PROLOGUE

Monsters are real. They walk the Mortal Realm of Faeh'rron, create havoc, chaos, destruction. But they are not terrifying creatures with sharp jaws, extensive and three heads. No, they are human. Humans with evil in their dark hearts, driven by greed, selfishness, and – most dangerous of all – their obsession with power.

There was a dangerous entity that was empowered by such things. This creature was Cythrauliia'an – known as The Prince of Darkness and Secret Desires, Lord of the Underworld, Chthoniia'an. This pitch-black creature of horror fed on the black hearts of humans with such incessant desires. With each one he grew in his own power and thrived. These traits he enjoyed manipulating held only one purpose, and that intention had always been clear – it was using them create immense power to cause catastrophic destruction to the Mortal Realm of Faeh'rron and its inhabitants. With a Force that was entirely unimaginable.

Traits the Divinities of Nehvadi'iaa, worked throughout infinity to prevent from taking hold of Faeh'rron and destroying it.

This Era was more intense than the past few. The Seven Divinities had convened and called up the Elders – the former powerful Grand Mages of Cari'iadae – many times to execute detailed plans for the differing eventualities that would present themselves, if and when Cythrauliia'an's plans came into play. Now there was an immense threat coming that 88required an incredible force of power from the Divinities – to not only intercede, but destroy it before it annihilated the entire Mortal Realm.

All resources had been dedicated to this threat for many Eras, the Mortals' collective denomination for exactly one hundred of their short years. They had finalised their plans in time for the more imminent problem they now faced. One that was feared greatly; the destruction it would create would destabilise all the preparations made for the ultimate confrontation, and the long-awaited Prophesy foretold by the Mages since the dawn of their time.

The precious Sacraementa'al Orb of Moraeyy'draee slowly spun and bobbed, floating gently within the archives, safe from mortal hands until the time had come to return it to the Grand Mage. The symbol of their purest, most powerful Magika, was safe here... but for how long, she could not guess, for this was one thing that truly was out of her hands. Instead, she must wait, bide her time, and ensure that what was hopefully to come quite immediately was executed as closely to perfection as mortal Free Will would allow.

Before her, The Divine Scrolls Y'rambyyth filled the archives, glowing and palpitating, showing the Fates of each Realm, each Mortal, each Mage, each creature. This was where Destinies were created, written, planned, perceived, and executed for the Divines of Nehvadi'iaa.

The First Grand Mage – Queen of Divinities, Creator of Faeh'rron, the Divinity Brehi'ina – perused the scrolls with a heavy heart. It was not supposed to be like this; it was supposed to be beautiful and simple. She had ascended seven fellow gods, created a beautiful world along with her precious mortal beings, and then another world for them to exist in harmony in, having departed their mortal plain.

What she – Brehi'ina, Queen of Nehvadi'iaa – hadn't foreseen, was the ultimate betrayal by one of her own. By one of the very beings she had ascended to stand with her amongst the gods.

Her Final Divinity Cythrauliia'an had actually the absolute gall to believe themselves better than them all, then attempted to kill another one of her Divines. It could not be borne! And so furious was she with this blatant attempt at destruction, the punishment could be nothing but banishment — how could it not be? Simply. Definitely. Immediately.

Her once-Divine, perfect, loved, vital being was banished to a dark and distant Realm – created at her will in that very moment: This was The Underworld of Chthoni'iaan. The Underworld was a chasm of dense-black, of chaos, of complete nothing, and she banished him without a second thought. She held so much fiery anger for eternal damnation within her, she used it all up on his sentence, re-creating him as a pure D'aemon.

The First D'aemon. Unfortunately, the first of many.

The new D'aemon had been far from happy at his banishment. But he made use of his new power Cataclysmic. Forevermore, there was to be a horrendous, eternal, power-struggle between them and that pure evil she had inadvertently created in that moment of his banishment. For upon his banishment, the explosive bitter fury, the overwhelming resentment Cythrauliia'an felt, was overwhelming and engulfing, his Divine power quickly metamorphosing into something truly terrifying and utterly black.

Once he was confident in his new power, the D'aemon threatened them all – and the resulting Prophesy of the D'aemon was an explosive and powerful curse against her, her fellow Divines, her mortal creations, and all others within her Realms.

To her horror and her own unrepentant fury, Brehi'ina found herself faced with a slow and devastatingly catastrophic range of choreographed attacks, and sly, cunning plots over an inexhaustible amount of time – all designed to be culminating in the absolute destruction of the very plain she existed: Nehvadi'iaa itself. The heart of all existence in the Ether.

Her Realm.

And there was simply no way in any existence that she about to allow that to happen.

The First Divinity had retaliated strongly, spending countless mortal years – Era after era; the mortal term for every one hundred of their years – fighting it, with all the power that she, and her fellow Divinities, collectively had. Using insurmountable and complex plans and intricate details kept for every possible attack and eventuality. Each of these were held within countless, endless scrolls which documented the past, the present and the future. Each one available to use against whatever Cythrauliia'an had to offer, and each one more powerful than the last.

These were The Scrolls of The Prophecy of Mages… The last and best resort against what her own creation had devised to use against her, to destroy everything she had made, including her very soul.

Ensuring her Mortal Realm was imbued with the greatest protection against the D'aemon's Power, she had created first the Mages, then followed them up with the protection of the Great Guardian Ddrai'igae, and finally, she was forced into creating The Prophesy of Mages, to counter what Cythrauliia'an had cursed upon them.

Not expecting to require anything more against the D'aemon than Mages, it had come as a horrific surprise to see how powerful Cythrauliia'an was becoming over time, fuelled by the fallacy of the mortals, with so many believing there was true power to be seized in acts of selfish greed and pure narcissism. The hatred created, the jealousy, the envy, the resentment… all of it cumulated in feeding the D'aemon, and meaning the Mages' Power alone would not suffice to keep the People safe.

She decided to protect the Mages with the Great Guardian Ddrai'igae – enormous dragons that lived and thrived on their Magika and harnessed that Magika into a power far greater than The D'aemon Prince could fight or even tolerate. She put everything into them, and succeeded: Cythrauliia'an was unable to do anything against them, or even come close.

It was an enormous victory, allowing them all many subsequent Ages – reigns of Coven and clan leaders – of protected peace against him. That was, until Cythrauliia'an very cleverly managed to eradicate the creatures from right under their noses – leaving the Realm of Faeh'rron once again at his mercy.

With the Ddrai'igae so suddenly gone, the Mages were vulnerable and the People again his prey. Even worse, he had also managed to begin the culmination of all the Borderlands of Faeh'rron hating all Mages and Magika, and was clearly focused intently on pressing that effect until all of them was eradicated, as well.

The Prophesy had been devised in its wake. The entire thing was an intensely complex Divine plan, which took into account every possible twist and turn Cythrauliia'an may, or had to, take for his curse to succeed, and countered them all powerfully: A procedure she could hardly believe she was being forced to put into place. After all, this... creature... had once stood alongside them, had been one of them. But, then, it had brutally, utterly, betrayed them. And now, it the ultimate threat to all their worlds. Fighting against the darkness of the Underworld of Chthoniia'an and its evil lord was draining, even for the Creator of All Life.

Along with the remaining Divinities of Nehvadi'iaa and the Elders, Brehi'ina had worked for Ages and Eras on their Divine plans and interventions to prevent Cythrauliia'an from destroying what they had built within Faeh'rron. The People were hers – her creation, her children. He was not about to take it all from her!

Magika had been her very careful and deliberately elegant answer to the creature's unrelenting power of destruction – a perfect design that allowed the power of Nehvadi'iaa to live on the face of Faeh'rron itself, whereby all Elements of her own Divine Power had been bestowed on her very special creations. Ones who would use this immense power purely for the protection of her First Creations. It was supposed to stop everything escalating to what it was now.

In creating the Mages – extremely powerful specialist humanoids, who were expert wielders of all things Magika – Brehi'ina truly had thought she had devised the best solution. They had been bequeathed to Faeh'rron to protect the People from the D'aemon's blind rage and raging vengeance, with each Mage encompassing the Magika they were given – to be perfect wielders in only one or two of the Six Elements of her Divine Power, ensuring that, together, as a balanced team, they were capable of wielding the very Power of the Divine on Faeh'rron and countering anything that damned D'aemon could throw at them.

She had created a few particular, immensely powerful Mages who would be her direct connection to them. These would be able to wield most of the Six Elements, and were formally known as Sorceresses. But The Queen of Mages would preside over them all, and be her own personal representative within the Realm of Faeh'rron. The Grand Mage would know all, understand all, and could control all. She would be the closest thing to Pure Divine Power walking the Realm as there could be.

Brehi'ina herself had even personally transcended the Realms for a few short years to oversee them in Faeh'rron as The First Grand Mage, to safely lead them out of the darkness that was befalling them, and into the protective light of the creation she had called Magika, after Cythrauliia'an had the gall to threaten her with the destruction of them with his almost limitless powers.

But then, the Prince of Darkness had got clever and weaved his evil through the vulnerable People, and by some stealthily applied brainwashing, the D'aemon had deftly taught them how to fear and hate Magika, turning them against the very beings she had made to protect them.

It was to Brehi'ina's chagrin that he was currently weaving even more destruction than ever before. Whilst he was planning and waiting to proceed with the ultimate annihilation of the world she had worked so hard to create, he was also busy fanning the flames of hatred, revenge, greed and power within certain people of the powerful Borderlands, particularly within Kingdom of Narayya'an – and it was a particularly cold plot he had in mind, ready to destroy any chance of their end-game succeeding in her favour. Something that was entirely unacceptable.

This specific kingdom was a land that was part of a special peace treaty, created by the mortal kingdoms, united after a range of terrible and destructive wars that occurred over one hundred Mortal Eras ago, now – a time period known to The People as a . These wars were triggered by a particularly immense creation from Cythrauliia'an and were beyond brutal, decimating Mages, Magika, and the People, culminating in the genocide of the Great Guardian Ddrai'igae and the weakening of Magika at its very core on Faeh'rron.

It was only after long decades of fighting, the kings, councillors, and advisors, finally agreed upon the Peace Treaty of the United Realms of Eall'wyy Despite Cythrauli'iaan's best efforts, this treaty had successfully kept peace between the Kingdoms of Eall'wyye. The People had thwarted his plans for destruction themselves. But now...

The First Grand Mage sighed and shook her head. She held the scrolls that foretold of what he planned. She also held the scrolls detailing their intricately designed counter-attack. It was always the role of the Divinities to protect all her mortal children – the People and Mages of Faeh'rron alike. Now she could only hope that their Chosen Ones, those in Faeh'rron who would – quite unwittingly – carry out their Devine Plan, would put their courage and faith in them and undertake the paths chosen for them to prevent Cythrauliia'an succeeding.

The Seven Divines would do whatever they could to keep their plans on track, even taking the unprecedented step of sending one of their own to act as an Agent of the Divines, instead of just some of the Elders alone. This was going to take more power and direction than anything they had undertaken before – instead of Grand Mages spearheading their plans, mentored¹ by Elders, this one was to be done by one of the mortals themselves. Without them even being aware of it.

However, the People and Mages had wills of their own and did not have to follow their chosen path. Their only hope was that the Divinity A'aegiia, sent directly to the Mortal Realm of Faeh'rron itself, would help ensure its success.

They had built their intricate strategy. Now they could only watch as it played out before them.