A brand new story raises from the horizon, this is a full 980 character story. First try and I love how it turned out. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! This hopefully will help with the commisions I opened, certainly felt inspiring!

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The forest is agitated, the leaves rustling in the wild wind of impending demise. A bloody red night sky extends for as far as the eye can see, covering it all in a dreaded red light. The time has come, the time of change, of terror, of demise... It's the rise of the Golden Lord!

Little did I believe the supernatural event would happen during my lifespan. So dreaded and yet so expected by many in the history house. And here I was, Ephresius Nava, travelling the lands that once belonged to the Golden Lord. Little is known about him, the remains of the ruins left little information and the dark pool that resulted from the cataclysmic ritual swallowed most of the participants. However, we... I know for certain that his comeback is inevitable, for we were the ones to bring it back... By accident of course.

You see, my team was very enthusiastic about exploring these lands! Our daring group of six had the most adventurous souls on this side of the continent. I didn’t know all of them all too well, only Artemio and Agnes were close friends of mine. We went from the deepest cave to the highest mountain where the ceremony took hold, only to find no trace of anything not previously discovered. The best bet was deep in the caves that seemed to connect the entire expanse that was under the domain of the Golden Lord. I'm afraid to admit, we found something there, I'm afraid to admit it because it caused our downfall.

Laying in suspension in a pillar close to the system that lead into the inner chamber of the mountain castle, a stone tablet etched with black, oily ink was found. It was written in a language not seen anywhere close to the Golden Land (we decided to call it that way) and the material didn't match any records we had about this land as well. Upon closer inspection we found the stone tablet was made of granite, which bent the rules of flexibility of materials. It seemed to be so out of place, so alien to this accursed land, and yet it somehow made sense for it to be in that pillar.

I told my colleagues to leave it there, that we needed more preparation before taking away something like this. After all, it could be a trap or a sealing stone, neither of the two reduced my restlessness. The morning after, we went with every possible counter spell and artifact, wary of curses, traps and seals. The path was easier this time, we knew where to enter! You see, the pool was designed as a map, well before it became that black goop, where each line traced on its perimeter would lead to a different room. The trick was to focus on it until the destination was reached, otherwise you'd be risking to get lost forever in the non euclidean architecture of the castle.

Here I am, rambling again about non important stuff, excuse this old decrepit man from that. Now, back at the scroll! It wasn't cursed at all! Nothing out of the ordinary, we just put it into a containment bubble to preserve it and bring it back for study. That was our first mistake... The second one was translating and reading the content out loud. It was an ardous effort to try and decipher the ancient language in it, you see, these were completely different letters from the originally discovered alphabet. It took us a good three months and half to crack it and read the contents, there was nothing suspicious about it, yet. The moment that happened we were torn apart from this reality. All six of us in a darkness that numbed every sense, almost like standing in eternal nothing.

We walked... Ran... Tumbled to the light we managed to see on the horizon. That was the third strike, from that moment on everything was set and nothing would stop it. The light we saw was a cocoon, colored like a galaxy, shining like a star, cracking from the inside... It was beautiful and horrid, whatever that was inside it, it was out of this world, out of our understanding. Next moment I realized 3 of us had died right there, the bodies oozing black from every pore until they all became a puddle of goop that was absorbed inside the egg.

There was no doubt, that was the Golden Lord, hidden and feeding until the strength to conquer came back! You should have seen Artemio's face, he boiled from rage and started to hit the egg with the crowbar he handled. Not only was that futile but also his end since after the third strike, a maw manifested outside the crack and reached down to mangle the poor man. There was no time for reaction, in a second he was nothing more than a red bloodstain in the shell.

Only Agnes and I were left, we stood still until all the violence ended. That moment, a blinding light emerged from the cocoon and enveloped us whole. When we opened our eyes, the camp was in sight, we stood mere meters away from it! Rushing inside we found the scroll suspended in the air, reading a single word "THANKS". That's when we knew our fate was sealed, boy, that's when all of this started to happen.

Two weeks was all the time we had to prepare for the coming, so we brought as many survivors and supernatural attuned people into the castle. We would be safe there, we still are safe! As the world seems to crumble each day, yet we maintain the calm and prosper. Hmmm, it seems our time is up, boy. Go get your golden mask and go into the basement...

The Golden Lord needs to head out...