Chapter 1 - twisted fate

The oracle Leknaat stared into the depths of her crystal ball. Images danced and flickered in a timeless flow.

At her side was her young apprentice, Luc. His hand was beginning to cramp. Transcribing Lady Leknaat's "Astral Conclusions" (tm) was strenuous work.

Leknaat suddenly snapped out of her meditative trance. ". . . . This can't be right. A strange twist of fate indeed. Luc, come here. You've got to see this!"

Luc leaned towards the crystal ball. He raised an eyebrow.

"This is the one who will inherit the Dominion rune and bring nations to their knees. A despot so cruel and depraved as to make the late Luca Blight seem like a saint."

Luc sweatdropped. "You have got to be joking."

Apple sneezed. The dust hung thick in the air here in the house once inhabited by the late Mathiu Silverburg. Blades of light thrust through the cracks between the boards covering over the windows. It was sad to see this place in such a state. It was here in this very room that she had listened in rapt attention to Mathiu's brilliant lectures while her fellow student Shu mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open. Seemed like only yesterday.

Her beloved mentor abandoned his teaching when war broke out and duty called him to assist the rebel army. Ever the devoted pupil, Apple followed him. She cursed herself for being so young, so helpless. She was powerless to prevent his death.

But Apple decided to do her best to immortalize him. As soon as the war with the Scarlet Moon Empire drew to a close, she set herself to the task of writing Mathiu Silverburg's memoirs. Her tireless research had been interrupted only by the outbreak of another war, between the City States and Highland. And now that that nasty business was over and done with she could once again devote her energies to her pet project.

What better place to begin than here? She had purchased Mathiu's old house as soon as she was able. As a strategist of the victorious army, she'd been handsomely rewarded for her services. Perhaps someday she would expand it and turn it into a museum. She filed the notion away for future consideration.

Apple swore a blue streak as she dragged a particularly heavy old chest up from the basement. Going through all of Mathiu's belongings was a bitch.

She wondered what could possibly be inside the chest that would warrant storing it in a bricked-up alcove behind filing cabinets that had been bolted to the floor in the back of a broom closet in the sub-basement whose door bore a sign that read 'Beware of the Kraken'.

It took her a while to pry it open. She was at once intrigued and disappointed that it's only content was an old manuscript. Embellishing the musty leather cover was a ring of small jewels set around a larger stone with a strange symbol on it that might resemble a crown if you stared at it long enough after a severe blow to the head with a blunt instrument.

With the sleeve of her yellow tunic Apple buffed away the dust from the jewel encrusted cover. The gilded calligraphy appeared like sunlight through thick gray clouds.

So You Want To Be An Evil Overlord? by J. A. Silverburg.

One less schooled in history would not have understood the significance of the tome that Apple held in her hands. From her research of Silverburg geneology, she knew it to be the work of the infamous Jonas Adal Silverburg, more popularly known a 'Jackass' Silverburg, who had been a strategist of the Scarlet Moon Empire in the height of its power. He had authored several works in his time, but none were thought to have survived a coup in which most of Gregminster burned. This was a priceless historical artifact.

There was no major war that Apple knew of that a Silverburg hadn't been involved in. Their family was a long line of prominent generals and strategists, some of whom were not very nice.

Mathiu was wise to keep a book like this hidden from the rest of his kin.

What secret knowledge did this book contain that made it so dangerous? Apple was so hungry for answers she was practically drooling.

To read or not to read? Dumb question. Apple was a firm believer in knowledge for knowledge's sake.

She read faster than she'd ever read before. She was shocked by the sheer simplistic brilliance of it. It made it seem like anyone could become a mighty ruler.

This man was far ahead of his time. Was the last king of Highland not originally just some punk commoner kid, and wanted for treason at that? Apparently in some countries, anything goes.

Normally Apple's head would be hurting from all this reading, but the light the rune on the cover was shedding helped to alleviate the eyestrain.

The gist of the book was about power. How to get it. How to use it. How to keep it.

Surely it could be put to good use for the betterment of human civilization, right?

Mwaaa haa ha.