<span class="mu-i"> ''He was many a thing to many a person. The wise mentor, who helped the hero on his way; the able wizard, always able to conjure up new tricks and spells; the trustworthy advisor, there to guide the king or queen on their way to greatness; the beloved courtier, whose suggestions always won favour at court; the loyal friend, who stood by through thick and thin; the compassionate healer, who tended to the sick and wounded with care and skill. All of these were masks in one way or the other, and though many spoke of him, none knew him.
He was a king, a priest, a merchant and a sorcerer, and yet he was also the dirty man toiling in the fields and the cutthroat lurking in the alleyway. A thousand roles, and yet he always came back with another: the elven prince, the dwarven master craftsman, the orc warchief, the hooded stranger. He was the priest of the sun god in the sweltering jungles of the south and the incarnation of the winter king in the taiga of the frigid north.
But what lay beneath? But a malevolence unrivalled, a desire to impose order upon all life, to make this world rigid and unyielding to his whims. And he played his parts well; sometimes he arose, deceived a people into worshipping him, and made their land, their people, and their culture but a part of his vision.
Coalition-building might have been his true strength, both in his favour and against him. His efforts led him far, building an empire that stretched from the jungles over the deserts and steppes to the ice caps. From east to west, from north to south, nowhere was truly safe from his reach.
And at the centre of it all lay a place most desolate, a blighted landscape, where nought stood but a dark tower. Here he planned, coordinated, plotted and sat upon his throne, in between leading his dark hosts or going out to conduct his eldritch plans and rituals elsewhere.'' </span>
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=The%20Shadow%20Rises%20AnewThe deed was done; a rebellion had been squashed once again, their cavern home rendered uninhabitable by your own toxic fumes. Part of you had wished to crawl through, rip the little leader from his hiding hole, and eat him wholesale.
But you elected not to; no, instead you made certain that if there were those who had survived, they would never see the sky again, nor would they hew their way out, for you melted the stone shut. When you finally got out of the caverns, the mountain partially caved in, sealing off any chance of escape for the rebels.
But it was inevitable, was it not? Such is the fate of all those who oppose you; nobody would remember this place, the peasant might for the rest of their short, miserable lives, but they will die, and a century from now, there will be naught in remembrance but your past conquests, nothing in the present but your edicts and decrees, and the future to be filled with future glory.
