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During the previous attempt to rescue Clancy, I had two Banditos raid the libraries for me to see if they could find any books on the origins of Dema. They brought back some interesting finds.
"Here!" One of them, Phant, panted, handing the books he found to me.
"We got all that we could on the origins of Dema like you asked for, Torch." Xiago handed over other books.
"Thank you, Phant. Thank you, Xiago." I smiled at him before sitting down to read through the stories of Dema.
Clancy came up and sat beside me. "Watcha reading?" He asked quietly.
"Something that I had Phant and Xiago get from Dema. Well, a few things. I don't know if you actually went to any of the libraries in Dema." I wrapped an arm around him.
"I never got the chance. They had it off limits a lot of the time. Claimed that it had too much knowledge for one to need with Vialism." Clancy sighed, resting against me.
"Ah, that makes sense." I ruffled his hair and he smiled softly.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go lay down. Let me know what interesting things you find." He kissed my cheek before walking to our shared tent.
I kept reading through the stories and found of one titled "The Origins of Dema". My interest, which was already at a high, was further piqued due to this title. I read through the entire story.
Once I had finished, I knew I had to tell Clancy.
"Clancy! Clancy!" I hollered, running over to our tent.
"Hm? What is it, babe?" He asked as if he had just been woken up.
"I just found the origins of Dema.. You... you need to hear it..." I was shaking.
"I'm always up to be read to. Go on." He urged softly.
Then, I began reading the story aloud to him:
A long time ago, before the Nine Bishop System was ever even thought of, lived two men. Blurryface and Spookyjim. They were called "Blurry" and "Spooky", nonetheless. These two men were a happy couple, who wished to start a city together. They spent years of their lives fixing up their plan for the city and how they would go through it.
Blurry, ever the ambitious one, wanted it to be a circular city that had a wall surrounding it to keep out the dangers of Trench. For, at the time, Trench was home to many dangers of the world. Spooky, ever the calm one, agreed whole heartedly.
After the duo found a group of people willing to help them make their dreams a reality, the construction began. The process was long, tiring, and tedious. It took almost fifteen years to build the city to the fullest.
Spooky, who had done as much as he could to help, felt weakened from helping. His yellow eyes showed the exhaustion he had harbored for the years of building. Nevertheless, he pushed through for he thought he needed to for everyone's sake.
"So, what are we going to do now that the city is built? We need a way to access the outside world, so that we can get supplies like food, water, technology, medicine, etc." Blurry spoke to his husband, his red eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"Due to where we built the city, we could easily have a port that could go into the city, along with going out. Is it okay if I do not help as much with the construction for I am exhausted from the previous construction?" The yellow-eyed one asked.
His lover, ever the caring, smiled and replied, "of course, my husband. You need your rest."
Once the port was built, the duo were now tasked with naming the city, along with the port.
"My dear, what do you think we should name it?" Spooky asked, wearily yet full of joy.
"I believe we should name it 'Dema'. I believe it's a perfect fit, don't you, my husband?" Blurry held his husband's hand.
"I believe that is more than perfect. Shall we name the port 'Port Vial'?" The yellow-eyed one averted his gaze from the wonderous city they had built together, eyes landing on his lover.
A few years once the city was established, the duo were named the "Rectores Magnae Urbis." (Rulers of the Great City).
Within those first few years, the city was prosperous. Everyone was happy.
One day, Spooky fell greatly ill. He was bedridden for the time being. His husband prayed to the Gods above that they would heal his husband from whatever illness had struck him. He sent some merchants to fetch a doctor to figure out what was wrong with Spooky.
The doctor had arrived and looked grim.
"What is it, doctor? What is wrong with my lover?" Blurry, terrified for his husband, asked.
"He has fallen terminally ill. He does not have long left. There is a medicine that could extend his life, but we do not have that here. Most of the trade routes that the merchants and sailors have discovered would take months to arrive here. He would be dead before they even get to somewhere that has this medicine." The doctor sighed.
Blurry was crushed. He spent the last few weeks Spooky had caring for him. Blurry did not lose faith in the Gods. Every morning, every night, every afternoon, and every meal he prayed to the gods for help. His husband often joined in as well.
The weeks went by fast.
Blurry was holding Spooky, head in his lap, when he noticed something. His lover had gone cold. Blurry tried to wake him up, thinking his temperature was just cold. Spooky did not move an inch. He was no longer breathing. Blurry sobbed.
"Why me?! Why me?! Oh, curse my miserable life! Why could it have been me who had fallen ill?! Why did my sweet husband have to fall ill?! Curse those Gods! They do not care for me. They did not care for my husband when he was alive! They do not care now that he is dead! I lay more than a thousand curses over the Gods!" Blurry cried out.
No one heard his plea.
There was no one there but him and the dead body of his lover.
For the next few weeks, Blurry had mourned. He was in denial at times too. He took on drinking, which is something he promised Spooky he would not fall back to doing. He broke that promise like how he had broken every other promise he and Spooky had.
One night, when Blurry was extremely inebriated, he cursed everyone in the city. He cursed everyone and everything around him. This would come to bite him back.
As he got colder to the people around him, he shut the gates of Dema. He refused to let anyone in or out of the city. He established a religion known as Vialism. He did not care what that would become. He was mourning and weeping his lover. He had drunk himself into a hole of misery.
A group of rebels began to form.
These were the Banditos.
The Banditos believed that there was more that could be done. They believed that Blurry deserved extreme punishment for the harm he inflicted upon the city. The leader of the Banditos, Josh, was not about to let Blurry off the hook.
A few months later, after a bunch of devising for a plan, the Banditos stormed the tower Blurry had lived in. They held him with their spears. Josh, the leader, was the last up with his torch.
"Blurry, you are being executed for all the pain and suffering you have caused your people. Do you have a preference to die with?" Josh spoke coldly.
"I wish to die by flame. Burn me alive." The drunken Blurry slurred.
"Any last words?" Another Bandito, Josh's right-hand man, named Tyler, spoke harsher than Josh.
"I do not care what happens to me. Please, just kill me.." Blurry accepted his death with open arms.
Josh turned to his fellow Banditos and nodded. He lit the ends of their spears with the fire from his torch and they turned the spears and poked him. Eventually, Blurry was burning. His death was slow yet painful. Nonetheless, he clung to the warmth, pretending it was his lover embracing him and welcoming him to the afterlife.
Legend says, to atone for the pain and misery Blurry would indirectly and directly cause, he would be sentenced to becoming a demon, forced to roam the Earth, preying on others. He would not have any memory of his life. So that Blurry would not be alone, Spooky would allow himself to also become a demon so that he and his lover would never part again.
Despite the fact the lovers had no recollection of their past life, they knew that they were lovers and that they would never part again.
Eventually, the Banditos had lived out in the outskirts of Trench, and the people of Dema had to count on new rulers. That is how the Nine Bishop System came to become. The Nine Bishops after the two tragic lovers were cruel and harsh. Every one of the nine that follow got harsher and crueler. They would all point back to Vialism as to the goal for them and their citizens' lives.
The End.
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I looked up towards Clancy to see what his reaction would be. His face screamed that he was appalled by the story.
"You're telling me, that the original leaders had no ill-intent with Dema, yet they ended up accidentally going down that route due to not handling grief very well?" Clancy scratched his head.
I nodded, "I suppose so.."
"That... That's fucking wild. I don't even know what to say." Clancy was fully awake now it seemed.
"I agree... The fact that the Blurry guy was the name that Nico took on to make him seem eviler than he already was... The guy just didn't know how to handle his grief to the point he turned alcoholic and aggressive." I felt bad for the man.
Clancy and I sat the rest of the day, reading stories of Dema in general from the different books that Phant and Xiago stole.
No matter which book it was, they all seemed to have the same origin story of the two lovers having good intentions, being doomed to fate via illness and burning, and becoming demons that roam the Earth.