Evil Descends

In the year 1261, the men and women of Espearia prayed to their gods and believed the stars above to house them. If a star fell on Espearia, all would rush to acquire it; the people who had collected fallen stars had the power of the gods. On one frigid summer night, a green light could be seen streaking through the sky of Espearia. This was a night when people would say that evil had come to their planet for the first time.

Swift, as he was called for his nimble fingers and even quicker tongue, was the first to find the fallen star's landing site. It had taken the star over two weeks to fall, and the King of Espearia offered a lordship and their weight in gold to whoever found it. Swift knew the king only wanted the uniquely colored star turned into another family weapon making it harder than ever to remove the royal family from power. Of course, he did not concern himself with matters of the state as long as he was paid well.

"Three whole days," thought Swift as he searched for where the star was resting. Like everyone else, he expected to see the same signs as usual, but there was no smoke or massive damage to the area like when all other stars fell. On the third night, he was ready to give up, thinking nothing was left of the star. As he lay down on the hard earth to sleep, he wished he had brought a tent or made a fire to keep warm.

Usually, his star-crafted armor would keep him warm, and for some reason, he always liked to see the stars in the night sky as he closed his eyes, so he rarely brought tents and things to obscure his nightly view. However, this night, it was bone-chilling cold, and he was restless in his attempt to sleep. He lay there cursing his decision to come out here, but then he heard a whisper.

"So close….."

"I am here. Help me…."

" I am what you seek."

He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and wondered if he imagined things. But the voice persisted and continued to entice him to come closer.

The thing on his mind right now was that somebody was playing with Swift and trying to set him up for a trap of some kind. This kind of thing happened a lot to Swift because he was one the few people in all of Espearia with a complete set of star armor, and his broadsword was made of a rare red star. The only other people to have this amount of star equipment were the royal family and the knights of the stars; of course, a few temple orders nights had them as well, but they usually were not as good of quality.

Swift got up, preparing himself for an ambush, and headed toward the voice. The whole time all he was thinking was that this was a terrible idea. He had barely escaped the capital three weeks ago due to a run-in with a little noble. What can he say? The man's wife was beautiful, and he did not take good care of her; otherwise, she would not have gone to Swift in the first place. Swift was often in trouble due to his taste in unavailable women, and he liked the challenge.

He did not need any more time in the King's dungeons. The noble was pissed when he was released, but everyone knew that due to his skills in retrieving fallen stars, he wouldn't stay jailed for long. It helped that he was a personal friend of the King.

"Swift, old buddy, how do you continue to get yourself in these positions." He thought.

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Four weeks earlier, Swift was sitting in a tavern in the middle of the noble district and across the bar from him sat a red-headed beauty the like most men would lose their mind for. She winked at him knowing full well who he was. Her husband often talked about how much he hated Swift because the King would pardon him no matter what he did, and he had slept with most of the nobles' wives. Even knowing he was an infamous womanizer, she had also heard from other ladies how pleasing he was to be with. So she made her move and knowing her husband was out on a hunt, she could have some fun.

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She was great, thought Swift, but one of these days, he was going to press his luck too far, and the King would not be able to save him anymore. That was the reason he was here to gift the King with the green star so that he could repay a little of what was owed to the King.

As he got closer to where the whispers were coming from, he felt it odd that they never got louder and always seemed like they were so close to him at the same time. He noticed that the trees were sparser in this area, with more rocks around. He thought to himself, that must be why there was no smoke. It must have hit this rocky area. He just hoped he could find it in all these rocks. One thing about stars is that they lost their brilliance very quickly, and one only had at most a few weeks to work with it before it would just be a space rock. No one understood why this was, but they also didn't care much.

Finally, Swift could see what he was looking for. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth dropped at the sheer size of the star he was seeing. It was big enough for a human to be fully inside and glowed in a strange green light, but it was already fading a little.

" thank the gods you have come. Please get me out of here…. I am inside," the voice said.

Swift thought it had a sinister sound to it, but this was the first time someone might see a god from the stars in person. He could see a crack around the edge of one piece.