Chapter 2: Passing of time
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Thoughts 'Sample'
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Chapter 2
The passing of time
After the King of Sundar was defeated, the few remnants of his army surrendered.
The lands and treasures were split among the four nations and peace came once more to the continent of Gandia.
Ten years later.
"Well? are you going to say that you still have nothing?" The dwarf King of Ylem was starting to show his age, some wrinkles and white hair were decorating his face now.
A scholar was kneeling in front of him.
"I'm sorry your grace, our tools can detect a source of power inside the ring, but we still don't know how to harness it. All off our tes-"
"Enough!, I have heard this enough times already. Leave!" The King spat.
The scholar didn't waste time and ran out of the throne room. The King had a reputation for losing his temper and killing his followers once in a while.
King Ylem turned to his advisor.
"How are the negotiations going?"
The advisor shook his head.
"Not well Your Grace. No matter what we offer them, the Kingdom of Galdam is not interested in selling Sundar's spear."
The dwarven King smashed his fist against the throne. This has been a point of contention for the last ten years. He had not forgotten the words of the old King of Galdam about Sundar hiding some supreme treasure that could even temp that old man.
After the war was over, they sat down with the new King of Galdam, the son of the passed King, and started the negotiations.
The dwarven King concluded that if the King of Sundar had a treasure like that, it would be on his person. There were only three objects that called for his attention, a ring, a necklace, and a spear.
He took the ring, the spear went to Galdam and the necklace went to the Kingdom of Elixir. The saint Queen of Aglioso claimed to not want any personal possessions of the 'blasphemous King' so she only took a lot of gold coins from the treasury.
After having his best scholars analyze the ring for many years, they could not find anything useful, just that the ring did emit some sort of power but could not figure out more.
This made the Dwarven King think that maybe the supreme treasure was one of the other two objects but the other Kings have refuse to sell them.
"That dam Elven King won't even return my messages anymore! They must be hiding something!."
Tensions among the three nations started to grow while the Saint Queen and her nation stood neutral.
It took five more years before the Dwarven Kingdom of Ylem declared war against The Elven Kingdom of Elixir, and only one more year before the Kingdom of Galdam got involved and attacked the Dwarven Kingdom.
The war between the three Kingdoms went on for many years with no sign of stopping. The Kingdom of Aglioso had stayed neutral all along. But that changed after the passing of the Saint Queen, Miriam the Holy.
Her successor was chosen by the eldest members of the church as it's their custom. They chose a young man in his late twenties, his name was Arthur Willem and He had the highest affinity for holy magic that the realm has ever seen. They called him the chosen of the Gods, and so, He became their new ruler.
King Arthur the Blessed was eager to prove himself. He wanted their seven Gods to be worshiped everywhere in the continent and not just in their nations. He wanted to create the first Holy Empire and declare himself the Holy Emperor and He would declare war against everyone who would not submit.
The war grew even more vicious after the Kingdom of Aglioso joined. The original trigger for the war had already been long forgotten. Each nation had lost too many lives at the hands of the other nations and at this point, they just wanted blood.
Fifty-four years later
The current rulers of the four nations were together in the same room once more after soo long.
There have been many changes of rulers during the war. Some Kings died in battle while others were assassinated.
The war took a turn during the last decade, with the Kingdom of Galdam gaining the advantage. They took over the Dwarven Kingdom first, then the Elven Kingdom fell, and finally, in a combined attack, they managed to defeat the Holy Kingdom.
After that, the current King of Galdam called for an assembly in order to decide the fate of the three losing Kingdoms.
The three losing Kings renounced their thrones and bent their knees to the King of Galdam.
They would be allowed to keep most of their power, but would no longer be separated Kingdoms, instead, they would become a State that served under the rule of the newly formed Galdam Empire.
The three former Kings were now known as the Three Great Generals.
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The current Great General of Ylem was the grandson of the Dwarven King who participated in the defeat of Sundar.
Unlike his grandfather, He was not as greedy or obsessed with power, He was actually quite glad that the war was over.
Six months after the peace returned, Emperor Galdam had organized a great celebration in the capital of the Empire for his coronation as the First Emperor and had invited the three Great Generals to attend, although they all knew that it was actually an order.
The Great General was about to enter the treasury. It was going to be expected of him to bring a proper gift to the Emperor, He rather not think of the consequences of offending Him.
He was accompanied by an old dwarf who has been serving his family since the times of his grandfather and was currently his advisor.
Seeing the current state of the treasury, the advisor sighed. "I'm sorry you have to see it like this, my Lord. During your grandfather's era, this place was filled to the brim with valuables."
'Yes, and look what that greed brought us.' The General thought but did not feel like arguing with his advisor.
"There are still plenty of things here. I'm sure we can find something worthy of an Emperor."
After walking for a while, the General stopped in front of a small gold box with incredibly detailed decorations. He opened it to reveal a very simple-looking jade ring. He was going to ask why such a simple ring was in the treasury when He remember something.
"Wait…I have seen this ring before. Grandfather show it to me once."
The advisor was not surprised. "Yes, your grandfather was quite obsessed with this ring. It used to belong to the King of Sundar. The King believed that this ring was hiding some incredible power, but after being studied for decades by our best scholars, they found nothing and ended up here…forgotten"
"I see. The King of Sundar…I read about what happened to him and his Kingdom. The books say that He got greedy and tried to conquer the other Kingdoms by himself, as a result, it was his Kingdom that got destroyed."
The advisor didn't comment on the matter. "No many remember this anymore, but this ring and the other two items that were personal possessions of King Sundar were the catalysts that started the Great War."
The General made a surprised expression.
"Really?...well, this is perfect then. I will give the Emperor this ring. It will symbolize that the current State of Ylem doesn't care about these things anymore."