Hi. As I said in the previous post, I wrote some lore describing the history of Darkridge castle. In fiction, this text was written tens of years before the events that would happen in the game. However, you may guess from it some of the new gameplay mechanics, like using/stealing “Portal Keys” to follow the rivals in different environments.

On the peak of the Shivering Mountains, in the frozen South, lie the ruins of castle Darkridge. Even in a desolated state, the castle still inspires fear, since it was the residence of King Akuma, The Cursed King. Many tragedies happened during his reign. Most say that he was a tyrant, sacrificing everything for power. Of course, this was not something unique to Akuma, his ancestors had similar traits.

Rumors say that long before the castle was built, there was a spring like no other, a spring that had the power to make miracles. Its water was made out of pure light, and everyone that touched that water was simply cured of any ill. One of Akuma’s ancestors, whose name was long forgotten, seized the land and ordered the mages in his army to make a ritual, to transform the spring into a weapon. Once the ritual was over, the water was no longer of pure light and couldn’t heal anymore. It was transformed in what we call now “liquid magic”. From then on, anyone standing near the flow could draw some power, helping them to cast greater spells. By placing jewels or crystals into the flow, power could be stored in them, so mages could cast spells in places where magic could not exist.

In order to secure the spring from the invaders, the ancestor built Darkridge castle around it. Initially, the castle was only meant to be a residence for the king. However, over the years, it was expanded, gaining other purposes.

For example, at some point in time, a group of rich nobles gathered around the castle and, with King’s kindness, built a small village around. The king also ordered his workers to build giant magic walls, turning Darkridge into a powerful fortress.

One of the greatest additions to Darkridge was a few thousand years ago when the king of that time was an actual mage. He recognized the fact that mages had improper training, so he took a radical decision: he established a school of magic, inviting well-known scholars from the world to join it.

Gathering the people needed was a nearly impossible task since all of them were living at the far edges of the world. Soon, it became clear that without a plan, the school won’t survive for very long. Fortunately, the solution came very fast. During the king’s last expedition, at the ruins of an unknown castle, a huge magical device was found. Of course, you had to have a trained archmage eye to not confuse it with a doorway’s adorned rim. It was a Grand Portal, a device created by an ancient Faes race, used to travel around the world. Quickly, the king ordered his men to dig the stone around, get the portal out, dismantle it, then bring it to Darkridge. At Darkridge, it took several weeks to set it up. Rituals had to be made, pipes had to be connected, stone had to be dig. Finally, the time came to test The Grand Portal. With a special red gem held tight in his fist, the king pushed his hand through a flow of liquid magic, pouring from the ceiling. Soon, the white glow of the flow turned in a bright red, like it was made out of fire. Then, the ground started to shake. The hollow portal was now filled with the same glow. The gem in the king’s hand was also glowing. He gave it to one of his servants and ordered him to go through the portal. Hesitantly, he followed the orders. Once he hit the curtain of light, he vanished in a rain of sparks. Everyone in the hall knew that every time the portal activated, it created a return glyph on the ground, in a location determined from the gem. The servant had only to stand over the glyph, raise the charged gem over his head, and mutter a spell in order to be transported back. In under a minute, a flood of sparks filled the room, and the servant was back, unhurt. It was a tremendous success!

The next days, the king’s mages conjured flying elementals, giving them letters and portal keys to carry. Then, they sent them to the scholars.

Soon, the first official year of Darkridge School of Magic began.

From then on, thousands of generations of mages learned to find their way through the world.

Now, you might wonder: how could such a thriving place collapse? Well…it was all because of Akuma. His greed was so ferocious that he cast a curse on the villagers, to turn them into mindless, blood-thirsty beasts. Although the curse was aimed at them, he also got affected, sadly not to the point of losing his mind completely.

During the night, the students were strongly advised to stay shut in their dorms, because occasionally some beasts would get in and roam the corridors. Even the most trained mage students couldn’t face a single beast since they would get shredded to pieces. The curse was way too strong.

Being a beast, Akuma made student killing more…formal. From time to time, a student was selected based on some unknown criteria, and brought into The Pit, after a short ritual. There, in the darkness, Akuma would drain the life out of them. Once the ritual time came, all the students were trembling in fear, hoping to not be the unfortunate ones.

Seeing what Akuma did, the people in the kingdom got scared and asked the help of the Midnight Faes, a powerful race of magical creatures. In order to dethrone Akuma, the faes needed to boost their powers. In order to do so, they came up with a plan: they disguised themselves in merchants and joined the Merchants Guild. Why? Because, after paying a huge fee, Akuma would order to his guards to open some floodgates for this guild, so liquid magic could flow through giant pipes down to the base of the mountain. There, the flow would reach The Marble Fountains, charging the gems placed in their basins. After the magic vanished, the merchants would take the charged gems and sell them on the markets.

And so, after ten years, the Midnight Faes have gained enough gems for the war. They conjured millions of elementals and sent them to destroy Darkridge. Despite this, Akuma seemed to be invincible. The Faes have depleted almost all of their magic reserves without much of a success and expected Akuma to strike them back. In order to save themselves, with the last bits of magic, they conjured one of the most powerful elementals ever: a stone giant, that could turn everything he touched into stone. His fists plummeted from the sky right into Darkridge, and, with a direct hit on Akuma, the giant exploded into tiny stone shards, killing almost everyone around. Although the giant exploded, the Akuma’s body was now a stone statue. The attack was a success!

After the war ended, the surviving beasts, free from Akuma’s influence, ran into the woods. There might be several mages that survived that day, but no one knows for sure. In the case of magic, that haunted place seems to not hold any trace of it. Dit it simply vanished, or something else happened? Anyway, we shouldn’t worry anymore. Akuma is forever gone!