Chapter 1 - The Approaching Threat

His body floated in an endless expanse. Everything around him was muddled in infinite darkness. It was not an unpleasant feeling, in fact he could feel nothing at all. How long had he been floating here? A lifetime? One hundred lifetimes?

From the darkness, vague shapes and symbols drifted into view. Slowly at first, here and there, then with greater frequency, swaths of color invaded his comforting darkness. All around him they materialized, soaking into view like mud stirred up in a clear stream. As they became clearer, strange memories echoed through his mind. Trees, mountains, people. Oh, perhaps there was a reason these things seemed familiar to him, these visions belong to a life on Earth. But why then, he wondered, had they become distant forgotten concepts to him?

The encroaching images drew nearer and nearer to his sanctity in the darkness. What had begun slowly had grown into a chain reaction, new images sprung forth faster than his mind’s eye could process. They rushed towards him, filling the expanse at a frightening pace. He felt as if he would be crushed. Panic seized his heart. Clawing and flailing, he attempted to pull away, anything to escape the torrential approach.

Suddenly, their expansion stopped. Everything laid still for a moment. The comforting silence had returned and within the last pocket of darkness he floated. Then, as if an answer to the silence, the short reprieve ended as a great light burst forth from the border between his sanctity in the darkness and the surrounding color. He shielded his eyes, blinded by such a tremendous outpouring of light. Despite the pain, something drew him closer to it. He fought against his instinct and pulled forward towards the outpouring. As his eyes adjusted, he could see a single object lay within the center of emanation: a single outstretched arm. Slender, pale and delicate. It reached for him with an open palm. A mournful voice pleaded from within.

“Where are you…?”

Arwin awoke violently from his dream. The whole of the house had been shaken. His initial strong desire to make sense of what he had just seen was thrown to the wayside as his senses began to process the world around him.

What began as a distant rumbling had grown into a crescendo of thunderous explosions. An unrelenting tide of vibration that echoed deep into his very core, as if every iota of his being was uprooted from its place of rest and thrust into chaos. It was a wholly unnatural sound. Every part of his body cried out in protest at the onslaught. The sanctum of his inner ear felt as if it was repeatedly cleaved in two like log of wood. Split and reformed, split and reformed. Each new wave of impact reigniting the torturous ritual anew.

The pit of his stomach broiled with painful lurching, as if at any moment it would simply drop out from under him like a rotten peach unable to support the weight of its pit. Gripping his bedpost with white knuckles, Arwin barely steadied himself as his inner senses rioted. Beyond the borders of his skin, the outside world, too, was uprooted by chaos. The whole of his family’s humble cabin home creaked and groaned, its ancient supports testing yet unknown boundaries. His loose summer sleeping garments, brown linen trousers that frayed at the cuffs and an untied white cotton blouse whose sleeves had long been outgrown by his arms acted poorly as shields from the assailing forces from without the home. Driven by the rush of adrenaline that had flooded over the dim wakefulness of the early morning, Arwin thrust off from the anchorage of his bedpost and stumbled towards the door.

As his hand found the knob, an exceptionally loud explosion roared into being. The house shook violently, straw and dust from the rafters filling the darkened room. Choking and temporarily blinded, he stumbled against the wall. Throwing his weight against whatever steady object he could find, his hands rose to clear his muddled eyes from the debris while his hacking cough attempted to free his lungs from their intrusion. Quickly realizing this state would continue as long as he remained within the bedroom, he grit his teeth and through blurred vision and racking coughs threw open the door and stumbled into the common area. He could see well enough to know he was the only one who had remained inside, the other doors were all ajar. He held his cough for a moment to listen for the clamor of any others, without success. It seemed he was alone within the home, though any noise would be completely buried within the racket.

Driven by necessity, he drove onwards through the dark and dusty common room, guided by the few beams of light that poured in from the footing of the main door. Throwing the door open, he nearly fell out his front door. Instant relief flooded his senses, his burning eyes and seizing lungs rejoiced at the fresh air. Quickly he rubbed his eyes clear with the inside of his shirt which had clung tightly to his chest and thus been rendered far clearer than its outer part. As he hacked and spit debris from his mouth, the ground again resounded with a gigantic thud.

He could not believe what his eyes beheld. Rubbing them again and again, thinking each time he was to have cleared them, the impossible vision before him would fade back into impossibility from which it had spawned. Far off, along the rim of the plains which outstretched from the village, an incredible storm had formed. The village, which collected itself on the better part of a great hill within the plains, was the last major landmark before the great forest to its south. To the north, the grand mountain of Imilator had forever stood watchful. In ancient times, the gods themselves had descended from heaven and plugged its raging maw with a stone whose size could rival only that of the moon itself. In doing so, they had granted to the land and its people salvation. No longer would Imilator spew forth fire and molten ash. The great peak had sat crowned with this mighty stone for countless generations. A constant reminder of the grace of the gods, and the fragility of life within their nation.
Every child of the village knew this tale well, Arwin himself was no exception. Yet, when he beheld the faroff sight, true terror and confusion struck at his heart. The massive storm of fire and lightning spewed forth, covering the whole of the mantle of the sky. From its heights, it rained down flaming stones which shattered and split the earth beneath it. The whole of the plains burned with an incredible fervor. Between the blazes of the raging inferno, the massive stones and lightning struck havoc upon the earth. The source of the great tremors was obvious, as each meteor which appeared from within the hellstorm struck, the resounding shockwave rippled across the plains and into the village. Even then, the explanation might be as simple as Imilator’s rage reignited, but in the faroff horizon the great mountain sat placidly. The great stone of the heavens which had crowned it was undisturbed, no fire or hellspawn escaped its maw. Turning back to the plains, Arwin began to accept the terrifying reality of what lay before. Hellfire and inferno, meteors and wild lightning ravaging the land and marching straight towards his home, as much as Arwin knew he was to fear such a cataclysmic sight, what truly struck fear into his heart was not the meteors or the inferno, nor was it the storm. Not the squaking of fleeing birds overheard or the screaming of the village women below him. What truly terrified him was at the head of this great cataclysm, a single figure marched at its head. The Goddess Aelithae.

Four Days Earlier

What a truly boring day, he thought to himself. If he had to live this monotonous life for another year he might just go insane. Out the door, down the road. Off to the weaver’s shoppe. The parcel in her hand, hes back out into the street. Slip down the side road and out to the huntsman’s hut. No luck yet, he says, come back tomorrow. Same answer as the last 3 days. What a bother. Twelve paces on, turn at the tree. The baker’s dog is just ahead, rather not loose a pant leg again, he thinks. Better to add a minute here and there. Disaster cannot seem to be avoided it seems, this path is all muddied. No bother for a journeyman however. Boots off and over his shoulder. Right, right, left. Straight on and one last step. The first dozen times he had used these rocks to cross, he felt quite clever for placing them there. Now the only thought in his mind was when they would fix that damned pond. One drop of rain and it spills all the way down. If you’re to build a village on a steep hill, wouldn’t that be something to consider? Oh it runs down and down. The roofs below the path were all splattered with cold old mud. A shameful sight. Perhaps its best the next neighboring town was a 3 day carriage ride.

Horse shoes, cabbage, fishing line. Salt from the tradesman, honey for the schoolteacher’s wife, leather chaff for the smithy. Every day, over and over and over again. Arwin looked up, realizing he had already reached the village’s edge. Taking a deep sigh, he paced over to a familiar resting place. The grand statue had seen better days. Better millennia, perhaps. As tall as a house, it loomed precariously over the path. It had been generations since it had assumed its slouch. Once tall and straight as an arrow piercing up to the heavens, the statue now leaned lazily over the path. Its roots ran deep, so his elders had told him. The exposed section was less than half of the whole. Knowing this, there was little worry the statue would even fall onto the path, or worse down the ravine and into the creek. It served as a greeter for any visitor to the village. To pass over the bridge and onto the great hill on which the village was built, one would have to cross paths with the great leaning maiden. Though her maidenhood was only revealed by the presence of her bust. Her head and arms had broken off far too long ago. ‘Our lady of the stream’ some called her. It was a fitting title, for the heart of the creek seemed to have welled up from far beneath her feet. Deep below her pillar some great well water reserve must have outgrown its chasm and ever since spewed forth clean, clear water forming the great lazy creek that encircled the village. Arwin always found this was a comforting spot to take a break. He leaned up against the pillar and basked in the maiden’s shade. The softly trickling sound of water beneath him radiated tranquility. It was a warm summer day, not that the summers here were very hot.

Gaelmark was an island, the traders had told him. A great, gigantic island but an island nonetheless. It extended up to the far reaches at the crown of the world where the gods lived and down towards the vast expanses of the great salt ocean. The ocean seemed a wondrous place, an expanse of salt water as far as the eye could see. Arwin had never left the continent, not that there was much reason to, but the idea of striking out across the great ocean had always filled him with a delightful sense of adventure. It would be a great many days ride on horseback to reach either or western or southern ports. His village was located nearly directly center of the continent, after all. As a boy he had dreamt of striking out as an explorer, braving the scorched remains of the badlands outside of Gaelmark and discovered the remains of a great civilization, long lost treasure, or perhaps a tribe of lost beautiful women whose survival depended on the need of a new rugged foreign king. Of course he was a gentleman, so he could not decline the chance to help them. Perhaps once he had served well at rebuilding their next generation, he could lounge in the shade as he was now, a wife on each arm. One fanning him, the other feeding him grapes… perhaps one who... CRACK, THUD, SPLASH!

Arwin jumped, suddenly shaken from his daydream. A brand had snapped off overhead, ricocheted off the leaning maiden and smashed uproariously into the stream below. Scanning the area, he was relieved to see he was still alone, no one had witnessed the surely embarrassing look of alarm upon his face. He sighed deeply and leaned back against the pillar of the maiden. Rubbing his eyes in frustration, he realized it was time to continue with his day. Reaching into his satchel, he fished around for his last delivery. He did this often but never seemed to learn his lesson. Half the time he would impale his finger on some needle or haphazardly packaged piece of metal, the other half stick his finger through the eye of a fish or through the linen covering the top of a jar of jam. Well, thats what the insurance was for, he figured. Packages put food on the table, but the insurance fee keeps the roof over our heads! That was his fathers favorite line. He envied the son of the fisher or the blacksmith. What a simple trade to take over that must be. Staying in one place all day, taking lunch as you pleased and working honing your craft over a lifetime. So simple and serene. The courier’s life was anything but. Here and there back and forth, sometimes he forgot he had a home to return to. ‘Everyday is an adventure’… Ha! What a joke. A chore more like. Arwin fiddled with the pack as he grumbled to himself, lost in self pity.

Finally reaching into the bottom of his bag, inside of an inner pocket he found his last delivery. Pulling it out, he examined the package.

“Gesturne?” Arwin pondered the name. It was truly unusual that a name would give him pause, he knew nearly all 1,200 inhabitants of the village by face or name, or at least by association. The pale quiet girl with the curly strawberry hair was the daughter of the schoolteacher. The dower boy whose brow met in the middle, he was the nephew of the kind one legged man that lived across from the stonemason. Even if he didn’t know them personally, he knew well enough to make the delivery. Not since his first year had he ever been stumped. He prided himself on not having to had return to his father to ask for instruction since then. Five years of self sufficiency was nothing to scoff at, nor did he have any plan to ruin that streak today. He looked down at it. The package was small, fitting about in the palm of his hand. It was wrapped in a malleable soft brown paper and tied with a flaxen string. As a courier, it would go against his code of ethics to open the package, that much was obvious. However, as he scanned the path around him, he was acutely aware there was no one nearby. Whats more, the package was so loosely bound that it would be incredibly easy to retie the knot without the recipient knowing anything was amiss. Mostly because it wasn’t, he wasn’t a thief. He was simply doing his job. Surely this Gesturne fellow would rather his package be innocently inspected by a faithful courier than delayed in its delivery. Ah yes, what an obvious conclusion. He was really doing the fellow a favor in all honesty. Arwin smiled to himself and untied the flaxen string, carefully unwrapping the paper as he did. The moment the contents of the wrapping were exposed to the air, a powerful explosion erupted from within. Arwin was blown backwards into a tree stump on the riverbank and tumbled down into the creek bed below.