Arelle had been traveling for weeks with little sign of life. Not even the chirrup of a bird had split the air in what seemed like days. Desolation was the only word to describe what she had come across, and the landscape itself bore the scars of the cataclysmic events that had shaken the Midlands in the months past.
Vast sprawling plains stood where mountains had once divided the Eastlands from the Midlands, previously lush forests had been reduced to charred ash, and deep rends and craters could be found carved into the earth by unknown titanic battles. Towns and villages lay abandoned, many destroyed by fires and earthquakes but others stood peculiarly unmarred as vacant ghost towns. Vehicles and wagons lay broken down and abandoned alongside the roads leading between towns, and even the occasional grave marker lined the roadsides.
What had driven the locals from the region remained a mystery to the foreigner, Arelle. Stretched before her on this day though she found her path west to be barred by a large body of water that had seemingly washed out the road ahead. The lake was vast and it only took one sweep of the eyes to note something greatly amiss about the whole thing. In the distance, the tall steeple of a building projected skyward above the lake, and the shadowy shapes of buildings could be made out beneath the still waters. An entire town it would seem had simply been swallowed up beneath the lake.
It was hardly the strangest thing she had encountered in her journey westward, but the eerie emptiness of the vast amount of land she had covered spoke of the fear and paranoia of her community back home. Their fear of the supernatural, and of the powerful. Their fear of that which could snuff them out without so much as an afterthought. The fear that had driven them to keep their heads low and to shun the lands beyond - and to shun those who might bring such events upon their own lands.
Nearby a large wooden sign had been hammered into the earth, large letters scrawled upon it in paint.
"Jadeson Town survivors traveling north. TNG offering safe passage into the Northlands for those who reach the Borean Forest."
Vast sprawling plains stood where mountains had once divided the Eastlands from the Midlands, previously lush forests had been reduced to charred ash, and deep rends and craters could be found carved into the earth by unknown titanic battles. Towns and villages lay abandoned, many destroyed by fires and earthquakes but others stood peculiarly unmarred as vacant ghost towns. Vehicles and wagons lay broken down and abandoned alongside the roads leading between towns, and even the occasional grave marker lined the roadsides.
What had driven the locals from the region remained a mystery to the foreigner, Arelle. Stretched before her on this day though she found her path west to be barred by a large body of water that had seemingly washed out the road ahead. The lake was vast and it only took one sweep of the eyes to note something greatly amiss about the whole thing. In the distance, the tall steeple of a building projected skyward above the lake, and the shadowy shapes of buildings could be made out beneath the still waters. An entire town it would seem had simply been swallowed up beneath the lake.
It was hardly the strangest thing she had encountered in her journey westward, but the eerie emptiness of the vast amount of land she had covered spoke of the fear and paranoia of her community back home. Their fear of the supernatural, and of the powerful. Their fear of that which could snuff them out without so much as an afterthought. The fear that had driven them to keep their heads low and to shun the lands beyond - and to shun those who might bring such events upon their own lands.
Nearby a large wooden sign had been hammered into the earth, large letters scrawled upon it in paint.
"Jadeson Town survivors traveling north. TNG offering safe passage into the Northlands for those who reach the Borean Forest."
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