Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(3x27) Rising of the Darklight: Part 3, Episode 3

Back in Esplanadia, Murdock's father's suggestion is taken as outrageous by the dominant Wizard faction of the Church, and by some of the more slaving of the Eastern states. But the small vocal fundamentalist faction rally all the more fervently around Murdock's father, and a handful of more progressive Eastern states where those fundamentalists dominate, pledge their support. Civil war consequently breaks out both within the Church and among the nations of the East; the Orcish rebellion goes unimpeded by Eastern intervention; and the Elves go unsupported in the efforts to protect themselves from the rebellion's attacks on their borders.

Meanwhile in the north, the reborn Queen of Hell, possessing within her very being the powers of both Gems of Fire and Ice, is a being of incomparable power. More than the ancient immortals who were like Murdock and Annabelle, Thomas and Sue, and so forth, she has all the advantages of both Elf and Vampire and none of their weaknesses, being both totally invulnerable and longevously immortal, with the power to give or take life with a touch, strength greater than an orc and superhuman intelligence. She is unstoppable by any means known... and she is furious, having been imprisoned in a deeper hell within this world that is already hell itself for untold ages, imprisoned by the Eldest himself and then betrayed by the goddesses Fire and Ice in turn. She magically destroys the Vampire Queen's castle immediately upon her rebirth, killing Murdock and Annabelle in the process, though of course they soon get better. Seeking vengeance on both the Eldest and the goddesses, she departs to the far side of the world, magically suborning a green sea dragon to deliver her there against the machinations of the angelic Merfolk who still protect that realm from approach by the corrupt mortals on this side of the world.

Murdock and Annabelle pursue her on a conventional ship, convincing the Merfolk to enable their journey by impressing upon them the direness of the situation and highlighting their uncorrupted species. They find the far side of the world bathed in perpetual Darklight from the crashed Sword of Darklight, and therefore uninhabitable by either Elves or Vampires. Instead, it is sparsely populated by feral Dwarves, the offspring of Humans and Orcs who can only survive in Darklight, and so are found nowhere in the rest of the world. And haunting the entire land are the disproportionately powerful ghostly forms of deceased Dwarves, called Demons: terrifying beings of pure darkness, who have stunted even the Queen of Hell's approach to the Sword of Darklight itself, buying Murdock and Annabelle time to catch up. But they are impeded even more than she, and in due time she reaches the Sword, takes control of it, returns it to the skies, and once again destroys the sun and moon, and the goddesses Fire and Ice with them. This restores Darklight to the whole world, immediately killing all Elves and Vampires alike, but worst of all, allowing the Demons to spread from this far land to the whole of the world, or at least where she, with control of the Darklight they depend on, will allow them, thus beginning her godlike reign of terror over the entirety of that reality, a terror which only immortals like Murdock and Annabelle could possibly hope to survive.

Next: The Birth of Another World: Part 1, Episode 1