The Tale of Silternius

## Prologue

The world grumbles. The leaves blew on the silent breeze as the day began to shine on the world. A lone figure stands on a lonely island towards the north as he watches the sunrise with the memories of a world that he had long since departed. It was heartbreaking for him to leave that world, but he knew that something cried out among the cosmos, needing his help. With the help of the World Tree, he opened the World Gate and met the strangest being he had ever come across.

This being felt immensely powerful, but yet he seemed to be kind and caring to him. This being seemed to know things about magic that not even this lone figure could ever hope to dream of, but even he could tell that this being was sad about something on his mind.

Something that this figure would begin to figure out...

## Part 1: The Cry for Help

This lone figure was named Silternius. He resided from a distant world that could not be accessed from the Zarel'kaian World Tree, but he didn't come to Zarel'ka by World Tree. No, he *arrived* by Traveler. Long ago, when he was still full of life, he was friends with a (previously unknown) resident of Zarel'ka by the name of Sharak Shaddar. He was a Draconic Magician, wielding the powers of Oblivion, but to this very day, no one knew how he arrived to this world and made friends with the powerful magician Silternius the Gifted. Travelers to foreign universes had reclaimed Sharak's body from a strange world-a world that not even the elves of Zarel'ka would dare travel to-and his cause of death was decapitation.

Silternius had talked to Shaddar of a supposed 'Age of Invention' that would kick off with Sharak's departure from this foreign world by Traveler, but there was reason to believe that Silternius, upon Sharak's disappearance, abandoned this notion of an 'Age of Invention' and begun working on a great passion for Time Magic, which he would come to find out actually existed on a faraway world.

While he talked to this powerful being, he got to the part about Shaddar and the Traveler. This being halted Silternius right there and told him that Travelers existed, including the fact that he had one of his own. Silternius was astonished at this and refused to believe it until he saw it with his own eyes, which the being smiled.

This was when he remembered that cry for help in the cosmos.

## Part 2: The Traveler

In Zarel'kaian history, it is not unheard of that the Lord of Creation has the only known Traveler in existence. In fact, there were at least two instances in Zarel'kaian history that the Lord of Creation had arrived using a Traveler capsule though no one knows how to make one let alone operate it. Silternius, at this point in his journey, had met the Lord of Creation.

Though his name is Kayen and "Lord of Creation" was a mere title.

Kayen led Silternius to his Traveler-a blue phone box from a world called "Earth" in the 2000's-and Silternius was quite in awe of the Traveler. It wasn't like the one from Shaddar's own descriptions of it (though historians debate on whether or not that Shaddar had told Silternius about Travelers or even Kayen), but it seemed quite impressive once they entered inside of the Traveler.

What happened next was left up for debate among the elven and human historians, but everyone agrees that the end result was the formation of the second instance in Zarel'kaian history: the Arrival.

## Part 3: The Arrival

(Author's notation: This part is similar toward the Prologue of the Current Age of Zarel'ka and may contain spoilers!)

Historians had recorded evidence from the recent raid of Fallen libraries (though most of them were about ways to murder and screw Mortals and Ascended) about The Arrival. One account was from the old Draconic Military Library by a long-dead Draconic Scholar by the name of Jarksel and the following has been translated from Draconic to common (roughly, I might add):

> "The stars shine brightly the night I was assigned to scout the Island of Forever. [The Traveler] made a whirring sound as a strong breeze soon followed from a [materializing light] and when [the Traveler] appeared, its doors made a slight squeaking sound that annoyed me. That's when I laid eyes upon our age-old foe. He still appeared young and [This part seems to be scratched out and cannot be read]. He seemed to help a young human [Here, there seems to be some kind of notation about him hating humans with a passion] out from his [Traveler], but he doesn't seem to be like our foe at all. [The rest is all about him wanting to kill the human by eating his head and then some dried blood covering over everything else.]"
>
>

Silternius-in his age of 115 at the time of writing this-was unable to recall what happened to Jarksel and has refused any further questioning.

## Part 4: The Present

((This is where we are in the timeline. Year 170 of the Fourth Age))

Silternius sighed as he watched the sunrise, but he seemed complacent this morning. He had arrived to the World Tree and the Lake of Life that the Tree guards to speak with the Fae leaders. As the old man began to walk up to the Lake of Life where he expected the Fae King to be, he stopped at the foot of the World Tree and felt a strange feeling. It was no ordinary feeling, but one he was quite familiar with. He went into his pocket and held his Orb of the Mage in his hand, feeling a surge of raw Elemental power flow through him. It was rare to draw this much Elemental power at 155 years, but as it flowed through him, it did not stay.

Something was drawing his power from his orb and Silternius knew it.

Kayen had warned him that sometime in his future that when the world began to depopulate quicker, the World Tree would need to draw more power to act as a beacon to wayward souls and help forge new beings.

Thus this became the Year of Renewal.