Author:

Master Scribe Harlan Greystone, Chief Chronicler of the Stormbrook Athenaeum

Preface: Whispers from the Athenaeum

I, Harlan Greystone, humble servant of Stormbrook's written word, set quill to page in this year of unsettled skies. Our city stands yet upon its rocky promontory, battered by the same gales that once shattered the Genie King's armada, but the tales I record here reach farther back—to an age when the world itself seemed alive with possibility. These words are drawn from crumbling scrolls, the ramblings of ancient mariners, and the half-remembered songs of our grand-sires. Read them, citizen of Stormbrook, and heed the wind that carries them.

Chapter II: The Age of Abundant Heroes

In an era long faded—before even the great storms that saved our shores—heroes walked Zin as commonly as merchants hawk their wares in our markets today. Adventure, spirits, and wonder swept through the skies and over the lands as freely as a spring breeze through the coastal meadows.

Great champions there were: slayers of dragons who nested in the high peaks, seekers of lost Titan relics buried in the continents' bones, warriors who bound fiends back to the Abyss with blades forged in celestial fire. Their deeds lit the world like beacons—tales of valor that every child in Stormbrook once knew by heart. They sailed our harbors, drank in our taverns, and defended the common folk from beasts that prowled the wilds.

Yet memory fades like tide-worn stone. One by one, or perhaps in a great exodus lost to time, these heroes vanished. Their names slipped into myth, their armories gathered dust, their banners tattered in forgotten halls. No sage can say with certainty why they departed. Some chroniclers claim they sought greater treasures beyond the endless seas, chasing horizons where even the Gods fear to tread. Others whisper darker truths: that the heroes ascended—or were summoned—to wage war anew against the divinities of heavens and hells, challenging Comes upon His cloudy throne or delving into the Abyss to confront the chained Titans.

Chapter V: The Abandonment and the Rising Shadow

The great heroes gone, the common folk remained: the sturdy farmers tilling the hinterlands, the skilled craftsmen hammering in forges like those that ring day and night in Stormbrook's lower wards, the shrewd merchants bartering in our bustling ports. We men and creatures of the earth endured, as we always have—building, trading, living beneath the distant gaze of Mount Celestia.

But far in the crust of Zin, in depths unlit by sun or star, the Darkness beheld this abandonment. From cracks in the world's foundation, from caverns where the blood of fallen Titans yet pools black and viscous, It stirred. The Darkness—nameless, patient, ancient as the void before the Great Affix—saw opportunity in our solitude.

The people of Zin grew scattered and broken. Without the heroes' vigilant blades, monsters and beasts reclaimed dominion: wyrms coiled in ruined towers, hordes of goblinkin swarmed the roads, shadows lengthened where once light prevailed. Our ancestors huddled behind Stormbrook's walls, telling tales of safer times while the night pressed closer.

Final Annotation: A Personal Reflection in the Margin of the Last Page

And now, as I close this chronicle in the dim lamplight of the Athenaeum, I pause. Do you feel it, reader? Something strange stirs in the air—something I’ve not felt in a long age. It is like a wind rustling the leaves in autumn, carrying scents of distant forests and half-forgotten promises. Something... familiar.

The harbors speak of new sails on the horizon, of strangers bearing old marks of heroism. Children dream of adventures once more. Perhaps the age turns again. Or perhaps the Darkness rises to meet it.

Heed the wind, Stormbrook. Heed it well.

Scribe's postscript (in fresher ink, dated recently):

"The autumn leaf I preserved here fell from no tree in our groves—it drifted in through an open window on a gust that smelled of deep earth. The Darkness watches. But so, I think, does something else."