It took two centuries for humanity to realize fire wasn’t only a weapon to bring harm, but also a powerful source of controllable energy. They actually discovered that the reactions induced by the heat could become the trigger for many engineered mechanisms and automated labour, making it a turning point in History.

As the foes of old date became scarce, the flames bestowed upon mortals by the Day Goddess lost its first and main meaning as a blade against the creatures of darkness, therefore shifting into a practical and useful tool to decimate other kind of enemies. Whatever presented itself as a threat was made into the target of a crusade, another excuse to keep this divine spell in one’s hand.

However, as time passes, there was less and less beings for humanity to slay. Beasts of mythological origins became extinct, races with many names disappeared into oblivion. After the creatures of the night, monsters of the day were the next target of this heartless extermination they call a war.

With only a few creatures and monsters roaming this human dominated world, this powerful blade had to be pointed at something else. Old scrolls mention an inevitable war between humanity itself, but the lack of historical proof had made them as fictional delusions from paranoid characters. Something easily acceptable, and forgettable.

Nowadays, if fire-lances were a relic of the past still used to this day, big and strong furnaces were the next trend of the flames usability. Heat could melt metal, but it could also move objects if used correctly, and movable objects can become powerful machines, then complete industry for a worldwide revolution.

What a human could accomplish, a machine could succeed ten times better and faster and safer and cheaper.

But the transition took time to implement in every towns of a nation, and some had to wait two generations before seeing the first light being installed in their street, a sign their place was already three level of technology behind the capitol.

Yet, despite the blatant disparity in the regions’ share of engineering and machinery, those inventors and thinkers kept moving science forward like an unleashed and unrelenting wave of novel ideas and brilliant discoveries, pushing to even greater heights the lives of many.

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Heat became movement, and movement shaped the new age of this world.

However, unlike the short-lived embers of extinguished flames, the ones believed to have disappeared actually persisted, kept breathing under a guise, swinging atop the thin line separating a painful survival and an ending.

They were called monsters, but they were also given another name to shortly describe their barbaric behaviour: non-believers, for they never prayed to the deity governing over the day. They never needed to, because they already possessed every tools to succeed the most basic task of living another day.

Whether a bone-crushing strength or a skin harder than steel, it was no wonder humanity felt disadvantaged against these naturally-gifted rivals. Over time, this disadvantage turned into envy, jealously, then hatred. The bloodbath began.

The result was limpid: humans dominated the world, and monsters had to hide in order to not be purged anymore.

Weaker and devastated, entire populations moved away to clear the region, escaping the tides of civilisation to construct their own little refuge.

Worn out and beaten, they ran away as far as they could, however, sometimes that’s just not possible.

Outside the forest lays the desert, unforgiving and dry. Outside the fertile plains prevails the wasted land of the north, frozen and inhospitable. A few monsters could still survive in those harsh environments, while others couldn’t.

So they fought back, protecting what was left of their territory. And ultimately lost.

They thought they were going to disappear, to be slayed and become history. That was why they started doing the same things any sane and desperate human being would try to do in this same situation.

They prayed.

Prayed to a higher entity, something that would not try and devour them, but, on the contrary, would do its best to protect and love them.

Dreading the god of the night, they turned their eyes to the goddess of the sun, asking for a little bit of compassion.

Whenever one of the monsters smiled at the sun, the goddess smiled back.

She would love them. She would cherish them, just like she cherished the humans when they drove back the darkness.

This marked the start of a new story, the first step toward a greater future. They became believers.

It should have solved at least a couple of their fatal problems.

Little did they know that, even if the sun could be shared, some people never intended to.