In the ancient village of Dargmoor, nestled deep within the mist-laden valleys of Eastern Europe, a chilling legend haunted the hearts of its people. They spoke in hushed tones of The Crimson Pact, a demonic covenant sealed centuries ago between a desperate man and a forgotten entity - Val'Zaruun, the Devourer of Light.
It began in 1634, during the darkest winter the region had ever known. Crops failed. Livestock perished. A plague swept through the land. Desperation drove a humble scholar named Elias Vorn to seek forbidden knowledge in the decaying archives beneath the ruined Blackwood Chapel.
There, he unearthed the Codex Maleficarum, a tome bound in skin, inked with blood, said to be written by those who bargained with the nether realms. He found a ritual - an invocation to summon Val'Zaruun. Elias, grief-stricken after the loss of his wife and children, performed the rite. In a ring of dying candles and Latin invocations, Val'Zaruun emerged: a towering form of charred bone, hollow eyes, and an ever-bleeding mouth.
The demon offered Elias power and prosperity - for a price. Every generation of his bloodline would belong to Val'Zaruun, their souls harvested on the night of the blood moon.
Elias accepted.
For years, the Vorn estate flourished. The land healed, gold flowed, and Elias became a legend. But after his death, the horrors began.
Each generation, one child would vanish - dragged screaming into the shadows by clawed hands no one could see. Whispers followed the family. They became recluses, tormented by nightmares and unseen voices scratching at the edge of sanity.
Centuries passed.
In 2025, the last living heir, Mara Vorn, returned to the crumbling ancestral manor after her father died under mysterious circumstances - his body torn to pieces, his blood forming arcane symbols on the floor. Mara, a skeptical woman of science, dismissed the tales as delusions. But on the eve of the blood moon, she found the Codex in a hidden chamber, pages still damp with blood that wasn't old.
Then the dreams began.
A door at the end of a long hallway. Whispers in her own voice. Eyes in the mirror that weren't hers. One by one, villagers around Dargmoor began dying - strung up on trees, skinned and marked with the sigil of Val'Zaruun.
Determined to end the curse, Mara sought help from an excommunicated priest and occultist, Father Aldric. He warned her that the only way to break the pact was to confront Val'Zaruun in the Shadow Realm and offer a soul in exchange - willingly.
Mara entered the ritual chamber beneath the manor at midnight. Surrounded by relics of her damned bloodline, she invoked the demon. The world shifted - walls bled, air became ash, and time halted. Val'Zaruun rose from the earth, hungering.
But Mara wasn't afraid.
She offered herself - but under one condition: end the pact for all future Vorns.
The demon, amused and ravenous, agreed.
As he devoured her soul, Mara screamed not in fear - but in defiance. Her body burst into crimson flame, and Val'Zaruun shrieked, staggering. Mara had tricked him - her soul was already bound by a counter-ritual carved into her bones.
Val'Zaruun was trapped in her dying form - sealed by ancient runes as her body turned to stone.
The Vorn curse was broken. The manor collapsed. The Codex burned to ash.
But in Dargmoor, on cold, moonless nights, villagers still hear whispers around the ruins - and a low, guttural voice begging to be freed.