Somewhere in the distant past the world, as broken and void of spirit as it is now, was not so bleak or condemned. At the height of hopefulness for all mankind, cities had been built, and roads, and palaces of grandeur only God's hands could surpass. It was said that a third of all creation was man, a portion of the world that was only growing as nations conquered nature, and the roots of civilization sunk deeper into the earth. From edge to edge of the macrocosm, there were wars of men, states of men, accomplishments of men, acts of man's nobility and fragility, as well as cruelty and vanity.

Some had even made deals with the higher beings and stolen a piece of magic for themselves, yet a piece, but still a great power that man was never meant to wield. These magicians subjugated the world in a new way. The power of their hand lesser than the might of a king's army, but greater in purity. For what king could bend even the sky to his motives? Or the waters? The earth? The air? The Brilliance of the sun's shining and glory was perhaps rivaled in mankind's radiance during these centuries.

And what became of this history, what ethereal powers of the beyond arrived to prune the world and misshape its fate into one of decline and retreat? Only one man ever understood the reason.

The Brother known as Gan who was circling a burnt-out campfire as the sun rose and his mind wilted into a sick state, was several generations moved from all of this, yet not removed from the fallout in the least. His entire life has been a consequence of the Tower's creation. That monolith of ill-fate which is seen always at a distance, and never sinks below the horizon regardless of how far one is to it, nor changes size to any who are tragically too close. Gan paced around and around, his thoughts a swirling heap, which pulled at his mind in every direction as if to stretch his very skull open. "Roana... Roana." His lips parted and he rasped out with a cough at the end. The throat which had been calling out for a lost sister all night was now unable to make a voice. But that blonde child was nowhere around to hear his rasps or his bellowing calls in the night.

The sky was losing the pinkish shades of sunrise and sinking into the blue of midday when Gan finally crumbled. Colapsing onto the cold ground his knees pressed into his chest and his arms curled around them as he sat defeated. With no way to save his sister and the new faith that she was now dead and meeting with their parents in the afterlife, he was in all ways alone. A defeated shell, with no'one to protect or hold anymore. "Father will hate me." Another rasp revealed to the empty air his thoughts on his failure to guard Roana. At this moment in his mourning and distress, Gan's body sank into a new feeling, one he had never known before. The emotion... or thought... or mixture of both that could only be described as being the last person alive in the world. It was a cold feeling, one that sunk viciously into the bones and shook the heart with a fluttering and wave of uncertainty. The world outside Gan's slowly chilling body became small and constricting, the silence of an empty forest pressing into him, the colors of a new beginning day piercing his skin and pricking him full of tiny holes, which made frail his form and his thoughts.

As he soaked in the turbulent waters of the grief of a lost family and the bitter taste of being powerless to hold on to any of them, he did not see the orb hovering out from behind a tree. A golden ball, almost the same as the shadowy ball of ether that stole his sister away. Except in color and in lack of a foreboding aura it was a mirror image. And it glided along at neck height without sound or word, the image of a daylight ghost sent to haunt the broken man curled onto himself with darkness in his eyes. until it was only ten paces away it was mute and unnoticed. "A shameful thing, the heart of a coward." These words were said in the voice of an old man whose years were hard and abundant with arrogant wisdom, and they startled Gan like a poke in the night, he jumped to a crouch gazing up at a new Foe. His grunt was his only reply as he prepared to lunge for his spear which was now flat against the ground a dozen steps to his right, Where he had dropped it and thought never to pick it up again.

"How young and slow you are. What is your name traveler." The orb was unmoving, and its golden surface gleamed in the sunlight like a beam reflecting from the surface of a calm lake, speaking a whisper of power and strength to any who would listen carefully. The voice struck Gan as odd, it was similar to the sound of his grandfather, though more mirthful and with a trill hint of a jokester. "Why have you come, begone evil ghost." Gan felt no power behind his own choked-out words and cursed his weakness. In the depths of his mind, he wondered if he had set camp upon a burial ground and these spirits were punishment for his unknowing trespass. Why else would he encounter such otherworldly things of which he had not seen or heard of in all his years? Would this one take him like the last had taken his sister? Part of him refused to yield to such an unknown fate and another part wished it upon himself, knowing he now had nothing to live for.

"I am neither ghost nor evil, and had your ancestors been here to witness your words to me they would banish you in fear of my wrath." The orb's tone was condescending and in it was a seed of hate which Gan did not miss. "Nevertheless, I have business with you traveler. Or rather I have something you need and am willing to sell it." Gan clenched his teeth. Was this The ghost of a merchant? What could it sell to a lone man in the woods, or more aptly pertinent what could Gan afford? "If speaking is all you came for then speak. I will arm myself." Perhaps in arrogance or willful recklessness, Gan strode towards his spear without looking at the threat in his camp. it seemed the piece of him that wanted to be taken was greater than his will to continue gazing at the unnatural as he bent and retrieved his weapon from the earth the Orb finally spoke its bargain.

"I was watching a wretchful dark fairy last night, when it stumbled upon you. And witnessed it take the catalyst you protected. I have been following that whore of the night, for months without its notice, but never suspected it had been on the trail of a catalyst. How it even discovered one from such a distance I neither comprehend nor believed possible." It did not surprise Gan that this being was also involved with the other, instead the word Fairy was what caught him off guard as he stood now with his spear firmly in his hand. was he staring at a fairy? was this what they looked like? No'one had ever described the harbingers of magic to him. Nor had he ever believed he would see one, but the novel thought passed out of his mind as the fairy continued.

"I have waited since then to see some sign, some smidgen of dignity from you to go after vengeance but instead you weep like a child and scream at the inert woods as if they hold your loved one. Never once did you even look at the tower or think to head there and save the catalyst. Do you not understand the dark fairy would not kill her? Instead, she will be tortured and brutalized for ceremony, you would not even blink at such a fate? You humans are just as coldhearted as the fey yet you complain so often. Even in light of your disgrace however, I offer you the power to go avenge her. Will you pay my demands for such power?"

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This orb was long-winded, but its words were revealing to Gan the fate of his beloved sister. Tortured and brutalized... he couldn't stomach it. Taken to the tower? Was that fairy involved with the plague of humanity? Gan looked up towards the white shining beam that touched the sky to the west, its vibrance less noticeable in the day, but still there. It looked powerful and strong. An unwavering pillar above the mountains and perfectly straight. If one looked closely they could see tiny ripples of energy moving as slow as clouds up and down its length, proving this was no tower of stone but of something beyond man's ability or knowledge. Gan could not comprehend what a fairy would do at the tower, nor why his sister would be taken there, but the thought made his mouth go dry. The tower was the very center of the spreading, the eye of everything humanity was running from. Six generations and it had never stopped growing, stretching further and further into the world. Claiming land in the grasp of monsters unfit for human eyes to see. Traveling at a pace that barely left the fastest of fleeing mankind ahead of its clutches it had swallowed the majority of the world and would one day certainly claim the last survivors as well., Gan knew little of what lay beyond the very outskirts of the spreading he had no easy time fighting off the beasts at the edges, and would be dead if he had ever stepped foot any further into its malevolent boundary.

How could she be alive, why would Roana be taken to such a godless place? "How do you know Roana is at the tower? Why would..." The Orb bobbed up and down, its first movement since Gan had seen it. "You fool, the Dark fairy is a servant of the Tower. Would a servant not take a treasure to its master? Speak Traveller would you take the power I give?" Gan placed all his questions aside as the clarity of how little he knew was lain before him. This golden Fairy was not here to answer his questions and it made that clear by its anger and impatience. Nor was there time now that he knew which direction his sister was being taken, he had little faith he would be able to save her but he could spare no effort to try. She was to him the last of things he cared for, the final light in his world of darkness. Even if it meant venturing to his death in the spreading what matter was it? To die here of hopelessness, or to die there in hope of a hopeless cause. Gan snorted at himself.

"What must I do for your power?" Gan was not a learned man, but he did know two things most of his age were ignorant of, firstly to read and write, his mother had assured at great cost, that both he and his sister could do so. And the second thing he knew most did not, was the way magicians received power. In a caravan of people at the edge of the Spreading, Gan had encountered a kindly Magician who was more than willing to answer a curious child's questions to pass the time.

"They appear to you in a dream." The magician had explained. "No man calls them, nor can any man control them. The fairies come to whomever they choose, poor or rich, young or old. And they do not give power for free. The only way to become a magician is to barter with them. They ask of you a task or treasure, and offer a power." Then the magician's sharp-featured face darkened as he warned. "If you agree to their deal, then be wary. You must not tarry in accomplishing your part. There is a woeful price for those who break a Fairies deal. And no soul who does so will see another day, in life or death." The magician's words were hard for Gan to truly grasp but he understood not to make a deal with a higher being lightly.

The orb stilled once more, and Gan's mind wondered what such a being could want from him. He was destitute of worldly goods. And many other men were stronger. As a child, he had asked the magician what the Fay required but the man didn't seem pleased remembering it, as though he regretted his deal somehow. And wouldn’t say. For fact, Gan's father spoke of magicians as if they were to be pitied, though all others were envious of a magician's power, something Gan's father never explained. "I will give you the earth, the sky, the mysteries of fire, and the darkness of winter, and you will need them all to fight the Dark fay." The Fairy spoke. "And for a price, you must retrieve the catalyst and give it to me instead." Gan's ears twitched. The Catalyst was what the dark fey had called his sisters.

"And what would you do with my sister?" Gan inquired his heart pounding, and his mouth tight. "I shall give her a painless death, far better than that wretch who took her." Gan's fists tightened around his spear until his palms hurt. The butt of the shaft pressed hard into the ground. "I refuse. Is that all you came to offer me?" Gan did not have options, but he knew with certainty that he did not have the right to sell his sister's life. He wanted to. He wanted to gain power, and save her from the torture and... and the awful fate of being at that monstrous fairy's mercy. Even if she died, as long as it was painless it would at least remove the sick and heavy feeling in Gan's stomach. But her life was not his. How could he trade with it? If his Father had heard of him Trading away a human life like a coin in an exchange, he would disown him.

"You are a fool. The Catalyst is all you have to barter with. And you think you have anything else that interests me? You would condemn the fate of A dark Fey upon another? Do you not understand that death is not the worst thing for mortals to know? All living creatures die... but the dark Fey do not believe in death. They hold back the reaper and misuse souls at their own power. If you do not hand your sister to me, you will truly never see her again neither in this world nor the afterlife."

Gan shook his head. A pit in his heart. He was condemning his sister... this Fairy spoke of the most awful things, he wished they were not true. Could a Dark fairy hold even the soul captive? What gods would let this be? Why would the world be so cruel? "What a pointless thought" Gan snarled in his own mind. The world was as cruel as the sky was vast. No good came to the innocent, nor punishment to the criminal. Surly His sister would be perpetually in suffering, and his own heart with her broken. And death would be no release for either of them. Yet he remained firm, a human life other than his own was no token for trade.

"You can have my life Fairy, but my sister's is not mine to give." Gan straightened his back and hardened his resolve. As much as it broke his spirit to think of his Sister, to know he could do nothing to stop her pain, this choice was his to make. He would not betray her like this... not like this. "Your blood is strong with the scent of a catalyst." The orb spoke. "But at most, you are only Half of one. And half alive is still dead. You are as useless as a blade of grass. To even look at you I have lowered myself. You wished me to be gone and now that I see you for the coward you are I will do just that. Know this Cretin, your sister will curse your name for her eternity of pain. And you will die having never the courage it would have taken to save her."

As those hateful words were spoken the Fairy faded out of existence, Gan was shocked both by the horrid statements and the vanishing of what was real only moments ago. This encounter was a stain on his soul, and the cracks in his mind worsened as he spat at where the Orb had been hovering. "You Godless monster." Gan looked down at his feet in a weird sense of shame. His soul was as heavy as a mountain and his shoulders sagged under the weight of the finality of it all. There would be no power, no god, nor a hero to save his little sister. And he would die in a pointless attempt at covering his weakness. The emotion of being laid bare for all the world to see, mixed with unhinged loneliness to make this the worst second of Gan's life.

Then he Packed all his things, as well as those things his sister had once carried and headed west. The tower like a laughing giant stood over him with malice and contempt. He dared not look up at it.