Cast back your mind, dear reader, and recall those words spoken of the Lost City of Atlantis. A forgotten island so ancient that all records of its presence have long since rotted away to dust, the memory of those dusted pages faded from the minds of man, and those men long-since dead in graves long-since rotten over.

Yet, some forgotten things refuse to stay forgotten and settled in graves now given over to dust. To know of this tale, we must recall the horrible vengeance of the women of Atlantis. In a rage fueled by the indignities suffered under the chains of Thorm Athow, they cast down the island and destroyed all knowledge of its existence in a nightmarish spell so foul the very act of writing it down became a crime in itself!

Now, dear reader, we must tell you that in times of great magic, a side effect often occurs. In those forgotten, ancient, times, teachers often described spells as rivers. While most spells resemble the calm and joyous gurgle of a spring brook or the mighty but steady pulse of a flowing tributary, some dangerous magics become torrential floods that spill over their banks and leave only devastation behind. Nevertheless, as they spill over, the water carves new pathways into the earth and so too may a mighty spell carve new truths upon the world.

Yet we may not call the spell of the women of Atlantis a river, so vast was the power and emotion that fueled it. Perhaps, dear reader, we could better understand it as an ocean into itself or as a suddenly thawed glacier drowning the men before it. This brutality, this collective annihilation, took the lives of many inhabitants of Atlantis long before the island finally sunk.

The spell consumed many of the women, drowned in their own spell's overflowing. The sheer weight of the metaphorically hate-filled water pummeling into them pulverized the men long before the real water drowned them. Yet, for a sect of Thorm Athow's followers, this deluge carried a great opportunity.

This sect had long since headed to the mainland, ostensibly to establish trade with a tiny village in Italy, known as Rome. The true intent was to secure research subjects outside of Atlantis. For all that they were monsters; the sway of nationalist pride still compelled them to seek victims in an area away from home.

This village of Rome had not yet dreamed the names Romulus or Remus. No hint of the great destiny of the republic and empire to come had yet marked its citizens. However, tonight a destiny was forged! Standing knee deep in the waters about the city, the apprentices of Thorm Athow began a dark work. Seeking to pull but the barest eddy from the rushing waters of the spell, they fought to divert a piece of it for their own purpose. They dreamed the same dream of Thorm Athow, immortality!

For the dark wizard Athow, his dream came due to necessity. The chains that created The Chauvinist might have had him, but for his trickery. For these apprentices, the dream held a much more fanciful bent. Immortality is quite the alluring prize, and they pursued it with monstrous intensity.

Casting aside those few concerns of morality that did trouble the men who aided Thorm Athow's monstrous acts against the Atlantean females, they went to barbaric lengths to discover secrets of the human flesh. Unwilling to risk themselves, on that night they dragged a captured local down to the waters and cut out his spirit, severing it from his human form.

Then, grasping the magics of the spell that sunk Atlantis, they tied him to a set of wicked looking daggers they received as presents from their master. Indeed, dear reader, these daggers took the same form as the one that Eldritch carries even now. Thorm Athow had a penchant for such weapons, and although he had them crafted with no special purpose beyond the ornamental in mind, each has fallen through history covered in acts worthy of Athow's legacy.

They divied up the Roman citizen's soul into ten pieces, one for each dagger. Those wizards understood the binding of a spirit. Indeed, much as Athow bound Belinda, they sought to bind this soul.

But unlike Belinda, they dipped from the waters of the woman's spell intending to enact a magic that would render such a being immortal and substantial. They wished to create a spirit powerful enough to manifest a physical form, achieving immortality as a result.

They sought to test the waters by binding the citizen, but dividing his strength thoughout the ten daggers such that he could not threaten them before they could banish him to the afterlife. Still, the spell proved stronger than anyone might have known, and even sundered the spirit possessed the power to control the daggers sitting in the wizard's hands. The suddenly empowered metal sprung about in the hands of the sect and fell deep into their hearts!

Unable to finish their spell, it simply overflowed and saturated the entire area in the same destructive power that fell Atlantis. Though they were far enough from Rome to prevent the destruction of the destined city, the backlash blasted the entire site to oblivion. Along with it, the ten daggers flew far beyond sight or reason and into the nothingness of the sea where Atlantis once rested.

Now separated by distance and disoriented by his death, the citizen could only watch as pieces of his soul went in different directions. Each piece took with it a difference bodily peice of his ghastly form, leaving him scattered.

Scarcely able to move, his head crawled along the ocean floor for an eternity seeking the other daggers. Sometimes it remained undisturbed by the local fauna and sometimes it witnessed years of progress destroyed by a passing fish attracted to the shiny weapon.

Over time, this endless search gave way to madness as the Roman forgot even his name. After years undisturbed in the depths, his search abandoned as he had forgotten even what he searched for, a sunken Roman trireme fell upon him.

At first, he could not understand what had come to him. Then a team of archaeologists stumbled upon the wreck in the age of exploration. Dredging the ship from the grasp of the seas, they pulled out the dagger and matched it with others taken from other wrecks throughout the water. Though the discovery excited them, to the Roman it meant a reunification with six more peice of his body. Yet the archaeologists only managed to secure seven daggers in total.

Still, with each piece returned, the specter felt slightly restored, each time closer to whole. Locked in a museum's exhibit on Rome, he began to recall pieces of his life and the purpose of his long search through the depths. For all this, he could not recall his name. Ten long years passed with him locked in the display case, learning of the world. Then he returned to the sea, this time to find the remaining blades.

Inside the wreckage of Atlantis, he discovered a hastily authored record that revealed the story of Belinda and Thorm Athow. Filled with disgust at the reaction of the women that sealed his death, he vowed revenge on any surviving Atlanteans. Then he continued his search, finding two more of the daggers.

However, one final blade eluded him. Until, in a stroke of luck, he discovered a World War II era wreck of a German submarine that contained a log detailing the retrieval of the dagger by a set of German archaeologists seeking occult artifacts for the führer.

They too tracked down the bloodline of Belinda, but were unable to capture them before they retreated to America. While tracking down the Belinda Athow of that time, they also discovered the notes of Athow's apprentices. Searching for the lost daggers, they found one of them before a British Warship tracked down and sunk their submarine. During the battle, an explosion smashed the dagger, containing the Roman's heart, into pieces!

Hopeful that the magic might not be lost, merely scattered, Roman began another search of the depths to piece together every fragment of the dagger he lost. Nevertheless, after many years spent combing the wreckage he despaired, for even as he repaired the blade it remained inert and his heart remained missing.

Overcome with melancholy he wandered the depths, eventually returning to the sunken villa of Thorm Athow. There he discovered a spell to commune with the dead, intending to raise and torture every woman of Atlantis he returned to land and sought the service of an evil magician. But the magician's spell did not summon whom he intended, and instead he came face to face with Thorm Athow himself!

At first overcome with rage he tried to harm the demon. But those who are dead, and especially those whose spirits reside where Thorm Athow resides, have little concern for mortal conceptions of torture. Then, Thorm Athow offered a way to finish the spell.

All he had to do was acquire another dagger, one formed during the same time as his own set of ten. One that Thorm Athow could tell him the location of even now! Roman would merely need to slay the current owner and secure the weapon for himself.

He could then summon Athow again and the pair would work the magic together. In return, Athow requested a pittance. Merely the chance to bind the spirit they would evict from the dagger, and some time spent away from his prison.

But Thorm Athow warned Roman that this foe would test him. In life Roman was a warrior, but not so great a warrior that he could fend off the predations of the ten apprentices and their spells. Therefore, Athow granted him the secret techniques of the Atlanteans and instructed him in the forging of a suit of arms so powerful that it rivals even the technological marvels of our current era.

Descending to the depths one final time, Roman found a sunken forge where he, with the aid of a great suite of magic, transformed those nine daggers into a suit of armor, a spear, and shield. Before, as he swept the depths, Roman remained invisible in his spectral form. Now he marches with a corporeal body!

Albeit one so ghastly that it offers no resistance to any weapon. For a spirit sustained by his vestments, what is the purpose of flesh that others can rend? Roman cannot die from strikes to the body as his soul resides elsewhere.

So, scarcely a month ago the specter of an empty suit of armor rose from the depths. Out of the sea came Roman, marching endlessly. He traversed the lands of Europe, weaving in and out of civilization so adroitly that even those who might normally pay heed to rumors like the ones he left swirling behind him did not.

Just three weeks ago, he marched off the end of Spain and back into the bosom of the sea. Free from prying eyes, he began to rush through the journey to the New World. Racing with a single-minded purpose and indefatigable certainty even as we speak he is closing the final steps into the edges of Liberty City!

Standing at the edges of the docks tonight is a man we may be familiar with, as he covertly adjusts his toupee, he mutters to himself. "Demoted! I'll show em demoted, I shoulda never taken that job at the campus. An' who'se ta think Eldritch wouldn't mention her ole pal in front o'da cameras? Or that ta Minutemen would lose in overtime and now I'm stuck with ta graveyard shift again! First drivin' museum cars, next watching college kids, now watching boxes, I keep this up I'll be followin' that bratty Napp gal around! I shoulda never slept through da police academy exam."

Startled by a sudden rush of water and hiss of metal, the guard spins about and exclaims. "Holey moly! It's happenin' again!"

Unperturbed by the guard, Roman continues to march towards the center of the city. He is so intent on his progress that the shouted warnings of the guard do little to deter him or even attract his attention until he feels the tingle of a Taser pass through his spectral form. The empty helmet turns towards the guard, and the masterwork of the Atlanteans faces directly at him.

Roman took one of his daggers and beat it into a burnished mask of spelled bronze. It is so lifelike that the guard pauses for a moment, all but certain that he must have been shooting at a man. The mask does not speak or move, but the eyes glow with an incredibly dark blue straight from the murky recesses of the ocean.

Then Roman's spear flashes out and the guardsman quickly ducks. Without affording a second glace, Roman retracts his spear and brushes off the guards wig and hat, then continues to march through the docks, phasing through a wall right in front of the guard's eyes!

Reaching down for his radio, he begins to speak in an awed tone. "Hey, uh, dispatch or whoever's listenin' I think this one ought ta go up the chain pretty fast! I got a guy here, well, you ain't gonna believe this, let's just say we're gonna need Eldritch tonight!"

Across the city, a young girl sits near a police scanner while doing homework for Mr. Memely when the report comes in; a ghost is terrorizing the city! Sighing, she turns to save her progress, closing her computer, and reaches into a desk drawer where she pulls out a dagger.

Ducking out her window, she climbs to a rooftop and begins a whispered cant. Soon, garbed in spells and her white cowl, Eldritch Maiden begins racing through the rooftops as she hones in on the locations the scanner reports to her. After nearly an hour of floating through the city, her search rewards her with the sight of her newest foe! Standing in the middle of a major intersection, Roman spots her as well! For the first time since reaching the city, he speaks.

Roman's voice sounds as though it comes from a set of drowned lungs. The sound of gurgling water swirls in the background of his speech and those about him must strain to hear, for it is as if he speaks from underneath the fathoms below. "Eldritch Maiden!" He shouts. "I have come for Belinda and the dagger! Come face me, come to die before the might of... Roman!"

At this pronunciation, Hailey pauses. Never before has an enemy sought her out in this fashion! Never before has an enemy known the secret of her dagger or her companion! What else might Roman know about her? And how might he put that information to use?

Suddenly, for the first time, Hailey feels uneasy before a foe and the flash of trepanation grips her. But these concerns only appear for a moment, for it is the reassurance of Belinda and the cheers of the rapidly retreating citizens below that spur her on to her next fight! Join us next week for the confrontation between Roman and Eldritch in... "Drowning on Land!"