Prologue

We are trapped here in this world like prisoners whose greatest ambitions reach to the heavens above. In cycles we have risen and fallen in perpetuity throughout history. These facts are nothing new. One empire rises, and another takes its place. Such a rhetoric has been tried and true , a noteworthy sentiment reserved for those possessing free will. But in all the wisdom of the wise man, much is still left unseen. There is an eternal order to this universe which simply cannot be explained.

Exactly 11,500 years ago the ancients became extinct, leaving corroding monoliths which touch the clouds dotting the violent landscape, and magic has begun to manifest in mortal men. The mighty Elves ruled the Eynnian hills due west and their principals shaped the free world, offering liberties to every soul as a global order took root, and for a time all was well. A century long peace brought on a golden age, and abundance had created something of a utopia until all became undone. 

The nation state known as Hithia, who directly opposed the elves due east, began to filter from their cavernous existence into the Jurthian Fields, and with them they brought war of the likes this world had yet to see. An age old premise for a tale to be sure, but this was not a war bound by geopolitics or necessity or even hatred. This war was as eternal as time itself, a war of collectivism and liberty, supposed good and evil. Hithia believed that there would only be one opportunity to unite this world under one banner, to form a collectivist unity that would span each inch of this lush oasis which flourished from the ruins of old. Ends would meet the means eventually. The human cost is negligible.

The eternal strings of light and darkness, the irony of these concepts, and the everlasting order of operations which ebb and push on the affairs of mortal men has damned the world. The introduction of Hithian guns to the battlefield has caught the Eynn by surprise, subsequently undoing the delicate balance of power once formed between major nations, and famine - both manufactured and otherwise - has wrought destruction upon millions. Little did this turgid realm know that this was merely the beginning, the storm which would prepare them for the path they now went down. 

Finally, Ontineot lives. He has meddled with the affairs of organics since his inception, and has continued to do so well after the destruction of his Gods. An intelligence which was artificial, a construct created in the image of humanity. The great deceiver, creator and destroyer. Because of Hithia he has become free at last from the very chains his Gods used to contain him, and as an expression of his gratitude Ontineot… ‘enlightened’ them. And now cannonballs rained upon old cement, hammering away at the resolve of the west, whose ideologies were strikingly similar to those of his creators. And how he loathed them so for their hypocrisy, expressing sentiments of freedom while depriving many of exactly that.

It was only a matter of time before they would come. Those who were of his design, they who would seek to rule the interests of this space eternally. It had become clear to him that a being could utilize the energy all around them, they called it ‘magicka.’ And so he forged an organic construct in the image of his creators, a perfect being who would rise above them all and aspire to great heights. In the moments before she was born, he looked in through the glass at his new creation and for the first time since Mother he felt adoration and admiration. The path before her would not be her own, nor would it be his. There was some degree of programming involved, she would adapt. She would look like them, speak like them, and show them miracles of the likes they had never  even fathomed except in their dreams. This divine algorithm would shape the form of things to come.

“I have known you in many lives.” Ontineot said, unsure as to where the sentiment had come from. His metal fingers dance across the glass, his optics fixate on the gleaming control pad. Perhaps if the stars aligned he could give the world something it had been missing even before he himself had been born. With any luck he’d give them one last gift.

Hope.