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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balrog" data-source="post: 1655330" data-attributes="member: 3543">Prologue, Part IIBruin Haldar was the younger brother of the Hero of Kalendia, Sir Jaycin Threefingers Haldar, and was a hero in his own right.  But his past had been tarnished by Demonic Possession.  His very name sullied, he struggled for atonement and redemption.  In towns where he had once been cheered and welcomed, the common man villified him for his actions while he was possessed.  And for every unforgiven transgression, a shadow stretched across his heart, staining his soul.  Eventually, anger at his plight festered in his heart, and he sought other means of redress.  He began to doubt the justice of his God, and laughed at the purity of the Sacred Flame.               Eventually, his penance required him to serve as jailor in the Sunless Citadel, a place where the most vile and dark criminals served their sentences before the Lord Kossuth.  Once this Citadel had been the heart of the Order, a shining beacon,  but after centuries, a shadow had fallen over it, and the Elders had decreed that its only use was now as a prison for darkness.          And so, Bruin Haldar found himself doing his penance as jailor in the most shadowy wing of the prison.  As he contemplated the sins of those imprisoned, so he was better supposed to be able to understand his own sins, and recover from them.  Or so the Elders said.  But Bruin found it was not nearly so simple.       His favorite prisoner was an undead spirit, a man buried beneath a withered tree in the prison garden.  The spirit never said his name, but he was very intelligent, and knew something of redemption, absolution, and revenge, Bruin's 3 favorite subjects.  Each day on his watch Bruin would come to the garden cell and remove the stake before the withered tree.  Like clockwork, the spirit would appear and begin conversing with Bruin.  A body would eventually appear after several minutes, but Bruin always replaced the stake before the spirit grew too bold.      But one day, Bruin's heart was particularly angry, and particularly bitter.  He longed to return to his friends, the Dragoneers, and fight evil as he did in his younger days.  But part of his spirit railed against those former endeavours, saying they had been a waste of time.  And it was that day that Bruin discovered that the Demonic influence that he thought had been removed, still existed around him, and would never be extinguished.  He longed for peace from the evil and freedom from his fate, but that was not to be had.  His new embrace of evil and death began that day. As Bruin pondered the injustice of his atonement for actions he had never willingly done, the Shadow Demon took strong root in his soul and never let go.  It offered Bruin everlasting power and his own form of justice.  Bruin accepted, and so stepped down the path of the Blackguard, forever forsaking his vows as a Knight of the Sacred Flame, and also forsaking his friendships with the Dragoneers.       Before that day, Bruin had always replaced the stake in the loose earth before the withered tree, as he had been instructed to do by his Elder sponsor.  But that day, Bruin discarded the ancient stake, and taking his last vial of holy water, he smashed it against the far wall, and walked towards the gate of the garden.         Five minutes later, Bruin Haldar stood over the body of his benefactor, the Elder Skadaroth, and the creature he had freed stood next to him.  The creature was a pale wisp of a man, who seemed to fear daylight.  He intoduced himself then as Gulthias, and decreed that the time of prophecy was drawing near.  The halves would become whole, he had said, and the Ancient would return to rule again.         A strange amulet hung about the deathly man's neck, an amulet bearing the symbol of a Serpent eating its own tail.  And he said to Bruin,  "Do not fear Death, but fear me, for I have outwitted Death, and have returned to rule the world.  I must seek Ashardalon, and prepare his return.  Go destroy those who kept you here."      And thus did Gulthias walk free after over a millennia of captivity.  And so did Bruin begin to seek his own revenge for his plight.  And his revenge would begin with those that had been closest to him.  And that meant returning to the battlegrounds, and the Druid War.      Bruin smiled, and idly fingered his frosty, black greatsword.  He would find his brother, and his former companions, and take what belonged to him by right:  the Runesword Flamesinger, the sword of his father.</blockquote>

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