Special thanks to SAM (my 9 year old daughter) who walked through the levels while I sketched the maps.

Click on a thumbnail in the left column to view a large image.

(Taken from the pages of "The CHRONICLES of VERDITE")

After several centuries, Vallad's champion was finally born! The Royal Family of Verdite had long been a clan of evil magic, no doubt the embodiment of ancient evil which lay recovering and biding its time beneath Verdite. However one descendent of the line, Zoela Reinhardt, had been so removed from the pure blood that she had no malice within her. She did, however, carry the magic of the clan within her blood. It was this fact that bore into the world a son to Zoela and Houser Forester. A son which allowed Vallad to witness the birth of light into the world! John Alfred Forester was born with the magical power of light. The first and only line of Valicia to posses this power. Vallad watched over John Alfred carefully as he grew from a baby into the eager boy whose only desire, it seemed, was to learn from his father, Swordmaster Houser, the art of swordsplay. This delighted Vallad beyond imagination! He continued to watch as John Alfred grew to surpass even his father's skill as a master swordsman. Too young to join the garrison, John Alfred had been forced to watch his father leave to fight the forces of evil within the Royal Cemetery in Verdite. The ancient evil had grown tired of waiting for its kings to take over the world and had begun issuing forth terrible beasts into the land of Verdite to feed on the souls of the citizens. As these creatures fed on the blood and souls of the people, the ancient evil grew more and more powerful. No one had yet returned from the cemetery alive!

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That night, John Alfred Forester was awakened by a voice. A sweet beckoning voice was calling to him from a great distance and it knew him by name!
As if under some kind of spell, all John Alfred could do was to follow that voice all the way through the channels of Melanat Island and into the forests. Until he reached an ancient, abandoned cemetery which seemed, had not been used for centuries.
John Alfred walked for what seemed like days before he was finally brought into a gigantic clearing where a pair of doors, reaching easily 200 feet brought him to a stand still. Awestricken, he took a few steps back before a voice from within summoned him by name...
"John Alfred Forester, son of Houser, you have been chosen...ENTER..."
With nothing left in him even resembling courage, John Alfred forced himself towards the towering doors in front of him. With a single word, "open..." the immense doors seemed all to glad to glide open for the tiny man in front of them. As the door opened, John Alfred was brought to his knees by a bright blue light shinning from within the room.

"John Forester, you have been chosen to champion my will. You have been born with the power of light and a pure heart; I have been waiting your arrival for nearly two thousand years! Now receive my gift and fulfill your destiny."

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Fearing for his father, Houser Forester, John hurried back to his homeland hoping that he would not be too late. He then heard that though Captain Houser had initially returned alive, he had gone back to the cemetery to save his men who had not yet returned.

John, not yet an official soldier, gladly joined the reserve troops. He wanted to enter the royal tombs and search for his father, who had not returned; and of course, there was the matter of an untested gift from the gods to be dealt with.

John Alfred Forester moved through the Royal Cemetery like an angry god punishing the evil for its very existence. The springs were dry and reeked with the stench of death. He moved methodically down through the levels of carnage and death; deeper and deeper into the heart of the darkness which had enveloped his father. The first underground level, burial grounds for commoners, was certainly not new to him, he had been here before with his childhood friends to tell ghost stories and such. The second level also didn't produce his father. But John was stopped by a gasping chasm before the third level. He was forced first to the dungeons before he could continue; There, he met something, almost like someone, but definitely not human. As she finished talking, she flew off far above, leaving John momentarily stunned.

Upon exiting the dungeon, to search for a way into the deeper recesses of the Royal Cemetery, John found a Dragon Crystal, a rare fruit said to cure all illness and ailments. Remembering Heinz Ruhart, whom he met on his way, he decided to take the fruit with him back to the chasm, near where he had met Heinz. Heinz Ruhart was the chief poet of the court, and was sent with the army, by royal decree, to write a poem about the battle in the tomb. He had sustained physical and psychological injuries though, which had rendered him blind. He traded John Alfred his harp for the Dragon Crystal.
When John strummed the harp, a bridge appeared over the chasm just long enough for him to cross. Thus continuing his onslaught against the powers of evil.

It was finally in the fourth or fifth level that John finally found his father...he had fallen after killing a Black Knight in a duel. Both lay dead on the floor in front of him. John Alfred Forester's rage was complete. Through the last remaining levels of the cemetery, John's blazing sword could hardly be stopped, even by the solid walls that opposed him.

In the depths of the Saturn Temple, the Dark Wizard awaited his bold confrontation...
"Though he died doing so, I never thought any man could kill the Black Knight. I was extremely impressed, and made your father's grave myself...if you are anywhere nearly as skilled as he, I shall dig yours for you as well..."

This was the force John had been waiting to reckon with. With the fire of a thousand dragons in his eyes, John Alfred Forester slew the menacing form of the Dark Wizard, thus disempowering the ancient evil once again.