CMVYDam9

1Introduction
2
3    The Lifestream. The substance that flows unhindered through every fiber of creation. The Lifestream is the very life-blood that sustains all of Illyria and its inhabitants. A long time ago, alchemists and sorcerers sought to control the Lifestream as a source of energy, and to harness it to replace the fire, water, and wind powered sources that the people had grown accustomed to using. 
4    But, greed can taint even the most altruistic of hearts. It was not long before the sorcerers and alchemists turned their eyes and their hearts away from the good of the people and began working together to weaponize the Lifestream, and to give themselves unrivalled power. They sought to create a future with them as the figurehead of a new age, an age in which they were the catalyst of all major events, a future in which no kingdom could stand before their might. However, all of their experiments failed, leaving behind nothing but notes, and the empty coffers of all who thought to invest their gold in the experiments and trials. 
5    Throughout the years, the alchemists and sorcerers continued to put forth their best efforts to control and harness the Lifestream, and eventually one sorceress managed to bless herself in the essence of the planets energy. Her victory was short-lived however. After injecting the essence into her veins, the sorceress began to glow from within, the light shining out through her eyes, mouth, and nose. The scribes that witnessed this event further wrote that she began shrieking; a terrible, inhuman noise that pierced the very hearts of all gathered to witness the bastardization of the planets precious life. The scribes also detailed that the woman’s veins began to glow with the same light emitted from her mouth,nose, and eyes. It is also written that the sorceress’s skin began to char and blacken from the inside out; her body crumbling apart into ashes to once again be apart of the very dust upon which she stood, leaving not a single trace of her in this world. 
6In the Third Era, a man named Sevrin broke the chain of corruption that possessed many of his predecessors, and true to the first sorcerers and alchemists, he sought to harness the Lifestream as an energy source, and thus the cycle begins again. After pouring years of effort into studying the old transcripts, he finally succeeded where the others before him had failed.
7    Following his success, mankind began erecting structures and machines for the purposes of gathering, harnessing, and distributing the refined Lifestream to the settlements across Illyria. All across the world people enjoyed the luxury, for a price of course. It was used for everything from heating and cooking, to lighting, to even as an energy source for transports and other machines that this new prosperous era introduced. For a time, all of the people lived in prosperity. The people also started spraying their crops with the lifestream essence, hoping to guide their fields and animals to a more bountiful yield, and with each experiments success, peace grew across all the lands. The crops, livestock, and families of all grew bountiful, and for a time, there were no wars and man was at peace. 
8    Fifteen years of peace and prosperity passed andas Sevrin and the people enjoyed the new luxuries that his inventions had brought society, Sevrin’s second-in-command, his most trusted companion Seraph Grint, began to grow discontent. He looked at the lifestream as many of the old sorcerers and alchemists had: surely this was a source of power to be taken and used forcefully, to bend civilization and the world as a whole to the power of one. After years of research and pouring over the old notes of fallen magi, Seraph learned how to separate the magical, malleable essence of the Lifestream from the dross material that allowed it to bind itself to all living things. Some historians and researchers have likened this process as similar to attempting to separate a flower from its scent. This new, pure essence became known as the Prismid Essence, a name given in tribute to the people who populated the earth before us, and before the fall of the old societies to their own greed.
9    Seraph discovered that with the Prismid Essence he had taken from the Lifestream he could call upon magics more powerful than any that had been seen before. His dark curiosity led him to begin sniffing out tomes and scrolls that detailed knowledge of dark magics. In many of these tomes was new knowledge and firsthand accounts of the Prismids, and the great travesties that had befallen the planet centuries earlier. All accounts mentioned Calamities that forced the planet to its knees and brought mankind to within an inch of its life. The more tomes he found, the more Seraph’s curiosity grew, until one day, one of his accomplices brought him a scroll detailing a sorcerers experimentation with alchemy and magic, and the accidental summoning of a Calamity. The knowledge that the Calamities were sentient beings, and not a blight upon crops, or a devastating disease was unheard of, and hoping to keep that knowledge unknown, Seraph recorded the useful information for the spells and rituals, and burnt the rest in a fire.
10    Possessed by his lust for power, Seraph began dosing himself daily with small vials of Prismid Essence, and practicing dark rituals that called out through dimensions, through Time and Space in his hunt for the realm of the Calamities. The king at that time was under the illusion that Seraph was making attempts to improve upon the technologies that had brought about the peace of the world, and Seraph deigned to inform him of the true nature of his experiments. Half a century had passed and from the cosmos it arrived- the Great Calamity. The Calamity plunged through Illyria’s atmospheric Lifestream barriers that had been weakened by our years of abuse, and the rape of its essence. The colossal Calamity slammed into the planet’s surface, and unleashed a shockwave. In mere moments cities, lives, and the lay of the land as it had sat for centuries was altered forever. A great crater and a furious rain of ash announced  the arrival of the Calamitous being that we all came to call Genesis. 
11    Years of slow, torturous destruction followed that ashen rain. The people, previously peaceful and at ease with their neighbors, turned on one another, killing, stealing, and fighting for a better chance at survival. The planet herself tried to fight this invader, but due to our rape of her resources, she was too weak to do anything but slow it down.
12    Eventually, a group calling themselves The Embers of Old formed from all corners of the map, united by the want to destroy Sevrin’s gathering stations to give the planet her fighting chance. To free the Lifestream from our crippling grasp was to give Illyria a fighting chance at survival, and to focus on this battle that humanity could not win alone. The Embers battle was hard fought, for no one wanted to lose the luxury that the harnessed Lifestream had brought them, and the monarchy was afraid to lose all the money that taxing the use of Lifestream brought. The king decreed that anyone seen wearing the badge belonging to the Embers of Old was to be arrested and tortured, all information wrung from them. These captured souls were to spend the rest of their lives rotting in the dungeons beneath the kings castle. When the King’s torturers could not pull any information from their captured rebels, he ordered them to be arrested and hung immediately. The Embers persisted and eventually the masses saw that to give up their luxury was the only way to give themselves a better chance at tomorrow. Slowly but surely, through all opposition, the Embers managed to achieve their goal, the people conceded and joined the Embers effort to destroy the Harvesting Stations scattered across the continents.  
13    The planet, now freed from our negligent rape of its life, could put forth its full effort into dispelling this intruder who slowly destroyed its surface and poisoned it with a foul miasma.
14Joining the fray, The Embers took all their fighters to the site where Genesis could be found and began the fight for mankind with the planet as backup. It was a hard fought battle, but by luck and the gods will alone, the Embers of Old managed to dismember the malignant entity and destroy it. Spreading Genesis’ remains to the wind and ending its terrifying and sickening reign of terror, Illyria could now pour forth its lifestream into purging the lingering sickness of the interplanetary tyrant, Genesis. 
15    However, the poison that Genesis brought, as well as all the destruction had weakened the Lifestream more than we thought. As the planet healed itself, many people across the world fell ill from a sickness brought on by the Calamity, and as the afflicted died in droves, the planet began to suffer from the sickness as well. The crops suffered blight after blight, and for the first time in many years before Genesis’ arrival, we were once again at the mercy of sickness, drought, blight and all other manner of hardship. Thus, the Fifth Era, also known as the Era of the Stigma was ushered in. On the black wings of disease came the Terrastigma, a parting gift from Genesis. The Stigma was a slow, lingering infection that started at the skin, bringing with it dark, oozing sores. As the Stigma worked its way deeper into the bodies systems, its sufferers were forced to endure headaches, aching joints, fever, and in more progressive cases it also presented liquid in the lungs, a rot in the sores, and blindness. The deathtoll of the Terrastigma was relatively low, but it left its victims in terrible pain.
16The best treatment that the healers concocted was to keep the victims under the influence of laudanum, and to smear their sores with an unguent to help ease their terrible burning. 
17    Although we survived and keep living day-by-day, the Lifestream struggles a little more each day to keep life flowing in all things. Our fields and orchards grow less bountiful, our fruit and crops grow more withered, and evrything suffers exceedingly with each passing year. All humanity falls prey to sicknesses and more of our children are born stunted or crippled. Whatever destruction Genesis sought to bring upon us, the ripples of its wake are still being felt to this day.
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26Chapter 1: Dreams
27
28    I was in a city. The brick domiciles around me were a testament that humanity had claimed this space at one time or another, however the lichens and moss growing on the brickwork, and the fully realized trees growing from the cracks in the cobblestones protested that claim. So, I was in an abandoned city, then. There were signs of a struggle strewn about, possibly raiders or maybe some sort of riot? There, draped in vines under the wreckage of a building was a skeleton robed in moth-eaten clothes, its bones picked clean by maggots and other carrion feeders. 
29    I continued to walk my way along the overgrown cobbled path. Small stones crunched underfoot, and the soft breeze tousled my hair and ruffled my tunic as it passed. The wind smelled almost fresh, but there, just at the edge of perception was the odor of rot. As it wove its way through the wreckage of the city, the wind whistled and sang it’s eerie and hollow song, almost as though the gods played a funeral dirge for the people who were lost here.
30    “Hello,” I called questioningly. As expected, there was no reply save for the winds eerie song, and the rustling of leaves. Even the birds were silent in this place. I kept on walking.
31What is this place, I wondered to myself, what am I doing here? How did I get here? I had many questions, and no answers, so on I went, looking into houses and shops as i passed, hoping to find answers in one form or another. 
32    The warm sun beat down upon me as I went, and soon enough I pulled off my tunic and tied it about my waist.Hours must have passed, but when I looked up, the sun still hovered in the same spot, relentlessly hot and unyielding in the cloudless sky.
33    I must have neared the middle of whatever settlement this was, because there were more shops, and the buildings in this area were more affluent. With their boastful brickwork, their thickly hewn timbers, and their wrought-iron fences, yes, these houses belonged to the rich. To the people who thought they were better than the rest of them, the fences designed to keep the undesirable poor off of the well-manicured grass.
34 Well, good help these fences were when whatever calamity befell this place, I thought to myself. 
35As I continued exploring the ruins, I found a sign that could have bore the name of the town, or it could have just as easily been the name of a business, but I could not read, so it made little difference to me. 
36In the middle of the town square, I saw a large tree, an oak I thought. The large oak boasted many thick bows, and it rested upon thick, gnarled roots that thrust their way into the soil below. As my gaze travelled up the trunk, I felt my stomach lurch into my throat. At the same time, my heart started to pound like it was trying to escape my chest, and my mouth grew dry as the sands in an hourglass. Suspended from the heavy boughs, like acorns that forgot to fall, or like an orchard tree laden with overripe fruit, were bodies. Each body had a burlap sack over its head that was cinched tight about the neck with a noose. Some of the sacks had ripped and fallen open. Faces, some with missing skin and all without eyes, all stared back at me. 
37Sitting below the tree, looking completely unconcerned, stood a being. This being defied what i thought i knew of as man or woman. They had long black hair, the curls of its tresses rested gently at the shoulders. My eyes followed the soft curves of its face, past its violet eyes, down across its small round nose, and over its curved lips that looked naturally rouged when compared to its porcelain complexion. The body of the being was slender and rather effeminate, but was also bound in toned muscle that looked as though it had been toned through years of hard work.
38“Ah, so you’ve finally found me” they said, a smirk in their voice and a twinkle in their eye.
39A strange warmth washed over me with the velvety huskiness of their voice, and for some inexplicable reason I wanted their approval, I wanted them to hold me in high esteem, and I would have done anything to get it. They levelled their warm purple gaze at me,
40“I have been waiting for you for a very long time, or perhaps it was mere moments” they said, thoughtfully, “Time is strange here, after all.”
41    In the last few words their voice had changed from velvet and husky to sounding almost musical, like the tinkling of chimes. 
42“How long have you been here?” I asked, finally finding my voice. It sounded so harsh and ugly compared to this Others voice. They were so strange and something about them did not ring human upon my senses, but I could not tell what it was, so I dismissed my misgivings. 
43    “Well,” they began, a slow smile creeping its way across their features, “ I have been here since the birth of the stars, or maybe I have been here for hours. The passage of time is already strange in a realm that is part of its flow, affected by everything from the movements of the planets, or a difference in gravity.” They smiled at my naivete, for they could tell that I had no clue what they were talking about. What is gravity?  I wondered.
44 “This realm exists outside of the flow of time, and from here, I have watched the birth and death of countless galaxies. I have even partaken in the death of some.”
45 Ah, so they were gloating. 
46“Can you please give me a straight answer? I do not understand what you are talking about,” I pleaded.
47They stood up and approached me, their bare feet padding softly on the cobblestones with each slow, measured step.
48“A straight answer,” they said aloud, seeming to ponder the idea, then dismissed it with a shake of their head. 
49“I think not, all will be made clear in due time” it said ”the best answer I can give you is that there are many things that have passed before you existed, and many things that will come to pass long after your inevitable death. What concerns you matters very little to me in the grand scheme of things,” they sighed.
50As they drew nearer to me, I decided to call them a ‘he’ because of the stubble on his chin. 
51“I can see you are still confused, so let me try and simplify.” He was silent for a time, as he stroked his chin pensively. Suddenly his face lit up.
52“ So, you and I exist in two separate dimensions,” he exclaimed, holding up two fingers to demonstrate.
53“Now, when you are in this state as you presently are, we both exist outside of time, meaning we can convene here, in this world between our worlds” As he talked, he slowly drew his two fingers together until they touched, at which point he held up a single finger, as though illustrating a point. That point however, went right over my head because I had no idea what was going on or what this had to do with me. I said as much to jim. He just chuckled at me and said,
54“ this has so much to do with you! Everything, in fact. You are strongly tied to the Weave of Fate that wraps around your world. Without you, all will become unravelled”
55Again i was lost.
56“Ah well, you are just a boy still, i do not suppose I should expect you to wrap your head around my words just yet,” he beckoned me over and slowly turned to walk around the tree. 
57“Come here” he requested softly, and so I did. I drew up alongside him and looked out onto not a town, but a sprawling city. 
58“This city was once a bustling utopia, but in their greed the people began to kill their planet- choking from it the very life that sustained them. Without the recourse of a calamity to lessen their grip this world would have died!” he exclaimed, passion a roaring fire behind his violet eyes.
59“ But look at her,‘ he said, casting his hand about him dramatically, “Look how far she’s come! Again she grows and thrives without humanity’s fell grip about her throat.”
60I waited a moment, trying to understand what he was telling me, when like the sun cresting the horizon, it dawned on me. 
61“Did you kill the people of this world?” I asked, aghast.
62“Yes,” he admitted, “that is what my race and I do- we provide reprieve for the dying worlds being throttled by the hands that are supposed to care for and sustain them,” he paused to collect himself a bit.
63“It’s really nothing personal, you know.” he said, as though that were supposed to make it better.  Here i sat, horrified, discussing planetary genocide with a godlike being as if it were a normal occurence.
64“How can you be so cruel?” i shouted
65“Me? Cruel?” he snapped, “ Is it cruel to rid a dog of fleas, or a tree of blight? Is it cruel to rid a man of a tumor, or worms?”
66“No,” i started,” but-”
67“How then is routing a race of people any different from ridding a home from an infestation of mice?”
68I realized that to a god, there was probably little difference at all, and that terrified me. He could kill me without batting an eye, and his life would go on as though we’d never met in the first place. My heart was nearly leaping through my breast. I was as insignificant as an ant. I meant nothing. My existence was no more than a drop in the ocean. 
69    I had begun to back away, turning once i was outside of the beings grasp.  I had run only a few steps when suddenly he loomed before me. 
70“Im not done with you yet,” he hissed, his once beautiful features now distorted, spittle flying from his lips.
71I decided i no longer liked him. He dragged me back to where we had been standing. My whole body was shaking and my palms were sweating. 
72“I want to tell you that the portal is open and we are watching, soon enough, your world will fall just like this one. I will crush all who oppose me, and your people will become as dust in the wind.” To emphasize his point he raised his hand and clenched it into a fist, an action that resulted in a red flash of power from his hand that caused all the plants around us to wither, and the ruins of the buildings to crack further and crumble into dust. I closed my eyes and fought against his grip on me, clawing and biting to get away
73.Slowly i came to, heavily involved in a wrestling match with my fur blanket that covered me. As I retrieved my senses from the well of panic, I tasted and felt fur on my tongue and picked it off. I threw open my eyes and cast off the suffocating blanket. I found myself staring into the gloomy darkness of a canvas-covered wagon. As I waited for my heart, which was pounding like a war-drum, to calm itself, i laid still and listened to the creaking of leather harnesses,the jingling of the buckles, and the rhythmic clopping of horses hooves crunching through the freshly fallen midwinter snow. 
74I’d had many dreams before; playing with hand-carved toys and trinkets my mother had found or made for me, running happily with the village children who would, in my waking hours, have thrown stones at me. I had dreamt of dancing in the winterfest celebration, and enjoying candied apples. I had even dreamt of running through fields that could have been anywhere, in the guise of a wolf, and yet here i was- laying in the back of a wagon, many weeks away from home going only the stars knew where. 
75My grandfather coughed in the front of the wagon we were riding, drawing my thoughts back to the present and away from dreams. 
76“”Wake up, boy, we have nearly reached Cavanaugh,” the old man bellowed at me through the harsh winter wind. I could see the flakes of snow flying wildly in the light of the lanterns that helped guide our path. 
77Stories I’d hear once used to speak of refineries where the Lifestream of Illyria had been made into something useable, but since they had been destroyed a long time ago, we were once again reliant on cruder means of living. Unless you were rich, of course. The richest classes had everything from running water guided from the wells by pressure systems all the way to taps in their homes. They also had access to steam and combustion powered carriages and machines that most people could not afford. Rumor has it that the richest of the rich could even have their manors and keeps heated via steam, and that they could afford flying carriages, powered by refined whale oil from the coast. 
78Regardless, all of it could be true or just fancy, because a good majority of people would never afford them. Us common folk still relied on wood fire in the hearths for heat, and a good bucket dipped into the waiting well for water. 
79My stomach growled, calling me back to the matters at hand. I sighed and pulled my small cloak tighter around me. My body, stiff with cold as well as from lying in the back of a trundling wagon, groaned its refusal as i got up from the small cot I had slept on.
80I made my way up to the bench situated behind the team of horses that drew us towards the tinkling lights of the settlement that must be Cavanaugh. The town was beautiful, with a watermill situated on a river near its north end, and a small bridge connecting the main part of town to the millers area across the river. Tonight, the town hunched at the bottom of the hill we had just crested, as if the buildings themselves were trying to hide away from the cold winter’s biting gale.
81A short time later, my grandfather and I drew up to the only tavern in Cavanaugh, a dingy little place known as The Shrikes Nest, I was told. The old man, my grandfather, went inside to fetch a stableboy, and to procure us lodgings for the cold night. As he opened the door on his way in, a myriad of sounds and smells managed to escape and reach my frost-bitten nose. The smell that caught my attention the most was the scent of what was either a stew, or maybe the meaty joint of some beast, maybe a sheep, roasting over the hearth. I thought I could also smell root vegetables as well. My stomach did not care if it was yesterday's scraps, it wanted anything it could get right now, and it was doing its best to let me know. 
82Along with the food smells, I also caught the smell of woodsmoke, and the nauseating scent of the intoxicating herbal smokes that people liked to breathe, due to the stupors they induced. Along with those smells I also managed to catch the scent of stale ale, and old wine as befitted a tavern. I found that there was a lot to mull over with those smells, and as i thought about the savory meat and vegetables i had smelled, it was enough to set my stomach growling again.
83 As i processed the smells and prepared myself to enter the strongly smelling building that stood before me, the stableboy appeared and set to his work. He lead the horses to the stables where they would likely be unbridled, and their harnesses stripped off of them. Following  that they would have their coats brushed out, and be given some grains and maybe a carrot, and some water. 
84I noted that the stable boy was not much older than my six summers. He was perhaps eight.
85The old man came back out to grab his travel rucksack, and me with it. Herded into the tavern, i was choked by the intoxicant smokes that lingered in the air. My Grandfather paraded me, coughing, up the stairs to our room in which we’d be spending the night. away from the choking smoke, i began to focus again, and i set myself to exploring the small room. 
86My swift investigation yielded little. The room had two small cots, a small chest to hold a dear few possessions, a small table that was home to what smelled like a tallow taper, burned low from use, and a hearth whos recently kindled blaze offered us light to see, and warmth to chase the cold from our bones.
87“Well boy,” Grandfather started, “this will likely be home until the storm passes.”
88I simply nodded my head ascent to him.
89“Well?” he growled
90“”Yes sir, okay sir” i said meekly.
91A few moments later, a serving girl knocked on the door to our quarters. My grandfather let her in and she came bearing a tray that held two bowls and some other food. Unceremoniously, she delivered the tray onto the small table, upsetting our unlit,half-burnt taper. 
92“Pardon me, miss” my grandfather began, his disgust at her lack of manners barely hidden, “ would you be so kind as to fetch me a tankard of ale, and a mug of mulled cider for the boy?”
93The surly serving girl sighed, exasperated, and grudgingly acquiesced to his request. Swooshing out in a whirlwind of skirts and attitude, she returned moments later with the drinks my grandfather had requested. After handing us our respective mugs, my grandfather gave her some coins, and with a curt nod she was gone. After she left, i tucked into my portion of watery stew, comprised of some grey stringy meat, and some half cooked root vegetables. My stomach did not care about quality, and i wolfed down the bowl, then helped myself to some of the bread and cheese that were on the platter. I also noisily slurped at my cider, the flavor of the cinnamon and anise bringing warmth to my insides that i had not known were possible. After we finished our meal and drained off our mugs, my grandfather sent for a less-surly server to bring him up more ale. While he waited on his mug, he set me to the task of readying for bed. I had only been awake for a few hours, but the cold had leeched the strength from me and i was weary. 
94Shortly after the serving girl brought my grandfather his second ale, i found the heat from the hearthfire coupled with the heavy woolen blankets make my eyelids tired, and i slowly descended into sleep. Once again, i was in a ruined city, but this time i was alone.