhanced body.

I let out a slow breath. Damien was already there.

"Please," He growled. "Kill me already. One last act of kindness, please Alione."

I didn't dignify him with a response.

"Alione." His voice was now warning. "Don't do this."

I looked him dead in the eye, those hollow pits. I closed my eyes, ignoring his howling roar of fury, and breathed my last.

-Damien-

I watched my last chance at freedom die.

I watched as his very soul drifted from his carcass, pulled upward to the heavens to join his friends.

The feeling welling within me transcended simple anger. It was beyond emotion and words.

Alione thought he could die before doing what he owed me? Not a chance.

My form broke apart, and a single beak of shadowy wings sent me beyond the sky and into the beyond. Around me, the eddies and whorls of the River of Souls spun around me. I gazed without eyes, searching for that spark of primal light.
There.

Like a shadow across the wall, I swept over Alione's soul, snatching it from the River and realigned with the mortal world.

The Primordial Light burned, but I ignored it. He thought I would let him leave, let him trap me like this until the end of time? No.

I sailed across the sky, looking for my target. Finally, one caught my eye. A small farming community, humble and pedestrian, just like Alione's own home. It would do now, and every incarnation hence. A farmer's wife was giving birth, a new soul being brought into the world.

With a hawk's swiftness, I passed through the delivery room, releasing Alione's spirit into the body of the babe. He wouldn't remember a thing, but the Light would return, the Hero reincarnated. My final words to him were simple.

A Curse.

"Never will you know release, until I do. Again and Again, you may slay me, again and again you may die, but eternal shall we struggle. Only in my true death, the Death of my Dark, will this cycle of misery and ruin end. This is my curse, Hero, my Spite. So long as I am allowed to live, I shall bring about pain and horror upon this world, and you will always return to stop me. Until I have my peace, you will never know yours."

I fled just as swiftly, without anyone the wiser.

I returned to that accursed place. The Well of Sorrows beckoned, having run dry so long ago.

It needed me, and I would need it moving forward.

Down there, monsters anew would be born, and raise havoc and death to the world.

The Hero would rise to this challenge, naturally. They would grow strong, empowered by the Light. Maybe strong enough to truly kill me, probably not. But they would always have to try, and I pray one will succeed.

My sacrifice brought an age of peace, however brief. Now, my life shall bring about an age of war.

I breathed in deep the brackish fumes of the Well, even as new monstrous life stirred in the silt underfoot. So is my decree, not as Damien, but as the Daemon Lord.

-Three Months Later-

I bowled right through the grand doors to the King's Hall. "BARBAS!" I roared, blade drawn already and flanked by Eileen, Raven and a contingent of Elite Knights.

At the far end of the hall, Barbas lounged across the royal throne, chugging from an immense mug. Ale sloshed past his mouth and ran down his bare chest, mingling with the blood splatters across his body. As the foot of the throne, his immense hammer was embedded in the pulverized remains of King Iraine.

"What madness has taken you, Barbas?!" I snapped. "To murder the king, proclaim yourself tyrant, have you forgot what we stand for?"

Barbas lowered his cup, belching loudly. "You stood for, not me." He waved me off. "I was only in it for the money and fights. But, since I am the strongest, why shouldn't I be in charge, eh?" He dropped the tankard and sat up. "I put in all the hard work, I did the fighting, why should this little chickenshit be in charge and not me?" Barbas smiled, crooked, yellow teeth contrasting with his bloodshot eyes.

"You've finally lost it, haven't you." Eileen shook her head as she readied her staff. "Please surrender, Barbas, we won't hesitate to put you down."

"HA!" Barbas stood, wrenching his sledgehammer from the pulped corpses of the king with a wet squelch. "You're free to try, lass. But don't ever forget; I am the strongest, no-one else!"

Barbas leapt at us, hammer gleaming as red as his eyes, spittle and froth flying from his lips. Seven knights died in the ensuing battle before Raven could slit his arm and force him to drop his hammer. Eileen paralyzed him, and I took off my once-friends head off with a single stroke.

It would take three hours before I was informed that the Darkcell was empty.

-One Month Later-

I looked down at the new grave. Another victim.

Maurice had once been my mentor, teaching me the way of the sword in my earlier days. I treasured him like a father. They found his corpse half-eaten by Dire-wolves in the forest three days after his disappearance. They said, judging by the bloodstains and the cuts on his wrists and heels, he had been forced to crawl like a dog through the forest for hours before he died.

My gaze turned to the other graves; a blacksmith here, burned to death after a collapsed awning pushed and trapped him in the hot coals of his outdoor forge. A tavern-keep, beaten to death in a bar brawl gone too far. A questing knight, trampled to death by his own horse. A priest, stabbed in the lung during a break-in at his own chapel.

All of them, connected to me and my party.

"Does it hurt enough yet." I turned calmly to the new voice.

Damien didn't look like Damien anymore. His fangs overgrew his mouth, giving him a permanent grin. His horns had grown into an immense crested crown, and a pair of wings made of pure smoke hung from his back. His squatted on Maurice's grave, staring at me intently.

"Damien..."

"Does it hurt enough for you to kill me yet?" He snapped again.

"Damien," Tears pricked my eyes. "I can't. No one can, I-." Damien lurched upright without warning.

"It's not going to stop, Alione." He said slowly. "I won't hurt you, but your friends, family, every companion and cohort. Until my pain is gone, yours will never end."

"They're your friends too!" I roared, tears rolling down my face now.

Damien began to fade, smoky wings draping across his body as his form broke apart.
"Not anymore, Alione."

-Two weeks Later-

One final slam, and the barricaded door shattered, sending me staggering inside.

"Raven!" I screamed, voice hoarse from the hours shouting before. I couldn't conceal my panic anymore. "Raven, please talk to me! It doesn't have to-!"
My voice died as I saw her.

Her breathing was shallow, but her eyes were dead. In one limp hand, an empty phial and needle. A dozen similar syringes were strewn about, a few still-smoldering smoking pipes and countless booze bottles.

She was a mess, a living corpse with her deathly pale skin and sunken eyes. I shook her and cried, desperately trying to elicit some kind of reaction, but were only met with unfocused eyes and no response.

I barely noticed the small charm clutched in her fist, a gift from years past given to her by Damien, nor the shadow on the wall behind her, twirling a syringe between its fingers.

-One Month Later-

I woke with a start to the sound of cutlery clattering from the dining room.

"Eileen?" I called to my new wife, worry beginning to flare in my breast. Sitting up, I stepped into the dining room and froze at the sight of it. Damien, just as malformed and horrific as always, sat at my dinner table, leisurely eating a steak like some civilized person. His massive black wings took up half the room easily, cutting off my vision of the rest of the room.

He noticed me, jabbing his fork at the other end of the table. "Sit, we need to talk."

I sat without argument, watching him intently. I was already dreading his visit. "Where's Eileen." I bit out, knuckled going white as I clenched my fists.

"Oh please," Damien waved me off with his knife. "I have no care nor need for her. She's useless to me. You, however..."

"Damien, I..." I felt bile rise back up in my throat. The same old argument, the same old response. "I can't. I couldn't kill The Dark before, I can't kill you now."

"Alione," His voice, that jagged, malicious voice quieted to a familiar, supporting tone. Just like before. "I believe in you."

He leaned forward, jabbing me in the chest with his fork and the small cut of meat on its end. beneath it, I felt the Mark of Light, the tattoo that marked me as the Hero, burned ever so slightly. "You're the Hero, Light embodied on the earth. If there's anyone who can, it has to be you."

Just like before. Before the ritual, before the Well, before the decision. Kind words, earnest support, given to raise spirits in the face of evil. I felt some fundamental terror fall into my gut.

"Damien, what did you do, where is Eileen?"

"Oh, old friend, I told you, I have no need for her." His wings shifted, folding back and letting me see beyond him. "A farmer does not set a cow loose just because they produce no milk."

Through the open doorway tp the kitchen, I saw the limp arm of Eileen, splattered red, dangling from the kitchen counter.

"All it means is that the farmer shall be eating beef." Damien sneered, biting into another piece of his steak.

Part 2/3

I screamed until my voice gave as the metal spikes were hammered through my hands and ankles. I screamed until blood drooled out of my mouth when I felt to sigils sear themselves into my flesh. I screamed until my lungs collapsed as The Dark crawled into my body, driven by both Alione's radiant sword and Eileen's magic.

What I horrid fool I was. Every time I swore to leave, they reeled me back in, offering words of false sincerity and honeyed bait. "We still need you," they told me, "You're a vital part of this team!" I was so naïve. Every time I took the bait, taking their kindness to heart. I believed, wholeheartedly, that if I could not be the greatest mage, the strongest brawler or most awe-striking leader, I could at least be a candid friend. Why else would they keep me around?

Alas, a farmer does not set the cow lose just because it produces no milk. All it means is the farmer shall be eating beef.

We trekked down the chasm into the Well of Sorrows, intent on destroying the malicious Dark and freeing the world of the aberrant and monstrous. I couldn't even scratch the blackened things that lived down there, even as Alione and Barbas shattered carapace and metal with each blow, Eileen razed hordes with but a wave of her staff and Raven all but danced between talon and blade alike, blades shimmering as she sliced them apart with clinical precision. And me? Cheering from the sidelines like a good pet.

The bottom of the Well was no kinder a venture. The Dark itself was as vast as it was amorphous, and as violent as it was mindless. The battle itself could be compared to trying to beat a tidal wave; a task made seemingly possible by sheer power of the Hero and his allies, yet nevertheless a futile endeavor.

"Eileen! We're out of options! Grab Damien!" It was the Hero Alione that cried those words as Barbas was hurled nearly fifty feet straight up and slammed into the stone below with earthshaking force.

Next, I was forced onto my back by magical force and, before even a single protest could pass my lips, four enchanted nails were driven through my limbs. As Alione, Barbas and Raven did their part to distract The Dark, Eileen went to work on some for of binding incantation, conjuring runes of burning heat onto my skin in spite of my screams and begging for mercy. As the needle-flesh of The Dark was forced into me, I could feel my flesh die and calcify instantly. I could feel my soul shrivel as the umbral horror was bound to it. Before unconsciousness claimed me, I felt my humanity die in the face of such a vast Darkness.

--Alione--

Bile rose in the back of my throat as I looked down at what was left of Damien. The skin, still scarred with the lattice of binding sigils and enchanted runes, was now a corpse-like pallor, and his hair had all fallen out. His eyes were just... gone, black pits set into his head. Those eyes, so full of joy and life and-.

I sucked in a deep breath, closing my eyes to steady myself. I turned to move before I felt a hand clasp my breastplate. I looked down the stoic face of Raven. Expressionless as she was, I could feel her anger through the faint trembling of her fist on my chest.

"You said we wouldn't need to do it." Not an accusation. It didn't need to be.

"I said I hoped we wouldn't need to, but we both knew the odds of killing the Primordial Dark were slim. This was the only option for peace." I stressed, gently clasping her fist with my own. Raven's eyes darted back to the body of Damien, which still breathed, however shallow and slow. She wouldn't be okay, not for a long time after this, if my theories on her feelings were true.

"Aw, quit bellyaching." Barbas growled, stretching his back with an audible crack. "He was only here for this. We all knew that, whelp should be proud he was actually useful for once." The brute huffed as he shouldered his warhammer. I turned to him with a sharp glare, causing the giant of a man to snarl and turn, storming off.

As Raven let go and went to Damien's side, Eileen approached me. "What now? We can't just let him go; if The Dark somehow escapes, it will all be for nothing." She said gently, resting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"We had a cell prepared in secret. Damien should be secure, and well cared for.""And when he dies?" I could feel the palpable worry in her voice, and I noticed both Barbas and Raven stop and look at me. Regardless of our feelings toward Damien, none of us were fond of The Dark.

"He can't. Not by intent or by time." I said slowly. "The runes were designed to bind the two irrevocably; The Dark will feed into and sustain his body, and thus no measure known to man or god would be able to kill him. He is exactly as immortal as The Dark was, but with none of the power." It was a plan years in the making. Everything had been chosen accordingly; the runes, the day they would strike at the Well, the exact party that would accompany me, especially Damien as the sacrifice. I had thought of him nothing more than just a sacrifice, until I saw the unprepared boy brought to the chapel, so full of childish happiness and purity.Perhaps he needed to be like that, so that there was more humanity to burn for the ritual.

"Come on." I spoke low to Eileen. "Let's head home."

-One Year Later-

There were celebrations and mourning both across the realm. The official story spoke of the noble stand of the Hero and his companions, striking into the heart of evil itself. At the climax of the battle, the unassuming Damien would make a heroic leap of faith, critically wounding The Dark and allowing it to be banished from the world for good, at the cost of his life.The unofficial one was known only by a sparse few.

The cell was lavish and comfortable, made to accompany its occupant until the end of time itself. Or, it was once upon a time. Soft, silken cushions shredded to ribbons, tables and chairs smashed and scattered across the floor, crystal decanters and glasses reduced to powder.The two caretakers had fared no better, dangling partially flayed from the ceiling by nooses made of their own braided skin.

"Damien, please calm down!" I cried, one hand on the hilt of the Sword of Radiance.

"NO!" Damien's voice rattled the stonework beneath my feet, forcing me to take a step back.Damien paced back and forth, a twisted monster of his former self. His body had grown massive and knotted, long talons sprouted from his fingers, and a crown made of horns jutted from his brow. A tail swung back and forth behind him with each step.

"You did this to me, Alione, so now do you're part and FIX IT!" I ducked under a flying chair."I'm not going to kill you Damien, for fuck's sake!"

"Why not!?" He snapped, rounding on me with those black pits for eyes. His skin was taught, forcing him to bear his sharpened teeth with every word. "You had no compunctions making me like this, why not do me this kindness and kill me already!?"

"I can't, Damien!" I begged, hand still on the Sword yet I still didn't draw it. "I can't kill you any more than we could kill The Dark, I'm sorry!"

Damien howled like an ungodly horror, leaping at me with fangs and claws bared. Right before impact, a band of silver light burst into being around his neck and wrists, forcing him to stop. The bindings stopped him as I began to back out of the room, a quiet sadness filling my heart as the furious roars assaulted my ears.

Part 1/3

There's something that striking to me about the phrase 'a city of air and gold'. I am absolutely stealing that for my DnD group.