A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD
by R.W. Terenious
(excerpt) ...should be well known by many, but that is for another time. The armies of the fallen, the guerilla warriors, and the cannibalistic nomads had, for weeks, joined forces to assail us. I'm sure if they succeeded, they would have turned on one another like starving dogs in the end.
By the magic of the Great Dragon, Dragonicos, had our city been spared by much of the terror and disaster of the rending. Be it through luck or fate, I am not certain. Our Sanctuary, the building he created to protect us from the great earthquakes and floods, withstood all that came. Something arcane about its very existence was apparent from the beginning, and a radius surrounding our home seemed immune to the disintegration of The Weave. We were not even aware of its destruction until we heard the stories of those who came to our gates. Even the demigod heroes of the Rend sought us out to set up a stable gateway to their celestial plane.
We hoped that their return, and the gateway they created to their plane, would prove a good omen. But instead of a safe haven where we could provide assistance to those that came, multitudes flooded us; a plague of locusts they were. When we gave all we could, sparing little for ourselves, they demanded more. Even if we gave all we had, it would not have been enough. They were furious that we had what they had not, and nothing could stave their hunger. Nothing could be done to reason with them.
As falsely embellished word of our prosperity spread through the land, more starving mobs came; mostly humans they were, but we saw elves, orcs, goblins, and dwarves alike, and even beasts and elementals of the mountains. They came by force. They came wishing our demise, that they might take our substance, our shelter, our safety, for their own. It was a horror I daresay equal to the destruction of Terra herself--the destruction of civilization, the destruction of humanity, the destruction of the mind. All gave way to chaos, murder, and madness. We spent months trying to reason with our assailants; none strove harder to do so than King Veon, but at last, our scouts brought us word of a massive army, growing fast. We had no other choices left before us.
Our queen spent every morning fortifying a wall of ice and stone around our entire land, forty feet high and several feet thick; our climate became cold like a glacier, but we were safe. It took much of her power, as the forces outside battered and beat at it mercilessly each day. Her power was all that kept them at bay, and after much deliberation, we were to save our people from a life of death and servitude by a very extreme undertaking; only the highest in power knew about it before it was executed. It was a bittersweet choice, but the armies grew stronger every day. The other demigods, now gods themselves, came to assist--came to reason, came to rebuild other towns elsewhere--but nothing seemed to cure the madness. After a time, the gateway itself started to fail (despite the arcane cocoon of Dolor) and we did not see them again. We were alone.
One fateful midnight, two years to the day from the rending, a chill fog spread out from our city, surrounding the land for miles. Our trained bulettes made short work of the ground beneath Dolor, and behind them, our queen ran a sheet of ice, compacting the earthen rock above it. Her majesty over the arcane was nothing short of masterful, and the control exerted against the outside tears of the fabric of magic took an immense pressure. We could see tendrils of ice being torn away where it pooled out of the edges of the city, crackling pops of electricity or bursts of fire disappearing and reappearing at its edges, as she weaved the chaotic strands back into the ice itself. The very air felt sharp around us, as if lightning were close by. It was fearsome to watch...
(excerpt) ...once we were airborne, for certain. After three days of exertion with no food or sleep, she retired to rest for several days. It took some time for the remainder of us to adjust to the new altitude. The young and the elderly seemed most susceptible to this "sky sickness". The magi-mechanical apparatuses supporting our motion became steadier over the next few days, as adjustments were made by the royal technicians, but much was going to change over time, and in coming generations; that we knew. It was far better to grow accustomed to this new life, than to witness the horrors of the lands below.
Our peace was aided by the misting clouds below us, billowing off from the ice sheets. These were replenished regularly by the queen after that, to provide secrecy for our new home. We could always see out ahead, and what a wonder it was to look out at the whole of Terra. Since the Rend, much of the land had changed; but never was it so apparent as it was now. For the first few years we took careful studies of the changes, recording them in the Temple of the Great One. From the sky, you could see the massive ore veins that had bubbled out from the crust, the swathes of dead sea life that was being reclaimed by the land as the flood waters continued to receed, and the herds that made it through the floods, starting new migrations. We also saw...
(excerpt) ...This new knowledge was expansive, but ironically not much use to our people. It was peaceful where we were, and no thought ever came to our generation of returning to the lands below, now so alien. Only on rare expeditions would the king send an emissary below to gather new seeds or ores in secret, such as during the famine of the Dry Spring. It was only ever out of necessity for the safety or feeding of our peoples. We needed sustainable, high altitude plants, and livestock that could adapt quickly. Not much was left after the Rend, and one had to think creatively for survival, as the king did. Over time we grew wiser about the needs of our home.
Due to the nature of our New Dolor, we found ourselves being carried around Terra in a certain pattern; at first it seemed to be air currents carrying us along, but we became almost as another satellite in the sky, as the moons were. We counted several new land masses, some covered in ice, and some scorched brown and orange. Some were most undoubtedly from the Leviathan itself; white and stark against the blue-green waters. Its body did no favors with its decay, and the poisonous look of the sea told much of it. We took to praying to the old and new gods, although they could not hear our prayers. Perhaps someday again, they will hear us.