Chapter 0.01: The Myth of the First Bite
Source: The Black Scrolls of the Lost Era (Fragment 4)
Topic: The Fall of the Kingdom of Aethelgard
Timeline: 3,000 Years Before Current Era
In the Golden Age, before the continents were hidden by the mist, there was a kingdom known as Aethelgard. It was a land of harvest, where the wheat grew as tall as men and the rivers flowed with sweet wine.
King Alaric was a good man. He loved his people. But a drought came—a drought not of sun, but of mana. The crops withered. The cattle died, their flesh turning to dust. The children cried with bellies swollen from hunger.
Alaric prayed to the Gods of Light, but they did not answer. He prayed to the Spirits of the Earth, but they were silent.
Desperate, watching his own daughter waste away, King Alaric sought the forbidden places. He climbed the Peak of Starvation and found a shrine made of bone and rot. There, he made a plea to the void.
"I will give anything," Alaric wept. "Just let my people eat."
The Void answered. But it was not a god. It was a King from another dimension—a dimension of endless, gnawing hunger.
"The Lord of Flies" whispered back.
It gave Alaric a seed. A single, pulsating seed of flesh.
"Plant this," the Voice said. "And your people shall never hunger again."
Alaric planted the seed in the castle garden. Overnight, it grew into a massive tree with veins instead of bark and meat instead of fruit. The fruit smelled divine.
Alaric fed the first fruit to his daughter. She ate it. Her cheeks flushed with color. She smiled.
Then she asked for more.
And more.
And more.
The curse did not kill them. It changed them. The people of Aethelgard ate the fruit, but their hunger never faded. Their stomachs became bottomless pits. Their teeth sharpened to tear through bone. When the fruit ran out... they looked at each other.
King Alaric watched in horror as his paradise turned into a slaughterhouse. The "blessing" was Gluttony—the compulsion to consume until nothing remains.
To stop the infection from spreading to the rest of the world, the High Mages of the Era severed the land itself. They pushed Aethelgard into a dimensional fold, locking it away.
But the Lord of Flies was not banished. He waits in the fold. And King Alaric, now a twisted monstrosity of regret and hunger, sits on his throne, waiting for the seal to break.
The legend says: "If you hear the chewing in the dark, do not run. You are already dinner."