Belien

Belien is the 17th hero that you will unlock at Stage 2050.

## Story

I am a Belien, and I am a Druid. For us, nothing is above the natural order. We understand that nature is nothing other than the totality of the force of life, a unified consciousness. To connect with it is to know that the mystic bond of soul and body is nothing more than life experiencing itself.

I was born an Elf, blessed with long life. For my kind, ancient traditions and rituals are reminders of our everlasting bond with the natural world. The strings that connect our soul with the dirt, that connect the fantasy of mind with what our five senses tell us, can play great and terrible melodies. To be a Druid is to make music of these strings. In the Elven tongue, we call this music Saera Tor, the Wild Magic.

I was born 3000 years ago, before the First War. I knew this only by the carving on my birthing tree. The rest - what my physical body lived until now - is a blurred memory. Strange, I know; an Elf who can barely remember! But I am not only an Elf. I am a Druid, and to play the Saera Tor is to find harmony with every spirit that has ever heard this music. To hear it is to live a thousand lifetimes, draw from the wisdom of Druids past that live now in the air, earth, wind and fire.

Our children are raised together with nature. Our friends are the saplings and tiny critters, our guardians the trees and animals. Druids tends to their illness and pain and they in turn protect us from those who would disturb our peaceful life. Alas I was destined, it seems, to only remember this peace from the memories of others.

Even as a crawling Elfling, then only a Druid by instinct, my leafy brothers would tell me of the rot at the edges of the forest. As I grew and learned, I heard less and less of the old trees' voices. It was not until I had pledged myself to the Magic - when my mentor passed into eternity and gave me his past - that I saw their blackened dead branches and twisted roots that stretched for miles where the forest ended. The Darkness had returned and it had already begun to eat at the foundation of life.

He who looks to the past, cannot plan for the future. He who stares ahead is doomed to forget. He who tries to watch both, neglects the present. It is confusing for you, no? Perhaps if you had my years, learned to listen to the Saera Tor and heard the wisdom of the Druidic Order, it would be simpler to grasp.

You wish to know my story. Well, as you can see, I have many. Perhaps what you meant to ask is, what notes have you added to the music? What will the Druids that come after your spirit has joined the chorus, learn from what you have done? My friend, for all my life I have lived in the balance, learning and tending to the realm. There is much to say, or none at all. But if you seek an answer, then hear nothing more than the dark memory that brought me here.

From all the memories I carry, this one is the most vivid. This is from my lifetime, and I remember.

I had spent days studying some beetles, friends of mine, who had learned to chew rock into rich dirt for growing. I had thought, foolishly, that new medicines of nature might cure the Darkness' blight. But nature, my friend, strong as it may be, is slow in rhythm. The Undead hordes are swift and merciless. They came as burning skeletons, each footstep spelling the ashen doom of countless birthing trees, more ancient than any kingdom of Man or Orc. Their filthy diseased bones salted the earth, their sickly half-souls riddling the ground with puddles of bile and poison. I ran, as the forest screamed for help. I was not a coward; this I promise. I only did not know what fighting was. The strength of nature is persistence. How can you be persistent when the wind comes smelling of death, your native lands destroyed overnight?

It was at dawn's first light that I learned my connection to the Saera Tor was incomplete. I had only learned the past wisdom of peace, but in my pain and anger I learned that there was more. My inward eye opened to the endless struggle against the agents of darkness, those servants of the evil mirror-image of life that we call undead. I remembered that my past lives were not only healers, but warriors.

I have summoned the fury of storm and hail from atop a broken castle. I have become one with the shadow in the form of a cat, watching enemies of the Light conspire. I have spoken to the trees and they have told me of forgotten wars, which have become part of my own. My body has legs and arms, but I remember the strength of my roots holding back an angry river, breaking a dam meant to tame it.

So, friend, what is the story of Belien? I cannot tell you, as I write it before your very eyes. Were I a student of mortal magic, I would tell you a prophecy - but I am not a prophet, or a fortune-teller. Instead, I will make you a promise. A promise that the story of Belien will be a story of harmony restored, darkness bound, and light returned.

I will end the non-life, for my burned and darkened brothers and sisters. I am Belien, and I am a Druid.

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