#chorceus

As told by the prophet Ofejude Ovreysen-Ba Etwar to their Covecku tribe.

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“Come on, Lopis, tell one more story!” One of the feathered children clung to Tudifele’s leg with tiny claws. The large old man attempted to lift his leg along with the child, but let it thump back to the ground after a moment of straining. The child attached to his calf giggled. “Please?”

Tudifele sighed, looking tired, but affectionately ruffled the child’s fluffy hair. The soft smile on his lips faded as his eyes shot up to Ofejude. “Tell them a story, it’s time for me to rest my old bones,” He ordered before turning his gaze back to the child on his leg. The priest gently picked her up and placed her back on the ground with the other children, giving her a fatherly pat on the head before bidding the group goodnight.

Ofejude couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang of jealousy as the priest walked away into the darkness. The old man had never treated them with the same kindness he gave the children...he was always so cold to them, even when they themself were a child. Why?

The too-excited pack of kids scrambled over to where Ofejude sat, perched in one of the chairs around the campfire. “Lopis Ovreysen!” A brown-haired, brown-feathered boy squeaked as the children sat around the prophet. “Will you tell us a story?”

Ofejude swallowed their envy and nodded, their movements stiff. “Alright, welpinu,” They said, leaning back in their seat with a barely-stifled sigh. “What story would you like to hear?”

The children murmured amongst themselves for a moment before another replied. “Tell us about Chorceus.”

“Chorceus?” Ofejude echoed, raising a brow. “Don’t you hear his story all the time?” They asked. Chorceus’ rise to godhood was a staple story during their younger varsau—certainly, the children had heard that one plenty of times.

“No, Lopis Tudifele says it’s too much for us.”

“Oh?” That wasn’t expected. “Really? He told me his story when I was way younger than you lot.”

“Then tell us!”

Ofejude felt only a moment of reluctance. Sure, Tudifele probably had some sort of good reason for not telling this young flock the tale of Chorceus, but after Eyendr...they believed stories needed to be told, no matter how young the audience was.

“Alright,” Ofejude said, leaning forward to throw another chopped-up log into the fire. “I’ll tell you about him, but you have to promise to be good and not interrupt, deal?”

The children nodded eagerly, so Ofejude clasped their hands together, adopting a much more confident stance than they had before. If there was one thing Ofejude had been taught properly, it was telling a story. “Alright, then,” They said, their voice gathering up an authority it hadn’t carried previously. “I’ll tell you the tale of Chorceus Deadsword.”

Hundreds, probably thousands, of varsau ago, during Avadhi-Qara, there were dozens of ancient empires of mucaigeinu that reigned over Mida. The largest of these empires was Gegetin. On the outskirts of Gegetin’s stronghold city were hundreds of farms tended by hundreds of farmers, and one of these farmers was a mucaigein named Chorceus. Chorceus was one of thirteen children and was the strongest, smartest, and most honest of all of them. It was no surprise to those in his circle when he signed up to join the Gegetin Army, wanting to put his strength to good use.

Chorceus was an exceptional soldier and quickly climbed the ranks of the military, putting his wits and muscle to good use. It was during his thirteenth varsa of service that Queen Baborayna, the highest power of Gegetin, asked to see him in her throne room. She said, ‘Chorceus, you are an honest and strong man. I have seen that through your service to my army. You are the only one I can trust to carry out my will properly.’

Chorceus replied, ‘My queen, what do you request of me?’

‘My magicians and scientists have discovered something unusual—we believe it might be another dimension,’ said the queen.

And so, the queen took Chorceus to her magicians’ tower and showed him a circle of thick, jagged, glasslike rock on the ground. The center of the circle was filled with gunpowder, and when lit, it erupted into a purple, swirling, continuous flame. ‘You see, Chorceus, within this portal is the Fire Realm,” said a scientist as Chorceus observed the portal. ‘Kehan.’

The queen turned to—”

“Kehan?” A brunet child interrupted. “Like, Kehana?”

“Have you really not learned about Kehan?” Ofejude asked, surprised. These children had really not been educated on the tales of the gods like they had been. When the children nodded, they sighed. “Yes, like Kehana. Kehan is where she fled after Irkiwan, the First War of the gods. It’s a fiery, too-hot realm joined to us through Ejele Conid. It’s filled with massive mushroom jungles and barren deserts. The ground itself is filled with souls, though ghosts fill the sky as well.”

The children clung to each word like it was opening up a new universe for them, which wasn’t too far-fetched of an assumption. They quieted down after Ofejude answered the question, allowing them to continue. “Anyway. So, Chorceus agreed to take his Thirteenth Legion to Kehan to survey it for Gegetin colonies. He spent sixty varsau in Kehan, building small camps and towns and collecting trophies and resources for Gegetin. Kehan is a realm filled with gold and treasure, so he came back with thirteen hundred mules laden with treasure stolen from the elves, Kehan’s people. When he returned to Gegetin through the portal, the queen was so impressed that she made him her second-in-command and head general.

During his time as the queen’s general, Chorceus went on dozens of adventures. He took his legion to the Mahina Stronghold, where he entered the dark realm of Eyendr to slay Qara Geindija, the dragon, and he conquered the kingdoms surrounding Gegetin. After his twenty-sixth varsa of being back in Mida, though, Queen Baborayna died of birth madness along with her litter. As Baborayna had no relatives, her general was to choose the next queen.

However, instead of choosing the next queen, Chorceus chose himself to be the first-ever reigning king of Gegetin. Not many in Gegetin opposed this, as he was a powerful and successful political leader, but one person in particular vehemently disagreed with his choice. Samudri, the king of the gods and father of the mucaigeinu. In a fit of anger, Samudri sent the waterborne illness Annobotek into Gegetin’s water supply to show his displeasure at Chorceus’ newfound royal title, killing thousands of mucaigeinu. After a varsa of the plague, Chorceus made the decision to pick up and move all of Gegetin into his small settlements in Kehan, where water, and therefore Samudri, could not reach. It took varsau to get all of Gegetin into Kehan, but when they did, Samudri destroyed their portals, trapping the mucaigeinu-Gegetin in the Fire Realm forever. 

Kehan proved to be an unkind place to Midan species like the mucaigeinu, but somehow, Chorceus and his kingdom proved to be even more unkind than the realm itself. Massive mines were created to search for the extremely powerful mineral kehanite, which was then used to outfit the king and his army, destroying large quantities of the Kehanian environment in the process. Valleys of soul-filled dirt were formed from the destruction of the elves, and the mucaigeinu’s hogs decimated the mushroom forests making up the majority of Kehan.

The boar king continued to grow more powerful the longer he remained in Kehan, killing and enslaving thousands of elves and creating an army of kehanite-clad ‘demons’ with him wherever he went. However, it wasn’t until he reached thirteen hundred varsau of life that he truly established himself as the most powerful being in Kehan...possibly Mida, too.

Chorceus and his demons had overtaken a large elven city after forcing the enemy armies to retreat when Kehana herself, mother of the elves and queen of Kehan, appeared to Chorceus. She pleaded with him to cease his destruction and leave her people and realm alone. She said that she would tell her husband Samudri to stop the water plague and fix their portals so the mucaigeinu could go back to Mida, but Chorceus refused. He was too pleased with the power he had gained in Kehan to ever return to Mida. And then...in an act of esentema evil, Chorceus had Kehana chained and brought to his dungeon.

Kehana remained trapped in Chorceus’ bastion for sixty more varsau, unable to escape or contact the other gods of Ejele Conid. Chorceus kept her there only to drink her tears, which would increase his lifespan even further. Despite her trapped state, Kehana was able to communicate with the elves kept in the stronghold and began planning a revolution, but it never could get anywhere. It was only when Chorceus’ right hand, a mucaigein soldier called Proditione Sharptusk, allied with Kehana after realizing that the king’s destruction was too much that the revolution began to gain momentum.

The Kehanian Revolution was a bloody battle fought between the enslaved elves and the Gegetin mucaigeinu. Though the mucaigeinu were less in number compared to the countless slaves they’d captured, they were stronger and better equipped, leading to a rather evenly matched battle. The tides of the war only turned when, in a final act of betrayal, Proditione shoved Chorceus into the sea of lava surrounding Gegetin-Kehan’s east side, killing him.

Chorceus’ pure rage at his death kept his soul alive within the lava, and he began consuming the souls of the fallen in a desperate attempt to rise once again. Kehana saw this and went to kill his soul once and for all, but Chorceus used the power of the thousands of fallen souls to kill Kehana instead and consume her soul. Now imbued with the soul of a god, Chorceus rose from the lava and killed everyone participating in the battle—mucaigeinu, elves, even puama—with his new power. He announced himself as the new god of Kehan and destroyed all Gegetin settlements as punishment for Proditione’s betrayal. He vowed to never allow Gegetin to rise to the greatness he saw it to, and to never allow Kehan to regrow.