The Shattered Circle

"We don't know what they called themselves but stories called them the First High Council-- made of the leaders from each major peoples and regions that had survived the Brink. No one knows exactly when, but something happened that shattered what could have been the greatest accomplishment of mortalkind."

— A Teacher to her Student

Lost to myth and legend was a time after the Brink, where for a couple of centuries the people of the world had formed a tentative peace born from the loss of the war and the tragedies that had spared no one. The lands worked to recover before sharing resources when they could each understanding on good faith when someone could not provide aid and when others chose not to for fear of the instability of their region whether it be due to nature or fear.

"Ha! And what exactly could have been this 'greatest accomplishment'? You make it sound as if it could bring down a god."

- An Initiate of Life

The leaders of the people naturally sought to work together to coordinate efforts to rebuild the world. Regions that had mages offered to send whoever they could to lands that were barren. Tradesmen were encouraged to travel for work aided by magical means in returning home and traveling.
For a century, the world rebuilt itself and recovered from the horrible scars that had been left from the cosmic war. Then, people began to settle and build more and the following century saw the allied council begin to crack. Distrust was sowed when one began to do better than the other and resources stopped being shared with some people going missing.

"Oh, but it did and then some. How do you think this world survived?"

Accusations began to fly from one party to another and soon representatives began to bring parties with each other to meetings and voices became drowned in chaos. Little by little, while they agreed the meetings were necessary due to the fact that mortalkind was fractured and steal healing, the groups began falling out with each other and whispers began to crawl from region to region, leader to leader- until one had had enough.
During one meeting, each representative appeared at the designated meeting place to discuss the importance of strategy against the rift invasions that were beginning to cause problems in each reason. It finally looked to be the one meeting where they could find common ground and re-establish the alliance once more. Many supporters who had lived to hear the stories and see the benefits of working with other regions and peoples, were eager to hear what was to happen.

"Resilience. Trust. The will and want to live no matter who is standing next to you."

Yet... to each representative not one other group had arrived. They each believed themselves to be abandoned and just as they were about to leave and return with some having reported failure to their people- Well... no one knows to this day what happened. No divination mages, nor any wishes have determined what happened. Each representative group merely disappeared.
It wasn't until other people had come together with information of where their parties had gone that they realized each representative was told to go to a different place, and when further investigation into each place was completed all that was found were empty castles as if this had never existed.
Whatever hope remained was shattered and the alliance that had held firm for centuries of warfare had fractured at the dawn of peace.

"Such distrust of individuals. Goddess knows how you ended up with a diamond."*chuckles*

The Missing Pieces

Generations later and to the historians that had made it their mission to study lore and whispers of a time near forgotten, there were details that didn't add up. Over the course of gathering accounts, different historians have discovered that there was at least one representative group unaccounted for-- one that had disappeared but had been present during the formation of the alliance. However, no one knows what had happened to them as if their fate foreshadowed the fate of the First High Council.
Many believe that this group had instigated things while others believe they could have been the key to peace. The very few believe that this missing group were realmwakers that had found their ways back home, to leave this world to their own issues, a threat averted.

"It's because I'm realistic. The only way for life to persevere is for a person to understand another. *sigh* Fine. What is this so called great accomplishment?"

The Ever-Lingering Shadow

The groups that fractured eventually settled to create the first iteration of kingdoms Auriga had seen in the southern continent. However, after the Great War in the years before Preservation, the kingdoms as we know it now emerged amongst the chaos brought by rifts and the wars that continued to plague mortalkind's legacy.
It is said that no alliance shall ever be formed unless the end of the world comes forth again... but many fear the day, for no power like the days of myth has ever been found.

The only thing mortals accomplished for one blink of time and have yet to maintain. Unity.