Side Story 1

Side Story 1: Hermenegild
This side story follows the life and death of Hermenegild. Born deep underground to a pair of renowned enchanters among the deep halflings, Hermenegild showed his prodigious talent even as a child, copying and completing a basic light enchantment from his parent's notes at barely a year of age.

With two excellent teachers, a thirst for knowledge and his innate talents, he advanced extremely quickly in the craft. At around the age of ten, his parents began to push him to socialise with others his age.

At thirteen, grim news came to their community: the drow were planning an attack on them, and had some way to avoid the Arachne even during the arachne's current mating season, meaning that their allies, the gnomes, could not be contacted and had no way of assisting them. The deep halflings on their own have little fighting forces, and nowhere near enough to stymie the drow attack. The only defences they can think of amount to little more than delaying tactics.

Trying to think of some way to save his people, Hermenegild stays up all night thinking of and then developing a single enchantment: one that, when placed upon a weapon and used to kill someone, would permanently transfer some of their strength to the user. In addition, the efficiency of the magic would be greatly increased if the victim was willing to die and give up their strength. That is to say, it was a weapon designed to use on his own people and create a single super soldier capable of defeating the drow forces single-handedly.

Not having any other alternatives, the people of the town agreed to the creation and use of this weapon.

Hermenegild and his parents went to work on etching the design into a gnommish dagger made with an experimental alloy. After completion, Hermenegild's father sent his mana into the circuit to test it - but nothing happened. Hermenegild, in his stress and lack of sleep, had forgotten to include a mana guidance component in the formation, meaning that it essentially wasn't an enchantment, but a spell formation, and anyone who wanted to use it would have to have intricate knowledge of the systems of magic behind it and composition of the spell.

Not having the time or resources to design and craft a perfected version, Hermenegild - the only one who knows how to cast the spell - attempts to teach one of the town guard how to do it. However, it quickly becomes evident that his efforts are in vain.

This being the case, Hermenegild is the only option for the person to wield the dagger.

As he does so, killing many of the people he had gotten to know over the years, Hermenegild begins to see white flashes. At first he dismisses them, but they last longer and longer with each person sacrificed. Eventually, it doesn't go away, and he can see beyond the realm of mortals into that of the dead. Finally, Hermenegild strikes himself with a sword, and it is the sword which breaks - he determines that this should be enough.

In the last few hours they have remaining, Hermenegild works to get a handle on his newfound strength and speed. Unsuccessfully.

The time comes, and he jumps over the gate to face the army. But despite his overwhelming strength allowing him to easily kill any drow he crosses paths with, there are simply too many of them for him to deal with at once. Many of them simply ignore him and move on to attack the town behind him. Before too long, Hermenegild was the only deep halfling left alive. He blocked the small tunnel the drow had dug through the cave-ins to get there, and slaughtered some more of them.

The drow retreated, unable to do anything to him. And then Hermenegild fell, to his own confusion. He looked, and saw that his own soul was undulating, about to break apart, unable to contain the power that was forced into it. And so he died.

But then, inexplicably, he returned to life.