Sultan Dakhir directed his flying vessel deep into the desolation of Hradikh L'mar, the abandoned home world of Kaiyaath.

In the days of yore, this world had been beautiful and vibrant. But it now lay in ruins, a testament to the destructive power of the many wars that had ravaged it over the centuries of infighting. The once lush and verdant landscapes had been reduced to barren wastelands, scarred by the scorched earth and the remnants of shattered cities.

The skies were filled with the thick, toxic smoke of innumerable fires, choking the very air with its acrid stench. The once crystal-clear oceans had long turned a sickly green, filled with the poisonous residues of untold numbers of weapons.

The Kaiyaathians had to abandon this world two centuries ago. But it had been nothing short of a miracle that they had been able to flee and survive. Trailing behind in technological advancements and trodden down from numerous turmoils, they had given up all hope, and abandoned their faith in their god. But then, their god had opened his eyes.

It was Dakhir's great grandfather, Ral'Has Z'adramis who had found the ancient contraption in the pantheon where Dakhir was headed now. A survivor above all, in his perpetual quest to save his people through any means necessary, he had stumbled upon a highly sophisticated machinery from a civilization long past. Buried deep under the shrines their people had worshiped, this mechanism was ancient and its complexity was far beyond his grasp. However, after carefully tinkering with the network of interconnected machines for many days, to his own surprise he had managed to activate the ancient apparatus.

Their people had been apprehensive. And they had good reason to be. After all, the current state of their world was an outcome of pervasive misuse of scavenged elder artifacts in war. Many Kaiyaathians had developed an irrational fear of elder machinery, and some factions now straight up equated them with devilry.

However, Ral'Has had approached it with an open mind and spent many days exploring every facet of it. He could not fathom its inner workings, but he could infer that it was no weapon of mass destruction. But when he activated this device, what happened was beyond his own wildest imagination. The god they had worshiped for centuries woke. His shrine was not a shrine at all - but a tomb of a living survivor from an elder race.

It was the knowledge from this elder, who called himself Nazaar, the last scribe, that enabled Kaiyaath to reach into the skies, seek refuge in other worlds, establish contact with other civilizations through the Farthaark cosmic network and eventually discover the well of wyrmblood that had enabled the royal family to assert control over their people bring about a semblance of stability.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The mechanism that kept the scribe alive was failing, though. And so was the planet where the shrine lay. They could not move the humongous contraption, so the scribe had stayed behind, choosing to spend the last of his life in the blissful embrace of slumber.

His last explicit instruction to Ral'Has had been that the only situation when he be woken was when an alert was broadcasted over Farthaark - "Al-Waharas Wthaark" - the wyrm walks again.

Ral'Has had waited for this message all his life. But it was never heard. He had passed on the message to his son, who eventually rose to be the next Sultan. Nobody outside the royal family knew the significance of this phrase.

As Dakhir looked upon this desolation, he felt a deep sense of sadness and regret. He knew though that it was too late for this planet, and he had a different goal tonight.

Meandering through the huge stalagmites in the ancient cavern, he eventually arrived at the scribe's resting place. His servant immediately got started with reactivating the ancient apparatus according to the instructions left behind by his ancestor, and as he realigned the gears, a deep thrum began to emanate from the ground.

The process was slow and it took hours as the golden liquid streamed through the numerous connecting pipes that led up to the seat of the ancient elder. The sultan kept his trepidation at bay - he had never seen the scribe awake. No living Kaiyaathian had. He wasn't even sure if the scribe still lived.

He did awake though. At long last he opened his golden eyes. "A new Sultan..." he muttered.

For the first time in many many years, the Sultan bent his knees in respect. "Yes, revered scribe, you were last woken by my father. We seek your attention once again because a message was delivered. Al-Waharas Wthaark. On the day of the officiation of the crown prince."

"Crown prince. Your son?" The scribe's words were pained. Barely above a whisper - it was as if every word was a torture for him.

The sultan nodded.

"He is irrelevant." the scribe paused. "The festering blood in the ancient pool will not yield a wyrm-blessed" He said ultimately.

That shattered the last vestiges of hope the Sultan had held onto. "So this message was about someone else?"

"Yes," the scribe confirmed, "You must find them. If someone has managed to uncover the last wyrm-field, the future of your empire depends on them." The last words that came out of his mouth were barely audible. Find them before the wyrm manipulates them into releasing them from their confinement. " The dim light in the scribe's eyes faded, and the Sultan knew his time was up.

It was not well known to the common public, but the pool of wyrm blood from which the royal family used during the ritual of Harlae-utafa had been disintegrating for a very long time. And the throne of Kaiyaath was built upon the foundation of blood sorcery, in which wyrmblood played a critical role.

They had been told about the wyrm-field, the last purgatory that Irathor had not yet managed to seal away. But over the hundreds of years, they had never been able to locate it. The scribe's instruction had been precise, but the wormhole could not be located. It was as if it had been erased from existence.

But now, it looked like someone had managed to accomplish what both Ral'Has and Dakhir had failed to. And that person held the key to Kaiyaath's future. Because they could unlock the true potential of essence-harvesting.