The darkest demons of the world have tried time and again to stop THIS demon from awakening from their enchanted slumber. A King, a loving kiss, a shadow that brings light. Another demon defeated in its attempt to claim the head of a demon who made a pact with the gods, the sleeping one waits for a pure soul to enhance and awaken more light.
@internutter/challenge-04951-m202-the-only-end -- BKF
[AN: You can't know that the demon under the mountain(referenced in the linked tale) is covered in the entirety of A Devil's Tale, a (currently) six-book epic of adventure, prophecy, romance, and one cynical asshole who changes the world by living in it. No worries. I can make it work]
Demons crave power. Be it by souls dragged down to the Plane of Torment, favours owed to them, or power stolen from other Demons. Some of them have very, very long-term plans. Disrupting those is the jewel in the crown of the hells.
Thus, every supernatural power worth its metaphorical salt[1] was aiming for any corpus of Censurot.
Censurot, father of misery, had lured many Warlocks into a deal. He bet that one of them would swear an oath thrice and have reason to rampage across the world. Under each of their realms, he grew a body. Fueled by hate and misery. Feeding on spite, yet tied to the bloodline of the ruler above.
Censurot and his corpuses slept for centuries. Waiting. The doom he wished for prevented by heroes. Delayed by circumstance. Removed by mortals and their senses of responsibility. One by one, rulers fell. Bloodlines petered out. One by one, the hidden corpuses perished.
Until there was one.
A mountain fastness, an Earldom holding strong without slaves, repelling slavers every few generations. A realm that fed Censurot well. He ammassed the kind of power that had a lot of demons vying to access the sleeping Demon under the stone.
Many whispered into the ears of the Earldom's enemies. Some whispered into the ears of the Earls and their heirs. Some sent Warlocks. A very few possessed the bodies of alluring souls, attempting to intervene personally.
All of it caused by a single Elf in the Age of Dragons, who had a scribe to write down hir ravings. Once ze had inhaled a special blend of bay, hemp, and dandelion smoke, ze could not do anything practical.
With each link forged to bind the thinking folk/ Beware, beware, those who hold the yoke/ Once is sworn oath heartfelt thrice/ The king shall rise destroying vice/ Wherever Censurot shadow fall/ Shall lay waste to ruin all...[2] There were other stanzas involving thousands of woes birthed from Malochlerie when the shadow of Cansurot freed them from her body.
Centuries changed it for the mortals, but the Demons all wanted that power.
As for why the gods let Censurot try this gambit? Shai was silent on the matter. All her Clerics could say about it was, "Our goddess ties her knots very well."
She did. For every possessed body, saints would oppose them. For every demonic plot, a hero would oppose them. And, if all else failed, the Earldom had its armies. Censurot slumbered on. Waiting on his bet.
Betting that the Thrice-Sworn King would be one to ravage the world. Blazing a path across a continent at minimum, and the entire world at best. If the Earl broke the deal, then his body would rise, and so would his demon children. Either way, he would reign over a majority of the mortal realm, and thereby win.
There was only one thing that could prevent it all. Only one way to break the curse, and Censurot had already set things up to prevent it. After all, how could a Hellkin or bloodline that spawned Hellkin ever engender true love? Let alone create true love's first kiss?
[1] We all know how salt protects us from such powers.
[2] This author appreciates all better efforts of poetry and suggestions for improvement. I was not born under a poetic star.
[Photo by Nichika Sakurai on Unsplash]
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