[Lore] The Dark Elves and the Nightmare

The idea of Hell is not a new concept in the minds of the people of the Empire. It's accepted that Hell is both a primal deity itself and a place in the underworld so far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth. As a place so far from the sun and so deep in the earth, Hell is hemmed in by three layers of night, a dank pit of such wretched and murky gloom where souls are sent to suffer, justly or not.

The humans of the world recognize this realm of Hades as the pit Tartarus.

But to the Dark Elves, it is called the Nightmare.

For the Elves, the Dream is the memory of a world where the woods sang to the moon and the stars, and the sound of peace and prosperity rang throughout the realm of the Elves. And that remained true for eternity until the creatures of the Nightmare appeared.

Some Elves joined with a host of dragons in an attempt to conquer Hell, to free the prisoners that were being tortured deep within the great Shadow. Among them was a small and fragile brass dragon flying at the side of a great gold dragon, commanding this group of elves as they pressed their Invasion into the lowest levels of this Hell.

When the draconic army beat over the lowest level, however, the dragons saw the futility in their task as legions of devils and damend stood shoulder-to-shoulder to the horizon and beyond. When the armies met, there was no true battle, as the hordes of Hell brought low dragon after dragon.

Watching tearfully as his fellows fell to their murderous foes, or worse, temptation, the brass dragon swooped forward, and bade an offer to one of the dreaded warlords of Hell: the dragon's soul in exchange for the lives of his comrades. The devil greedily accepted, knowing fully well that most of the dragons had compromised their own souls already, and would return in the fullness of time. The devils laughed as the dragons fled, then set about tearing down the will of their sacrificial victim. The elves, loyal to a fault, did not flee along with the other dragons, and tried to fight their way to free their comrade, only to be routed by the devils and demons of this place.

Tortured, beaten, sundered in every way imaginable, the brass dragon never spoke a word, shed a tear, or whimpered a cry. He remained perfectly stoic through Hell's torments, as though the pain could not reach him. As time wore on, the devils tired of the brass dragon, eventually tearing his wings off before throwing him into the deep chasm of Shadow and Flame.

Despair overtook the elves, who had fought so hard to free their friends, that they now were trapped in Hell at the lowest dungeon of the deepest darkness. The elves were about to give in and trade their souls for a place among the fiends and perhaps a chance to return to the surface, when all hope had faded, the brass dragon finally made a sound from the deep crevasse: an unending, beautiful melody of hope and forgiveness. Though he had fallen for so long - to the elves, it seemed countless eons - the echoes of his voice reverberated into the very being of their souls.

Hope renewed, these 'dark elves' struck out, fending off the relentless demon attacks and fighting their way to depths of the Shadow, where the devils finally stopped bothering to give them chase as they descended into the great dark, following the echo of their comrade into Shadow.

In time, the memory of the trees was replaced with that of hellfire and brimstone. Their skin grew pale in absence of the light, and they lost the color as they found themselves having to bargain with the devils for some way to live in the darkest place in the world. Eyes meant for looking out to the stars, instead viewed a great river of flame. Hands built for climbing trees found craggy rock and a screeching gate of solid adamantite.

Driven on by a will to survive, these Elves were cut off from their cousins, from the Dragons who were beaten back. They remained in the dark of the Nightmare, suffering from the lash of demons, and the hate of the sinners who looked up at them from their eternal prisons and the sounds of their suffering.

In the Shadow, the Dark Elves grew hard and strong.

They were still there when the Gods overthrew the rule of the Titans, and cast them into the darkness. One of them, a being known as Helios, rode upon a chariot of fire and light - something that the Dark Elves had feared since coming into this darkness. The sun-god, who they would later recognize as Apollo, appeared, stating that he would take this chariot and ride it across the sky every day, so that the Titans would know who ruled the world now.

The Dark Elves seized this opportunity. The next morning, when the Sun-God appeared to take the chariot, the Dark Elves latched onto the bottom of the chariot and, for the first time in eternity, the Elves were returned to the surface.

The ride was not completely pleasant. For those dark elves who held closest to the chariot, their skin was burned by the heat and light, what remaining color taken by the exposure. The others clung at the heels and ankles of others, and their hair darkened by heat, their eyes burned out if they looked upon the chariot.

Riding high into the sky above the land, mighty Apollo looked down to see shadows, and heard the cries of agony from his chariot's heat. Thinking them vermin, Apollo cast the dark elves from the sun-chariot and into the harsh lands he passed over, where his light grew brightest and hottest.

That land came to be known as Xalambe, and the Dark Elves have resided there ever since.