A long, long time ago, before the ages which we record our history began, the gods were born.

There was a total of five of them, however, they were lonely.

For them they had long gotten to know each other, yet no time passed at all as there was no purpose for it.

They did not want to be lonely anymore, so they decided to make a world together that they would fill with life so that they would never be lonely.

Swiftly was the creation of the world done, and the world filled with plants and animals of every kind. Yet, despite all that, they failed to create what they set out to do. Sentient life.

None of them had any idea on how to create sentient life like themselves, and thus decided to be patient. Hoping that one of their current creations could come to communicate with them, all the while trying to make them.

That time was later known as the Age of Patience. Countless years passed as the plants and animals spread across the world adapting to the environments and subtly changing it. Yet, none advanced at all towards sentience.

When the gods had lost all but the last of their hope, four of them felt an enormous shockwave of power surge out. The scale behind it was more than the five of them had spent to create the world itself.

Rushing to the location they found the last of them already there. They tried to questioned him what that surge of power was for. He responded to all their questions with just one word, “Humans.” They looked in front of him and there laying on the ground were the first pair of humans a life unlike any other they had ever made.

Before the rest could even celebrate, before their eyes the humans started vanishing as they had no substance and were just ideas. Their creator hollered at the rest command them, “Form them a shell that may be part of the world, give them a soul to use the shell, organize functions for the shell so that may interact with others of their kind, set their destinies so that they may have a purpose for them to strive for, and I shall give them a home in which they can follow through with it all.”

First the God of Creation, Terminus, formed their appearance according to the idea.

Next the Witch of the Soul, Medusa, gave a soul to inhabit them, giving them the spark of life.

After that the Saintess of Bodies, Corporea, organized the body’s function, to let them interact with others.

Thus the Queen of Heavens, Caeli, set what they can and cannot do, and set their destiny.

Finally, their creator the King of the Earth, Rex, gave them a place to live that their appearance may be seen by others, their soul given room to grow, an area in which future generations may live, and for them to live out their destiny.

Immediately after the gods used their powers to stabilize the humans, the pair gave off a great glow with gold radiating off the women and silver off the man. Once it died away the man and women opened their eyes and sharply inhaled similar to that of a newborn. As they gained their bearings their eyes came to rest on the site of the five gods standing before them. Rex stepped forward and with his power he transferred them knowledge of speech, as they had done to all species before in hopes they could talk and be sentient.

As the knowledge entered them their faces scrunched up in frustration as the language used by the gods were too complex for them to understand, let alone use. As their bodies were still pure and filled with power from their creation moments before it quickly simplified down to a point that was usable for them. That language they spoke would be later known as the Common tongue.

Upon hearing the humans speak the gods frowned in frustration and sadness, thinking that it was only making noises that were inherent to the humans just as the animals had their noises. However, Rex, whether out of stubborn hope that his creations would not be broken or curiosity to what it meant to them, gleamed into their minds. Upon learning what happened to the knowledge he gave them, he informed the other gods who paused mid-step in sheer surprise.

Upon realization of was said they all turned around at once bombarding the couple with questions about everything in sheer excitement of having new people to talk to. Rex, the one still calm about this, shouted at the other gods.

“Enough of this, you are scaring them, let them come to terms with their existence.” Looking to the couple he saw how the woman hid behind the man in fear, with the man having only a little more courage than the woman to stand in front of her. Smiling with tenderness of a loving father at them and speaking softly, “Go now and rest, we will return after seven days to let you rest and come to grips with your existence.”

Dragging the rest of the gods to their realm they left the world. After the promised time, Rex returned alone to them. As he saw the couple look around for the others with a tinge of fear on their faces he chuckled, shocking the two staring fearfully at him. Seeing that he spoke to them soothingly, “The rest will not be coming this time around, however they are watching.”

Hearing the man and women looked at each other with worry in their eyes, the man then speaking, “Who and what are you people?” With a smile still on his lips Rex spoke saying, “I am  Rex, the King of the Earth. I and the others are gods. We created you with the primary intention of making others that we could converse with.” The question that followed made Rex pause with a smile frozen on his faces and a vast sadness emerging in his eyes.

“Why would you make us by ourselves?”

“We were lonely. There was nothing new for us. We hoped to create others in which to talk to. Yet, I can see that while successful in making you, we failed miserably too. You feel that same loneliness that we felt. We are…. We are…. no, I am sorry. Despite everything we, no I, went through, I still ended up giving you the same problem just in a different form. At least you can have children and will not go without end. Feel free to ignore us. WE are sorry.”

Before they could respond Rex returned to the heavens. Rex arrived and saw the pained expressions on the other faces and loudly sighed, “What can we do to fix this?”

For a long time, all they did was sitting there thinking, Terminus, was struck with the idea. Speaking out to the others, primarily Rex, “Why don’t we make our own races? Just like there are multiple animals, why not multiple sentient races? Maybe what cannot be made up in numbers they can make up in diversity.”

Seeing the merit in the idea the other gods agreed with Rex immediately sharing the knowledge with the others. A few years passed before three more gods were ready.

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Terminus made the dwarves, who like him had affinity to creation.

Corporea made the beastmen consisting of the tribes of Wolves, Foxes, Bears, Cats, and Deer.

Caeli made the Coelum, a race that had three possible physical characteristics of any combination from possessing an additional eye, to an extra set of arms, or a pair of wings.

Having an easier time than making humans the new races were introduced to the small population of humans that existed at that time. Instead of appearing they announced it by transmitting their voices across the world. The new races and humans quickly got along as though they were made to be together.

Still alive and leading their children, the man and women that Rex made saw the new races and heard a small voice directed only at them, “Be lonely no more.” Nearing the end of their lives the they looked at each other and smiled, “We have long forgotten that feeling because of our children. We hope that all of you will too, and in the future you treat us as your children and guide us. We will spend the rest of our lives telling the story you told us. We just ask you to guide our descendents so that they will be happy.”

After a brief pause considering their words, “We are sorry for when we last talked to us. It was just all so new to us. We… we were overwhelmed with everything. We were never lonely just young. We have seen it our own children’s eyes.”

Rex stood in shock at their words, after a while he responded, “I, Rex, the King of the Earth swear on my existence that the children under my care will find happiness.” As he finished the oath the world trembled ever so slightly as it shifted the very fabric of laws that they had created on such a level that even the gods did not know. Upon that oath the second age started known as the Age of Prosperity. The races spread throughout the world now revering the gods and building temples to worship them. They were ranked according to the order they contributed to the humans with Rex being the strongest and Terminus being the weakest.

Despite the prosperity of their children on the world Medusa was not happy. At first she did not mind that she could not make a race it began to grow and fester in her turning to envy and hate within her as was her nature to possess the extreme of emotions as the goddess that ruled over souls. However, these feelings surpassed all others before. In her rage she took some of the gods’ ‘children’ and corrupted them, twisting them far from their original form. Not even the harmless animals were spared from this effect. What rose from those creations were the beings known as monsters. Unlike sentient creatures their souls were larger and overflowing with more power than they could contain in it, making it so the body received the overflowed power causing them to hover between sentience and barbaric tendencies.

The monsters overflowed onto the defenseless races slaughtering entire towns and cities over night. In the heavens the gods did everything they could to save their children yet, the witch interfered at every step.of direct intervention attempted by the others drawing power from her rampaging monsters. Rex feeling his oath tugging at him, urging him to do something, felt helpless as the monsters tore through everything. Suddenly, he looked down and saw a lone bear-kin mourning the loss of their mate to see them undergoing a transformation when a few weak monsters attacked.

He watched as the beastman tore through the monsters and as the excess energy of the monsters souls dissipated in the atmosphere with some entering the bear-kin’s soul. Inspiration struck him as he moved more of the excess soul power into the beastman and watched in astonishment as their battle potential soared as they began killing even more of the monsters in the area.

As system for doing this forming in his head he called the other three gods and told them of his plan to oppose the Witch. All of them agreed immediately as they saw the potential in it and had no other ideas themselves. Thus they began to shift the laws of the world once more, introducing the level system. All across the world citizens above the age of 10 received the first notification. Rex then appeared in front of the bear-kin he was watching earlier in a body that only carried his will and none of his power. It was able to avoid the attention of the Witch due to it being even weaker than regular animals. From that body he made the beastman his champion granting enormous power compared to others at her level. It was at that point the bear-kin bore the title of The Master, as it was them who taught all the warriors how to fight using their newfound powers.

The other gods also blessed champions as well to help The Master accomplish the task of protecting the people. With the power to level, they were able to push back the monsters a little. With their ‘children’ increasing in power, the gods too increased in power as the new laws changed them to match the new world. Now instead of being hopelessly being outclassed by the Witch, they could fight her for a time and the King could even beat her. It was this, along with the drastic decrease in the chaos her ‘children’ caused that Medusa was released from the hate and envy that consumed her. Upon seeing the amount of destruction she caused, she felt terrible and begged for forgiveness.

In an attempt to correct it she went down to order the monsters to stop, the emotions that seemingly disappeared, reappeared as they overflowed in the world of mortals. She then blessed her own champion to fight the King’s champion, along with using the new system to spawn more monsters endlessly. When she returned to the heavens she did not even realize what had happened while she was down there. She reunited with the rest of the gods in order to see how the results would turn out.

Instead of joy, what she saw with the rest of them turned her to despair. She saw a champion of her’s destroying settlements and wiping out everything. What frightened her the most was the ability to control all monsters together like an army. She begged the rest of the gods to stop her champion, as she had no idea how it happened. All five of them descended this time but immediately the Witch attacked them.

Rex and Caeli managed to restrain her and take her back to their realm. Yet no matter what they did she would not calm down. Terminus and Corporea were just too weak to affect what the Witch set in place. Upon returning Medusa instantly calmed down to how she normally was. The gods managed to realize that as long as one of them were physically in the mortal world Medusa would lose control.

Instead of directly interfering like they tried before, they directly contacted their champions to confront the menace instead helping them as much as they could. The Master then lead an army of the sentient races to confront the monster one.

In a large final battle against the monster champion The Master along with their direct students, the forerunners to the many warrior classes all at the peak of power battled against the champion, while their army clashed with the horde of monsters. After a week of constant fighting The Master stood alone against the champion with her students dead, but the monster champion was also dead. The Master could feel their life waning already, as all they had was spent in that one fight. The Master lived long enough to see the monster horde being routed as their coordination fell apart with their leader’s death.

The gods in heaven let out a sigh of relief at the passing of the champions. Before celebratory thoughts could even be formed, a scream of agony was heard from the King. His power to let the sentients fight back took two forms that of warriors, which were fully developed, and the mages, which were lacking to an extreme degree. The divide between the two ripped the King apart into two parts.

The first part was Custos, Guard of the King, representing the warrior half, and Vigilem, Advisor to the King, who is the half for the mages.

Comparing the two Vigilem was pitifully weak. In terms of levels he would only be a dozen or so stronger than The Master. While Custos, was on terms with Medusa, if only barely. Seeing the state of the former King of the Earth. The older gods were worried that their friend would forever be apart. The two new ones felt an indescribable feeling as they were urged to be whole once more. They all came to the conclusion of watching the world and waiting for a person suitable to be a champion for Vigilem and do what The Master did for Custos. In the meantime the others would make suitable people into champions to keep the world stable until that happened.

As a last act of direct interference of the gods two more sentient species were made. Custos made the Giants, humans towering between seven to eight feet tall, with a vast width to match. Vigilem made the Elves, graceful and ethereal with profound wisdom. This final act started the third age, The Age of Champions.

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The Orphanage Overseer looked out on the sleeping children, letting out a tired sigh, while moistening her parched lips from all the speaking she did.

“These little brats sure love hearing this story don’t they.”

Despite the harsh remark she still held a smile on her face as she gently stood up shifting the sleeping child off of her and onto to the bed. She looked into corner and saw one child sitting up still awake. Walking over and talking to him quietly, “Be sure to sleep tonight Merlin. Tomorrow is the day to unlock your status so be sure to get some sleep.”

A quiet but energetic response could be heard from the child, “Yes Miss. Arwen.” He laid down in the bed as she tucked him in once more. There was a moment of hesitation seen in the boy before he asked, “Miss. Arwen did the third age end?”

Another small smile came out on her lips as she responded, “You were always the one for these stories, huh Merlin. The answer to your question is that it is still going on to this day.”