Introduction
Zeydrick
Before you get too ahead of yourself, before you get too invested in the story you're about to hear, you should be aware - there's no heartwarming romance, no uplifting ending, no moral lesson, to make everything else seem worth it or better. What happened, happened. It's gruesome, cruel, and unfiltered, and not for the faint of heart.
You won't give up on me in the middle, will you? You'll listen to the very end? I hope you will, since it's my very life I'm about to tell you.
After all, you wanted to know how I came to be here - locked up here alone, in the center of this abandoned wasteland of a planet, with no hope of escape or rescue. Until you came along, that is.
I'll start by saying this place wasn't a wasteland a thousand years ago, but a thriving, picturesque land full of trees, mountains, rivers - and the most fantastical of creatures. Cruel ones, too, like those that lived in the so-called Holy Empire. Humans. They called it Holy because they had a myth of some god or another being the father of their first emperor. So ever since, every emperor has been revered as a god. Can you believe that? Makes me sick.
They weren't gods, just so you know. They were just as cruel and fallible as the rest of the mortal races, but they had a cruel streak to match the orcs.
It was sheer arrogance, believing yourself descendent from a god.
But that arrogance started my own downfall. Imagine this for a moment and you'll understand how I feel.
An ancient, several thousand seasons old dragon, who saw mortals take their first steps, who saw the birth of creation itself, face to face with a mortal emperor - and the emperor wins. Not only did he face me without any hesitation or fear, but he wielded divine and arcane magic together. He wove a tight, complicated spell around me when I was weakened and trapped me.
Here? No, not here. That story comes later.
He trapped me in the body you see in front of you.
This disgusting human-like bipedal body. All I have left of my magnificent scaled body is a few measly patches of scales, a single pair of horns, my strength, and my memories. I can only harness about a tenth of the magic I had before that stupid spell. And thanks to yet another spell, I was forced to obey that human and his descendants!
I suppose I had a bit of pride and arrogance myself, however well earned. I didn’t think he could beat me.
The emperor at least saw that I was still strong. He made me the captain of his newest Order of Knights. All of those in the Order of Holy Knights were like me - magical creatures turned into humanoid shadows of our former selves. Just like other mortal races, he had to give names to every one of us. He called me Zeydrick.
But unlike me, none of the others seemed to recall their previous lives. They served the emperor without complaint. I guess it helped them not to remember who they were, what they were, or anyone they left behind.
I remember everything.
The first few decades were the worst. The emperor created us to fight off some great evil that as threatening his lands and the lands around the empire. Turns out, he made a deal with those smaller kingdoms to protect them in exchange for them becoming a part of the empire. We drove whatever it was back over the eastern mountains, back towards the lands roamed by demons.
Protecting the humans that once hunted my kind for sport or trophies grated on my patience. I didn't much care if the humans lived or died, and I only obeyed the letter of the emperor's commands. Even if it meant whole villages burned because I turned the troops to deal with the real problem.
Humans breed like rabbits anyway. There's always more of them popping up where you don't want them.
Let's fast forward a bit now. A couple of emperors were pretty terrible and I certainly enjoyed the fact that they didn't order us to protect the people. One emperor even let us do whatever we wanted to the populace.
He was one of the best, since I skewered my fair share of mortals during his reign. I don't care what class they come from, but I do know the richer they are, the more likely they are to try to make a name for themselves as a dragon slayer.
Especially if they're the fifth or seventh son with no hope of inheriting.
Adventurers, too, have that nasty habit of thinking a dragon kill will boost their reputation. I got rid of a lot of would-be dragon hunters.
During that time, I know a lot of the knights indulged in other pleasures. Some wondered if wrath and bloodlust were my only bedfellows. Thing is, I’m just not attracted to mortals, not then and certainly not now. They're disgusting, pitifully fragile, and their emotional responses make me want to puke.
Not to mention their courting rituals. Who thinks someone likes you if they humiliate or hurt you?
Sick bastards.
What? Was that insulting? Maybe you shouldn't be listening to me then. It's only going to get worse.
Alright then, buckle up, buttercup. I'm not holding back.
The real story begins just over two centuries after my imprisonment in this body. The emperor at the time had about five years under his belt, so he wasn't entirely new. And his advisor was the former emperor, Ovale si Regelis Svetovid.
The old fucker just didn't know how to die, and believe me, I'd turned my eyes away from enough assassins to know that.
But whatever, he'll die eventually.
Best thing eventually happened. The current emperor, Arias si Mesiraeh Svetovid, got in a fight with Ovale, who took his wife, a couple of servants, and went off to live in their summer palace.
Good riddance.
That left a power vacuum, as I'm sure you can imagine. Our dear illustrious Emperor Arias asked for suggestions on who to make his advisor now.
I took the chance offered.
"But sire," I said to him, "you are the Holy Emperor. What need do you have of someone telling you what to do? Who could dare think to outrank you?"
He thought over my words, leaning back in his chair, as I stood before his desk. I remember he had the windows of his study open that day, letting in the scents of the blooming garden flowers.
"You're absolutely right," he finally replied from behind his splayed hand. I spied the corners of a smile between his fingers.
Hook, line, and sinker.
"I don't need an advisor. I don't need the council, either. Tell the council they're dismissed. If any resist, toss them in the Tower."
"As you command."
As you can imagine, I enjoyed obeying this command. His own father had established this council, a better system of government than the emperor before. Half the councilors ended up in the Tower. The rest, upon seeing what resistance gained, left the palace peacefully. I had my people keep a close eye on them anyway in case they decided to stage a coup.
That had happened once in the past, when I hadn't paid close attention to the unrest among the people. It was a headache and a half to deal with the fallout. Never again.
I enjoyed the tyrant reigns when they gained me a bit of freedom.
This baby emperor didn't stop there. Arias wanted to expand our borders, something none of the other emperors had bothered doing. There wasn't a whole lot of land the empire didn't already have control of, after all.
But Emperor Arias set his sights on the lands of the demons, the lands beyond the eastern mountains.
I'm all for a good war, civil or otherwise. Demons, though, can be a bit troublesome. They don't die as easily as mortals and they tend to leave behind a nasty death curse, if they're powerful enough.
I've seen what happens to victims of a demon's death curse. It eats you from the inside, makes your body attack itself. You lose bits of skin, fingernails, fingers - if you're still alive by the time you lose a limb, well, you're a stubborn shit and I respect your will to live.
Stubbornness isn't going to make it stop, however, and I've never heard of anyone breaking a demon's death curse. It's worse the more powerful the demon, but most of the death curses run the same course. You're dead yourself within a few weeks.
Fortunately, this wouldn’t be the Knights’ first go at demons. That war we were made to fight in, two centuries ago? Demons. Demons and their demon king, pushed on by the whispered promises of their demon god. I knew from that war that at least we Knights were pretty much immune to the death curses of most demons, unless you got to S-class or above. That’s where things got tricky. Even with our blessed armor and the blessings of the Gods and Spirits protecting us, there isn’t much that can stand against the death curse of an S-class demon.
That's not to say we're all immortal, of course. You can see I'm the only one left here.
That's my fault, too, I guess, but that would spoil the ending.
Where was I? Oh, yes, the expansion.
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