Chalco the Blind

A grisly fate awaited every Dragonkin Legionnaire and Auxiliary who strode through the Brimstone Gate during the Sin of Dragons. After their crushing defeat at the hands of Siroth’s Demons in Anathraad, the survivors were taken prisoner and not one escaped mutilation, degradation, or torture. Arguably the greatest horror any experienced was when the Demons of Anathraad ripped their souls from their bodies to take the captives’ flesh for their own. The denizens of Siroth’s realm speak to this day of regions haunted by these Dragonkin’s essences, unable to rest as Anathraad possesses no leylines as Teleria does for the souls of the dead to rest in. Not all Demons are equal, and neither were the Dragonkin. The more powerful of Siroth’s minions took the bodies of the strongest warriors and bravest officers. The weakest and slowest Demons were left with the scraps – the starving, the grievously wounded, the terrified, or those driven insane by the atrocities they had been subjected to and witnessed. The mortal body possessed by the creature now known as Chalco – for reasons unknown and no one cares to learn – was that of a Dragonkin warrior who lost both eyes and legs during the Sin. No Demon wanted him for their meat-form. But one group of Demonic sprites did, for his body was the only one they could get, and they wanted to go back to Teleria to wreak havoc. They were a weak, predatory, and spiteful bunch, forever bullying one another and gnawing on anything they could get their spindly, clawed hands on. They giggled and cackled as they ripped their victim’s soul from his broken body, thread by ectoplasmic thread, and pressed their own portly essences into the corpse that remained. The Dragonkin’s flesh changed. It bucked and warped and bubbled. Bones cracked and snapped. Scales withered. Dark horns formed. A huge maw widened. Yellow fangs grew. Sensory organs sprouted. Hunger rumbled. No eyes emerged, nor did feet correspondingly large enough for the creature. But these were of no disadvantage. The process of the Demonspawn’s making more than made up for these weaknesses in the mortal flesh. Chalco’s bulbous chin doubled as a gas bag, enabling it to use echolocation and ultrasound with waves of throaty vibrations. Its chin also boasted a ‘beard’ of feelers the color of Anathraad magma, each one hyper-sensitive to sound, taste, smell, and even fear. They appeared to move of their own volition, tasting the air, ever-guiding their host to new feasts. The new Chalco could sense the presence of a mouse a hundred miles away and possessed the strength to take down prey much larger than itself. The sprites that made it up remained as malicious as ever, only now no one could bully or dismiss them as easily as they once did. When Siroth unleashed his Demonspawn upon Teleria after the Sin of Dragons, Chalco was one of the first through. It ached for the taste of mortal flesh, to guzzle warm blood, and it fed and drank well. Wherever it hopped and bound it left a trail of blood, flesh gibbets, and bone fragments in its wake. Those lucky enough to survive its attacks were often found in a catatonic, shivering state they never recovered from. Though his invasion was ultimately thwarted, Siroth was at least best pleased with Chalco. In this being he had a terror weapon with few comparisons, one he has unleashed at will in the centuries since, and has made a gory mark on Teleria in the Fall of the Dwarves, Second Great War, and dozens of other conflicts. Many Vault Keepers and Lightbringers have kept watch for Chalco, seeking to send him to the Doom Tower or bind him within a Shard. Several are now no more, serving only as yet more meat to feed Chalco’s insane, insatiable appetite. There was Ophiel, a Lightbringer of such radiant beauty he was said to have made Siroth weep when he first strode from the Waters of Life. He thought he had cornered Chalco in the salt-swamps of eastern Yakai’s islands. He was proven fatally, agonizingly, wrong. Janius was a wise, experienced Vault Keeper, one who had secured several dozen Demonspawn in Shards to prevent them from terrorizing Teleria and returning to Anathraad. He had defeated the Vypirez the Spiralfang, Naramzin the Impaler, and the Lightquencher. But he was no match for a frenzied, ravenous Chalco, serving as little more than dessert after the Demonspawn consumed the Vault Keeper’s coterie of warriors and mages. Chalco is content, the sprites loyal to Siroth, for the Shadow God always feeds it. They have gorged well indeed, and there is plenty more to come.