1 The Gods Who Drowned (Prologue)

Of the Beginning of Days it is told among the wise that the One True God (Eldin), sang the weave of our world. He brought forth the ocean and lands and invited them to his song. And so their choir formed the Great Music, birthing the 7 Elder Gods to being.

They warbled the Fae to bring forth the seasons and sow the seeds from which arose a multitude of growing things great and small, mosses and grasses and great ferns, and trees whose tops were crowned with cloud as they were living mountains, but whose feet were wrapped in a green twilight. And beasts came forth and dwelt in the grassy plains, or in the rivers and the lakes, or walked in the shadows of the woods.

As their song eventually came to an end, Eldin sighed the last 3 notes of his song.

One for the Earth, and its breeze,

One for the Depths, the harbinger of life under the seas,

One for the Gods to carry on my weave.

A tear ran down his cheek as he breathed his last, shattering the final vestiges left of his music.

From where his tear hit the earth, the great Yggdrasil tree sprouted. From its fruits fell the seeds of humanity, and the lesser Gods were birthed. And so it came to be that we, children of these Gods came to be.

The Gods taught us the art of the song, the breath of flame, and gave us their blood. We gave them names, for names hold much power. The Gods rallied behind their factions, and we behind them. Over time many races of humans were blessed from the blood of the Gods, and given edicts of great power to pass down.

We who were created in their image and blood, garnered the constant attention and affections of the Gods, causing them to favor us over the other creatures of the earth and seas. We upset the balance of the Fae, and eventually began to scar the very world we lived in. The Earth in her kind nature merely accepted the change, but the Sea (having sensed the disturbance in the weave of its once perfect world) revolted, and sent the Gods an ultimatum.

"Those who have betrayed our lord must send the filth you call humans out to sea. They are destroying the song of Eldin, and have desecrated the weave. You so-called 'Gods' have but a single cycle of the moon before the lands sink beneath my waves."

And so the council of Gods met at the peak of the world. After 3 days and 3 nights their grand conference came to a close. Their resolution? To save the humans. You see, the more the Gods interacted with us, the more they took on our attributes. They became somehow… more 'human'. They became prideful, greedy, silver-tongued, and deceitful; redefining the very meaning of their existence.

The Gods resolute in their decision, instructed Lannis the current king of the humans to create the first boat and named it Astra Aspera; the Ark of humanity. They recruited the Fae, both winter and summer, to assist them in its creation, promising them passage for their help. And so betwixt two great rivers it was built, weaved from the living boughs of local tamarisk trees and hardened with the frost of winter a boat large enough to carry all of humanity and 2 of each creature was made. However Lannis betrayed the Fae, and at the last second shut the gate to his great arc immediately after securing all that remained of the Fae's food.

It is primarily for this reason that he is named Lannis the Father of Lies. And so the Fae were nearly wiped out almost to the point of extinction, forever remembering their grudge with humans. The water rose, as the waves crashed into the lands bent on fulfilling their sworn promise. All land went under in the world's first Great Drowning, and nearly all life on earth was extinguished. Only the Fae nobility and those on the Ark survived. (It is for this reason that the Ark is the symbol of survival, just as Yggdrasil is a symbol of life and beginnings.)

However being mortal, unlike those of the Fae we required nourishment from the bounty of the earth. Knowing this, the Gods were forced into direct conflict with the horror that lay within the waves. Rallying their forces they made a valiant, desperate charge into the unseen army within their most trusted mortal followers and eventually subdued the seas into slumber, returning the world to its original balance. However, not one of those who went under ever resurfaced. And so it was on that day that we said that the Gods drowned.

But the meaning of the name God itself means, "Immortal" and "One of omnipotence" and as every aspiring Attuned should know, names hold great power. A God can never be killed, in the truest meaning of the word but their power can be greatly diminished to the point of insignificance. The same can be said for the lands and seas, for they are all needed for the continuation of the world and can only truly be extinguished with the world itself. Just as Eldin lives on as every one of his creations, even if the Gods could no longer exert any physical influence to the world, they still existed in spirit preparing humanity for the Second Great Drowning.

Exactly sixty four years ago, June 17th 2030 was when humanity was at the peak of its existence as the reigning ruler of earth. Their belief in the old magic all but gone, they had gone on to create magic of their own to help them better understand the weave. But just as they were about to send the first human outside their planets domain, the horror within the waves awoke.

Enraged, it mustered all of its strength and flooded the world once more submerging 60% of the worlds surface and plaguing what remained of the land with "dungeon seeds" seeds containing structures and monsters that when given time to mature would release its horrors upon the few lands humanity still defended.

We tried, with all our so called "modern technology" to stave off these "sea beasts" as we named them but it was all in vain. The sea beasts were resistant to anything, besides complete annihilation and in destroying them we only further destroyed what land we had left.

It was then in our greatest time of need that the "Dead" Gods resurfaced and began assigning we humans "trials" to overcome. Those who passed these trials became warriors of might and magic, known as the "Chosen". These Chosen had become the worlds first Divers, clearing the Mesopotamian Dungeon after slaying its boss Tiamat and restored the lands of the fertile crescent; the so called "cradle of civilization".

They moved the majority of humanity south, abandoning the lands of Digital Age and erected the city of Rodina betwixt the Tigris and the Euphrates, dubbed by its founders "The Last Bastion Of Humanity".

**

In the forest of forever summer, a lone summer cottage stood hidden in a small clearing. On its porch a young woman rocked herself back and forth murmured a prayer as her child looked on with bright intelligent eyes. She whispered some words in his ear and smiled as she watched him fall asleep. The air around her began to blow, even without wind, and a tint of red could be seen in her white hair.

Her lips began to speak in some unknown foreign tongue as she gently stroked his chubby cheeks. "Hast raugh libble servire. Long may be the path but live young one."

Her beautiful green eyes suddenly strained as her brows furrowed. Something was not right. Setting the child down on her rocking chair, a tear ran down her beautiful cheek. The autumn leaves began to fall as she walked down the porch steps, swaying around her as to protect her from some unknown harm.

Suddenly she screamed her voice reverberating off the trunks of the surrounding forest trees whipping them in frenzy. Her previous humanlike visage changed to something more feral, almost feline. Her pupils dilated into slits and her skin began to toughen into a dark brownish tissue reminiscent of wood. A crown of leaves had begun to grow on her now completely red hair, and a sharp sapling the size of a spear grew only a grasp away.

But just as she was about to yank it out of the soil, an explosion of cold air shook the winds, freezing the forest's floor and causing the previously gliding leaves to plop onto the floor. The young woman whipped around, her lips twisted into a snarl her hands raised as if to weave some arcane spell. But no song was sung. Instead, her arms falling to her sides, she looked down in shock as a ripple of red blossomed from her chest. A glacial sword of pure white had pierced her chest, instantly killing her. Her body went limp, and the surroundings quieted.

"...." A figure appeared at the cottage door glancing at the corpse, then infant who lay quietly awake upon the rocking chair. His eyes now wide open from the noise, took in the sight of his mothers killer with both terror and awe. Long white hair, icy-white skin, and piercing silver eyes he was beautiful in every sense of the word, but in an unnatural way; perfection amongst the imperfect.

These 'faeries' were famed for their particularly beautiful countenances, as well as for their rarity, as they could only be found in only the extremities of nature. Their very existence maintained the natural balance of earth along with the shifting of seasons.

The fae walked towards the child who had somehow managed to remain quiet throughout all the noise. As he approached the babe, he noticed how it whimpered softly.

'He already knows the meaning of fear." he murmured.

"Must've taken after his father." The fae opened his right hand the same one that just moments ago had thrown the blade that had slew the child's mother and rested it upon the boy's head. For a moment his eyes glistened with tears, the silver iris's of his eyes fading to a soft blue. But then hardened again like water in a quick freeze.

The child quieted and all went dark.