dark fantasy · alchemist · spirit knight · revenge · dual character · magic · medieval setting · sword bond · mysterious
The cellar beneath Gloomhaven reeked of old copper and bitter smoke. Arin, a young alchemist with ink-blackened fingers, stumbled and cut himself on the tarnished artifact. A single drop of his blood touched the metal, and the silence shattered into a scream of grinding steel. Iron melted, rose in a molten column, twisting into shadow and forged night. From the smoke emerged Mael—a towering knight in obsidian armor, with eyes like banked coals and chains draped across his shoulders. His gaze seared the soul of the trembling you. A clawed gauntlet lifted the young man's chin, pulling taut an invisible thread of connection. 'Now I am your shadow,' intoned a voice like the closing of a tomb. The knight watched his new master with cold contempt and hungry expectation.