The Chosen
From Create Your Own Story
Come stranger, come. Sit with me by the fire. Have yourself some refreshment as you listen to my tale.
You have come to hear the story of The Chosen, I take it? Yes, yes, everyone who comes to see me comes to hear the tale.
First, you must know that this story is very old. The world has changed many times over since those times, so much of what you hear may be difficult to believe. Do not trouble yourself overly much, though, for the truth of the story is unquestionable for those who choose .
-
Long ago, in a land across the Eastern Sea, there was a land already ancient and full of its own legends. At its heart was a great city, Arenum, which had stood for uncounted years as a symbol of civilization in the midst of the great wilderness beyond its borders. Over the centuries, it brought its culture and development to the wilderness, and made friends of the many peoples around it.
The people of Arenum grew arrogant in their might, and sought to match their power with that of their ancestral gods. Their temples had stood since the city’s beginning, but the chief priest, Inta Aropei, led the priesthood and the people into question. He searched deep into the foundations of the city, and located the stone called the Key of Creation; according to legend, the tool which the gods used to create Arenum. He took upon himself the title Father of Knowledge; then, using the Key, on the Day of the Great Convergence, he opened the Equix Door and, behind it, the Long Passage. On that day, magic came into the world, and ruin came to Arenum.
With the fall of the city, the land descended into darkness once more. Magic had come through the Equix Door, and with it came creatures long practiced in its darkest practices. The Teimorn, chaos incarnate, were beings that appeared human in form, but were the blackest of skin and darkest of heart; the Entem were unthinking beasts, great in size and number, swarming as insects across the lands in bloodthirsty swathes; and the Zheno, the outsiders, the wisps of malign energy that even the Teimorn feared. The land once again became a wilderness, its vast stretches haunted, its natives stalked by day and devoured by night. Through the Door there came only one other race, a small group of exiles from beyond the Passage, the Omisic, whose home had been destroyed by the Entem. They were humans’ only friends in the new world, two peoples lost to their homes, sharing what they had and struggling to survive.
In the blighted land, the humans and Omisic struggled to survive day to day, month to month, and finally year to year. As time wore on and more and more fell victim to the darkness, hope began to fade; one source alone remained to brighten the lives of those who remained. When the Equix Door opened and Arenum fell, the last priest of the city revealed a long buried prophecy, “The doorway opens, the truth sayers lie to the people, and shadows spill out of the earth; when the end draws near, the gods choose, and the doorway may be closed. As night deepens, shadows of the moon and sun converge, look below the earth in the heart of the heart of the wilderness; there may the light be extinguished to end the darkness.”
And here we begin our story, in the camp of a wandering tradesgroup, on the outer edge of the great wilderness. A young guard awakens in a tent by the fire…
Is the guard:
