Author:

Wanderer-Thalor of Stormbrook, Eastern Chronicler and Reluctant Guest of the Western Courts

Chapter I: Beyond the Enlita Ocean

Far across the Enlita Ocean, west of Zin’s known shores, lies Lyela—a land of wild peaks and jagged cliffs that rise like the broken teeth of fallen Titans. These natural battlements have long defied invaders, turning siege into folly and ambition into graves. It was here, in ages past, that the Immortal Twins first set foot upon mortal soil, fleeing the vassalage of eastern kingdoms broken beneath the Darkness’s heel.

The Darkness’s armies had swept the East like a black tide, reducing proud realms to puppet thrones and ash. Many fled westward in desperate exodus. Among them were the Twins—brother and sister of legendary beauty and unbreakable will—whose bloodline, it is claimed, carries a spark of divine permanence granted in the Gods’ forges during the Century War.

“The Darkness spent her spirit in envy and hate, until at last she could make nothing save in mockery of the thought of others, and all their work she destroyed if she could.”

—Ancient Eastern Sage, name lost to the flames

Chapter IV: The Creed of the Undying

The Aressians—the people of Lyela’s empire—call their rulers simply the Twins, though court poets lavish them with titles: Aelarion the Unbroken and Lyssara the Eternal. They sit enthroned in the citadel of High Aressar, unchanged since the day they first claimed these lands. No blade has marked them. No sickness has touched them. No year has dimmed their golden eyes.

They believe themselves unkillable—and therefore self-proclaimed living Gods. Their bloodline is held superior to all others. Citizenship in the Empire is granted only to those who can prove direct descent from the Twins, a lineage traced through sacred golden marks that appear upon true heirs at birth. All others—merchants from the eastern trade cities, refugees from fallen realms, even the high elves of distant Isles of Ealthlos—are tolerated as guests or servants, never equals.

Children of the Twins not only bear the golden mark, but are said to carry the Light of Eternity—a faint inner radiance that repels lesser shadows and grants unnatural vitality. In battle, Aressian legions fight with fanatic zeal, believing death merely a temporary inconvenience for their divine lords.

Chapter VII: The Rot Within the Golden Veil

Yet all is not well in Lyela.

Neglect, hubris, and excess have led this once-proud empire into stagnation. The Twins, secure in their immortality, grow ever more distant from the needs of their people. Grand palaces echo with endless revels while border villages crumble. Laws grow capricious, favoring the purest bloodlines and abandoning the rest to hardship. Ambition has curdled into paranoia; dissent is branded heresy against living divinity.

This stagnation has not gone unnoticed by the Forces of the Darkness. Whispers drift eastward on salt winds: shadows gather along the Empire’s northern marches, where Lyela’s peaks descend into mist-shrouded valleys.

Chapter IX: Tidings from the Border City of Virelhold

Along the border, in the fortified City of Virelhold—gateway between Lyela’s heartlands and the wild northern woods—strange vanishings have begun. Farmers, woodcutters, entire hamlets gone silent overnight. No bodies. No blood. Only empty fields and cold hearths.

Scouts speak of black ichor staining the soil, of eyes glowing red in the fog. Some blame barbarian raiders from the frozen wastes. Others, in hushed tones, name older fears.

Word has reached even the eastern courts. The King of Kalion—ever watchful since the old storms saved Stormbrook—has sent offers of aid, seeking allies against the rising shadow. Brave souls (perhaps you who read this) have accepted his charge: travel north, pierce the mystery of the missing farmers, and uncover what hungers at the edge of the undying empire.

Beware, traveler. The Twins watch from their golden thrones, and immortality breeds long memory. The Light of Eternity may repel the Darkness… or merely cast deeper shadows of its own.