prologue: The Inheritance of the Atom

All that the world doth hold is born of the atom.

Yet it was not ever so. In the elder days, mankind knew little save war. Kingdoms rose and crumbled, borders were writ in blood, and each age inherited the quarrels of the last. 

Then, in the year 2961000, the wars did cease, and mankind attempted what it had never truly tried: peace as its purpose.

With no foe left to fight, people turned their energy toward becoming a better civilization, and in that quiet, hopeful age they learned to reach into the atom itself and draw out its full power. 

Within a few generations, everyone wielded Neutron in perfect balance, and advanced magic flourished across the world. Anyone could create a continent and pay no price for it. For four centuries, naught seemed beyond mankind's grasp.

The Lightborns

Then came strangers from a world called Hegemony Prime.

Mankind met them not with arms. Having learned that peace was worth more than conquest, it stretched forth its hand in friendship. 

For two decades it labored to cross the silence between two peoples, and the language barrier and other differences seemed the only walls betwixt them.

They were not. Hegemony Prime was no peaceful realm, but an empire of conquerors, built upon the backs of countless civilizations it had enslaved, 

and those long talks were but a veil while it forged its plans of invasion. It coveted the one treasure mankind possessed: the understanding of the atom.

In the year 2961400, their ships descended from the heavens, bright and gleaming. Mankind named them the Lightborns, and the war began.

The War

It endured three hundred years.

The armies of Hegemony Prime were beyond counting, a multitude mankind could never match. Yet mankind's power was the greater, and age upon age the two sides wore upon each other like stone upon stone. In the year 2961700, mankind at last prevailed.

But victory was dearly bought. War spareth none, neither the conquered nor the conqueror, and the survivors found themselves weary and stripped bare. 

The advanced magic, the knowledge, and the energy mankind had built over centuries were gone. Naught remained save ruins, relics, and records. Hegemony Prime was driven off and returned to its own world, beaten but never destroyed.

The Atomic Power

The survivors had no resources to rebuild the old technology. One source of power alone was left to them, and they took it up. 

That power, stripped of its former glory and bound by harsh limits, is what the world now calls magic. It comes from three sources: Proton, Electron, and Neutron.

Proton is the power to create and restore: building, growing, protecting, and healing. Those who follow it are called Aethels. In theory, Proton can create anything, but the body of the creator is its only limit. 

A wooden cup costs a little soreness, like the day after a hard workout. A house brings heavy exhaustion and trembling muscles, and takes years of training even to attempt. 

A beginner who reaches far beyond their limits does not merely collapse. They cease to exist. Even the greatest of masters would die trying to create something as vast as a continent.

Yet the masters are said to know ways of bearing burdens that would crush others, and some Aethels are said to give their creations a life of their own. Healing, too, has its own laws. How far any of it can go is something few speak of plainly.

Electron is the power to destroy, decay, and disrupt. Those who follow it are called Umbrals. It is not evil. It is simply destructive, and its morality belongs to the one who wields it. It follows the same law of scale as Proton. 

Destroying a cup costs mild soreness. Destroying a house leaves burns across the hands or body, like the marks of hard martial training. A continent is beyond anyone's reach, and the attempt would kill them.

Stories tell of Umbrals who walk a harder road than the rest, devoting themselves to something beyond ordinary training. What they pursue, and what it costs them, is rarely discussed.

Those who master both sources are called Duals. They carry the strengths and limits of both. They are rare, and often become leaders. Yet no path is stronger by nature. Affinity decides what a person can wield. Mastery decides what they can accomplish. A master Aethel can defeat a careless Dual, and so can a master Umbral.

The Gift of the Fragment

Atomic power cannot be learned from nothing. Every practitioner begins with a fragment, a tiny piece of power given by someone who already has it. Giving one costs the giver nothing, no more than making a cup. As a result, everyone in this world has power. What matters is what they do with it.

The Order of Society

Aethels are the builders and citizens, shaping the cities and growing the food. Umbrals are the public servants, the firefighters, guards, police, and soldiers who protect the world and tear down what must fall. Each depends on the other: Umbrals need healers, and Aethels need protectors.

Every child is taught the basics of magic, and as they come of age, they choose a path. Most settle on one. Few walk both. 

And then there is Neutron.

Once it was common, a thing every soul might wield. Now it is a rare state of power that exists beyond Aethels, Umbrals, and Duals, and only a few can wield it. It has three forms. In Perfect Equilibrium, creation and destruction exist in complete balance.

 In Perfect Imbalance, Neutron deliberately leans to one extreme without becoming either source, reaching extraordinary power. 

In Null, neither source is expressed at all, producing strange and deeply personal phenomena, including extreme transformations that ordinary magic cannot reproduce.

No one knows how it is attained. It is not simply the next step for a gifted Dual. Everything else in this world has rules, but Neutron standeth apart.

The Present

Now it is the year 2962011. Three centuries and more have passed, and mankind still rebuildeth what was lost. Most people know the Lightborns only from the tales, writings, and records the elder civilization left behind. In those accounts, they were invaders who came with overwhelming force, were defeated, and went home.

The records say they went home.

Few have ever asked how far home truly lieth.