|
We were left as farmers and less than farmers; people scattered across the globe wherever there was an area of land left inhabitable. We had been promised a chance to leave then we were left behind. They promised us the world made whole and left us in a shattered place, barely capable of supporting those of us here, let alone the children who would come. There was great bitterness and pain but we had to survive, there was the will to keep going. The first generation consisted of those who remembered what it had been like and the children who had only ever seen the ruins of what it had been like. They looked at the land around them and did the best they could to continue to survive.
Those who remembered clearly enough tried so hard to rebuild what they had once lived with every day. We searched where we knew cities had once been, scouring ground and then under it for any fragments we could use. There was nothing. The first winter that came very many people starved and froze. We had not been left food and there had not been time for any to have grown. There were no longer any leaders to tell people how to survive. There were no longer any laws enforced. People were scattered in small groups with no way to communicate between them. The small communities each developed in their own way with their own solutions to the problems. The first few years were bleak with little hope but somehow there were survivors and somehow the groups began to establish themselves. They grew crops and started to explore around them. These small isolated communities existed with little or no contact with any others for the next three generations. Travel was restricted by the ruined land which surrounded the pockets that we inhabited. There was growth in numbers but this was limited because the land could only feed so many. During this time, it is not known where and by whom, discoveries were made. It seemed that there was something left of the old civilisation after all. Something which had been hidden from us. It was found that there were places which had not existed before the war. They were strange things from what had been believed to be our distant history, circles of standing stones, mounds, paintings on the walls of caves. They existed in large numbers across the continents and all were free of the taint which kept the land barren. It also became known that many were guarded. There were people who remembered the forces used to quell those who had disagreed with the actions of the World Government. Great beasts, the forces of the lands. These beasts were found guarding the sites along with other creatures not seen until this time. Creatures which had previously only been found in myth. Some of these guardians attacked those who came near, others seemed to cause the place itself to reject the trespasser. All tried to keep people away. We could not understand why these places existed or why they should be considered important enough to be guarded. They were mysteries which we were not yet strong enough to fight our way through to. These small civilisations spread as the centuries passed and the land around them seemed to steadily improve. As our societies developed, technologies which had existed centuries ago were re-learnt. Buildings became sturdier and more complex and structure began again to exist, different lands formed tribal hierarchies and religions began to reform. We found how to smelt metals and forge tools and weaponry. The metals we used were of poor quality but they were a great step for us. As time passed and there were considerations other than just survival, curiosity grew and more and more people discovered these sites and tried to find out what they were. There was very little of the old technological knowledge left, all those with these skills had gone with the ships but we used what we had. Again who and where is not known but someone finally defeated the guardians of one of these sites and what we found answered many questions but still left us with a mystery. We found, so small and complex it was almost missed, that each site contained buried within it a piece of some kind of machinery. We could not understand or find out what it did, but we did find out that it was responsible for something. The pieces of machinery were built by some people into things they created, into swords, and crowns and many other items. These items then were found to have powers. Some of the swords created wounds ten times worse than any other, some caused great fear amongst enemies and others gave great fortune. It was not every sword which had a machinery fragment within it which became a feared weapon, some seemed to do nothing. Some were reworked into farming tools and found to give the soil great fertility. There was some kind of difference between the fragments but what we could not determine. The demand among rulers, soldiers and others for these items caused great rewards to be offered for those who could find sites with the machinery and defeat the guardians. We also found there were individuals who could wield these powers. News of their deeds spread as travellers spread. The powers used in the great wars by the soldiers of the government and those they fought. Some were rumoured to have been alive since the ships left, others were children found to have strange abilities as they got older who lived and died as normal men. Some used their power to rule, others were installed as priests in religions which were forming as the knowledge of what had truly happened gradually faded from remembrance. The past was being forgotten. The machinery became magic, the rumours of the war and those who had left us here were becoming Gods and magicians. As we learnt more ourselves we came further from the past and forgot what we had once been. Most even doubted that the stories they now heard had ever had any basis in the reality of history. It all sounded so far from what was around them. The past however refused to forget us. As we pillaged the now magical sites for the machinery to make the magical weapons and tools and we slew the guardians who defended them we drew ourselves towards a war none of our fledgling civilisations could stand a chance of winning. He guardians were not isolated beings, they had means of communication and more importantly they had protectors of their own. These protectors drew together the guardians and those of them who had skill at fighting came away from the mystical sites and went from place to place and destroyed what they found. Great dragons swept houses and armies with fire, cracks opened in the earth and beasts charged through villages destroying them with their bare hands. The magical swords and items we had created were taken whenever they were found. We fought back as best we could, tried to defend our homes but we were facing beings with powers we had now ascribed to the Gods. They went across the continents in a wave and it seemed that nowhere escaped their wrath. After that point any trespass near a mystical site resulted in death for the individual and retribution towards their settlement. It had now been about a thousand years since we were first left on our own to survive and rebuild. We had growing civilisations and developing technology but we were still very few. We had no cities, the metals we used were base metals and had high levels of impurities. We had also just suffered losses which would prevent us developing further for many generations to come as the guardians destroyed what we had produced and did not allow us to rebuild properly for many many years. This is the point at which I leave my account. Garen Astin, Of the force altered who remained hidden on the planet. |