Fildegard - Age of the Godless: History of the Old World

The Unearthing

Long, long ago, in the country then-known as Germany, the man in charge of the Winterway Conglomerate received a report from his team of scientists. The scientists claimed they had come across something never-before-seen. They had spent a year studying it and were certain it could change the world and, most importantly, bring in the most profit the Conglomerate had ever seen. Their discovery was dubbed the "Core of Magic", a sphere of magical energy concentrated at the center of the planet. Pieces of it came off often, zipping away too quickly to track, but each time they did, the sphere would regenerate. This, to those human scientists, looked like an infinitely-renewable gold mine. The project was quickly greenlit, and a large portion of the Conglomerate's resources was assigned to it. Employees—expensive mages included—set out with the machinery the higher-ups bought to drill their way to the Core of Magic. The tunnel took remarkably little time to finish, and before they knew it, the energy readings were high enough to shatter their scientific instruments. If only they had known... Once the last layer of rock was turned to rubble, the tunnel was bathed in a bright light. It wasn't blinding, but to those that lacked given magic, it felt like an inferno, like being torn apart, atom from atom. Their genetic makeup destabilized, and they began to melt. They fused with rock, machines, bugs, anything in the vicinity, and they lost their ability to reason. The mages themselves met a similarly gruesome fate, turning completely mad upon catching sight of the light.

In the wake of this disaster, the Conglomerate buried the tunnel. They hoped they could salvage something from the project. However, they were soon backed into a corner when one of the mutant workers managed to make its way through the rubble. The Conglomerate had already been having trouble placating the families of the lost employees with the story of an unfortunate cave-in, and this would make it impossible if anyone found out the truth. Unfortunately for them, the mutants proved extremely difficult to manage, each one being completely different to the last in every conceivable way, and the governments of the world gathered to discuss their next course of action. Their next course of action, as I must bitterly admit is embarrassingly common for humans, was to bomb the tunnel. They dropped everything they had on the Core as well, hoping to disable or destroy it. It didn't work. All it did was expose the Core to the surface, spreading its light throughout the globe in the event we now know as the Unearthing, the date that marked our calendars from that day on.

The cataclysm was ruthless, and no amount of material wealth could've kept you safe. Companies and governments both turned desperate, resorting to human experimentation to create super soldiers that could stand a chance against the mutants. The idea was to "supercharge" existing mages and grant magic to those without it. I knew the risks when I convinced Father to let me sign up. I was just hoping I'd be able to do something to help. My bodyguard signed up alongside me. We were branded on our forearms before the experiments started, a security measure meant to force control over the subjects, like the slave brands of old. It... didn't go well. The scientists were all massacred, and those of us who survived, scarred for the rest of our now-eternal lives. With my newly granted magic, I quickly discovered I had Vascular Misconduct Syndrome, and even later in life, when I learned of native magic and how to use it, it didn't improve my condition at all. So the experiment, at least for me, amounted to nothing. Or so I thought. I wound up being the first and only living being with perfect immortality. I will not bore you with the details, albeit it became quite the curse over the years...

Beacons and the Outlands

After the collapse of civilization as a whole began, people started to look for a way out. Groups formed and migration paths were agreed on. We had to evacuate if we wanted any chance at survival, they said, because mutants didn't approach areas where conditions were extreme enough. I stayed behind. Who knows how long that would last? Mutants' forte was always adaptation. Regardless, more and more settlements emptied, their inhabitants heading for the Sahara, the Himalayas, or any other area these groups deemed safe. Networks fell as the exodus continued.

At first, fellow experiment survivors that had chosen to follow me supported my efforts to defend the city, but as others would come to point out in the next few thousand years, modern cities were horrendous as strongholds. So we made our own. We built walls, we built a floor, we built a ceiling, all thick and resistant enough that nothing could ever tear past it, and hopefully, nothing would be tempted to. Because no one would ever leave. Unbeknownst to me, this decision would be both our saving grace and our downfall. We built cities inside our walls and stayed safe there. I was appointed "Supreme Leader" of what we called the Society Revival Project. As you might imagine, that didn't sound too good when the project grew into a nation. I didn't realize it at the time. With no other authorities around to maintain order, however, what little magical stability there was in the Realms started to fall apart. I had to act fast to consolidate a good enough power base to become a Beacon. I tried to make the others elect a different leader, for the record. Both those who hated me and those who were thankful for me ensured my re-election.

Let me explain the importance of Beacons. They are something I've only recently learned the name of, but we have always known to some extent that a unifying force was required in the Age of the Godless if we wanted any hope of building a stable home. The gods' primary function is to act as stabilizers for each magical attribute, which is why native magic was so difficult to use back then—you had to first stabilize the magic within your membrane lest you misfire, or worse, damage your own body from the inside. With no gods to speak of, mortal Beacons were our only hope, and as weak as modern Beacons were, they had at least done the job for a time. I didn't know what kind of leaders would rise in other groups, so I focused on those who came to me for aid. I'll leave our nation's history for another lecture... I'm not allowed to speak of it myself, as the others said I would not be an unbiased source.

The way mortal Beacons work is as follows. A person gathers many people under their leadership and inspires the group, and together, the collective is able to subconsciously channel small amounts of magic throughout their day, which in turn stabilizes it, so long as the group is in harmony. Any amount of large scale dissent and discord could jeopardize this delicate balance, and of course, the more people to do this, the larger the area they can stabilize. Unity is key. That's... why I ran my group the way I did. If the Beacon themself is taken out, the effect is not immediately lost; being alive is not technically a requirement if the unity of the collective is retained. I hate to admit it, but the Empire of Zerzura is the most glowing example I can possibly point to. The three main Beacons of the New World in our realm of Flauvrane were the King of Kings in the Yokai Federation, the Empress of Zerzura... and me. Smaller ones existed in the form of minor powers. Once the Age of the Godless came to an end... that weight was taken off our shoulders. Whether we liked it or not.

All of this said, mortal Beacons have never been able to cover the entirety of Flauvrane. The Demon Realm has been fine since the consolidation of the Seven Demon Chieftains, mainly because it's much smaller, and the others... I don't even want to know what the others were like during that dark age. The gods differ from mortals in that regard because they are granted the power to affect all of Fildegard at once. Higher beings, such as the Primordial Light, were unaffected by the chaos and unwilling to become Beacons during the Age of the Godless, hardly even reachable, hence why we were pushed to such extremes even after the apocalypse. The only ones who were not desperate for a Beacon to follow were those we know as Travelers, the nomad people of the Outlands. Places on the edge of a Beacon's area of influence were known as Borderlands, and anything between Borderlands of different Beacons was known as the Outlands, where magic ran wild.

Here I should make a distinction between the four parts humankind split into after the Unearthing, over the seven thousand years until the Age of Restoration. Due to the effects of the Core's light, genetic mutation was significantly accelerated, which caused humans in different parts of the world to evolve far quicker than they otherwise would've in order to fit their new lifestyles:

• In the SRP, although I only realized it once it was too late, immune systems atrophied over the generations, since they lived in a sterilized environment from birth to death. They became brittle and soft. Short in height and lifespan.
• In the Yokai Federation, humans remained rather stable, due to the yokai's decision to place them at the center of their territory where they would never see the front lines and were able to maintain a good quality of life.
• In the Zerzuran Empire, to my endless disdain, their brutish methods and initial savagery developed their people into what I would call killing machines, particularly after the last queen took over. All height and muscle, sturdy to a point of inducing terror, and ridiculously long-lived.
• The biggest changes occurred in the Outlands. I... can't even begin to explain how or why those mutations happened. We call them Travelers, capital T, due to one unique characteristic they all share, and it's the reason behind their nomadic lifestyle as well. They cannot be killed unless their "will" fades, or they stop traveling; what this "will" is or how it works, I have not the slightest idea. They are afflicted by strange illnesses alien to any researchers, doctors, mages, or scientists, and their culture is completely different to any of the previous three nations. No leader either. Word spreads fast among them, even if they lead mostly solitary lives. I'm ashamed to admit that despite my role, they are the single aspect of Fildegard I know the least about. They seldom share anything with outsiders, after all.

The reason the Outlands were as dangerous as they used to be during the Age of the Godless was the general instability of magic. Since they were beyond any areas of influence, the magic there was untamed and would often lash out or stagnate in concentrated pools, or worse, seep in and out of people and items it was not supposed to be in. An expedition team could leave to cross the Outlands and the only way they could reliably orient themselves would be through the stars—the Sidereal never changes. They would be subject to the irregular passage of time as well, which could have a myriad of unpredictable effects on humans. Vampires were often relied on as guides through the Outlands, as the Vampire States tend to be in the Borderlands of the Yokai Federation, and they are a species highly used to managing their internal magic flow, which made them the second most qualified people to be in the Outlands at any given time.

These struggles all abruptly came to an end the second we stepped into the Age of Restoration.