The Overlord’s Second Son

Prologue

From whence cometh the Overlord, or what has come before

The Mother of the overlord

The little girl lay sleeping, the campfire that once cooked her families dinner and warmed them now a few faintly glowing coals. Her parents, one on either side of her had just been horribly murdered. What you would have called some kind of a beast was in reality a very powerful demon from the underworld.

He had been wounded though. Dispatching the father and mother, known to possess a natural magic ability akin to a dark lord mage, though of neutral alignment, and even though they were untrained in its wielding it had taken far more out of him than expected. They were clearly far more powerful than he had been told. He had wounds that if not cared for would send him back to the underworld never to return. What would happen next was therefore perverse. Someone was coming and he needed to dispatch the girl, his real target in this mission, and leave without being seen. The girl had an even greater natural magical ability that had been passed down from her parents. It provided incredible protection, enough to prevent him from dispatching her without some significant effort. Effort he was no longer sure he had in him just now, if ever. That is of course why someone of his ability was sent. He was resourceful if nothing else and he understood that if not taken care of this line, her descendants, could have potential to thwart the dark one’s plans. Failure was therefore not an option

He glanced up the road and heard the group of humans coming closer. He made a decision, one that would cost him a few cycles, but demons such as him were beyond the reach of time and therefore it caused him no worry. He let go of his physical form and only a dark mist remained. The mist floated down towards the girl and settled just above her head. Then, quicker than one would have thought, with each breath the child drew in, a portion of the mist was likewise drawn into her. The whole process was completed just as the old wagon drew up next to them and stopped. Safely inside the girl he would draw on her life force over time to heal himself. The downside of course was that he was now stuck in this body until it expired or someone from her blood line happened to come along. Rather than take her life quickly, he now actually relished the opportunity to corrupt her and darken the life of those that followed her for generations to come. He started to laugh hideously, uncontrollably. The girl, still sleeping, only smiled.

An elder man and woman, strangers who just happened to be passing by, climbed out of the wagon. They took in the situation and quietly woke the girl and placed her in the wagon. Her mute reaction to the carnage was written off as a state of shock she was in, and the resilience of children to withstand tragedies. They took her to the next town and left her with the church. Eventually relatives were found and they took her.

The Relatives, and there were several families in the surrounding towns, were shop keepers. During her childhood the demon within lay dormant reserving all his strength for healing himself. Drawing on the girls life force was delicate work. He could only take so much without killing her. These humans were such delicate creatures. The most he could do was to gather a low level field of hatred and loathing around the girl. It wasn’t much, he knew, but it would effect everyone that came in contact with the girl, and though she would be naturally immune to it, she wouldn’t be immune to how she was treated. This would have to do until he was fully healed. Then he would rip her apart from the inside out.

The families she was passed amongst took therefore an immediate dislike to the waif and they showed it by treating her cruelly, whipping her for the least of mistakes on her part, and withholding food and adequate sustenance from her. They worked her endless hours in their shops and made sure she had a miserable existence. If you would have asked them why they would have said they were not near as hard on her as she deserved. The abuse had its intended outcome. The girls otherwise sunny countenance began to turn first dark as it approached something almost evil. The demon within her laughed at how easy this all was. By the girls teen age years he was almost fully healed and ready to dispatch the girl forthwith when another thought occurred to him. Perhaps he should keep his residence within and see what further damage he could wreak.

One further thing bears mentioning. As the girl grew she seemed to have a natural inclination to do good and move towards the light that was most frustrating to the dark one within her. He had to keep a continual watch on her. Fortunately for him this came as his powers were increasing. He was careful not to touch the girls own innate power. Rather let it lay dormant as long as he could and increase the growing darkness within her to ensure she would fully embrace the dark lord when her power emerged. What he did therefore was to increase the field of hatred and loathing to something approaching anger and rage. The abuse heaped upon the girl began to intensify.

This was not coincidentally when things began to happen around the town she lived in. Things began to go missing, at first small things, that moved on to things of more import. Rage began to build within the girl, that was ever masked by her soft countenance. Others her age began to ostracize her. They were afraid of her. This fear started when one of the boys her age, “in jest” threw a rock as hard as he could directly at her face. She deftly caught it, with a reaction faster than anyone would have thought possible, with absolutely no trace of emotion, no smile, no anger, nothing. No one noticed when she simply pocketed the rock and turned and walked away. Amazingly, no one would connect this occurrence with one that happened later in the day, toward dusk, when the boy who had thrown the rock walked into his house blinded by a rock that had hit him. He remained mute ever after, not speaking a word about what had happened, or anything else for that matter. After that she was mostly left alone, with a couple of notable exceptions, that may surface later in the story.

If you saw her you would likely think her such a serious girl, she rarely smiled, but then she was treated so cruelly what did she have to smile about? There was also something intriguing about her. Perhaps it was the growing shadow over her that seemed to be her constant companion, and that she was apparently completely comfortable with it. When she thought no one was watching she would whisper softly to herself. If you did happen to catch her you would swear she was talking to someone, even though she was quite alone.

One day in the early spring when she was just in her twentieth year and at the peak of her beauty a man walked into the shop. He was brutally handsome and charming in such a way that you couldn’t help but like him. While she rarely laughed she did then. It was her first interaction with an enchanter of some significant power. It was easy to tell he had a neutral alignment, being equally comfortable in the shadows and the light. He was immediately attracted to the girl, sensing her latent power he thought would blend well with his, as well as what he would have termed a dark alignment. He had no idea how on the mark he was with that summary.

This is not their story though. That will be told another time perhaps by another bard more skilled than myself. He took her away though to his own town where he did whatever it took to survive, mostly legal, but sometimes not. Everyone of course liked him and were thrilled that he had finally taken a wife, even if she did give the best among them a chill whenever she was near. They married and had two boys. The eldest would become the overlord dark and powerful, the younger is not a part of this story and will therefore remain in the shadows.