Darkness everywhere. Everyone in the castle was unconscious and screaming in agony but they were unable to wake up. The prince was breaking out in scorch marks all over his body. Looking outside the castle, almost everyone was in the same condition as the royals; save for the few known to be impulsive thieves and cheats. Wandering through the halls of the castle, being careful not to step on any of the suffering unconscious, all the way down to the prison cells, there were the murders and vandals, all awake with no signs of being in any pain or torment. Suddenly a hand reached out of nowhere and said in an eerie voice, "Fear the darkness. Fear the pain. Fear your creator. Fear existence. This realm is mine to govern how I see fit." There were deep sapphire blue eyes staring deep out of the darkness with a devilish smile below the terrifying stare.

Gabriel shot up from a dead sleep sweating, almost crying, and shaking uncontrollably in pure terror. He was not sure how his mind conjured the scenes he had dreamt because he was not alive during the Great Death of A1 Y203. Gabriel was only 7 or 8 years old in A5 Y317, the current year. Being a servant child there was no good birth record keeping confirming his age. Gabriel decided that it would be a better idea to not dwell on his odd dream. It was just a little bit after 8:30 in the morning and he knew that he needed to have breakfast arranged on a serving tray to be brought to the prince, Idoen Asgaldsson. For the past year Gabriel's mother has been having him do what he can to adjust to being Idoen's personal servant, Gabriel's future role in the castle.

Once Gabriel had the food, he took it to Idoen's chambers with the help of his mother. They both walked into the chambers expecting to see the normal scene of Idoen and the Queen. However this morning was different, the room was devoid of people. He and his mother went to the next likely place Idoen would be, the king and queen's chambers. Gabriel's mother is the queen's personal servant and rightly knocked on the chamber's door and asked, "May we come in?"

"Enter," the king replied.

They entered the room and saw the royal family sitting on the bed comforting their son. Gabriel's mother noticed the comforting and asked, "What happened during the night?"

This time the queen responded, "Oh, Idoen woke up terrified this morning and came to us for comfort." Gabriel's family had been servants to the Asgaldsson family for many generations and was thusly very trusted and considered a very close friend.

Gabriel thought to himself, "This is odd. Idoen is very rarely scared. Let alone by a dream of all things." However Gabriel kept that information to himself and simply piped up, "I have Idoen's breakfast. Would he like it now or later?" Gabriel's mother glared at him and just stood silent in amazement that the first words he uttered to his currently terrified friend were about food and not of consolation.

Idoen looked up with a blank white stare and the look of sheer terror in his eyes and muttered something under his breath that Gabriel could just barely make out. Gabriel thought it was something similar to the voice from his nightmare. Idoen spoke barely loud enough for everyone to hear, "Thanks Gabriel I would like some breakfast. Mom, Dad, I'm heading back to my room to have breakfast."

Idoen's parents shocked, replied, "O-Okay son. E-Enjoy breakfast."

Gabriel and Idoen went off to Idoen's chambers to enjoy breakfast together. Breakfast went through the usual rituals and Idoen did not seem fazed enough by the nightmare he had. As Idoen ate, the color on his face began to return to a more normal color, still a little pale but much closer to normal than it was earlier this morning. After breakfast Idoen had some duties to attend to and left Gabriel to shadow his mother to learn what he is supposed to do as a personal servant of the royal family.

It was around 1:30 in the afternoon and Idoen had just been released from his duties. Gabriel knew this because the castle schedule was fairly patterned. He asked his mother, "May I go play with Idoen?" Gabriel and Idoen were about the same age and had been friends for all their short lives.

Gabriel's mother looked at him and then at the clock and said, "You are free to go check to see if Idoen is free. If he is then you have my permission, however" She paused for emphasis, "Ask before you take Idoen from his duties."

"Okay Mother I'll ask first. Bye!" Gabriel shot away from his mother's side and went sprinting down the halls to go to his best friend, the prince. He sprinted past all the servants walking through the hall nearly knocking many of them off their feet. Gabriel remembered a shortcut he had used a few times prior. He veered off from the halls and ran through the kitchen. Dinner had already been served so he knew there would be very few people in the kitchen and thought it would be perfectly safe to run through it. As he was running he was looking around him to ensure that he was not going to hit anything. The one place he forgot to look was straight ahead and because of that nearly mowed down the ancient looking sous chef. The sous chef called out after Gabriel, "Slow down Gabe or you'll give this old lady a heart attack and broken bone or four!"

Gabriel ignored this and continued to sprint to see Idoen. Finally he arrived at the Throne Room. He walked in and saw that there was no one but the royal family inside. Gabriel asked the King and Queen, "May I play with Idoen until supper?"

The king looked at the queen and said, "Okay very well but don't get into too much trouble."

Idoen ran over to Gabriel and drug him out of the Throne Room. He looked Gabriel in the eyes and said excitedly," I have something to show you in my chambers."

The two boys went darting down the castle halls to Idoen's chambers. They opened the doors and walked inside. Gabriel just stood there not sure what it was that interested Idoen in a room they had been in many times. Idoen grabbed Gabriel and pulled him and his attention over to the wardrobe. Idoen opened the wardrobe and pushed some things aside to reveal what appeared to be a crawl space entrance. Both of the boys pulled on the door with all their might. The pressure seal finally released revealing a passageway to something unknown. The boys crawled into the passageway. On the other side of the door it became spacious enough for them to stand comfortably. Before they had wandered into the new castle secret, Idoen grabbed a candle for light. They wandered for a while hoping they would find something interesting. They were walking for about an hour and half and they finally saw something different. A very old, locked cell, containing nothing save for a rather large gem sitting on a nest of hay, was at the end of the passageway. They walked over to the cell door and scanned it for a lock of any sort. Gabriel noticed the lock and the amount it had rusted. Gabe pointed it out to Idoen who first said," Gabe, let's open the cell."

"Uh, Idoen I get the feeling that it would not be very wise to open the cell." Gabe said.

Idoen retorted, "Are you really going to just let that jewel sit there and not present it to the king and queen as a fruit of our adventures?"

"Alright fine but I am pretty sure that the cell is locked because of that." Gabe pointed at the lock currently on the door.

"Oh that old rusty thing. I'm sure if we push on the cell door we will be able to break the lock as if it were a twig," Idoen said.

"Okay fine let's give it a shot and if after two tries it doesn't budge we should just leave it be." Under his breath Gabe muttered, "Stuhnsil please help us. I have bad feeling about this." Gabe and his family were devout followers of Stuhnsil, the goddess of luck.

The boys flung themselves at the door and on the first try it swung wide open. Idoen triumphantly stated, "I told you it would break like a twig. Now let's grab the gem and take to my parents."

Idoen reached out and seized the gem in his hand. Gabe noticed something odd about how the gem looked when Idoen was reaching to grab it. It was almost as if something moved away from Idoen's hand. Gabe just figured it was light and shadows changing that caused the apparent movement within the gem.

The Gem itself was something to behold. It looked as though it could be mounted atop a scepter or even atop a throne. It was a gorgeous deep blue that resembled a sapphire in some ways but it was far too dark to be a sapphire.

The adventurous boys made their way to the Throne Room with haste. When they arrived at the Throne Room doors, Gabe felt something odd come over him. He stopped in his tracks and looked up. He had a feeling Stuhnsil was trying to tell him something about the gem but he couldn't make out what it she was trying to say. Meanwhile Idoen paid no attention to Gabe's sudden stop and marched right up to the king and said excitedly, "Look what Gabe and I found!" The king picked it up and analyzed it and thought it was a beautiful gem. He handed it to the queen and she took it.

While all of these events were taking place the guardian of the mortal realm, Stuhnsil, was frantically doing everything in her power to stop the queen from holding the gem and placing it in the one gap atop her throne. Stuhnsil knew that she had been entrusted to keep the world safe and if that gem made it onto the throne she would have failed at her one task assigned by the Great Architect, Magnorotius.

Gabe went sprinting over to Idoen's side and stared at the mesmerizing gem and noticed once again that there appeared to be something moving inside, but instead of moving away from the queen's hand like it had with Idoen it was flying around inside the gem frantically bouncing from wall to wall.

The king looked at his wife and then looked up at the throne she was sitting on and queried, "Do you think that gem would fit in the spot above your throne that has always remained empty?" The queen stepped off her throne and looked back at the empty spot in the center of the upper back of her throne.

"Maybe it will. Why don't we give it a try?" The queen handed the king the gem and he put it into the one missing gem slot on the throne.

At that moment Stuhnsil knew that she had failed the Great Architect and had just unleashed an evil unlike any other onto the mortal realm. She knew that alone against Lornashtan there was no chance that she could possibly resolve the great pain that was to be brought upon the world.

When the gem had finally be set into place there was a rumbling originating from the queen's throne. Cracks began forming on the throne and in the gem and suddenly there was no light anywhere. Everything was dark. Gabe frantically reached for something to hold onto but there was no one near him. He turned and looked at the throne once more except there was no throne only deep sapphire blue eyes staring back at him; staring deep into his soul. The entity spoke for the first time and said in a very deep, scratchy, and eerie voice, "Thank you all for releasing your creator from his binds. You have done yourself a great service. I, formerly Lornashtan, the god of cunning, now the Trycaytosot of darkness and despair, Hersep Nocanu."

His voice was heard all over the kingdom and the world. Immediately after he finished his introduction he cast a darkness over the world that induced an unconscious state on all. And eliminated all light even with the torches lit.

Stuhnsil knew that it was time to finally re-awaken Magnorotius. But there was only one way that Stuhnsil could keep an attachment to the mortal plane and that was through an organic link with a very devout mortal.

Everyone was unconscious including Gabe and Idoen. Stuhnsil remembered that she had a very strong connection with Gabe and chose to use Gabe as her anchor to the mortal plane. She awoke Gabe from his tormented slumber and appeared before him saying, "Gabe I am the goddess of luck, Stuhnsil. I need you to remain hidden and you need to keep a light with you at all times while I awaken the Great Architect," Stihnsil reached into her knapsack and pulled out a jarred piece of a star, "Here take this as your light. It will continue to shine even in this darkness."

Gabe was speechless he simply nodded his head and put his hand out to receive the light.

Stuhnsil disappeared after that and Gabe began to wander the castle halls wondering if anyone were awake. He remembered his dream this morning and went down to the dungeon to see if the inmates were unconscious as well. As his dream had predicted they weren't.

Stuhnsil left her post near the edge of the realms and went to awaken Magnorotius. She made it to his side awoke him with some ease and presented the current situation to him. Magnorotius simply said, "This is something I feared might happen in my absence. Leave him to me."

Gabe fled back to the throne room and was greeted by Magnorotius. Magnorotius told Gabe to touch the light of his jarred star to the blue jewel of the throne. Gabe did so and suddenly there was no longer darkness however everyone was still unconscious and in torment from their nightmares made real.

Magnorotius seized the now cowering Hersep and drug him back up to the realm of the gods. Stuhnsil then appeared before Gabe and said, "Everyone will awaken within the day but they will all be shaken. It will be up to you to provide them with consolation. Have them hold onto the jarred star and it will eliminate any residual darkness within their minds and souls.