The Wound that Festered(Prologue)

Heat. Blinding flame glowing ominously in blankets of blackened mists. The ground a harsh sludge of dirt, ash and crimson threatening to over tale wagons and armored boots. No light touched this place, the Sun and Moon unable to break the darkness of war. Blood and flame eating into what was once green and good till the earth itself seemed to bleed.

The harsh twang of metal on metal lost in the cacophony of war cries and death throes. Bodies lay strewn in a morbid path, stepping blocks for more fighters to meet blades. Layers upon layers of death and decay, evidence of the years of war fought on the same soil. This festering disease eating into the earth till the evidence of its wound escaped the smothering mists. Acre after acre of trees turning black with disease, animals fleeing the blight or becoming infected with it. Anger driving even the most docile of creatures to attack its own... yet still the war waged when most would band together.

The stars watched in the deep blanket of night, the Moon at their back in silent guidance. Their tears falling in brilliant streaks across the horizon .The Moon began to wane and the Sun rose and in their dual occupation the silent guardians made an agreement. This darkness was growing and all had lost hope. Human villages, Elvish cities, Dwarven settlements. One by one people become lost to this darkness, sick with it till nothing remained but a mutated husk of what once was... There was no light in this growing land of shadow. There was so few of the Ancient Races who would listen to the stars plight, who could take up such responsibility.

A world ravaged with sickness and death, murder and anger... the tears of the stars had long dried up but still the burned, waiting till they could see something in the growing darkness of their land. Any sign that there was a more fruitful fight to be had and healing to happen. Twenty years this plague spread, till the final city of the elves began to burn and its people paved the street like stones. buildings of shimmering white turned black with soot and streaked with innocent blood. The river at its center red with death and at the steps of its once grand Palace of the Sky lay three bodies. The small figures of children huddled against the slumped figure of a woman. Their once grey white turned black with carnage. Silk gowns stuck to skin and split to knife with chests unmoving.Only one moved, her wet breathing proof that even she had been victim to the same treatment as the children dead at her side's. Shaking hands clutching the lost in desperation, in hope that they hadn't fully left this plane for the next. Lavender eyes burning with blood gazing up at the silent countenance that was the Moon, her labored breath giving way to blood on every exhale and yet her plea was audible in the silence of a massacre.

"Help them."