The Withering

August 19th, 2028

The Withering was the event that changed everything for all of the realms. An unexpected event that resulted in mass death and devastation across all of the realms, as well as irreversible changes to the Supernatural and magical elements of the world. The Withering is often described as having 'broke' reality, drastically altering everything from the individuals to species as a whole.

Preamble: Beginning Of The End

Satellite Imagery Of Verdefort Crater Taken on June 27th, 2018

Satellite image of South Africa's Vredefort Crater, OLI satellite image, 27 June 2018 by Lauren Dauphin

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Lauren Dauphin, using Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8; data provided courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey team.

_{August 19th, 2028.}

Up to this point, there had already been a significant change in how things were going in the world. More and more eyes were being placed upon the Deepcore Foundation as they interfered more and more with the affairs of other realms. The Strakhian-Eclipsian Pact had fallen apart thanks to both the ongoing wars on Terra Eclipsis and the Frozen Civil War on Strakh had been reaching it's apex. The Black Sandstorm had been raging on for a good few months on The Sands. Sheol's leadership was facing growing strife from both the populace of the realm and from within the inner circle of The Daemon Imperium. All in all, things were rather chaotic within the realms.

In the midst of all this madness, a few groups were taking note of the more supernatural side of things that others weren't being so privy to for one reason or another. FENRIR and ARC, working with others around the realms, had been observing the steady climb of Mana globally and had found an odd discrepancy. In South Africa, there was an extraordinary amount of Mana that had been building up in Verdefort Crater.

FENRIR and ARC, working in tandem with what few scholars and sages they could recruit from the other realms, determined that something within the Verdefort Crater was converting loads of energy from the surrounding enviroment and turning it into Mana. Investigations were slow as the immense amounts of mana would induce sicknesses in those whom would get close to the crater, causing Transmorphification Syndrome in even Elves.

FENRIR and ARC would eventually send a Machina down there to investigate it, one of the Surtr Models mounted onto a Heavy-Duty SYNTH model that was designed to be heavily resistant to Mana.

The Surtr Drone would eventually reach the center of the crater, finding a massive pit that led deep into the earth. The unit would descend down into the pit, eventually coming across a large cavern overflowing with Mana and Edenite. As it traversed the cave, the readings would continue to grow. Eventually, the drone would find a large structure within the bottom of the caves.

This would, after everything had settled, be known as the Ragnarok Vault.

ruins.png

concrete building interior by Srdjan Popovic

The Ragnarok Vault was old and decrepit, seemingly having existed since the days of the Nephilim, long before even the Stars. It's layout was unlike that of any other vault-- being more akin to a maze rather than a large dome-like area. Investigation by the Surtr unit showed that the vault had been magically reinforced with layers upon layers of magical Barriers, protection spells and other such things that kept it sealed, with old sigils and symbols marking the walls. As it began to go further and further down into the vault, the Mana readings began to go off the charts.

Eventually, the Surtr Unit would reach the center of the Vault, whereupon it was met with a massive Edenite Gem, the largest ever seen. It was surrounded by various ancient mechanisms that had long since degraded, a weak barrier surrounding the shard. It's been theorized that this gem was The Refractor, a supposedly massive Edenite Crystal that had enough magical energy in it to power an entire realm.

According to the ancient scriptures found within the hallowed halls of the Ragnarok Vault, The Refractor had existed during the early days of the Nephilim, generating endless amounts of Mana. This proved to be a problem as it would begin to warp and distort the enviroment around it, and as such, the Nephilim worked to bury it to prevent a massive disaster from occuring, with hopes that future generations would be able to use it's immense power.

Unfortunately, before further investigation could be done, whatever last protection wards that the shard had fell. And all hell broke loose.

The Withering Begins

The last thing the Surtr Drone had captured.

In the instant the last bit of protection the gem had went off, an immense amount of Mana was released. Everything within 500km was destroyed, with a shockwave that went across the entire planet. The devastation was felt immediately, with windows all over being blown out and several thousand buildings being flattened. A massive earthquake shook the planet, quickly changing the landscape and tearing down any unprotected structure that was not built to stand such heavy vibrations.

A massive blast of Mana was released into the air, tearing through the atmosphere and releasing mana all across the globe, causing electrical disruptions that brought down telecommunications for three days. Airplanes that didn't immediately shut off were brought down, emergency landings occuring across the entire planet.

The sky began to change in coloration, the once vibrant blues shifting into violets and purples, magic coarsing through the sky and changing the very way weather functions. Sunlight would be warped, mana riding the sunlight and rain that fell from the sky and touching every last bit of the surface. Some areas began to increase in heat sporadically, while others began to chill to temperatures never seen on the planet before. The terrain would begin to warp so heavily that massive amounts of Scarred Ash began to manifest.

Despite what one may think, Earth was not the only one affected. This chaotic energy began to spread into the other realms, either through various Tears that formed from the immense amounts of mana in the air, or through Vaults.

Strakh

The terrain connecting all of Strakh began to shake and rumble, with the landmasses beginning to exponentally fly further away from each other. The core of the realm shut off, and with that, the realm quickly went into darkness. Within this darkness, the olden, feared kings of Strakh began to spoke to the inhabitants of the realm, driving many to madness.

Terra Eclipsis

The sky on Terra, too, began to shift and warp in coloration, becoming a dark purple color much like that on Earth. Alongside that, Elves and other species across this realm began to undergo various magic-related illnesses. The flora of the realm began to mutate, parts of it choking out other plantlife within the realm, forming a massive, growing and sentient jungle.

THE SANDS

All across the realm, all weather began to halt to a crawl, before in a mere instant, around 76% of sand in the realm transmutated into glass. Earthquakes would quickly follow suit, disrupting and distorting the realm even further. The moon of this realm would vanish. The realm's skies would suddenly begin to get immensely cloudy, with no sunlight managing to break through the clouds.

In the span of a day, everything changed.

The stars twinkled out of existence all across the realms. Aside from the sun of Earth, the sun of Terra, and the sun of The Sands, every last star simply blinked away, to be unseen forevermore. They were all now worlds without stars.

Aftermath

fog haze Free Stock Image by Sonja Langford

A Purple Haze as it begins, superheating everything in the area.

For the next few months, there would be a plethora of discoveries and incidents that would coincidence with the realms trying to figure out what had happened. When telecommunications were restored in the days afterward, news quickly spread that the governments of the world were in disarray, a majority of the politicians in these governments having died. Fatalities were ramping up heavily, and people were reporting that many were experiencing Transmorphification Syndrome. A lot of people. Within days, hundreds, then thousands, of people became Transformed.

Realm travel was still active, though entry into each realm was considered risky due to the different catastrophies that were occuring. Species that were sensitive to Mana, such as Vampires, Elves, and Lyudi were all affected heavily by the mana, many core traits of theirs becoming mutated as a result.

The weather, now fully warped by The Withering, would begin to exhibit strange, new phenomena that had never been encountered before. These were the magic-disrupting Ashen Storms, the ecologically damaging Inverse Rains, the Tear-forming Warp Storms, and most concerningly: Purple Hazes. When Purple Hazes occured, the sky would begin to burn a bright purple color, the temperature rising immensely and the air becoming filled with brilliant, purple waves of fire.

It wouldn't be long before another effect of this event, of which scholars were calling The Withering, became evident: Dying became a lot more complicated.

Sheol

For eons, the balance between life and death meant that, unless a Demon escaped from hell, it was nigh-impossible for the afterlife to cross with the world of the living.

This would change after The Withering.

In a mere days, millions of souls would begin to pour out of Sheol, entering all of the realms. Psychopomps all across the afterlife found themselves overwhelmed by both the millions of souls entering Sheol, and the millions flooding out of it. As a result, these souls would quickly become lost, no longer able to enjoy their eternal peace. Most of them would end up lost in between the realms, entering The Void and becoming lost in the chaotic nature of it. Many, many others would be exposed to the immense amounts of Mana and fuse together, forming Vires and becoming incomprehensible beasts.

Some opportunistic individuals with no moral quandaries would begin taking these souls to use for their own nefarous deeds.

The chaos that Earth felt would not be restricted to just them, as the other realms would too fall prey to the destruction and destabilization of the realms.

Strakh would descend into madness, the leadership all across the realm quickly falling into disarray. Around 90% of The Bozhestvo would all quickly cease existence as they were consumed by the darkness. This left a lot of Strakh floundering with no leadership for the longest time, left to deal with the beasts of the dark.

Terra, for a small amount of time as the inhabitants tried to recover, would finally be quiet for the first time in millennia as the wars across the realm were paused. Before anyone could appreciate that saving grace, however...

Gora, The Dragon King, returned.

With him came the full force of the once deceased Dragons, bringing a whole new violent war back to Terra Eclipsis in the form of The Second Elven-Dragon War.

The Sands would begin to cool, any heat that would've fallen onto the realm becoming locked outside of the clouds, a defiance of natural laws being observed by those on The Sands. From the broken glass beneath them, entities that were made purely out of Sand began to rise. These creatures would become known as Dusts, and they were aggressive.

And thus, all of this was the state of the world from henceforth. For the next twenty years, the world would remain as so.

Perseverance

And yet despite all of it, the inhabitants of the realms all fought to survive this new madness that greeted them.

Earth

Although the governments of old had fallen, although the Deepcore Foundation had been demolished in the wake of The Withering, new systems had formed, all with a focus on surviving the new world that they've found themselves in. These new countries were split apart, no longer the same massive, continent-spanning groups as they once were, but territories that owned select cities scattered far and wide across the globe. Protections had been put in place, both with technology and magic, to increase the chances of survival with those whom travel across the dangerous and lethal outside world.

Strakh

The few Bozhestvo that survived and weren't corrupted by the evils of the darkness had united together, creating a small country on one of the floating islands of Strakh that the survivors of The Withering have flocked to. Regularly, Lyudi will be sent out to the rest of the continents to try and find others who may be lost or hiding in the dark, making efforts to bring them back into the light.

Terra Eclipsis

From the high Elves of the realm to the underground Dwarves, the remaining kingdoms and survivors within Terra Eclipsis banded together, pushing past the differences and conflicts that once drove their old rulers, so that they could fight against The Dragon King. Even as the world becomes increasingly choked by the jungle, they will not let The Dragon King and his Dragons rule over the realm.

THE SANDS

Led by those whom were once considered criminals, hundreds of Reptilia banded together to build shelters and defenses against the Dust, making efforts to turn the glassy landscape all around them into ways to survive. From forming massive caverns from the cracks and filling them with traps, to using the glass and whatever lights and burnables they can get to create heat for their cold-blooded bodies, the Reptilia refuse to go away quietly.

Sheol

Although the Psychopomps have struggled to bring souls back to hell, efforts are being made across the entire afterlife to try and gain some semblance of stability. Demons have abandoned the idea of trying to return back to Earth, opting to help and assist those within their own homes and build to a greater afterlife, in defiance of the idea that they should suffer for all eternity.

Despite it all, they will stop at nothing at thrive, to survive. They have the Resolve to do so. They have hope. People have banded together and will stop at nothing to break past this new world's dangers.

One day, someday, they'll never fear the darkness anymore. After all, they are all like the wind, unyielding and strong, without rest. They'll make it. They have to.