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I have no memory of my life or existence before I was guardian of this world and the people who lived here were no more than crude farmers and hunters. I have now lived for somewhere in the region of 4000 years and must face the time of my death. I had no name at first but over time the name Leathellin has seemed to suit my needs and is indeed most of the time unnecessary. At first there were many of us guardians, we tended to the sites of power which worked to restore the balance the world should have. Why the balance had become disrupted is not something I ever knew. The sites themselves also provided those of us of less ability with means of travel over great distances with speed. Myself and Inskul Drac, the greatest of the dragons, seemed the only of us who can travel these distances without the use of any outside assistance.
We were the two who seemed to have the most ability to use the power that flowed in the land around us. At first we were limited because the unbalance meant that most of the power around us was tainted but as the places we guarded performed their task the balance of the world was restored and slowly more became available for us to use. I looked into how the forces were controlled by these places, it seemed important and information I would at some stage need. I found that there were two channels within each place and that each of these channels focused and funnelled either the pure side of the power or the tainted so that they ran in parallel lines between each site. This held the force out of the land to give it a chance to recover and regenerate from life and for the tainted force to slowly weaken as it was not incorporated into the cycle and regenerated. When I first remember these lines were barely stable with the taint leaking back into the land as the little pure force there was flowed weakly. As time passed the taint line slowly weakened as the planet slowly recovered and the cycle was repaired. Inskul Drac and I found that when we used our connection to this power to perform some task or act that we drew the energy we needed from these lines of power which stretched in a flickering network across the land. We were always careful not to draw too much, to avoid the circumstance where we might cause a great leak of the tainted force back into the land. It meant that as the humans learnt to produce tools and found our sites we were forced to watch as they challenged the guardians, forced to sit and do nothing as they learnt that they could be killed. I watched the dryads die, the great stone trolls shattered. Inskul watched some of his dragons slain. We had a nightmare that they would discover that there was a power they could use for their own ends. There were already some people who seemed to have the same connection to the force as the guardians and we prayed that others would not somehow learn this ability. What they did find was almost as bad as we had feared. They discovered some component of the sites which they could use to give objects the ability to channel the force. In taking these components they were destroying the capacity of these places to rebalance he forces. We watched as across the continents the number of lines slowly began to diminish and we feared that the decreased number of channels could not cope with all the energy. We feared that it would be as though they had never existed with the land poisoned by taint to the point of destruction. Inskul watched his followers die and anger grew within him. I watched them slaughtered by people who didn't understand what they were doing and learnt sorrow and pity. I knew that if it ever became possible they would have to learn to leave these sites in peace and that fear was the method most likely to be chosen. We would go to war. I went to the small forest I guarded and mourned for the losses of the guardians and the losses which might be in the humans. One day as I sat there the lines between the sites vanished. Shocked and terrified of what this might mean I removed myself from my reverie and reached into the land with all my thoughts to discover what had happened. I found myself drawn into a web of the life of everything, felt it flow through me as I saw and felt everything on the land move and breathe and live. I realised I was drawing on and seeing all the power of the land and that it came from the earth and it was whole. It no longer was drawn from channels but from where it belonged. The sites had fulfilled their purpose and the force within the land was balanced. I felt like I was feeling the joy of the land all around me and I knew I could draw on all of this at any time I chose to. I took my thoughts back to myself and looked around me at the forest. The land could now start to heal, the wastelands would be reinhabited by plants and animals and become fertile and alive again. Then I realised that Inskul would know what I knew and that war would come. I went to him and saw that he was more vibrant, he seemed to almost crackle with energy. Now was not to be a time for discussion. The dragon lifted its wings and the summons went out to all the guardians. To all those who would fight. With sorrow I lifted myself to stand between his shoulder blades and we flew. As we went we gathered those who would follow and went between human settlements destroying them. Inskul sent the buildings crashing down and in his wake I made vines and trees rise to reclaim the land for their own. Their magic swords and treasured items with the powers of the channels were taken back where ever we found them. We travelled in a wave of destruction and cleansing across the lands. As we went we saw how the humans had grown and spread, how different they had become in different lands. We also found the individuals who had once channelled force from the lines and now found themselves unable to use the powers they had one had. It seemed they could not draw directly from the world as we did, they did not understand what had happened. There was an exception. In the third year we found a traveller who had long abandoned his name and called himself the Wanderer. He seemed to be different in some way and not surprised to see a dragon and a green lady pause in their war to speak to him. As we descended towards him I realised what it was that made him different from the other humans. He felt like Inskul and myself. Looking at him he was not just alive with the forces flowing through him, he was one aspect of that force. As I realised I was the aspect which embodied the land, Inskul the force of dynamic change. This man not only could use the force but also was steadily becoming the force of the physical, the bodies which housed the living. He listened as I spoke this for the first time and we felt that it was true. We paused a while in our war and stayed a while to talk. To compare how it was different to have always been a part of the force and to find yourself become one. To find that there should be more of us. We each felt aspects we were not at one with, aspects not yet embodied by one of us. We parted with the agreement that we would contact one another if we came across another who seemed to be like us. The wanderer continued his travels and his journey to becoming the avatar of one aspect of the force. Inskul and myself continued on our journey to war. We did not realise at that time that we would meet again as soon as two years away. The war against the humans lasted for five years in all. As it ended we were no longer the mysterious creatures who guarded, we were the feared who guarded. That we had needed to intervene in the affairs of the humans who inhabited the planet was clear to me. The method we had used was something I would regret for the rest of my days, not because it was wrong but because it had cause so much sorrow. Those who had died would return to the cycle of life that must always prevail, there was no wrong in death. It was those who died in hatred whose deaths I regretted. I watched as they died and saw the forces that had been their life form the familiar twisted corruption that was taint. I saw those who had died in vain defending their towns and villages returning to the land and strengthening the pure force with their death. If only it had been possible to show them that their deaths had given the land the strength to ignore the taint that still existed, that it would help preserve life better than even the channels could have done. After the war had ended I made a vow witnessed by Inskul and all the land that I would never interfere as directly in the affairs of the humans again. I would advise, answer questions, give warnings but never again would their lives become mine. As we two considered the effects our killing had caused, a figure approached the woodland I called my home. I looked and to my surprise found that I recognised it, the man who called himself the Wanderer. He had come to us to tell us of a child he had found. The child was later to become known to us and many others as the Consul. The wanderer took us to the home of this child and we saw that he was to be one of the avatars. He was different though, within him life flowed in its full measure, none of the aspects claimed his soul. The birth of this child led us to believe that after some time all of the aspects would be represented within a being. There were then two still to come. The child who would be the Consul grew to adult hood and we watched his life, we did not interfere. As he grew the Wanderer brought tales of another growing to manhood who had powers over the minds of those around him. He had become the ruler of his human settlement and would become the ruler of many others. Over the next thousand years the human civilisations underwent many changes. Settlements banded together. Cities were born. Countries were born. We waited for the last of the children who would be an avatar to be born. We were waiting for destiny. Over those thousand years the Consul and the child who became the Pope of his land grew and came into the full measure of their power and their nature. When it seemed to be a suitable time myself, Inskul and the Wanderer introduced ourselves to them and it was agreed that we should share our information. Over time it became that we would not interfere in the others lives and peace between us survived. During this time the land of Flencaal was formed and the Consul guided its people and sought to find reasons intrinsic in life for the manifestation of powers in some and not others. He looked for the potential in humans other than himself to bear these powers. The Papacy also became a country and a religion was formed and the Pope Paltrow became the God emperor of a country. Inskul did not interest himself in the affairs of the newly forming countries but thrived with the rapid changes flickering around him. The guardians were left alone with the humans' memories of the war fading into fear of their magical powers. I would have had no interest in affairs of the Human cities were it not for a young lady named Ilethleya. I saw that Human civilisations were growing and I protected my forests and the land to prevent it wasting away under the weight of the populations it was supporting. Humans were not welcome in my forest. There was one who came who was different. She came to my forest looking for the one who protected it, to protect her. She was someone who could be called a witch but she had no power in herself. She manipulated the living things around her and so indirectly manipulated the forces that Inskul, the others and myself could use directly. But the people were still afraid of magical things, they were afraid that some of the things she could do would either bring the wrath of the guardians upon them or that she herself was a guardian. She told me that there were others like herself, not many but they were suffering as she was. She offered her service and worship in return for my protection. She offered to help look after the land. I did not want worshippers, but a people to help my purpose was something that seemed to right. Ilethleya stayed in my forest for a while and I travelled to a group of volcanic islands and there created the small continent which would be named by those who came to live there after the first priestess of Leathellin. Ilethlea. Ilethleya gathered those she knew to have her abilities and they brought their families and some of their friends and they came to live on Ilethlea and lived amongst the trees which grew there. Ilethleya lived a long life span for a mortal human and aged little, the people believed I was a goddess and she thought it best not to make them think otherwise. She said it would help them believe more strongly in what they were doing. Ilethlea itself was of little importance in the world. The movement of the people and the formation of countries continued around it and it quietly grew. The people who lived on the Great Plains formed tribes and shunned the cities forming else where and a ring of stones guarded by an earth spirit became their holy place. Another country to the west of the land now ruled by the Pope began to form. It became what is now known as Nitlas but it fought many wars to earn its place as a country. Across the sea from the continent my forest lay on another land was splitting into countries. Beyond that lay the land of Flencaal where the Consul held sway. The wanderer journeyed between these places and many more, he brought us news of countries which lasted for years and some which lasted for decades. Many were swallowed into the larger nations as they formed, others survived. Ilethleya grew slowly but steadily older. She had born children to a husband and they had reached adulthood as he had died. She became almost lonely amongst her people. Then one day the Consul came to me and requested something which seemed almost strange to me. He wanted to take Ilethleya to Flencaal to become one of his people. He said that he needed her bloodline, her children, but not the ones she had from Ilethlea. I would not speak for Ilethleya and said that he must speak with her but that she had my blessing to leave. I do not know what he said to her but a little while later she came to me and said that she was leaving for Flencaal and that she would miss her people but would be happy there. I saw her once more before she died, she told me that she had more children, in Flencaal and that they were children of the Consul and that she had been happy. A little while later she died. The child of destiny had still not been born. Near the end of the second millennia the countries were formed although many borders would change and rulers came and went. The Pope and the Consul remained with their countries and the Pope started to shape the religion his people followed to mirror what we knew about how the force seemed to work. The Wanderer arrived again with news from his journeys. It seemed that occasionally people were being born who could draw upon the forces as we could. Many of them never knew they had this ability, they were born, they died and we had missed their passing. A very few were being born and learning they had power. Most were dying within normal lifetimes and never reached any level of power. There was one man who became able enough that he lived beyond a normal lifespan. He was born in the country of Nitlas and became a Knight protector and was called a hero. He led that country's armies and performed great deeds in its name and also later under the name he used for himself, The Raven of the North. It was these great deeds which inevitably led to us encountering him as he was asked to slay a terrible beast, a guardian. The most famed guardian of his land was the great dragon who made his home on the highest mountain, Inskul Drac. What occurred between them I do not know in detail but he agreed to aid our mission in protecting the world from harm. About the same time as he would have been born there was another with the ability to draw upon the power born. He grew up on land, which at the time alternated between being part of the Papacy or Nitlas. Later this land would be a country in its own right and it would be country claimed as his. The name he used which all will recognise is the Magister. The Magister did not for a long while do anything which brought him to our attention, but in the end he became too important to ignore. He discovered something we had not known was possible, he found a way to steal the power which made us life. In most things this was not in any quantity but in the magical creatures which guarded the channels there was power worth stealing. It did not leave them alive afterwards. At first he used a ritual which took time and could be avoided but he developed the method further and in the end needed no ritual. We knew he was killing people and sometimes guardians but we did not know how until it became too late. The Magister started to rid the world of first the people who had any powers like himself and then started to sweep across the land removing the guardians. He grew powerful quickly and did not seem to care what he destroyed as he went. He cared once. He loved a girl called Evelan, and he became responsible for her death. It was early on in his quest to remove magic from the world and into him. He was relatively young, still developing the ritual when he confronted a mortal magician and Evelan got caught in their fight for each other's lives. The Magister won but the price he paid was Evelan's life. He did not learn to care again. He also found the child we had waited for the birth of for so long. Destiny was born to a mortal pair who both had the ability to use the force. They were named Arianrhod and Kirgal. Their memories lived on as A god and Goddess to many people. Their son lived on as Nexal Taish or the Warmaster. The Magister had killed the child's parents and for reasons I am unsure of took the child in as his own. He grew older and we watched him as much as we could without the Magister discovering our interest. Nexal grew older and his dead father became the God of War. The Magister destroyed the guardians. None of us challenged his power directly, he had become too strong in his own right and we did not know how to counter the knowledge he used to steal force. He also had the loyalty of the avatar of destiny. The Magister built himself a country and a city he name Taeorn with a tower at its centre which became his home. Nexal was put in charge of the Magister's armies and destiny fought on the side of the conqueror and destroyer. It was a painful time watching the death of the guardians. We did what we could to hide the sites and those who guarded them but over time he found them all and we found ourselves hiding away from sight. The human population began to forget the guardians had existed, they slowly faded into myth. The Pope never hid but he never struck at he Magister either. The Consul was closing Flencaal away from the rest of the world and seemed preoccupied. The loss of the guardians caused great pain and it hurt that there seemed to be nothing we could do about his actions. He was killing the Dryads which were my children and the Dragons of Inskul Drac and for the first time we were powerless to stop him. But the world itself was not threatened, the Magister did not seem to know about the reason for the magical sites and he did not use the powers of taint, We did not know what knowledge the Warmaster possessed. It may seem that there has been someone missing from this story so far and there has been. The origins of the woman who became known as Lady Void have not yet been mentioned. I now know that she must have been alive at least as long as myself and Inskul but where she was for much of this time is a mystery. The taint in the world slowly faded as the channels fulfilled their purpose and although some remained after as it would for ever we had not believe it enough power to sustain a person beyond their natural lifespan. But it was. The Lady lived, with no ability to use the power for a long time, hiding moving and plotting. She had lived with it for so long she had become in a sense the taint as we had become aspects of the power. Her mind was twisted and he memories clouded and confused, she remembered things that Inskul Drac and I did not, she remembered the force being used by machines but we could not understand how the non-living could use that which flowed in the living. She waited and she waited and I believe that she was dangerously insane for she never gave up and she never stopped trying to bring the taint back into the land. In the end in a way we did it for her. The Magister wiped out the guardians over 1000 years and ruled for another before the time came for us to act. It was a lonely time for those of us left. The Raven had not the power to protect himself from a direct attack by the Magister and hid himself within Nitlas changing his name and appearance as he moved around the country. I remained in my forest, Inskul on his mountain. The Pope remained safe within his country and his temple and the Consul in Flencaal. The Wanderer journeyed the land and hid himself amongst the many travellers and merchants. We waited. The forest became a place of mystery with rumours of a green lady who lived there and killed those who tried to chop the trees. The mountain was the highest in the world and given the name Inskuldracul but why it was called that was forgotten. People in the Papacy began to believe that the Pope lived and died and was reincarnated in another who was taken away to continue the line. The human civilisations fought wars and more new counties formed. A group of cities broke away from the Papacy and became the City States. The borders between the Papacy, Nitlas and Taeorn became steadily more stable. Flencaal became forgotten as a land as it communicated little with the other countries in the world. The Magister continued to hunt for avatars he knew must exist somewhere and we continued to elude him. The Warmaster lived but did not seem to have any awareness of what he was. We were wrong though, he knew what he was and what all of us were better than we did. He was also waiting. He was waiting for the time when we must act and the cycle of destiny be again played out. One day after 4000 years of existence I felt a presence in my forest that was human but not mortal, and I did not recognise it. I looked and saw a figure in armour walking slowly through my forest heading straight for the centre where my tree and home lay. I shifted the paths and wolves howled around him but he knew exactly where he was going. I looked at his face and saw the adult who had once been the child Nexal Taish, destiny was looking for me. I waited by my tree and a little while later he entered the clearing. He did not introduce himself or ask who I was. He said that it was time for the Magister to die. He knew where we all are but that some may not recognise him. He asked me to call through the land for them to come. He was destiny. I sent the message to Inskul Drac, the Wanderer, the Pope, the Consul and they all came to the forest to hear what the Warmaster had to say. I think that was the first and last time we were ever all gathered in the same place. He told us how we could destroy the Warmaster. We had to use the tainted power to corrupt him, destabilise him and cause all the power he had gathered to be released. It would kill him. It would have consequences which would shatter the world, the power released suddenly would break the crust of the earth and cause great waves of destruction in the seas. It would release taint back into the land in quantities larger than it had existed for millennia, it would allow mortals access to the power as they had once had when the sites were still active. He did not tell us of the existence of Lady Void, I don't know if he knew. It seemed a terrible price to pay for the destruction of one man. He told us why we had no choice. He had discovered the purpose of the channels, and it could not be long before he discovered how to turn them to his own purposes and before he discovered the taint. In order to accomplish what we planned it would require a sacrifice, a person to act as the vessel for the taint and to be killed by the Magister. The Warmaster said it would not be one of us. At that moment The Raven entered the clearing and without turning the Warmaster gave him the choice. He accepted without question or hesitation. We were planning the murder of one man with the cost being the lives of thousands of others. But we did it, The Raven took taint into himself and as it ate at his mind and his soul travelled from the forest to the city of Taeorn and the tower of the Magister. The others left for their own lands and homes to prepare for the destruction. The Warmaster remained within the forest, We waited. Two weeks later we felt a surge of power and saw the images as the power released by the explosion swept through us. The Raven was dead and so was the Magister. Destruction began to sweep across the land. The force touched were born of that explosion. Lady Void gained the power she had been waiting for, for the last 4000 years. Ilethlea was destroyed and many lands suffered great damage and many lives were lost. The events that followed will be recorded in the libraries and in the memories of those who survived. |