Prologue

Our Story begins on the world of Aizela. On this world there exists five races of sentient beings. The humans, dwarves, elves, beast folk, and the demons. They have all existed together for as long as any record of history can recall on the continent of Ofira. It is the only continent that the Races know of.

Ofira has known mostly peace between the five Races. A few skirmishes over resources along nation's borders but nothing like a war had ever been seen. Until one day the ten leaders of the human kingdoms unanimously decided that they were not content to wallow at the "bottom" of Ofira as they saw it.

They launched massive invasion against the other races trying to take anything and everything. They committed horrid acts against their neighbors to the point that all the other races banded together to fight them back. Unfortunately for three of the races their numbers were not easily replenished a side effect of how long-lived they were.

The only race that could match the humans' ability to reproduce so quickly was the beast folk. The humans knowing of this made sure to devastate their nation first, so they could not become the equalizing force on the opposing side of the battlefield. While many died fighting several tribes managed to flee to the safety of the elves.

The elves being a peaceful artistic people took them in and fortified the borders of their forests with their specialized spirit magic to move trees to block entry and strengthened their bark to prevent humans from chopping their way through.

The demons and dwarves hadn't stood idle either they had started to prepare for the humans as well. The dwarves proud of their mountains had enforced every entry point with constructs of immense power. While the demons laid traps of dark magic to fool the sense of any who trespassed over them making all but the most versed light magic mages befuddled.

Centuries passed after the humans took the land of the beast folk. So long in fact they had started to forget their other neighbors. As the years passed so do did the humans' memory of the past. All was quiet on Ofira for hundreds and hundreds of years until a phenomenon happened.

Strange rumors of beings unlike anything humans had heard or seen before were lurking in the shadows of their borders. It only took another twenty years before the rumors were fully confirmed. Beings that looked like a tortured form of life began to assault the human borders, and they rode to meet them.

They believed that they the "true" masters of Ofira could never be pushed back by a few hordes of beasts. They had no idea how wrong they were. After the initial battle happened and more diverse beasts attacked, they gained a new name Monsters.

Like a horde of insects, they scoured the lands and killed and ate whatever and whoever they came across. The leaders of the human kingdoms were split in their decisions as to what they should do. The greedier and war minded leaders would not flee.

While the others saw only one thing as their answer. Find a new home and rebuild. Without a unified decision however the five who wished to stay would lose everything and their lives without the support of the "cowards" as such they attempted to kill and seize control of their counterpart’s kingdoms.

In the midst of a war with the monsters they had been foolhardy enough to cause a civil war. Barely five years had passed with the "courageous" kingdoms slaughtering their way through the cowards' defiant resistance. As they made more and more progress to more power and wealth then they could truly imagine they lost sight of humanity's plight.

They were being caged in at the very end of the continent that had once been their home that would now serve as their cage and grave. The five kingdoms who wished to flee had not been idle waiting for their deaths to come however. They built in secret five incredible ships of staggering size to ferry what they could have their surviving subjects to try and find a new home.

They were able to succeed but it cost them much. Humanity had become its own worst enemy in those trying times and the five leaders prayed for the safety of their few remaining people. Over the months of the voyage to find a new land there once grand ships fell into ruin from the devastating sea.

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It wasn't until they had all given up hope that they found their spark to survive. A dot of land was all they saw at first, but they knew that this was their salvation. Before they made it to their new home the remaining monarchs sat down for what would be their final council with one another.

After they landed, they'd go back to how things were with each kingdom vying for resources and ready to take advantage of one another. Until a queen by the name of Brianna saw a better way, she brought her idea up to the others and was immediately rejected but over the course of their harrowing journey that had started what felt like a hundred years ago brought them around as she talked.

Her idea was that there shouldn't be separate kingdoms. To many monarchs meant to many egos ready to kill one another for what they had just as they had happened to them in Ofira. She wanted to have one unified kingdom with one true monarch ruling over it all. The remaining monarchs would be lowered to a new noble rank the great houses.

They would be the most trusted and respected because they would know of the horrors, they all had to face they would become the watchers of the kingdom ready to intervene should a minor noble or even a high ranking one should feel more entitled to things that are not their own.

The others came around to the idea but no one was willing to lower themselves they wished to be the true ruler. Aside from Brianna who immediately let go of her claim. She'd seen too much blood shed to allow herself to be the cause of more.

Over the course of a week as they came closer and closer to their new home the fighting between the others had waned. They were all tired and didn't truly wish to go to war over such a thing when they had survived so much already. So, they came to a conclusion which shocked Brianna.

As she was the most selfless of them all it would make them all feel at peace if she were the one to be above them. She had quelled many talks of war and mutiny throughout the time they'd all know one another back on the old continent, and she had always been the middle ground for them all.

Their pact made and signed by them all they enforced their pact with magic so that no matter how forgotten they were that the rulers throughout history would also be held at the same standards as their ancestors. To be the shield for the weak and sword for the downtrodden of others.

With the kingdoms unified they made quick work of their new home on the western border of the continent Egand named after Brianna's late husband who fell back in the old continent protecting their dream of freedom and peace.

Years passed and small towns became cities as the humans spread out into four regions the capital Brimane governed by the Brianna's most trusted advisor of the great houses. The north south and east were broken up and handed to the other three great houses to govern and take care of so that the queen could be as impartial when it came to their needs and wants.

Centuries passed and humanity came back from the brink of extinction. The state of their lives had taken an upturn with the newly created great houses. Since they had no reason to steal or take things to make sure those lower than them stayed there, they became a beacon of justice and honor.

It was one such house to the north the Raven strong house that made the first contact with an inhabitant of the land to the north. It was a shock to be sure but when he saw her, he couldn't help but stare, and she did as well. Unbelievably it was an elf and honest to god’s elf beautiful and ethereal.

Her thoughts were very much the opposite. She had been injured in a hunt and had been chased for days by the wolves of the northern forest, and she was ready to give up and face her fate when she spotted something that her people and the other Races believed to be extinct a human. An honest to god evil human.

She passed out from a mix of exhaustion and pain while the current heir of the house took her back to his family’s home and cared for her as she recovered. Word was quickly sent to the current queen that an elf had been found, and so she traveled to the Raven strong home to have an audience with her who had been taken care of for around three weeks by the young Raven strong.

She had initially tried to escape when she awoke but her injuries as old as they were yet to fully heal, so she was unable to. The heir of the house had stayed with her for the remainder of her stay with them attempting to communicate with her.

She had quite obviously been incredibly hostile and stubborn, but he'd worn her down to at least be able to talk in short bursts in her language while they waited for the queen to arrive. When she did, she immediately tried to learn the elven woman's language which took months of incredibly hard work to just barely be able to begin learning it.

The young woman who initially thought she was going to go through hell was charmed by the humans. She couldn't help but feel a complete disconnect about the stories her people told of them when she was young and how these humans had taken care of her and nursed her back to health.

Now if her understanding of their terrible elvish could be true they wanted to send her home and the Queen of the humans herself wished to talk with the elven rulers. And so, the elves and humans made contact for the first time. Over the course of many years and much cooperation they managed to meet the remainder of Egand's residents.

Every story or myth about dwarves, elves, demons, and beast folk had been confirmed for every human. There were talks of war and that they'd eventually come to kill and eat the humans among the populace but the Queen had other ideas. She convinced all the Races rulers to meet together and form a treaty. She had grown old and would soon pass the mantle of ruler to her daughter.

She wished to have some form of peace among the Races to ensure that the humans could live in relative peace as they had before in the legends told by those once thought foolish to speak such lunacy. A pact not unlike the one her great ancestor Brianna had signed was created. It would be a non-aggression treaty enforced by the gods of each Race.

Should any ruler attempt to break the peace the gods would forsake them all but destroying the nation of the betrayer. Happy to have a way forward to a truly peaceful world for her family the queen of the humans passed her crown on to her daughter as tradition demanded.

Our story beings here on Aizela in the country of Egand exactly one thousand years after the Pact of the Races was signed and witnessed by their gods that the same sickness that infected the humans back on Ofira and forced the Races to flee for they foresaw the impending doom that awaited them comes for them once again.

Now all there is to do is wait for fate to deliver her champion.