Menelaus and Xérulath

Written by Arka

Menelaus was an High-born Ereldar. He was a scholar, an Archmage, leader of the Menel family and third seat of the Ereldar conclave of Solaris, highest authority of the Ereldar society. Like all High-borns he was obsessed with his magic potential but unlike the others he was an explorer too. Everything started when the Ereldars discovered the ruins of an ancient city under the pyramid of Corsolath. Menelaus and his team decided to play the archaeologists and penetrated the ancient site looking for magic artefacts, books, and any other object that could help them understand some truth about their ancestors the Eldars. Sadly, they found nothing under the pyramid. They were found. They were engaged deeply in the ruins when they were first ambushed. Monsters that they had never seen inhabited the ruins, later they called them demons as they were unlike anything they had seen on the surface. Menelaus and his team had to fight their way, struggling in the deep and dark guts of the lair, lost in its labyrinth with no way out. Friends, colleagues, they were all disappearing one by one with each encounter with the monsters. Every time they were ambushed, it was the same scenario. First, while the team was progressing, their magic lights would go dark. They would hear noises, screams and scratches on the stone walls. Then magic perception would go crazy and they couldn't understand what or who they were perceiving, what was around. And finally, the monsters would be close enough to be seen by eyes. Those monsters, they were deformed, hideous, horryfing. They always attacked in pack and were too many, surrounding the team. One of them would jump and maul one of the ereldars. Then everything would turn to chaos. Ereldars, frightened, spellcasting destructive magic, rain of ice, thunder and fire, friendly fire, blood splatting on the walls, monster claws on throats, gigantic hands crushing skulls and stones, acid sprays puncturing eyes, monsters and ereldars limbs flying in the air alike in a mesmerizing butchery. A group of ereldars would escape in the middle of the battle and ran for their lives in any corridor they would see fit. Menelaus was one of them, running, hopeless. Who was alive? Who was running with him? Who was lost in the pyramid? Who was behind him? Who was ahead? Who or even what. Friends? Foes? Amids thist chaos, Menelaus heard a voice in his head. A metallic scraping voice calling him. He felt like someone was talking to him by creaking two metal blades against each other.
Why did he follow the voice? No one knows not even him. But he did. Left, then right, right again, straight and left again. He was still running for his life but strangely enough, Menelaus knew where to go.
He had lost all the others that fled the battle with him. His only goal was to survive to see another day. Survive, and follow the voice. After a stressful race inside the pyramid that could have lasted for hours or for only instants, he finally arrived where he was meant to be. He was in a dark and circular room, a chamber at the center of the pyramid. It looked like a tomb made for someone very important.
The air inside was thick, heavy. Moving was difficult because of some grim presence. Something dark, ancient, powerful was lurking here, awaiting. Like the calm before the storm, the silence was deafening. No scream, no scratching, no noise at all here. The monsters? Vanished. The others? Vanished. There was only him, Menelaus. He could feel his own presence in the room, like a heartbeat, his own life pulsing. Him. Him. Him. HIM......And Xérulath... He was no longer alone. She was there, sitting on her pedestal, amazingly beautiful with her blue dress, half naked. Her curves that you could guess under her robe bewitching the High-born. She looked right into his eyes and he losts himself in hers. Then she beckoned him to approach her, so he did. Quietly. He held out his hand and reached for her, caressed her tenderly then grabbed her.
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She was strong. Powerful. Both corrupting and exhilarating. Menelaus could not let go of her he felt something entering his body, his mind, his spirit and finally his soul. An acute pain passed through his body and he screamed. He dropped to his knees, half conscious while a dark blue smoke came out of the dagger and entered his body by his mouth and nose corrupting him even more. His hair became dark, his eyes, red and his magic, black and immensely stronger than before. His face distorted with a sinister gaze as he stood up. He exited the room, born anew. At the entrance, one of his remaining friends was there curled up on the ground, alive. Menelaus ordered him to stand up. His voice was cold, harsh but strangely, the ereldar obeyed. Menelaus then took a deep breath, and slit his throat. Do you know what true ecstasy is? At this moment, Menelaus knew and it changed him forever. Entering a murderous frenzy, Menelaus moved through the pyramid labyrinth using his newly acquired powers, shapeshifting as a black smoke, blinking and jumping around only morphing back to slit an ereldar throat or crush a monster spine, every being still alive in the ruins was to die today. All of them, friends, foes, none of that mattered. Only chaos had to be as Xérulath was thirsty. She required an offering in souls. Soon enough, Menelaus was the only alive, and he decided to head out for the exit. He found it easily but everything changed when his foot touched the ground outside the tomb. A pulsating pain roamed his whole body. Again, he dropped to the ground, dropped the dagger and lost consciousness. When he regained his consciousness back, he was still outside the pyramid, alone, covered in blood and Xérulath was missing. He felt a crushing loss and came really close to losing it. He stayed hours, days, even weeks kneeled at the exit until he was found by a search party. He was brought back to Solaris and healed. Strangely enough, when he lost the dagger, his hair became white again and his eyes purple. During his mission report, knowing that he was the sole survivor, Menelaus lied and accused one of his team members of finding and stealing the dagger. He then proceeded by explaining what the monsters could do and what the dagger was, a magic and corrupted artefact, he was then assigned to residency until further notice. During his emprisoned time, Menelaus felt changes in his magic. Even without the dagger, he could feel the dark magic and proceeded to experiment with it. He slowly measured the potential of this new magic, its strength but also its weakness as he was scared of what the dagger could do to a man. Even after his emprisonment was lifted, Menelaus mainly stayed home. He felt the unbearable weight of his actions, and even if he was not fully in his right mind when the events happened, he could not resigne himself to accept what had happened. He could perfectly remember killing the remaining members of his team back in the pyramid. He had to atone to his sins. He had to find a magic that could protect people against the dark corruption that was set free in the tomb. Then he found it. If the dark magic of the dagger was demonic magic, Menelaus had found the basis of divine magic. A type of magic that could be conceived as half a prayer and half a spell. He then proceeded in teaching the divine magic to a maximum of Ereldar in prevision of what he imagined would happen. He was sure the dagger had not vanished, someone took it. And when that someone would use it, chaos would be at Solaris door.
To this day, Menelaus is known as the creator of the divine arts. He is seen as a sinner, a martyr and a savior. He died later in the civil war that opposed the Archmages to the cultists of chaos, adepts of the demonic arts.