History has always been intriguing. Not the study of it, but the part of discovering the lost past had been the reason that brought me here. Here, at En Esur, Israel.

  - "So, how old is the civilization we found." I asked the person walking alongside me.

  - "The carbon dating results are yet to be declared. I am afraid that I will have to let you down, Sir."

  - "No need to apologize, it's only been a week since we found the remains. Have you searched the area around the site?" I queried my doubts.

  - "Yes, I was about to tell you. It is really an astonishing discovery. We found a fully preserved hut just down the mountains."

  - "What?!" I almost slipped from excitement, "Why are you only telling me this now? Let it be, show me the site immediately."

  - "Yes, Sir."

This will change the history completely, there was never any solid proof of past civilization's architecture, due to the excavation and time deteriorating these ancient structures we were unable to determine exactly how these buildings looked like. The only guidance to paint these structures were some ancient texts and hieroglyphs, and a few guesses here and there. But this, finding something like this, had been very rare.

We made our way through the site, while I inspected my surroundings with great enthusiasm. There were human figurines, broken pottery, stone vessels, and animal bones scattered all around me. Yes, these were all excavated from this site. We walked past what resembled a place used for ritual and reached the top of the mountain. I looked down to see a fully intact building. My blood had been boiling from excitement, the moment I saw this wonder. I quickly made my way to structure as I ignored the person beside me. I walked circles around the building, while I inspected every nook and cranny, and relished in the immense satisfaction.

My excitement had gotten the better of me, and I entered the building through a half a meter long opened space. The inside had been entirely empty, not even a trace of human existence in sight. But I entered for a different reason. And that was to scrutinize the architecture. I walked around the feeble construction and glared at everything with light in my eyes. But after a while, I had found an anomaly. An area of the building walls had been made of wood instead of rough stone bricks like the rest of the structure. I was surprised at first, but my curiosity had pulled the cat outside of me. I lightly knocked the area to see if it was hollow. And yes, it certainly was. The cat was now jumping in glee. I grabbed onto the edges and pulled the wooden plank. It had not been just a plank but a whole block of wood. Now that half of it was out, it wouldn't matter if I removed the full block. I used all of my strength to pull out the wooden brick. 

The pesky brick had now been dislodged, leaving me at the mercy of Newton's Third Law. My body was flung backward and crashed onto the person whose existence had been a mystery until now.

I got up as I ignored my injuries and also my makeshift-cushion. I had begun my detective analysis on the wooden block while the person composed himself and joined my case. We found that the left side of the box had been a lid. I pulled it open and found a lonely book inside. For the first time this entire adventure, I looked at my assistant's eyes while he glared back in surprise. The book was covered in dust and rotten wooden, but surprisingly the pages had no signs of aging. I opened the abnormal book and was shocked to see the content inside. It... it was written... in English...

A divine revelation, a prophecy from our great goddess, Lady of Light, One of the Three Great Mothers, revealed a vast calamity on our land. An eruption of a volcano, sky blanketed by clouds of ash, rivers of fire and lava, destruction of our motherland, and a glimmering hope exhibited the entire divination. The goddess gave us a chance as she told our people to head south, to cross the endless sea in search of land, a land of hope, a realm of new beginnings.

Our people followed her majesty’s guidance piously. They built thousands and thousands of ships, and just one was enough to tower even the most liberal city on our motherland. They fled the continent, watching the departed lands as the ashes rose high, engulfing the entire sky.

The voyage was full of hardships, out of thousands of ships only a few hundred reached the prophesied land of hope, Star’rad. This mystical land was full of surprises and mystery. The inhabitants were strange magical creatures, and botany which was entirely new to our kind. But the most mystical attraction of this unknown land was the existence of magic.

Our people, now refugees, were welcomed by one of the many magical races known as Faery-Folk. They taught us their magic. They gave us their lands, fed us. But alas, avarice consumed the humankind. As their population grew, the humans demanded more land from our saviors, they cut down their forests and drove the peaceful beings from their own homes.

This sudden shift of powers caused other races to act on their own selfish desires. The Faery-Folks and Elves desired nothing more than the rejuvenation of the forests. The Beast-Kin wanted to claim all the unclaimed wastelands, which could have destroyed the supply of some valuable raw materials to the other races.

The Greenskin wanted the mountains, which divided many lands. This could have trapped many races inside their own territorial boundaries and would have caused massive economic fluctuations all over the mainland. But this exactly had been why the Greenskin yearned to reign over this prime geographical location.

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The Black-Blooded, they despised the very nature of Humanity, because of how similar humans looked to the haughty demons. They waged war to destroy Humanity, to drive them back where they came from. These conflicts caused bloodshed between all the races, a war that lasted centuries.

Many alliances were formed and broken. Numerous betrayals took place. Several races were wiped out, and the land of hope was stained with blood. Even the glorious Beast-Kin had their country destroyed, and the remnant clans fled in all directions. The peace-loving Faery-Folks, who had a simple social structure, were in dire need of protection. They came to the noble Elves in search of a new shelter and later formed a nation under their guidance.

The Black-Blooded were unable to win against the sheer numbers of humans. The humans they hated, the cheap imitation of their imperial blood, were pushing them back. Black-Blooded lost their bearings at the thought of being beat by some inferior, shoddy copy. They wanted to eradicate humans regardless of the price they would have to pay. The Black-Blooded began the preparations to start a ritual, a ritual so powerful that it could shatter the entire continent.

The moment their ritual began, a massive disturbance shook the whole Star’rad. The protectors were awoken from their eternal slumber. They roamed the lands destroying everything in their path. But their presence was short-lived. They disappeared into the grounds to resume their eternal sleep not long after revealing themselves. The existence of protectors was a mystery, and their enormous size and strength left no means of retaliation to anyone brave enough to battle them. They appeared all around the continent, it had been because of them that a human prisoner fled from the demon's grasp. He reached an escaped clan of Beast-Kin, and as his last words, he made known the plans of Black-Blooded. The news spread as fast as wildfire through tropical forests, reaching even the far reaches of the continent. The name of this brave soul was lost to history, but his deed of bravery was remembered eternally.

All the races in the continent of Star'rad launched a united struggle for survival against the Black-Bloodied, overwhelming them completely. But it was too late, as the ritual was about to be completed. So, Humanity once again turned their hopes onto The Three Great Mothers. They pleaded for their protection, begged for their aid, and The Mothers responded. The Great Goddess of Light bestowed her might, a sword powerful enough to break mountains, split oceans - Asteruse. Rhonnark, the righteous, was chosen as its sole wielder, a soul fair and pure. He led the army of all races. And under his leadership, the Blood-Kin were stopped with their ritual destroyed.

The demons were banished, made prisoners forever, in a secluded region of the continent. A bastion was built, and an Order was established by the Hero to protect the only passage sealing the demons. Later the area surrounding the stronghold was transformed into a country. A country free from any discrimination, where everyone was equal. A neutral region for all races, the country of Londern, or rather famously known as Bulwark of Rhonnark.

Eventually, as time passed, the Hero breathed his last breath. His remains were kept inside a massive crypt under the Holy Cathedral of Sun with his sword, The Blazing Judge Asteruse beside him.

An era of peace emerged after a few centuries of small conflicts between races. The economy was at its highest, and all the races thrived together for hundreds of centuries. But when the Cathedral of Sun had been opened to pay homage to the Great Hero, only dust resided in the crypt. The tomb of Rhonnark was emptied completely, even The Blazing Judge Asteruse, had been missing. A search was performed throughout Star'rad, but not even a trace was discovered. The search went on for a long time, throughout many centuries, but nothing was uncovered.

As the ages passed, this matter was forgotten, opulence reigned throughout the continent, and peace was all that remained. There were a few conflicts even now, but the growth of the economy overshadowed everything.

This ushered in a new era of prosperity until.....

A flash of light disturbed my studies of the weird, possibly pseudo-historical book. Lead by instinct I covered the book with my body trying to protect it from every possible threat. What could be a source of that light? Fire? A sudden ignition of elements now exposed to the fresh air? If this hut was a place of a cult it was quite possible that some trap-mechanism was installed to punish anyone trying to disgrace it - that wouldn’t be anything new. Egyptians, for example, mastered the art of setting traps in the tombs of their dead. 

But no. The light vanished as quickly as it appeared, its source remained a mystery, but in its place, a blinding light could be seen. A man was standing - coughing and throwing dust from his clothes… robes? No, rags even.

  - “I will never get used to this…” he said in English, spitting on the ground “... now, where did I put it.”

He was talking to himself as his eyes started scanning the area. At first, he overlooked me and my assistant, mostly because both of us were frozen in shock by his sudden appearance. Only after a moment his eyes returned to us and he smiled, showing a row of perfectly, eerily, white teeth. 

  - “Good evening, gentlemen!... or is it morning? Doesn’t matter. I think that you didn’t find anything irregular around here? No? Weird artifacts? Little crawling tentacle monsters? A ring that either freezes or carbonizes the user second after putting it on? Or perhaps… Oh! A book!”

He yelled, spotting the item which I was still holding in my arm. The stranger moved quickly, I didn’t even notice when he managed to reduce the distance between us and forced it out of my hands.

  - “You didn’t look inside I hope? Yes? No? Good. You never know what these pesky Grimoires are up to! Oh, what stories I could tell you about this one Codex I know... Anyways, I will be going… Oh! And if a woman looking like someone who got a Ph.D. in 'Bitching Around' asks you some silly question regarding actions messing with times lines… Then you have never seen me! See ya!”

He waved his hand and… burst into flames which instantly erased his presence. The only evidence he was ever even here being the distinct smell of sulfur which remained for the next few minutes, yet even that perished with time.

We looked upon ourselves and exchanged nods. Without uttering a single word we agreed that we would never talk about what happened here. To anyone. Never.

… If we did, we would be forced into straight jackets for the rest of our lives.