Prologue
A twisted mass of roots and vines, woven together into something resembling a tree, slithered through a dead forest, turning over the sterile soil as it did so. Withered trees, long dead and forgotten, cracked and splintered as they were pushed out of the way. Desiccated undergrowth turned to ash with barely a touch before being carried away on the suffocating breeze as the being moved along with a single purpose in mind.
The living tree gazed upon the devastation around it with solemn, emerald eyes. A profound sense of loss plagued its lumbering form, filling it with a deep sadness it had never before experienced. The world's symphony, the calls of animals, the buzzing din of insects, the magic of the world, had all gone silent.
They were alone.
They continued, their colossal form clearing a swath of shattered land over one hundred feet wide. A wide river blocked their path, foul, swirling waters of browns and reds that cut a jagged scar across the devastated landscape. They took a moment to remember a time when the fetid waters in front of them were nothing but a clear trickle no wider than one of its smaller branches, always on the verge of drying up underneath the scorching sunlight.
But that small trickle of water had persisted, slicing into the hard earth and growing. The trickle dug deep and wide, its cold waters reaching out with countless tributaries, breathing life into the forest around it. Over the eons, the river grew, and the forest around it grew. Life quickly followed, flourishing and fading, in an endless cycle with them and their kind watching over everything.
They were shepherds. Their purpose was to nourish and protect the life of the world and sometimes cull it to preserve the whole, for one could not have life without death. Life and death needed to be balanced, keeping the other in check. Without that balance, the cycle of the world would cease to function, dooming the world to silence.
Caustic waters washed over their roots as they entered the fast-moving river. The pollution clung to their cragged, obsidian bark, attempting, but failing, to eat into their being. The same could not be said about the velvety moss clinging desperately to their woody trunk, finding their body the only place left in the world where it could survive. As soon as the water lapped up to the verdant moss, it violently smoked and popped, burning away until nothing remained. The pain that caused them was almost unbearable.
A sheer, rocky cliff met them on the other side of the river. Their emerald eyes, glowing with a fluorescent zeal, followed the ragged and barren cliff face into the hazy sky. It towered over them, several hundred feet high, an obstacle that would take some time to conquer but time was all they had left.
Their arms, consisting of numerous intertwined branches, dug into the rocky cliff face, roots burrowing between the large boulders and sharp, jagged stone. Lifting their body out of the swirling waters caused half of the cliff face to break loose. Thousands of tons of earth swept down the steep slope, threatening to wash them away. But their roots were strong and deep, their body stalwart against the flood of earth and stone.
The near-vertical cliff now had a gently sloping valley that reached the expansive river below, the landscape forever changed.
They moved across the dead lands of the world, always underneath hazy clouds of dust and ash. As the sun fell below the horizon, frigid winds battered their branches, clawing at their lush foliage in vain. The nights had been growing colder with each passing day, the icy temperatures even bleeding into the daylight hours as the thick blanket of hazy clouds blotted out the warmth from the sun.
This was not the first time that winter's cold encroached on the warmer seasons; it was part of the world's longer cycle. But this was unnatural, the consequence of the invaders who devoured their world.
They did not know where the invaders had come from. The devils, for they did not know of a better word, fell upon the world with ravenous hunger. Each one was an abomination of too many mouths and many more teeth. Their numerous, twisted limbs tore at the world, draining its vitality. The devils consumed everything. Like leeches, they would latch onto any living thing and drain it until nothing but a desiccated husk remained.
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Of course, the world did not simply allow itself to be ravaged by the invaders. It had fought back. Like a body fighting off an infection, the world unleashed great cataclysms that split the oceans and drowned the lands. Gouts of fire and choking smoke spilled from the earth to suffocate the devils as they set foot and claw onto its surface.
The great rending had worked to slow the world’s death, but it was not enough. The devils grew to thrive in the hostile new world, the toxic air only served to choke out the life it was meant to preserve while the stifling heat set the forests alight, burning everything to ash as the fires swept through the world. It was as if the world had, in its desperation, decided that nothing should live.
That was something completely antithetical to what they, the shepherds of the world, stood for.
They all moved with renewed purpose as they fought off the devils while desperately preserving what little life they could. Although their magic was ancient and powerful, they were fighting against the devils and the world itself, something that would turn out to be a futile endeavor.
One by one, the great shepherds fell, until nothing was left, save for one. They were the oldest and most powerful of their kind and had nearly exhausted themselves over the numberless years since the devils descended upon them, fighting and killing them until none remained. The world was dead, an empty husk of stone and earth and fetid waters, blanketed with a suffocating atmosphere that snuffed out any spark of life that attempted to catch. Even with their immense power, nothing they did could salvage the devastation around them.
Rolling hills opened up before them. Once a sea of waving grass, the open plain was now a desert of sterile soil and deep craters that pockmarked the landscape for miles. The hot winds whipped through their heavy boughs and shimmering leaves, the abrasive sand not harming them in any meaningful way but still making it difficult to see their destination breaching the horizon. Still, they knew this land, even blind they would be able to find their way.
It took them many more days at a lumbering pace to reach the foot of the mountain, they never tired, nor did they require any sustenance other than the magic of the world. Still, an unfamiliar wariness welled up inside of them, an impatient anticipation for what was to come. Time had never meant anything to them other than the changing of the seasons, it was a constant of the world that moved at its own pace, much like the shepherds themselves. Now though, as they climbed to the greatest heights of the world, they felt that their time was running short.
The world's magic was waning, becoming dormant, as much of it had been exhausted during the great rending that had scoured the surface clean. As the magic disappeared, so would the energy that allowed them to survive. They could already feel the drain upon their massive form; not much time remained.
The top of the mountain loomed over the world like a stalwart beacon, standing tall even through the many disasters that had battered its slopes. Their branches wrapped around jagged, wind-swept boulders while their roots burrowed through the grey snow and into deep, icy crevices, securing them in place as their emerald eyes pierced the thick haze that enveloped the summit.
Their massive form shuddered as the magic within them surged through their roots, limbs, and leaves. It was the last of their essence, the life force that gave them form and function, and they were using the few remnants left to plant the seeds of the future. A deep hum reverberated through the air as the tightly woven vines that made up their body began to slither against each other like a pit of vipers and their crown of many hundreds of thousands of leaves fluttered like an endless flock of soft-green birds taking flight, and with a deep shake of their body, they let them.
A cyclone of verdant green surrounded them, a wall of churning foliage so thick as to block them from sight. With a mental command, their leaves, each one the length and width of a man, exploded outward in every direction. For the briefest of moments, the sky was on fire. Lines of golden light filled the sky, all of them carrying echoes of life into every corner of the world.
Eventually, the world would recover, and life would once again flourish, but it would have to do so without their guidance.
As they watched the streams of light dissipate over the horizon the ground beneath them shifted violently to the side. Drawn out of their solemn thoughts, they looked down to see their massive, woody body falling apart. Great, ragged chunks of vines sloughed off, crashing to the snow-covered peak. Clouds of billowing snow erupted into the air along with thunderous noise as more and more of its body succumbed to the lack of magic. Their time was nearly at an end.
Most of their magic had been consumed by their final act, but not all of it. A minuscule amount remained. Their remaining power fled from their extremities, accelerating the decay of their body by many folds. The magic flooded into their core, condensing, and compressing, becoming a solid mass of mana and something… else.
A seed.
Although they had existed for eons with the sole purpose of watching over the world, a grain of selfishness still existed within them. They did not wish to die. Like the world, they too would lay dormant, waiting for a time when they could awaken and walk amongst those that would rise through the ashes of this forsaken world.