Momo

The first things that come to mind when you hear Ionia, are the words peace and inner spirit. But beneath this veil of peace and calmness lies a dark past. Spirits of the dead were often summoned as demons to fulfill their masters’ every wish. In return for something of course. Many were tempted by this. They summoned the spirits of the fallen to manipulate them to do their every bidding, but they were not prepared to pay the price that came with it. So it came that parts of Ionia were regularly blighted and swarmed by a sheer amount of demons.

One day a mysterious man tread out of the bamboo woods. On his back an artifact that was said to control those who were lost. It was the man who collected the demons around the villages and sealed them into his backpack. With each demon collected, the eye on the artifact opened wider, until one day, it was fully opened and the man disappeared, leaving the mysterious artifact behind. The villagers, thankful for the man’s deeds, carried the bag out into the bamboo woods, into the deepest part where they erected a shrine around it. And so the blight and the man were forgotten. For centuries it waited. And for centuries it got corrupted by the demons inside of it. Soon the artifact had a desire on its own, to trick someone into the same kind of contract, that the demons once had with their summoners.

One day, a yordle stumbled into the deep parts of the bamboo wood. Chased by agonized souls of merchants who were left to die after they got robbed. The young yordle at that time, traveled on the ‘safe’ route with his parents. But it was clear to him that his parents where gone. In that fateful moment, he had crashed into the rotting shrine the demonic backpack was waiting in.

And in that moment, he pleaded for his life: “I don’t want to die”. Of course the demons heard the calls of the wounded youngster. The backpack itself had yearned for such a contract in a long time. Within seconds, the grudged spirits of the merchants were bound to the mass of demons that had spilled forth the artifact and within seconds, the yordle knew safety. But fate always has a twist when it comes to demons. He got his wish. He didn’t die, but what the demons wanted… was an medium, so they could collect more souls. Taking a deep breath he felt the mass of demons looming over him. Rushing down upon him and invading his insides through his mouth. Painful and long was the process of the demons making a living being immortal. From that moment on, he was bound to the cursed bag. An immortal slave to a mass of demons, hungering for souls and pain.

Nobody knows when this story made the round. They only knew, a yordle merchant with a suspicious looking pack shouldn’t be trusted… at least the old folks know this.