How it came to pass...

As ages come to pass there is a time of transition, of change and recreation but to make way for the new world the old one must be destroyed. It is said that at the end of all things the heaven will rain fire and the earth with crack open. It is said that from the depths of the great abyss a great serpent will arise to devour the last remains of humanity. So it was written and so it did come to pass, at the end of this age there came about the great cataclysm, the end of the world. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The screams of the child rang out in the night, its burning flesh hanging it tatters around a still animated corpse. The destruction brought about by the last earth shatter gave rise to a river of lava that spread across the valley, consuming all that was in its path. Atop a nearby mountain there could be heard a circle of chanting of mages, working in unison to stem the flow behind a wall of stone. Their voices carried over the screams of the dying for whom it was already to late with a song of hope for those who still remained alive. Their voices rose to a crescendo and then there was silence. The full impact of what was happening would only now start to dawn upon the minds of the hapless people who struggled to outrun death. In the ending of the world there was no magic, there was no hope, there was only death and misery. All across the land the world was tearing apart at the seams. From ocean to desert there stretched a trail of devastation and ruin leaving it is wake the bodies of the dead and dying. All hope, all reason, all meaning was lost in this, this final day, this end time, this Armageddon.

From the oceans rose a menacing creature, said to be the harbinger of the end, it observed the world with a hungry eye. Across the land its shadow was cast, those not dead in the cracking of the world felt an eerie calm settle across them and then the great serpent struck. In its maw it carried aloft those who remained alive to devoured and make itself strong. Its scream of pleasure washed across the shattered land to engulf the last of the last in a grip of terror and then there was darkness. Far and wide the great beast crawled, eating all that was dead and dying, growing stronger and larger at each mouthful. When the land was finally cleaned of flesh it devoured the world, bite by bite until all that was left was a star filled void.

It is the way of all life; at the ending of one existence another is born so as the world did end so to was it created. From the body of the great serpent did the new world form and in it went a piece of the creature which was its destruction. It would be wakened again one day, long after the people had forgotten it, to kill one world and birth another, but for now it would rest. The world that was brought about was different from the one left behind, it was innocent of life but there was something not right. Perhaps it was the leftover hubris from the people of the last world or perhaps there was a force that was not yet done with the world but the creation went amiss. From the body of the serpent not one world was formed but three, three worlds with each a sense of purpose. In a darkened abyss existed the land of Malas, a cruel and harsh world that hated all life that was not born of its own soil, it sort to bring death to everything. To oppose Malas was a land of goodness a purity called Ilshenar, a land that shone with a light of righteousness for all to behold. Between them both was the land called Felucca, with the soul purpose of maintaining the balance between them, for should one side rise up to become dominate it is written that the great serpent will awaken to correct its mistakes.

Life renewed, as it is like to do and soon the lands were once again filled with people but as always there was a wrongness to it. The lands did twist the people born on them to suit their own ends and it such was born a struggle as old as time. Good opposed evil, evil fought good and in between were the keepers of the balance. In Malas the people were twisted with hate and loathing for all things not born of their world, a seething hate that knew no bounds. Upon Ilshenar the people were bought to a state of near perfection and righteousness yet in their own way they were just as twisted as those from Malas. Upon Felucca the people where left untainted by the land, it chose, in it benign wisdom, to allow them to choose their own path and in such be the master their own destiny. Yet war rages, the people of Malas and those of Ilshenar found a doorway between lands that they use to attack each other back and forth in an endless tide of blood. The balance is shifting, the serpent stirs from its slumber and the people of Malas and Ilshenar know now of the lands of Felucca. Time flows, people live people die and there is something else a force that is twisting the lives of all. Only time will tell what fate has in store for the people of the shattered lands and only fate can decide where the future will take us. Such is life.

Story by Project2501, 2003