Grandelyn
Page 5
Chapter 4
Origins of the Soul Realm
Kalos had recently uncovered a bronze medallion locket. This locket was a key to a very special entity. Apparently the Savage Kingdom was built atop of an old graveyard. However, this wasn't any ordinary graveyard filled with the rotting flesh of dead corpses. This graveyard was a portal that pulled energy from both Heaven and Hell, causing friction between the spheres. This friction created a phenomenon known as the 'Soul Realm' within the center of the Earth.
The Soul Realm’s origin was a complex one. It started with two faithful warlocks, Vladimir and Ingal. Vladimir wanted a deep connection with the gods and wanted their love and acceptance on the Earth. Ingal was more cynical. He was amazed by the powers of devils and felt that the power of the evil ones could give him his heart’s desires.
The two warlocks wanted to have access to both portals. Ingal had opened the gates of Hell and evil began to dominate the Earth. So Vladimir begged the gods to intervene and open their heavenly gates to stop the evil. When both gates were opened, a massive vertical friction from the energies was created. A massive beaming light – of both good and evil – dominated the land of what was to be Ferocities.
This Soul Realm was and is to this very day incredibly dangerous. It acts much like the human ego. If the ego gets too big, particularly within the wrong person, the results can be devastating. Similarly, whatever gets pulled into the Soul Realm becomes bigger and more grandiose, depending on the intentions of the provider. For example, if a greedy man throws a coin into the Soul Realm, millions more would find their way to the other side. Or if an undesirable woman longed for a mate, she could spray her favorite scent into the portal and dozens of men would be in pursuit of her. In turn, if a hungry father who only wanted food to give to his family placed a bread crumb inside, he and his family would be fed for an entire year. The results vary depending on the intentions of the provider.
In these earlier days, Ingal was using the portal more than Vladimir. He put magic spells inside the portal to ask for more evil in the world as well as world domination. As the Earth’s evil grew, Vladimir discovered what Ingal was doing and realized that the Soul Realm needed to be closed. But he had no clue how to do this, because neither of the energies was going to give up. The gods would never stop trying to protect the Earth and the devils were not about to stop attacking now that their gates were opened.
Because this portal was entirely too dangerous to have exposed to the world, Vladimir came up with a plan to hide the entity. Ingal – who was now half demon – knew Vladimir was trying to get rid of the Soul Realm. He attacked Vladimir, stabbing him in the stomach and chest five times. Ingal became blood drunk and celebrated with the demons that were rapidly coming from his body. They circled Vladimir’s dying body; teasing and taunting him as he fought to take his final breaths. Ingal danced happily with the demons. As he did, Vladimir pulled out a small potion bottle. Struggling to breathe and gurgling blood he whispered, “Let he who taketh my life turn to dust.” He threw the bottle, hitting Ingal directly in the mouth. Instantly Ingal turned into brown dust and blew away. The demons turned into dust as well.
He knew having this portal was detrimental to the Universe, so he began to implement his plan from before. He conjured up a spell and made a statue of a limbless woman on a pedestal to plug up the tension of the portal. With that, the beaming light was gone. He took off his bronze medallion and cast a spell on it. He spoke almost breathlessly. “Whoever possesses this locket will have the power to move the Earth. Please release it to the deserving or don’t be found at all.” He had enough strength to place the medallion on the neck of the statue. Then he fell backwards and died.
The Soul Realm remained hidden under that statue for centuries. Mandune had not yet been founded, so the statue sat alone in the land stifling a powerful secret. But now the portal had become reopened. Behind the Savage Kingdom, construction was being done to build another part to the palace building.
Zodner and Semp came busting into Kalos’ ward as he fed Noire. Almost completely out of breath, they panted heavily as they announced the news.
“Emperor! Emperor! At least 50 of your men have been killed!” Kalos sat up in his seat, his mask hiding whatever expression he had.
“What happened?” He asked.
“The constructors were working and suddenly an explosion of light blasted them away!” Kalos was puzzled. He didn’t know what they were talking about. He quickly went out to the construction site and saw a bloody massacre of men’s body parts everywhere. Only a few managed to get away from the damage. The strong beaming light was gushing from the sky into the ground.
“What is this?” Kalos asked, compelled to get closer.
“We don’t know, Emperor, but it came from nowhere, and look what it’s done to our men!” Zodner cried. Kalos didn’t care about the men. He was intrigued by this light. An injured soldier limped to Kalos.
“Emperor, I found this over by a broken statue in the field. I think this may have something to do with it.” The soldier placed a dusty bronze medallion into Kalos’ hands. Kalos studied the jewelry. It had a carving of a Woolly mammoth’s face on it. He began to feel a powerful sense from this necklace.
“A couple of the workers accidentally knocked over that woman statue and that’s when the light blasted through. This was hanging from it.” The soldier continued. Kalos sent him away and looked to the light again. He was smitten by the force that was coming from this unusual site. He immediately ran back to the palace and demanded to speak to his personal wizard. After the wizard studied the light and the medallion, he let Kalos know what the Soul Realm was, it’s origin and that the medallion was its one and only key. From then on Kalos wore the medallion around his neck at all times. With this key, Kalos now knew that anything that gets pulled into that portal gets transported into that locket. He wanted to make sure no one else in the land or the world could gain access to it.