It is unknown for how long TerVarus had been felled. Some would say weeks, years. If one were to ask one of the kings, they may reply decades as they sit upon their degrading throne and ask for the highest quality food – but even that wouldn’t be too high above what the peasants eat. Most wonder how great cities fell; how the fauna began to mysteriously perish; how forests and lakes went from flourishing and being full of life, to empty and housing nothing except the elements.
It was hunger for power. It was always hunger for power.
Long ago, the great Order of Zythore had been created. This order had consisted of some of the top mages in the world and were always willing to recruit and teach further. They had never been after power or wealth, all they had ever cared about was intelligence and to see if you were worthy of becoming a mage.
There was a test you see, one would have to prove their intelligence, strength, and wit to make sure they would know the risks, know when would be the right time to use such powerful magic, and to make sure they didn’t die when casting a simple fireball. They knew and expected people would either have not enough wisdom to make it through the gauntlet, or they would have enough and successfully pass it.
But no one ever expected that someone would pass the test, nay, exceed the test with extraordinary results, and exceed the intelligence of everyone in the order. One did, and that one had a lot of plans for what to do with the magic once he passed the test.
He learned many things from the mages in the years he spent in the order. He invented many things that he shared with the order. He seemed to have a particular affinity with life in the world. Whether it was his own, the life of creatures, plants, or fellow humans, he made a lot of spells for it. Some could cure extremely rare diseases. Others could make plants flourish in otherwise dead soil. They all had one thing in common though. They required a source of power. Not directly a life or lifeblood in a being. But the power that was commonly throughout the world. That could not be seen without an extremely keen eye. From the sword in a blacksmith’s shop, to a flower that can be picked from the ground, to the snow that falls throughout the world. They all have a power to them, but only an experienced mage could find these powers, and then harness them to fuel their spells. He was able to do just that and became a renowned mage worldwide over the years.
Until he was assassinated.
It is not known who had done it. All that was known was that he was found in bed, a Dagger made of Dragonite lodged in his chest – directly in his heart.
Plenty of accusations had gotten thrown around. Perhaps it was one of the other mages? Or a secretly jealous king or noble? Dragonite was an extremely hard substance to come by and to make an entire dagger out of it-almost unthinkable. Almost.
Unfortunately for those who the news had reached, his death was the worst thing to happen in history. Not because of what he had done while alive, but because of what he had planned for in death.
He had always been power hungry and while he had been able to create and cast some magnificent and awe-inspiring things, there is one conclusion he was able to come to. His body, no human’s body for that matter, was powerful enough to harness what he wanted. There were many things he researched, but what caught his eye were a few books pertaining to spirits, all the different races, and harnessing the power of common magical forces throughout the world. He learned that if you were able to contain, not capture, but just contain a magical force, that you could in essence ‘feed’ it spirits and its power would grow. This begged the question: Could this happen in reverse? Bodies, no matter the race, could not handle large amounts of power, but perhaps spirits could bypass this artificial limit? And so, the testing began.
He began experimenting and learned many things. Spirits did have limits to the power they could absorb, but it was far above that of any regular body. And it appeared different races’ spirits had different limitations. In the end, he came to the conclusion that the best spirit to absorb the most power would be a dragon.
Unfortunately, being the smartest mage in the order, he knew that he would, or already was, drawing the eyes of not only the other order members, but of royal members and bounty hunters as well due to not only his experiments, but the feats he had performed with life worldwide. He eventually realized that he was creating a very large target directly on his back and knew he had to make use of his findings and apply it before it was too late. And thus, his experiment for his dance with death was finally put in motion.
What he had planned for in death was unlike anything the citizens of TerVarus had seen before in history. Even the gods started to pay more attention to see if they should begin to intervene. He had created a bond between his death, and the live world, and had become a Draconian Spirit. A bipedal dragon spirit with the intelligence and mind of a human, but the effects of being a dragon. He had successfully been able to turn into the most powerful spirit in the world – all thanks to his assassination.
Then came what was globally known as “The Purging”. He had a certain affinity with life and, now being one of the most powerful entities in the world, began sweeping across the world taking the lives and spirits of every living thing in the world, which he only used to empower himself and gather more spirits.
The Purging caused forests, caves, villages, cities, and everything in between to wither and die. It was unlike anything anyone had seen. Kings withered on their thrones. Animals died grazing where they stood. Songs were created, rhymes were made to try and hide children from the spirit’s gaze. Everyone was at their wit’s end to try and figure out how to end this tyrannical time in history. Even the gods had debated amongst themselves, trying to figure out how to intervene. Unfortunately, they knew not what power this new spirit held and wondered if they manifested themselves in the physical realm, mightn’t he take their power as well and become truly unstoppable. And so, the quest for how to defeat the most powerful spirit in history fell to every living being in TerVarus.
Only one was able to accomplish it though.
Who it was, no one knows. All anyone knows is what happened; the spirit loomed over the continent and just as it was making its way over the city of Lucia, an earth-shattering spiritual scream reverberated across the land. Most of those in Lucia became deaf because of it, but as everyone came out of their homes to figure out what had caused such a guttural scream, one thing became clear: The spirit was finally dead. Most were a bit confused how such a large entity that had been around for decades was suddenly gone overnight. The few that saw it directly described it as ‘nothing theatrical, it simply faded out of existence’ and the ones who didn’t had to take their word for it. Other questions came to light though, none of which had answers; “Who killed it?” “How did they kill it?” “What was its name?” “Can this happen again?” The last question, while it couldn’t be answered, could at least be investigated. The new king looked into the Order of Zythore, and demanded that it be disbanded. Everything relating to magic or that could be used for magic should be destroyed and all shrines or altars that could be used to commune with gods should also be found if possible and destroyed or broken in any way possible. Altars still popped up every now and then, but since The Purging, not a single spirit or mage had ever been seen again.
In the following years, the land began to rebuild itself and both living and non-living began to rejoice. They could not communicate with each other directly but some were able to find means to connect with the other side and both were in agreement that things should stay as is.
A couple decades passed and something peculiar was discovered in a cavern by a group of explorers. What looked to be a cracked genie type of lamp was laying sideways partially buried in the ground. They realized it could be extremely valuable and started to dig in the area right away for any other hidden treasures. Nothing else was found but upon inspecting the dug up dirt, they realized that only a couple feet below the surface were pieces of Dragonite. They immediately sent word to the king who sent a search party out to the cavern and they came to one conclusion: This was the grave of the Draconian spirit. They also realized they needed to give it a name to make it more personable as without a name, it only inspired fear. And so, the tale of Malspirion The Undying was born.
Over the years, many clues continued to pop up to fill in the blanks of how exactly such a deadly spirit came to be, however each time, each clue created more questions than it answered. And to this day, no one knows the exact details of who Malspirion The Undying really was, or how he came to be.