Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(2x06) Falling of the Darklight: Part 2, Episode 3

In the other land, the old west which became the east of the new world, the goddess Fire gave her gem of power to a young man remembered as the Fire King, and a similar transformation of both him, his people, and their society occurred. The gem, which he fashioned into a ring worn on his hand, gave him powers of fire and flame, of course; but also powers over the minds of others, even as it changed his own mind similarly. It made him hot and passionate in ways that seemed good to him: caring, compassionate, motivated, ambitious, all the positive qualities that the goddess Fire had cultivated before the fall. But it also made him hot in worse ways: intemperate, quick to anger, unforgiving, intolerant of anyone who would not go his way. And like the other gem, he was able to affect these qualities in others and so bend them to his will, even as his own will was bent by the influence of the gem.

As in the other land, the people of his land were in turmoil since the sundering of the world, with conflict and strife everywhere. Using the power of the gem, he became a great warrior, rallying his kinsmen to fight by his side and soundly defeating their enemies, rising to prominence as a great ruler who gradually conquered all of those lands. And a benevolent ruler he was, truly caring deeply about the equal wellbeing of all his subjects. With an iron fist, he took from those who had accumulated more than he felt they deserved, and gave to those who needed it more. All would be equal beneath him, and anyone who threatened his utopia would be dealt with harshly. As time passed and his communist empire spread across the land, he too found the power of his gem reshaping himself and all the people whom he had worked its magic upon.

Like the Elves, they grew tall and pale, but their skin took on a ghastly blue tinge that glowed hauntingly under moonlight; and sunlight began to burn them, the failsafe of the goddess Fire to control those who wielded her power. Their strength was bolstered, and they retained their prior intelligence. Their eyes turned fiery red. Plants gave them no nourishment, and they were forced to hunt for meats to survive. They grew hardier of constitution, until in time they could not be wounded at all; but this invulnerability came at a cost, as their bodies burned energy much faster than they normally would to achieve it, and so burned away their natural lifespan, aging even more quickly. In consequence their natural immortality was likewise lost, and over time they would inexorably wither and age until they became ghosts fated to wander the world intangible until they too embraced oblivion and reincarnated as newborn infants. The only hope to stave off that fate for their kind was to use a deadly power given to them, to drain the life force from others, thus extending their own natural lifespans. But if they did not learn restraint of their passions, against the Gem's alternations of their natural temperments, then this ability would cause them to destroy each other as a people.

They had become the first Vampires. But not all in their lands fell under the sway of the Gem of Fire. One hold-out remained, Tom, or Thomas as he was known in later days. He retreated to the mountains to escape the inflammatory effects of the Gem of Fire, having learned his own restraint the hard way and not wanting to lose it again. From high in the mountains, he tried to get the fireproof Trolls and deadly were-Wargs to intervene in Vampire society, as they could not be turned by the Gem of Fire. But they only deigned to fight back against the encroachment of Vampire industry into their wilderness. So Tom was left to live a solitary life in the hills, alone among the people of his lands to not be turned by the Gem of Fire.

Next: Falling of the Darklight: Part 3, Episode 1