The Bakioya Eruption

The plumes of grey rushed down into the valley. We screamed, wild with fear and thoughtless bravery, racing down the steep slope to save our families, our neighbors, our friends. The pragmatic ran us down, knocked our feet out from under us, kept us high on the mountainside as flashing clouds filled our home.
We sobbed and pulled our hair and prayed to the sylfaodolon, but none answered as the plumes spread, suffocating all beneath hot ash.
We were truly alone and helpless.

~Liatha Weatherwise

In this document:

All artwork by Shade Melodique unless otherwise stated

Bakioya Volcano

The Bakioya (bah-key-yah) was a large, dormant volcano in the Erdioa (ahr-dee-ah) Volcanic Range in north-central Yena. It towered over the fertile, expansive Rienysse (ree-en-iss) Valley and the Crayle River that ran through its center. The valley boasted several towns, multiple farming villages, and a few hamlets, populated by the Ga Iniria, a people who migrated from southern Yena when the lands there dried into desert, the native Yin Do, who had farmed the land for millennia, and the Kir Shain, the people who governed the region.
Rienysse was the second-largest farming region of Rel Dylar, and while important for that reason, it was also a rural getaway for the capital of Rel Dylar, Dirial. Nobles flocked to the valley during the warmest midyear greater seasons, looking to take walks in the forestlands, fish in the numerous lakes, rivers and streams, and consume meals at the various famous teahouses scattered around scenic views.

The largest attraction during the Gentle Warmth and Strong Heat seasons was the wielding carnival. Competitors showed off their grandest mystery arts skills, hoping to catch the eye of a noble on holiday. Many lucrative contracts were inked during the sixteen-day event.

Whistler by svetlaya_83 from Envato Elements
Ocean by Autumn Sky, Adobe Stock Images

The Warnings

Humans were not the only dwellers in the mountains surrounding the valley. The sfinckses had occupied cliffside aeries for longer than human collective memory knew. While most of the region's inhabitants either ignored the giant beasts or worshipped them, the Ga Iniria held them in deep suspicion.
Due to their southern Yenan origin, dragons, not sfinckses, were sacred to them, so saw the beasts as mythical enemies. Their distrust extended to the cultists who worshipped them, so when the religious leaders warned their neighbors that the sfinckses saw signs of a Bakioya eruption, the Ga Iniria were the first to ridicule their words.
After all, Bakioya had not erupted within human memory, and their earth-focused mystery artists did not sense imminent danger.
Valley leaders, swayed by the Ga Iniria, ignored the warnings. They excused the increase in earthquakes and smaller, lava-filled eruptions from nearby, smaller volcanoes because parts of the Erdioa spewed lava and ash all the time. Why fear the common?

The sfinckses stuck around until the Ristix Temple collapsed during an earthquake. They took it as an ill omen.
Over the next decade, they vacated their aeries and left the Rienysse Valley with their devoted cultists. The rest of the population said a relieved good-bye and went about their lives.

Image by dreamypixel from Envato Elements

Eruption

In 2 BGI, fifteen years after the sfinckses left, smoke puffed up from the top of Bakioya. It was the beginning of Black Sands lesser season, and the valley was too busy to pay much attention to the unusual event. The second harvest needed planting, and the wealthy from Dirial had just begun to arrive.
The wealthy visitors thought it odd, that a dormant volcano belched smoke, but valley dwellers reminded them such was not uncommon in the Erdioa. Local earth wielders assured them, claiming nothing would come of a stray grey cloud.
By Shenzioh 11, the clouds thickened, and locals studied the mountain with growing reservations. The sfinckses had left because they claimed a bad eruption would happen. Should they worry? Wielders met with leaders, not so certain about their previous declarations, but the leaders, not wishing to vacate then be seen a fool when nothing happened, refused their advice.
On Khanzioh 21, during midday, giant plumes rose from Bakioya, rushed down the mountainside with a deafening roar, and engulfed the valley in grey, glowing clouds. No one had time to run, no one could hide. Lava flowed with it, covering the valley floor, blocking the Crayle River and running down its bed.
Two 'marks later, and the mountain and half the valley collapsed.

The initial survivors were high enough up on the adjacent mountainsides they were above the grey cloud flow. As the clouds rose, carrying bad air, hot rocks, boulders, ash, they lit the forests on fire. The flames spread, and those survivors either made it over the peaks to relative safety, or perished.
Those that topped the mountains still needed to avoid the falling rock and ash, but racing downhill was faster than a trip up. Communities on the other sides of the mountains quickly filled with ash and flame, and the residents fled their homes. Anything non-essential was left behind and livestock abandoned, because their owners could not herd the wild-with-fear animals.
By nightfall, dragonlengths in all directions sat beneath a thick layer of ash. Places further away burned.

Image by Vitaya_25 Adobe Stock Images

Aftermath

The Kir Shain royal family lost several members in the eruption, including the crown prince. Furious at the lack of warning, the king issued warrants for mystery artists and clergy, and even sent assassins against sfinckses for not informing him personally of the impending disaster.
The sfinckses sent the assassins back in pieces, yet more death to heap on the volcanic pyre.
The king was especially furious with surviving valley dwellers. He felt anyone who lived within sight of the volcano must have known about the impending eruption and purposefully refused to act. Crazed by fury and sorrow, he used the rag-tag survivors as scapegoats for the failure of his own wielders to detect such a devastating calamity.
He sent the army to hunt down survivors and bring them to the capital. While he ignored the rural farmers, fishers and hunters, anyone associated with a larger community, like traders and leaders, were executed. The already hopeless went into hiding as best they could.
Seeing the king seek revenge rather than deal with the disaster, his court quietly ended his reign. His daughter ascended the throne and began the rescue and recovery operations her father should have conducted, only seasons too late. Many throughout Rel Dylar starved that Frozen Air, inside and outside the affected areas, because half the crops the country depended on for winter food lay buried in ash and snow.

It took years for the humans to recover. Kir Shain, a prominent country before the eruption, could not safeguard its borders and its neighbors, having their own eruption-related difficulties, swallowed what resources they could.
Within fifty years, the sfinckses returned to their abandoned aeries, and their followers set about reclaiming the valley, which was far deeper than previous. They stabilized the lava dam across the Crayle that formed a giant lake and manipulated the landscape with Earth Wieldings to remove the remaining scars.

Orig Image by Vincent, Adobe Stock Images

The Ga Iniria Flight

The majority of the ash drifted east, sparing the neighboring continent of Seari from experiencing more than a thin layer of ash and a few colder years after the eruption. This led one of the Ga Iniria survivors, Liatha Weatherwise, to look at Seari as a haven.
She had lost near everyone she ever knew but for a handful of lightartists who had accompanied her to purchase magickal supplies before the mystery arts carnival. They had traveled with a local caravan, and both they and the traders found themselves hunted by the mad king's soldiers.
Gathering as many survivors as they could find, they fled from the devastation, the death sentence, and potential starvation. Liatha led the group to the Strait of Co Jer. On its shores, she had a divine revelation from their primary sylfaone of Light, Youbdha Mabdhu (yo-va mauve-a). They sold the caravan wagons and horses and everything they absolutely did not need so they could purchase five ships, and sailed for neighboring Seari, guided by Liatha's weather magick.

They landed on Seari in 1 AGI, a date that now marks the beginning of the Searan calendar. Guided by Liatha, the Ga Iniria made the lands north of the modern Sea of Condioh their home. Within a five generations, they had become powerful enough they drove the native aki tribes south, and subsumed their land.
By 500 AGI, the Ga Iniria had become the Condi. They vowed to brighten the darkness of Seari with their light magick. In keeping with the vow, they hunted those who practiced the shadowarts, any religious leaders they thought too barbaric, and changed the natural landscape of the lands they encountered with their Greenroot arts, creating domesticated nature gardens. Two thousand years later, King Giarel began his conquest of Seari under the Jonna Empire's banner.
Without the devastating volcanic eruption in Yena, Liatha would never have led the Ga Iniria across the Strait of Co Jer, and they never would have become the Condi, who would eventually create the most successful empire ever to grace the continent of Seari.