Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:10 — 6.2MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS

Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with a wonderful story from the pen of enderandrew. It is entitled

“The Four Eras”, by Joorus the Scribe
Background music is by Smartsound.

Volume I

I may sound like a broken phonograph, but we know very little about the time before The Fall. There are some records carved in stone, and we do study them as much as any focus of history. But I fear we may never answer the one question everyone wants to know, who or what caused The Fall?

Some suggest Avatars caused the cataclysm in their hubris, others think they may have caused it desperately to wipe out some evil that had spread. Others think it is absurd to suggest any person could control celestial bodies.

We want to know both because we want to make sure the guilty parties are held accountable, and we need to be reassured it can’t happen again. I can offer you assurances on the former if not the latter.

In the Age of Survival, everyone suffered. If there was any one person or group of people who smashed the moons together and made the sky bleed dangerous shards of Daedalus, then it is very likely they suffered the same horrific fate as everyone else.

The cataclysm wasn’t merely one moment but a prolonged period of suffering and anarchy. When the sky literally falls, no one imagines they have long to live. Some died quickly as cities burned and the earth shook. Others waited in abject terror for a slower death as civilization crumbled.

Bandits attacked brazenly with no one to stop them, taking for themselves at the expense of helpless families all across Novia. In some ways we know even less of the years right after The Fall. Before, scholars still had reason to record history with the belief life on this world would continue.

But continue it did. Some took to the underground, finding old tunnels. They were expanded in some places, creating a system of catacombs. Agriculture was nearly non-existent, but at least shards of Daedalus didn’t rain down on people in the catacombs. They were hidden from the anarchy and destruction above.

But death did not come for everyone. People emerged from the catacombs or boarded up homes when starvation forced them to. At times these frightened survivors ran into each other and suddenly realized they weren’t all alone. At other times they ran into warlords organizing the bandits. They began to realize that looting would only get you so far.

For humanity to survive they needed people to return to the fields. But who would they work for? Where would their food go? Who would protect them or rule over them? Various warlords were power hungry as well.