"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author Notes-

Chapter 02: The Ivory Temple and the Old War

The temple came into view after a short walk.

The massive building was made of some pure white stone that never seemed to get dirty.

It was easily the biggest thing that Zephyr had ever seen, and no matter how many times he came here, it never ceased to impress him.

Most of the town had already gathered outside.

He even spotted old Mister Biggs, who had recently broken his legs in a fishing accident.

"Someone must have helped him get here," the boy concluded since that man had no family to rely on.

"Behave yourself, boy. Don't get us in trouble," his uncle whispered while grasping his arm with a lot of force.

"Yes, uncle…" He did not understand why he even asked. Zephyr had never caused trouble in the Temple.

The closest he ever got to being in trouble with a Celestial was last year when his best friend had the misfortune of awakening a magical ability and was taken away by the authorities like they always do.

He was brought for questioning in front of an imposing Celestial Being who performed some sort of test on him to see if he had any magic.

That was the scariest day of his life...he was asked a lot of questions too, but they let him go after a few hours.

The massive doors of the temple were opened by someone inside.

Everyone went quiet immediately. All five hundred villagers stood in silence, waiting for the Celestial Priest with reverence.

Zephyr was already familiar with this particular being, as he had been in charge of the temple meetings for the past five years.

It was a male with long platinum-blonde hair and bright green eyes. He had sharp features and a pair of very long pointy ears, like the other members of his species.

He appeared to be very young, around mid-twenties, but Zephyr had learned that all four races of Celestials could live very long lives, and the one he belonged to was the most long-lived of them all…a Celestial Elf.

"You may come inside." The Elf Priest delivered the words with no emotion in them, as was expected of his race. Elves rarely show emotions, unless they were extremely intense.

The villagers kept their heads low and walked inside the temple.

It never ceased to impress him, just how big this temple was.

Even with the entire village here, they were unable to fill more than one-third of the room.

They took their seats on the simple wooden benches in an orderly fashion, not wanting to offend any of the Celestial Beings present.

At the end of the temple, was an elevated platform made of the same white stone from the outside.

Right at the center was the Celestial Elf who had opened the doors...he was sitting on a big chair made of a different type of stone. This one was pitch black and very smooth-looking, with intricate shapes carved on its surface.

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He was sure all of this must have been created by the Celestial Dwarves. They were another race of Celestials and were well known for their crafting skills with stone and metal.

But they were rarely seen outside the mountains where they built their Capital.

In his entire life, he has only seen one Dwarf visiting this village. It was just a couple of years ago, and he had apparently come here for some maintenance on the temple.

On both sides of the black chair were two smaller seats, and on those seats were two female Celestial Elves.

Like the priest, they also had blonde hair and green eyes.

Their relation to the priest had never been made clear, but people assumed they must be part of the same family.

Zephyr had to make an effort to avert his eyes away from the female elves.

They were incredibly beautiful, but he knew it was safer to keep his eyes away from them.

Last year, there was a young fisherman who had grown infatuated with one of them.

One night, after their temple meeting, he approached the female Elf and tried to speak with her.

He told her his name and asked for hers.

This was enough to enrage the Elf Priest…that fisherman was executed the next morning, right in the middle of the village.

'Keep your eyes away and don't talk…' Zephyr reminded himself.

He had ambitions and dreams. He refused to die now because he offended a Celestial Being.

'I need to leave this village…' He kept telling himself.

"Remain in your seats." The voice of the Elf Priest resounded over the temple's main chamber.

"We are about to begin today’s lesson."

'Lesson…' That's what they call it. Zephyr wanted to complain.

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"...and so, when the demons were about to destroy the Kingdom of Zloria, the Celestial armies intervened and drove the…" The elf priest continued his story.

Zephyr was barely listening. It was always the same story, divided into six parts. Once a month, they hear one part, which means they hear the complete story twice a year.

The Celestials have been doing this for many generations. In fact, one of his first memories was of being here at the temple with his parents.

It was probably shortly before they were killed…

The story the priest told was always about ancient history. It spoke of a distant war that occurred in these lands countless years ago.

At some point, the world was invaded by demons.

Humans tried to fight back against this invasion but things did not go well for them.

The Celestials, who had been living in isolation before this happened, came out of their island to help humanity.

Humans' only strength at the time was their sheer numbers and their martial skills with swords and bows, while the four races of Celestials were capable of bending the four elements to their will by using their magic.

The Elves could control the wind.

Dwarves could manipulate the earth.

Beastmen could summon fire.

Merfolk had dominion over water.

With the help of their powerful new ally, humanity managed to push back the demon invasion to the island of Astaroth, where they had originally come from.

Using their mystical magic, the Celestials saved the world by sealing the entrance to the demon world.

Peace returned to the lands, but humans were now aware of what the Celestials were capable of doing.

The human Kings of the time were seething with envy. That magic…they wanted that power too. It was not fair that only the Celestials had it.

However, humans were not meant to wield magic…but that was not going to stop them from trying.

They performed all sorts of heinous acts towards the Celestials in order to steal their magic.

This ended up starting a second war between humans and the four races of Celestial Beings.

This war lasted for decades, and during this time, humans were able to make some progress with their main goal.

A few of the children born from the mix between Celestials and humans showed signs of being able to use magic. But this was very unreliable as the birthrate of these “hybrids” was very low, and only a few of them could even use magic.

So they searched for other methods. At one point, they discovered a way to condense the blood of Celestials into some solid container able to reproduce some of their magical energy.

They called them “Blood Crystals” and used them to power artifacts capable of emulating their magic to some degree.

The Celestial Beings were enraged about this. They believed that magic was a gift given to them by their four elemental Gods.

What humans did was pure heresy. They stole their gift.

The war took a turn after that.

The Celestial Beings were at a disadvantage for the first time, since their numbers were much lower and now humans could also wield magic, albeit a weaker version compared to theirs.

The Celestials were driven out of the human continent by force and had to regroup on their island while the humans prepared for a massive attack against them.

It is not clear what humanity's exact plan was at this point, but they were certain that humans had been making a new magical artifact. One capable of causing mass destruction.

The reason for what happened next remains unknown up to this day.

Perhaps it was the will of the Gods or a series of human miscalculations.

But…whatever the cause, the events that followed put a quick end to the war.

The weapon of mass destruction they were planning on using against the Celestial Beings ended up malfunctioning in the middle of the human continent, between the Zloria Kingdom and the Varian Kingdom.

The scale of the destruction was immense. One Kingdom disappeared overnight, while the others suffered catastrophic losses.

But that was not all…this weapon left behind a poison cloud that started to expand quickly over the lands, killing everything in its path.

In a short period of time, humanity went from being one step away from victory to being one step away from extinction.

When all hope seemed to be lost for the human race, the Celestials decided to intervene.

Using the full power of their magic, they held the advance of the poisonous cloud just long enough to build a massive rock wall that would keep this deadly substance away.

Thanks to this, the northern part of the human continent was saved, along with several thousands of humans.

This lesson is told over and over to remind humans of their ancestors' sins and also to remind them that they are only alive thanks to the Celestials' mercy.

The remaining humans must now serve the Celestial Beings and give them offerings, to pay for their past mistakes.