An attempt had been made on the life of King Therion, the ruler of Nihilus. The would-be assassins had been serving as guards in King Therion's castle for months before the attempt. The day they decided to make their move they had discussed how imperative it was for them to either succeed or die immediately after failure, for Therion was known for his ruthlessness. When Therion was born he was seventh in line for the throne of Nihilus, the seventh son. His brothers had all died in mysterious circumstances, which led many to believe that he had killed them all, an allegation he had never addressed. These would-be assassins failed both to kill Therion and to kill themselves after said failure. They were subjected to tortures in his dungeon, until they admitted who they were. It didn't take long after that for King Therion's agents to find their families.

Barry was the oldest of the three attempted assassins. Like the others he'd been taken in by the words of a revolutionary by the name of Kalvyn Silverlocke. Kalvyn preached that if the world itself is a prison and the daemons were trying to free humanity from said prison then any tyrant was acting against the will of the daemons, even if he was trying to destroy God's prison. Kalvyn was a mysterious leader, few had ever even seen him, but his teachings were very interesting, the sort that might actually succeed in changing the world and the way it worked. Barry had organized the other two, Ailil and Lorcan, in this attempt to kill King Therion. Therion had no clear successor to the throne yet, so they would have had a revolution on their hands very shortly after the cruel king's demise.

“We can do this!” Barry had told them.

“But if we fail our families...” Ailil had protested.

“That's what these are for,” Barry handed each of them small vials of a dark green liquid. “It's a powerful poison I bought from an apothecary. If we fail we drink the poison and they'll never find out who we are or anything about our families or our cause.”

Lorcan rolled his eyes at him, “That's your plan B? We kill ourselves?”

“Listen, don't you want a better world than this for your children? This is our chance to fix Nihilus and set it on the right course!” Things were truly hard for the common-folk of Nihilus. There was very little fertile ground throughout the land, and as such farming was not great. Most villages were supported either by the hunters who tracked the herds of deer and wild bulls or by goat or pig farms. Pigs and goats were easy to raise because they could eat nearly anything, unlike sheep and cows who could only really feed on grass, and most definitely preferred green grass to the brown grass that grew in Nihilus most of the year. More peaceful relations with some of the other surrounding kingdoms, such as Sabura and Subra, the lands to the south, might have yielded trade. The people of Sabura and Subra were not Agalmites, ergo not necessarily the enemies of Nihilus, certainly no allies of Arx, and thus peaceful trade would be possible. Instead Therion had decreed that they'd have nothing to do with these outsiders, for fear that they may trade their religions along with their goods. Therion had spent an incredible amount of money preparing for his ambitious war with Arx, buying up weapons, armor, pots and pans, tents, boots, and any other supplies his troops would need. When his funds were running low he began bleeding the people dry, both rich and poor, with heavy taxes. When this still wasn't enough, he borrowed money from banks all over the land, and then had the owner's of these banks imprisoned under suspicion of conspiracy so that he wouldn't have to pay off the debts later. With these bankers gone, Nihilus' economy took an even bigger hit than it did when Therion levied the taxes. Furthermore most of the food that had grown in Nihilus was given to Leti Academy and to Therion's army, leaving the common-folk to starve. It seemed that the people needed nothing short of a revolution merely to live well, and assassinating Therion could be the first step in achieving such a revolution.

Of course, nothing had gone according to plan. Therion had heard them entering his bedroom and, being the monstrously strong man he was, overpowered all three of them. They drank the poison, as was the plan, but as it turned out the apothecary had lied to Barry. The poison did nothing more than knock them out for a few hours. Since it was illegal to sell deadly poisons to anyone not under orders from the King himself the apothecary felt pretty safe that Barry wouldn't try to take him to court for fraud, and for good measure he left town in case Barry was likely to turn violent with him. In any event the poison that was supposed to help them avoid being captured alive was the very reason they were captured alive. Therion's torturers had interrogation methods that could make even the bravest men divulge their most terrible secrets.

The failed assassins and their wives, brothers, sisters, and fathers, were all gathered in front of the castle, in the gallows, before hundreds of Nihilus' citizenry. Each assassin, along with each family member, stood upon trapdoors, with nooses around their necks. Some sobbed heavily, others stared at the crowd defiantly, still others said prayers under their breath, either to beg and plead for their lives or their souls. Therion emerged from within the castle, an entourage of guards in tow. He was dressed in white and red regal robes, with the symbol of a lion with antlers like a stag on his chest. He had long, red hair, that was wavy in such a way that it appeared like a mane, and his crown had the appearance of ten small horns of iron.

The murmuring among the crowd died down as King Therion made the scene. For a king he was surprisingly young, only about 17 years of age, yet the pressure of the office had aged him, they could see it in the way he carried himself and the expressions on his face. He cleared his throat and then spoke, “These men,” he pointed to the assassins, “Have committed an act of treason! In my own home they dared to try to assassinate me! Must we remind everyone that treason against Nihilus will not be tolerated?” It was common for the king of Nihilus to refer to himself as “we,” for he, in and of himself, was said to represent the whole kingdom. He WAS Nihilus, in that sense. “Must we show everyone again the punishment for crossing us? Standing beside them here are their families. Brothers, sisters, and wives. Their children have already been shipped off to the iron mines. See now, the price of treason!”

Therion gave a nod to the executioner, and the crowd watched in silent anticipation and horror, as he pulled the first lever. The trapdoor opened, and one of the assassin's wives dropped through. Slipknots had been common practice in this execution method because they broke the victim's neck, causing them to die instantly, but in this case Therion had made sure there were no slipknots. The condemned would strangle to death on the ends of the rope. Those yet to be executed watched in terror as the woman on the end of the rope kicked her feet and clawed at the rope frantically as her face turned purple, and finally her body went limp.

The executioner moved on, dropping one victim after another to strangle at the end of the rope, until all who were left were Barry, Ailil, and Lorcan, their family members now executed before them. King Therion spoke again, “This is your doing. Yes, we ordered this executioner to hang them, but you knew full well that if you attempted to kill us there would be repercussions on your family. We've made it abundantly clear that we will not suffer traitors in our kingdom. You have your own families' blood on your hands now.”

And with that the executioner pulled the last few levers. Some of the citizens in the crowd felt sorry for the three men who hanged there, but no one dared show even the slightest hint of sympathy for them. They knew full well that Therion would have sympathizers arrested just as quickly. Not one man removed his hat from his head in respect, no woman placed a hand over her heart, no child cried for the dead, in spite of the fact that so many of them wanted to.

“Back to your homes!” Therion shouted to the crowd, and immediately they dispersed. Therion felt satisfied with this reaction, he was sure that with such a display the likelihood of another attempt on his life had dropped dramatically. Fear kept people in line when their morality and sense of patriotism failed. Courtiers, advisers, and all manner of sycophants congratulated Therion on his speech as he came back into the castle. They told him how glad they were that he was safe and how just he was in executing the attempted assassins. He knew full well that they meant very little, if any, of what they were saying, but he was hardly the type to call them on it. If they lied to him, told him what they thought he wanted to hear, it proved that they feared him, and nothing kept people loyal like fear. Love was fleeting, the people were fickle with their love, but fear was ever-lasting.

Therion had worked too hard to get to the position he was in today to risk it by being kind, kindness was too often seen as weakness, and he shuddered at the thought of how many assassins he'd have coming after him if they thought him weak. As the seventh-born son of the previous king he was assured nothing in life when he was young. He'd been told that his eldest brother would make sure that he was taken care of, simply because he was family, but he knew that he couldn't rely merely on the mercy of another. He started out trying to make his way in the world by training as a warlock, but with the building tensions with Arx he knew that as a warlock his eldest brother could send him to the front-lines of the war, should one break out. Therion refused to be forgotten, he would not be some footnote in Nihilus' history. He wanted so much more than that for his life, and he didn't care what it would take to bring him into the limelight, where all would know what a great leader he could be. He would tear down the Obelisk of the Law in the capital of Arx and put an end to the Agalmite faith. All would forever revere him as the greatest king Nihilus ever had. What's more, when Erets was finally destroyed, God was defeated, and humanity joined the daemons in the Void once again he would be exalted for his contributions to making that day possible.

And new information that had reached King Therion's ears led him to believe his victory was closer than he'd previously thought. Word was sent from the warlock academy of Leti that a soothsayer had been found, the first in centuries. Such an individual, chosen by daemons, could easily be the key to tipping the scales in his favor. He had ordered that both the soothsayer herself, Deidra, and the two students responsible for finding her, be brought to his castle.