The Era of Darkness

The world itself was splitting that day. That day when the gods and goddesses decided to leave the earth. Never would they again set foot on this plane. Angry and disappointed at humanity, for one of them had raised arms against them and killed a god. Humans did not really understand what the loss of a single god signified for the universe but nonetheless, the gods left that day. It was the end of immortals. Elves, angels, and other immortal races all lost their touch of divinity, and as the prophet Tarsid had said, the world entered an era of darkness. But life went on over centuries as new generations came it was now just a chapter in student's history books, The Time of Immortals.

Slarveg was a port town in one of the major human nations. Its residents, though, were of all species since it was near the sea and a major location for traveling to and from different lands. Having a ship was, therefore, one of the major occupations. Ash's father was also a trusted owner of one such dwarf-crafted slim and elegant machine called the Sea Horse. But when Ash turned eighteen and he was handed its ownership and his father left on a long vacation, things did not go great. His crew had left him and the ship was in bad shape. He knew who was behind all this. Mr. Knox, had several huge ships and was now slowly setting a monopoly over the whole port. He would target individual ship owners and look for their weaknesses. The Sea horse was a prime target as there were some things only this ship could do, the dwarves who were amazing engineers, seldom repeated the same process, so they always added something special in all their creations. As its name suggested, the Sea horse was swift and could travel through dangerous waters better because of the sharp turns it could take. Mr. Knox knew that Ash was going to take over, and his father was leaving. The crew had not much loyalty towards him yet, and without his father around, they were easily swayed by the higher wages they were offered on Knox's ships. He already had offers coming for buying the ship, and even though he was resolute, he knew sooner or later he would go into debt, and then nothing could be done.

So, he was in the market looking for a new crew to work on his ship, he had heard some new labor had come in from outside the town and since they were unskilled, they would be cheap. He just had to hurry before Knox or anyone else hired them all. When he reached the place however he found it deserted, it was just outside the city gates, and they had set tents in the shade of the walls. There was no Knox or anyone trying to buy them however and Ash understood why in no time as one of them came out of the tent. It was a half-breed; half-breeds were half humans and half animals. They were also called beast-folks, over the years they had diluted their blood and now they were almost humans with sharp teeth and a couple of other little distinctions, enough to separate them from humans. Ash knew that if he hired them on his ship, he was never going to get any work, so he had to leave. By the time he reached his favorite bar, he was again depressed.