I stormed up the stairs, my companions by my side, and the sword Of Thal, God of heroes and justice in my hand. We stopped every three floors or so to clear out the students and sellswords he had guarding each level. We still trudged ever upward. I cut down my former friends and classmates, the men who used to keep me safe. I realized it had been five years, but I had been called to this. My mother had joined the Magus Collective when she was pregnant with me. I didn't know my father, not until the day he died.

I was born a legacy, and we were forbidden from entering the top floor which consisted of the Archmage's quarters, laboratory, and sorcerous chamber. Our sworn enemies were the oathkeepers, also known as The servants of Thal. They were the various heroes and guardsmen, and footsoldiers one could find, just about everywhere.

I snuck up into his sorcerous chamber on a dare, from my upperclassmen when I was fifteen. I found a man, locked behind wards, in a cage, chained to the bars. He was alive, but being taken over by hellspawn. It was if, someone had been channeling the dark magics of the 9 hells, and forcing them into him. He looked up at me, and in a deep, and distorted voice he said two words that made me freeze.

"My... Son..."

His blackened eyes filled with tears.

"You...must escape... find your... uncle in... Tevaria... He is the head oathkeeper now..."

I began to cry. I had never seen the man, but I knew it had to be true. I could feel it to be true. I turned to take a look at the mirror in front of his cage. It showed me approaching him. All this time he had watched me grow up, a form of torture devised by the Archmage no doubt.

I tried to dispel the ward, but couldn't. He begged me to touch it and free him of his pain. I touched it, and he died. The wards killed him.

So I escaped. I found my uncle, trained to use magic and the sword, met my brave companions, Hjalmarr the Dwarven warrior, with a warhammer made of dragon bone and gold, Tehras, the elven ranger, with a magic bow, and arrows of all kinds in his quiver, and finally Galen, the sorceress of the oathkeepers.

There was a demon on the floor below the top, so they stayed behind to fight him. I breeches the Archmage's door, and there he was, Korvak, head of the magus circle. He smirked at me. I fired spell after spell off, but he deflected. I swung the sword all the ways I had been taught, but he dodged. I had to use the secret sword technique, taught to me by my uncle, and as I drove my sword ever closer to his heart, he pulled out his own sword, and deflected my ultimate attack. I wound up on the floor, his blade at my throat.

"I don't think you get it" He sneered "I didn't give up the sword because I am only good at magic, or I am frail or weak, In fact I was too good, and it bored me."

My companions burst through the door. He shot Hjalmarr with some dark bolt of lightning from his sword, killing him on impact. He caught the arrow Tehras shot, and threw it back so hard it sailed through his throat. As for Galen, he lifted his staff, and a pale mist flew from it, through her ward, and she bleed from her orifices and died.

"It's time you knew the truth, legacy." He growled. "I am a lot older than I let on. I was born in the first age, when magic was raw and primal. I mastered it, and it gave me life eternal. That was long forgotten magic I used on them, magic no one but me knew."

He grabbed me by the throat.

"I learned to fight from my father, who commanded the kings armies. When I mastered all forms of combat I moved to magic, and then I went to serve the gods, only, the-"

"They didn't want you, so you planned revenge, right?" I cut him off. He slammed me into the cage wall.

"NO YOU ARROGANT BOY! I BROKE THROUGH THEIR REALM, AND I SAW SOMETHING NOBODY SHOULD SEE. I SAW THE THRONE OF THE GODS, AND IT WAS EMPTY!"

I froze up.

"Empty? H-how?"

"Empty, except for Thal. The God of heroes and justice killed his peers, so he could be the God of all."

He chained me in the cage.

"I fled, and vowed to go back, to gain the power to kill Thal, and claim the throne for myself. He locked up the ways to their realm, but, if I could corrupt, one of his blood, one who could wield his sword, with hellspawn magic, I could use him to open my own way. Your father was his great grandson. And so devoted to him too."

"I don't believe you!" I screamed

"Believe or not, it doesn't matter, you killed him. So close to the end, but... You have Thal's blood. You can wield his sword, that is proof. So, I have a new vessel, a new key to power."

My eyes widened in horror.

"You don't mean..."

He said nothing. He just turned to me, and held up an ancient book, and his staff. He said some spell in a language I didn't recognize, and black mist and Foul fire poured into my eyes, my nose, and my mouth.

It's been that way for the past twenty years. Tomorrow, he will breach the palace of the gods...

And it will be all my fault.