Once upon a time there was a princess who was more beautiful than any other maiden to ever draw breath… or so the story goes, and I can beg to differ before this tale is done.  Anyway, the princess was indeed pretty, but she was a very foolish girl.  So foolish was she that she thought that she could court two men at once.  They were both princes and both powerful within their own domain.  One was a great strapping knight; a near giant of a man, just falling short of seven feet tall.  The other was a wizard and privy to the many arcane secrets of this world, the next, and whatever ones followed that second one.
     Time went on, and this princess continued to have relations tender, intimate, and physical with her two lovers (physical, more often than not).  But, eventually the two princes found out about each other, as will happen when two men are involved with the same woman.  It was fortunate that they were both reasonable and levelheaded fellows, and so asked the beautiful and foolish girl to choose between the two of them.  For the first time in her oh-so-frivolous and pampered life that she was forced to give any rational and prolonged thought about any one object.  Heaven forbid what would happen to her kingdom were she to become queen.
     The princess considered each of her lovers.  The wizard was a thoughtful man, taking the time to remind her of her beauty and treated her with tenderness and care.  On the other hand, she was very fond of the carnal pleasures and the knight was a very physical being.  So the princess and the knight rode off to the nearest inn to consummate their unofficial union and the wizard was left with the short end of the stick.  For a few hours he sulked and wept within his tower about his lost love… until inspiration struck him.  Unfortunately its name was villainy, and the wizard became a warlock.  The now warlock prince sent forth his subjects-turned-minions to retrieve the “harlot-princess” and bring her back to his tower-turned-lair.  And it would seem that the forces malefic had won… it would seem…
     The other prince, the knight, was not at all pleased when he learned that his fair maiden had been stolen from him; not at all pleased.  So, being the physical creature he was, he took up his sword and charged forward into the sorcerer’s lair, intent on saving his… “beloved” we might say.
     Many a body did the knight step over as he made his way to the top of the warlock’s tower.  So many a body, that soon the warlock prince was down to his last few henchmen.  Ever loyal to their master, the fools rushed to their deaths against the knight.  They found only their aforementioned deaths.
     With all distractions gone, the two princes faced each other at the top of the tower, might against magic, and there they dueled.  An awesome battle they did have, for the warrior’s might and the warlock’s spells were evenly matched.  If they had been allowed, they would have warred for the rest of time… if they had been allowed.
     In the end, all of them, princess, warrior, and wizard were all fools.  Their rage, their jealousy, their conniving ways were felt all throughout the ancient and eldritch ways of the planet, echoing as a shout will do.  And within the deep recesses of the earth, something unearthly heard their strife and began to stir.
      In the world of the waking, the two princes had fought to a standstill.  They paused for a moment to catch their breath and for only a moment.  They found their wind once more, and the warrior and the warlock charged forth to do battle once more… but as they grew within a hair’s breadth of each other, calamity struck.  The midday skies darkened, the ground rent itself open, and a terrible shadow poured into the room, forcing the princes apart.  They sat where they had fallen, mouths agape at the darkness filling the chamber, watching in awe as it took on form and density.  It grew compressed and shaped itself, and before their eyes became a man.  He held himself with a terrible presence that neither had ever before known, and possessed eyes that seemed to change color as he moved.
The knight moved first, thinking it to be a trick of the warlock.  He charged once more, his blade raised… but the stranger was quick.  He took hold of the warrior’s face in his hand dragged his head along the wall, coating the stonework in thick redness.  The warlock sensed the unnatural ways about the stranger, further affirmed by the recent death of his rival, and turned his magics on the stranger, but the newcomer was unfazed by the prince’s spells.  He loosed his own magic on the prince, and the warlock was devoured by a void that had erupted from his stomach.
The princess, seeing a greater man than the previous two, flung herself at the stranger, and proclaimed herself to be his prize.  The stranger lifted a hand to stroke her cheek with clawed fingers.  When he left the room, he was holding her head by the hair.  And from thereon out, the terrible darkness began to spread through the land, devouring all in its path, a path lead by the stranger who would in time be come to known as the Zeromancer.