The Undying King

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Have you ever heard the story of the Terror of the East? No? I guess it's not a story many people tell here on Teldora, is it? Every child of Erea knows the story of the Undying King and how the Lady of Crows saved the people of Asyria, so listen carefully.
— An Asyrian traveler in the Golden Coast

For thousands of years, he ruled over the barren lands east of Asyria. He had many names - the Undying King, the Barron of Eternal Silence, or the Terror of the East. An eternal force of nature, just lurking in the dark, slowly extending his icy fingers towards the surrounding lands. He defeated and enslaved peoples and countries, but Asyria fought brave against his forces for centuries. Time after time, the Undying King attacked - each attack stronger than the previous one. But time after time, the people of Asyria fought him back. The country stood strong, but after centuries of fighting, their forces dwindled, while the army of the Undying King grew. The pleas of Asyria grew louder and louder. Faced with their own mortality, they cried out to all gods and sent for help to every country around them. But no one came to their rescue. Forsaken by everyone, their end drew closer day by day. When the people of Asyria had already lost all hope, a figure appeared in their midst during the winter solstice. A woman wearing a black coat of crow feathers - her face hidden behind a porcelain mask. She approached the strongest warrior of Asyria and gave him a sword made of black steel. A beautiful blade, with an ivory hilt shaped like a crow's head, and three black diamonds in the pommel.

"The other gods ignored your prayers and your suffering, but I will not. It’s finally time for the Undying King to pay back his debt. I choose you as my champion, as my weapon. You will end what should have ended thousands of years ago. You will be the collector of debts. There is no mercy for creatures who try to avoid their end. Fate is not negotiable." And so the brave warrior embarked on his mission deep into the lands of silence. Days, weeks, months passed by, and still no sign of the warrior. It took him one full year, but during the next Winter Solstice, the warrior returned - his blade covered in the blood of the Undying King. He succeeded. The king was no more, but the price was high. The man who left Asyria never came back. He left all his joy and love, his hopes and dreams, everything that made him the man he once was, in the lands of silence. Only a shallow husk of him remained. The Warrior never talked about what happened, but the countless scars told their own story of death and suffering. He became the hero of Asyria, but the terrors he saw never let him go. Only a couple of years later, he died and joined his mistress in the afterlife. His name has been lost to time, but his actions wrote history.

Historical Basis

This myth is thousands of years old, which makes it incredibly hard to distinguish fact from fiction. It's unclear if the Undying King really existed, but the people of Asyria built enormous defenses at their eastern border during the early years of the Age of Arcanum. This suggests a powerful enemy towards the east, but today the Silent Lands are a vast desert of shifting dunes and it is incredibly hard to find clues about the civilisation that might have existed there. Today, this myth is mostly told by Asyrians praising their ancestors, or by followers of the Lady of Crows trying to show how merciful the Lady can be. It is one of the first appearances of the Lady in history and often considered the first thing she did after her ascension. The blade the warrior wielded was named Culporis, the Collector of Debt and vanished shortly after his death. Culporis reappeared a handful of times in history, most prominently during the Siege of the Silver-Heart-Bastion - the last stance of the War of Fate. It's believed the blade still lies next to the fallen hero in the ruins of the bastion. No matter how much truth there is in this myth, it is a good story to tell around a campfire. Who knows if the Undying King ever existed? What really happened to him? Is he really gone? In the end only the Lady of Crows knows the whole story.