Ah, so you've dared to unseal this ominous scroll in pursuit of a tale.
Fortunate for you, I am a man with nothing but time, a voice and a presence, yet neither of those.
I am Eshmur, the Eyes of Aether and Keeper of Forgotten Histories.
And I will tell you a story about a realm. A realm called Eryndal.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Eryndal... ah, the youngsters only know the broken world we live in now. But I remember.
I remember when our realm was a place of beauty and learning, where war was rare and suffering was something we read about in fictional books.
We stood on the edge of greatness, our machines and inventions promising a golden age.
Foolish to believe in promises. Because, then came the Dark Advent.
Not with warning, not with omens— just the sudden tearing of reality itself.
It was like the foretold day of rapture. But there was no god descending from the heavens, but portals called Doomgates appearing everywhere at once, vomiting forth creatures that defied nature.
You've heard the tales where heroes awaken magical powers to fight these monsters? Life gave us no such mercy.
There was no awakening.
There was wood and steel. And we fought with them.
The machines we were only starting to build were deployed incomplete, but what good were any of that against nightmares made flesh?
Our armies fell like wheat before the scythe. Eryndal... our proud civilization... crumbled in less than a year.
The survivors retreated behind new walls, leaving nearly half our world to the beasts. That cursed land became the Dreglands— a warning we can still see on the horizon if the smoke ever clears.
But listen now, here's where the story turns.
Norville Norde, a scientist most thought mad, made the discovery that saved what remained of us.
Inside those monsters were cubes of raw power, Nodes as he called them. And if a brave soul absorbed one... they would awaken abilities akin to the creature it came from.
We called it Soul Taming. Poetic name for such a brutal thing.
The process was agonizing, but the results were worth it.
Suddenly we had Hunters; men and women who could fight monsters on equal footing, wielding the power the beast they had tamed once had.
But the gods laugh at mortal hopes. And soon, two cruel truths were discovered:
A Hunter could only bond with one Node in their lifetime, and their power was forever chained to that single choice.
One Hunter. One Node. Matters not how powerful the Node was.
Still, it was enough for us. We pushed the hordes back, the monsters were defeated, but the Doomgates remained.
The world that rose from the ashes... it wasn't the Eryndal I knew. They stripped the names from towns like stripping dignity from the dead— just cold letters now.
Only three places were given real names: Imperial where the Rulers scheme, Argentum City where Hunters gather, and the Dreglands... where we abandoned our own and called them Forsakens.
Since Doomgates continued to appear, hunting became noble work. But power follows wealth as always.
The strongest Nodes went to those who could pay, allowing them to become elite Hunters with status and wealth.
And in shadowed labs, men like Turmond Drayton— ah, you know that name —sought to break the rules.
Turmond was a young apprentice to Norville Norde, assisting him in his later years.
However, he wasn't the only one. Magnus Voss, another apprentice, was also present. Unlike Turmond, Magnus cared very little for experiments and only sought power.
Norville had a preference for Turmond because of this, and before his death, he revealed to him his greatest secret: The most powerful beast of all existed somewhere in Eryndal.
A Dragon.
It took him years, but Turmond found it. Twenty Hunters went into its lair. Only three walked out... with the Dragon's Node.
But then came Magnus Voss, his ugly soul shriveled with greed. He recognized the immense power of the Node, and began scheming to claim it for himself.
Turmond, however? He dreamed bigger. Fifteen years he worked in secret, weaving magic and machine until he'd done the impossible - created a Node that could break the one-bond limit.
Magnus betrayed him, of course. Turmond caught him attempting to absorb the Node.
The two fought, and Turmond managed to escape with the cube of power, hiding it away.
Enraged, Magnus took drastic action. He lied to the Rulers of Eryndal, accusing Turmond of creating "forbidden technology."
When Turmond refused to hand over his life's work, knowing full well what those vultures would do with it, they threw him into a deadly Doomgate, and he was devoured by the beasts within.
A "merciful" execution, they called it.
But the Dragon Node? Oh, it's still out there. Hidden. Waiting.
It is not very long until someone finds it. Perhaps they will in the very next page. Go ahead and scroll if you dare.