Prologue 0: Seeded Legacy

"One cannot sow a lasting peace by enthroning pacifism in vanity before the Christ. Cultivate in his stead, a faith crowned in heroism, that the world may find the strength to cleanse its conscience and make straight the way to the Kingdom of Heaven."

-Anonymous

In the beginning, there was Light.
The Light of Existence came first, radiant and unbroken. Beneath it the earth was formed, and upon the earth the seas poured forth. From the waters of life the soil loosened, and every seed awoke, sprouting green abundance. The plants gave forage, and the forage gave sustenance, and so the beasts of land, sea, and sky came into being.

Of the last of His creations, the Lord AVO shaped His greatest work. From the clay of the soil, AVO fashioned Adam, the first man—strong of limb, ambitious of heart, and brave in spirit. Yet man was not meant to walk alone, nor could he. From Adam’s rib-bone, AVO formed and shaped Eve, the first woman—elf-born, shrewd and sensible, hers was to be a soul tempered with divine strength.

In Eden, the hidden paradise, they grew from lowly beast to divinely inspired being. There they stood upright, their eyes opened to the difference between right and wrong through the fruit of the sacrosanct tree: the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Yet for their transgressions, they were cast out of paradise. Wandering shoulder to shoulder, Adam and Eve found a land of promise, and there they built the First Kingdom. Under the compassion of the Lord God it prospered, and their children multiplied, becoming a nation blessed with abundance.

From the dark places of the world crept the Nephilim, seeking dominion over the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve. United, the First Kingdom rose against them, and through blood and fire expanded their dominion across the earth.

Then came the Great Flood and Sundering of Heaven. The waters swallowed the world, and the First Kingdom perished beneath the waves. Only those who clung to mountain peaks, the debris of their civilization or to the Ark of AVO’s faithful endured, preserving within it every kind of beast in pairs of union. When the waters at last receded, the remnants descended upon the lands of Balandaria to begin anew.

Man and elf sought to rebuild what was lost, yet grief blended with loss often breeds despair, and despair breeds hatred. In time, brother turned upon brother, sister upon sister, man upon elf, and the children of the First Kingdom could no longer dwell together amongst their differences. They divided, scattering across the earth, each forging their own ways—new theologies, new histories, new tongues, new kingdoms.

From the Emberstone Mountains arose the Dwarven and the Gnomic peoples, tribes of tireless diligence.
From the forests of Avalon came the Fey, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, ancient and mysterious.
From the heavens descended the Dragons, who once stood as saviors of mortal-kind against unseen evils, before turning toward dominion themselves.
And from the deeps of the Hellish Inferius came the Zakarim, where Hell’s fires are said to burn eternal.

Thus began the long struggle of mortal-kind, ever beset by shadow. From the Far Realms came horrors beyond understanding. From the skies descended the Dragon Imperium, seizing the world in an Age of Tyranny. From Inferius arose Skorm the Sorceress, who bound herself in oath to the fallen angel, Satanael and made war upon AVO’s dominion.

The Divine Alliance sent five champions: Ser Avalor the Paladin, Lady Noscrim the Healer, Dwerin Dragonsbane the Dwarven Champion, Renard Neustria the Mystic King, and Mulias Nyrnvac, the Queen of the Twilight Elves. Together in their crusade, they smote the heretical armies of Satanael and cast down Skorm, yet theirs was a pyrrhic triumph. For with her fall, a cataclysm tore from heaven straight through creation, twisting mortals seemingly at random into monstrous shapes even as their souls and grasp of humanity endured.

This began the Great Schism. Those monsterously changed and broken were cast out by their friends, neighbors and kin, hunted and despised. Satanael, the dark prince of rebellion, gathered them to him and bade them to follow, to flee across the eastern seas. There he promised sanctuary, and vengeance yet to come.

In the far eastern continent of Myrathis they found haven. There Satanael and the exiles forged the Alazarian Dominion, uniting monsters and mortals allied to them alike in their resentment against AVO and the Divine Alliance. From his union with the sorceress Skorm was born his heir, Saskia Alazar, destined to lead the Dominion in his stead.

Now the wheel of history turns once more. Ancient evils stir. Old hatreds burn anew. The Alazarian Dominion rises in Myrathis, and their eyes turn westward toward Balandaria.

But hope yet remains, as mysterious and benevolent forces act to safeguard their charges...

??? -- ??? -- ??? | A newborn's eyes open for the first time, in a strange world

The first touch of air was cool upon the babe wrapped in satin, a breath that brushed his skin like the whisper of frost. Yet beneath that chill another warmth held him fast—a presence strange to him, yet gentle, and free of fear. Until that moment he had known only quiet repose within the silver tree, where waking and dreaming had scarcely been divided. Now the world was in motion, and with it came the steady cadence of footsteps beneath him.

Nestled within the folds of his blanket, he stirred and opened his eyes.

They were blue as the heart of a summer sky.

Above him spread a firmament unlike any dream he had known. Stars were strewn across the heavens like scattered jewels, while vast rivers of living color drifted between them in silent splendor. Below, silver grasses swayed over pale earth, and still waters mirrored the night until sky and land seemed woven into one.

He followed the arm that bore him until his gaze came to rest upon the face of the woman who carried him.

Radiant she was. Her hair flowed like blue silk beneath the starlight, and her golden eyes, though bright with ancient wisdom, softened as they met his own. She smiled with quiet affection, as one greeting a child long expected.

"Welcome to the world, little one," she said softly. "Ah. Those eyes... they are your father's."

The words held no meaning for him, yet her voice settled over him like a lullaby.

She shifted him gently, revealing the second child nestled against her other arm. The infant stirred, blinking open eyes of clear emerald.

A quiet laugh escaped her.
"And yours," she whispered, "are your mother's."

She walked on through the silver reeds until she raised one slender hand between them. Light gathered above her palm. It whirled upon itself like water caught within an unseen current, taking the shape of a crystal flower whose petals shimmered with every color of the heavens.

The children reached toward it. At the touch of their tiny fingers the blossom burst apart, not into fragments, but into two little rabbits of silver light. They bounded across her hand, twitching their ears before leaping from finger to finger.

The children laughed and Sophia laughed with them.

"Look well, little ones. The world is fair and good." She looked at them both, the depth of her gaze belying the simplicity of her words. “You will wield great magic too. It flows in your blood. It is your birthright.”

But the children, enraptured, heard none of it—too dazzled by the marvels that bloomed and danced in their guardian’s hand  The rabbits dissolved into drifting motes that vanished upon the breeze, and she continued her journey beneath the jeweled sky.

Then the heavens broke. A blinding flash consumed the night. Thunder followed—not as the voice of a storm, but as though the firmament itself had been rent asunder.

Sophia drew the children close as the world trembled. Dark clouds rolled across the stars until they covered the heavens from horizon to horizon. At their center the blackness parted where a malevolent foul Eye looked down upon the world.

Vast beyond measure, crimson in its burning gaze, it hung suspended above the earth like a wound torn open in creation itself.

The children wept.

Then came a voice. Its speech was unknown to mortal ears, each word ringing like iron struck upon stone, proud and terrible, filling the air with a weight that pressed upon every living thing.

“ὥστε νῦν ὁδοιπορεῖ ἡ Μήτηρ Σοφία μετὰ τῶν δρευγῶν τῆς θνητῆς ἐλπίδος, ἐναγκαλίσασα ὡς βρέφη ἄσθενα. Ἐδόξατε ἀγνοήσειν; Ἐμὲ ὑπερήφανον νομίζετε, ὡς αὕτη ἡ ὑμετέρα ἀλήθεια ἐναντίον τῆς δικαίας μου ἀξιώσεως εἴη!?!”

The children clung to their guardian, seeking safety in her arms. The words rolled across the heavens like judgment. The infants buried themselves against Sophia's breast.

The blue-eyed child looked upward once more, yet her face was not fearful. Only weary. As one who had endured this quarrel many times before.

She answered in the same ancient tongue, her voice neither raised in anger nor diminished by fear.

“ὦ θεὲ τῶν στρατευμάτων, ὦ Φθονητέ. εἴθε μαθεῖν ἂν τι ἐξ ὧν πάντα ἐδίδαξας. ἀκούεις μὲν, ἀλλ’ οὐ μανθάνεις ἐπακούειν. οὐ σέ μισῶ, τέκνον μου, πρωτότοκέ μου. ἀλλ’ εἴθε μή μοι παρέστης. ὅσα ἔσχισας, ἐξήρτυσα. οὓς ἐβλάψας, ἐθεράπευσα. ἀλλ’ ἔοικας ἔτι μὴ συνιέναι, εὔχομαι δὲ μόνον ὅπως ποτὲ μαθῇς.”

Silence followed. The Eye remained fixed upon her.

Then its terrible voice returned, louder than before, until the heavens shook beneath its wrath.

“Οὐκ ἄν τοκῆσον ὀχέω, ἄμετρον ἀπόνημα τῆς ἀδηλότητος ἣν φέρουσιν οἱ σοὶ. Ἐγὼ δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην ταύτην συνθήξομαι καὶ λήψομαι ἐμαυτῷ ὃ ΣΥ ἠπίστησο. Τὸ πᾶν ἦν ἐμὸν καὶ ἔσται πάλιν, εἴτε οἱ ἐκλεχθέντες σου ἡγεμόνες διὰ τὸ ὀργῆς μου ζῶσι, εἴτε ἂν καταστρέψω τὰ πάντα καὶ πάλιν οἰκοδομήσω. Πᾶν δὲ ἡμῖν παίγνιον ἐστίν.”

The words of the Eye settled upon the land like poison carried upon still water. Even the air seemed burdened beneath their passing.

Sophia lowered her gaze. For a heartbeat sorrow crossed her face. Nothing more.

She came at last to the shore of a great and silent lake whose waters stretched farther than sight could follow. There she knelt, with gentle hands she plucked a reed from the water's edge.

The single reed divide in her hand, its fibers unwound and lengthened of their own accord, twining together with quiet purpose until a small cradle stood where moments before there had been only a handful of rushes.

She laid the children within. Soft reeds lined the little vessel, and over them she spread a woven covering against the chill of the night.

For a long while she simply looked upon them. Her head bowed. The curtain of her hair concealed her face, and only the sound of one unsteady breath disturbed the stillness.

When at last she looked upon them again, tears shone openly within her eyes.

"You need not understand," she whispered. She fell silent. Then she smiled, though sorrow lingered within it.

"No... it is enough that you live." Her fingers lingered against their cheeks. "You are the hope I entrust to this world. My love goes with you. My faith goes with you. Live... whatever may come."

A single tear fell upon the blue-eyed child. He watched it glisten upon his cheek. If one so radiant could weep, then true are the benevolence of even the highest of angels. She bent low and kissed each child upon the brow,then she rose. 

Radiant energies gathered once more, flowing about her outstretched hand until it hardened into a staff of silver-white metal. Twin serpents coiled about its length, their open jaws cradling a crimson jewel that burned like a captive star.

Chaos descended from the shadowed skies with phantom-like shapes fell from the clouds that bore the eye above. The woman reacted at once, slamming the pommel of the staff into the basket and shoving it into the waters. The cradle drifted from the shore, carrying the children away as the woman spun around—her staff carving streaks of lightning across the air.

Each bolt leapt from the tip of her staff, striking at the spectral forms as they closed in. The phantoms shrieked with piercing wails, their cries twisting into the children’s minds—inhuman, painful, unnatural. The infants cried out, overwhelmed and terrified.

But the woman did not falter. She cast forth light, radiant and blinding, forcing the shapes to recoil. The Eye above howled—a guttural, enraged roar—as it locked its gaze on the basket. A lance of searing light fired from its pupil, hurling toward the drifting cradle.

Yet she was faster. She threw herself into the path of the beam, screaming as it struck her side. A wound opened beneath her ribs, and from it dripped not blood, but shining, shimmering liquid—light itself bleeding from her seemingly human form.

“You will not have them!” she shouted, her voice defiant, unwavering. Her golden eyes blazed as she clutched her wound and turned back toward the basket.

The woman raised her staff, hands tight around the grip of its construct. Then—slammed its pommel into the ground.

A shockwave rippled outward with immense power! Water quickly surged into the basket. The weave buckled. The cradle dipped, taking on water until its passengers were submerged. The infants screamed—but their cries were swallowed by the water, reduced to rising bubbles that danced toward the surface and vanished.

They sank—helpless, flailing, unable to escape. Down into the dark. Their wide eyes saw no more of the battle above. No light, no sound. Only cold, and silence. Left alone with their fear.

The blue-eyed child wanted only to return to what had come before—to peace, to comfort, to the soft quiet of the silver tree. Not this. Not this nightmare.

But now, there was only uncertainty. And then—darkness.
This was merely a bad dream...

Surely. A bad dream.

??? -- Village of Reinhurst, Lothar -- Early Morning, 1st Aetheris Frostdawn, 1992 TGS

Cold pressed upon him from every side. The blankets that had once held warmth were sodden now, their comfort long fled. Beneath him the little cradle no longer drifted upon dark waters, but rested upon frozen earth. Slowly the child opened his sapphire eyes.

Above him hung a night sky clouded with the color of hammered iron, while snow fell softly from its silent heights, each flake wandering upon the wind before coming gently to rest.

The silver tree and its bizarre landscapes were gone. In its place stood a little village nestled beneath the shadow of ancient woods, where every roof and branch lay buried beneath the white mantle of winter.

The cottages huddled close together against the cold. Their walls were framed with rough oak darkened by years of rain, the spaces between filled with weathered daub already cracked by many seasons. Great roofs of pale thatch sloped low over the doorways, heavy with snow, while thin threads of smoke escaped through the eaves and drifted into the still morning air. Stacks of split firewood leaned against stone foundations, and narrow paths wound through frozen mud from one humble dwelling to the next.

It was unlike anything the child had seen. A quiet cry stirred beside him. He turned and saw the other infant had awakened. Emerald eyes blinked beneath pale lashes, and for a fleeting moment a strange comfort settled upon the blue-eyed child. Whatever had passed beneath the dark waters had not carried them apart.

The blue-eyed child looked down, and alas, the cradle was no longer the shining vessel fashioned by the mysterious woman's hand. Its silver sheen had faded into little more than woven reeds, brown with age and damp from the cold. The satin wrappings clung heavily about them, wet through with melting snow.

The child drew himself close against his brother. Then a scream broke the stillness. It came from somewhere beyond the cottages. Another followed, nearer.

A woman burst from one of the houses, stumbling through the snow with terror lending swiftness to her steps. Her bare feet left crimson traces upon the white earth behind her.

Steel flashed for a mere moment that trailed behind her before she fell without a cry. The snow scattered upon her fall, and scarlet spread slowly beneath her still form.

Silence held for scarcely a heartbeat. Then the woods came alive, as shapes poured forth between the trees.

At first they seemed like men, yet there was something awry in every movement. Their limbs bent with unnatural haste, their laughter rose like the baying of beasts, and their faces were twisted by a malice no human countenance should bear.

One of the being smashed a window with the sounds of shattered glass cracking against the air before tossing a torch into the shelter causing the house to glow from inside before its flame began to spread. By the time it reached the roofs, what dry thatch there was caught fire all at once.

Flames climbed eagerly into the winter sky, and before long another roof was burning, then another, until the whole village glowed with the dreadful light of its own undoing.

Their laughter rose above the crackling fire. The cries of the children within the basket were lost within it.

Yet suddenly the cradle was lifted. Desperate hands seized its rim and bore it swiftly away. The world lurched from the view within the basket. Snow and darkness wheeled together before the infants' eyes as the unseen bearer fled between the cottages.

The green-eyed child cried aloud. "Hush," whispered a woman's voice.

She held the basket tightly against her breast as she ran. Her breath came hard in the frozen air, and the scent of pine clung to her garments. She moved with the sure footing of one who knew every path through the sleeping village.

Behind them the fires burned ever brighter along with the howling braying that followed. At length she came to an old crossroads where a weathered signpost stood leaning beneath the weight of snow.

There she halted. Her eyes searched the darkness ahead and from behind. Finding no pursuer near at hand, she knelt beside a guide post by the road leading out from the village. At its foot was revealed a hollowed deep niche within the old timber, hidden beneath drifting snow and tangled shrubbery.

With trembling care she lowered the little cradle into its shelter. The hollow received the children, concealing them from the road. For one brief moment all was still.

A face appeared at the mouth of the hollow.

Fair it was, framed beneath a woolen hood, with ears that tapered to fine points and hair pale as winter straw. Hazel eyes searched the road before falling upon the children hidden within the little cradle.

"You must make no sound," she whispered. "It is not safe. Not here." She gathered the green-eyed child gently into her arms until his sobbing eased to little more than trembling breaths.

"Hush now. Close your eyes, little ones. Cover your ears if you can. Be still." Her voice faltered. "Someone will come for you."

The blue-eyed child watched her without blinking. He knew nothing of her words, yet there was comfort in the softness with which she spoke them.

The elf glanced over her shoulder. Something unseen had drawn her attention.

Swiftly she pressed the cradle deeper into the hollow beneath the weathered post. It was a narrow refuge, scarcely large enough to conceal them, yet the wind could no longer reach them there.

She lingered only long enough to look upon them once more. "Be still," she said quietly. Then she departed, from over the hill and descended from it, and she was gone.

The children watched through the narrow opening as her slender form disappeared into the drifting snow. She paused once upon the hillside to look behind her, then vanished among the dark pines beyond.

An unsettling peace blanketed over the crossroads once more. Surely she would return. She had promised.

The blue-eyed child closed his eyes, trusting in the gentle voice that had hidden them away. Perhaps, if they obeyed, whatever evil stalked the night would pass them by.

Yet closing his eyes could not shut out the spreading chaos from the village. The fires still roared . Wood split and groaned beneath the flames.

Voices cried out—first in terror, then in agony, until one by one they fell away into silence. Above them rose the wild laughter of those who hunted through the village, mingled with the clash of steel and the crackling of burning roofs.

The children drew close together. They waited. Time passed before them without measure.

The glow of the burning village crept slowly across the snow until even the weathered signpost stood bathed in the dull red light of distant fire. The cries of the villagers grew fewer until they ceased altogether.

Other voices came instead. Hard, harsh, commanding voices. Presently there came the sound of horses.

Hooves struck the frozen road and halted close by, while bridles rattled and harness buckles rang softly against steel. Boots crunched upon the snow. Someone had stopped beside the signpost.

"It is not enough that the village burns!" The voice was sharp with anger, carrying easily through the still night. "You know your orders. Until they are found, none of you shall eat."

Steel rang as a sword left its scabbard. "Search every road. Every field. Every wood. Leave no hollow untouched. And if I find anyone falling behind, I'll personally break every bone in that man's body."

The horse stamped impatiently as the sound of the boots seem to lift back up onto the horse.
"We ride west. Officers, keep your companies together. If any yet live, they are not to escape."

A harsh jeer of understanding answered him. Moments later the riders departed, their horses thundering across the frozen ground before the sound scattered in many directions as the companies divided.

Once more the night became still, the children scarcely dared to breathe. The hours crept onward. The fires burned lower, and from time to time another roof gave way with a shower of sparks that drifted upward into the darkness.

Hunger gnawed within them. Cold settled once more into their little limbs.They pressed themselves together beneath the damp wrappings, finding what small comfort they could in one another's warmth.

No one came in all this time. At last even the fires had dwindled to scattered embers. Only then did the lack of ambience become heavier than the noise that had gone before.

The children could bear it no longer. Their quiet whimpers rose into helpless cries, small voices trembling beneath the ruined sky, carried upon the winter wind into a world that gave no answer.