The History of Arbren, and the Warning it Holds

The cover of "The History of Arbren, and the Warning it Holds" was a tan plain looking hard cover, the corner was missing and the whole thing was faded. As he opened the first page it nearly fell out.

Looking closer it seemed as though this page was currently folded, quickly unfolding it Caxon smiled, it was a large map of what appeared to be the entire continent he was on.

It was an island in the shape of a boot with the bottom part of the island expanding to the left significantly farther then the right which was almost a vertical line from the north to the south.

In the center of the land there was the land of Arbren that controlled a large oval of land with a star representing the capital just southwest of the center of the kingdom. The east and west of Arbren were cut off by two mountain ranges. The eastern mountains were labeled as "The Great Spine" and the western were called "Abyssal Peaks" and both of them had skull and cross bones throughout their drawings signifying extreme danger.

In the land past the Great Spine between the mountains and the coast was another nation called Batedia Kingdom, on the western coast past the Abyssal Peaks there was the kingdom of Taipia.

All of these kingdoms shared the same northern neighbor who controlled the entirety of the northern part of the continent, the Eternal Sun Empire.

The nations all ended their southern boarders at the "The Narrow Wastes", a relatively narrow desert that cut across the entire continent and housed nomadic and barbaric tribes. Past the narrow desert at the tip of the southern was the "Outlands" this area also had skull and cross bones and was said to be a land overrun by monsters where only pure evil could survive.

After examining the map for a second Caxon quickly looked around, seeing that no one was nearby he ripped the map out of the book and stored it in his storage ring before he continued on to the book. He quickly realized that this book actually had some useful information in it so he took it and found a seat nearby.

Sitting on a cracked and breaking wooden seat he began to focus entirely on reading

'Long long ago in a time before any had even thought of the name Arbren Kingdom out content was filled with monsters who's only purpose was to kill any living thing that used mana. Every race that walked upon two legs formed an alliance and lived together in the only city that could survive, "Last Hope", now the capital of the Eternal Sun Empire on a cliff of the northern coast.

The three biggest races that made up this alliance were the Elfs, Humans, and Dwarfs however there were many others that lived in the city.

After years of struggling the civilized races had only lost their lives fighting against the monsters that were a constant threat. They would have already fallen if it wasn't for the settlers from a different content did not constantly show up.

Unfortunately for these people most of them would never even make it to land. Since the monsters that lived near the coast would never let them leave, there was no way to send back word that this was not a land of opportunity but a land of despair.

One day during one of the many monsters attacks the alliance feared that today would be their last day. Horrifying monsters of all shapes and sizes slowly broke through the defenses of the city there was no one who could defeat the powerful attackers.

It was in the darkest hour when they appeared, the 6 heroes who would come to be known as Golden Immortals leading a fleet of 450 warships full of powerful warriors ready to fight until their very last. The Golden Immortals instantly showed that they were more powerful than anyone in the city by clearing the crushing the attacking monsters without any difficulty.

They then announced that they would purge the continent of these monsters and create an environment that people could actually live in.

This then started the Age of Blood, over 15 years of constant fighting as the Immortals and their war host slowly pushed back the monsters further and further to the south.

The monsters seemed to feed on a dark energy of a corrupted mana, anywhere that a lot of monsters lived in would turn the land a dark sickly purple and a permanent thick fog would take hold. However, as the Immortals pushed the monsters further south this fog was dissipated and the land slowly gained life again.

When the heroes had almost finished their mission and the monsters only remained in the southern tip of the continent they came back after their largest defeat in history. Their entire army was wiped out and only the 6 Immortals remained.

They declared that clearing the Outlands was impossible however they vowed they would see their mission through so they all sacrificed their lives to great a strong barrier made of their lifeforce and mana that would hold the remaining corruption within.

Many wondered what could possibly have driven back this seemingly unbeatable force but none was willing to ask.

The Immortals then warned that if the barrier was ever about to break it would warn the entire continent so that those who remained could have some warning.

The descendants of these heroes glorified them in a shrine in Last Hope before they ventured into the new lands to create their own cities and eventually kingdoms.

The descendants of Oganeth Glory the fire lord, a Human Mage that was a part of the Golden Immortal founded the nation that would come to be known as Arbren.

Oganeth's brother Desadion Glory would be the first king, the Glory family has sat on the throne of Arbren for the thousands of years that followed.

Each nation of this continent can trace their lineage to one of the Golden Immortals, even the 2 largest tribes of the Narrow Wastes desert have one as their ancestors. This is the main reason that no nation has ever gone to all-out war with each other only light skirmishes over land or other disputes.

The Immortals made it a point to make sure that future generations would know this story so that they would be ready in case the monsters ever broke through their barrier. At first the leaders of every nation who respected the immortals as gods vowed that no man woman or child would be ignorant of their sacrifice, but as time went on their story was told less and less as more recent history became the focus.

Today some only think of this story as legend and many don't even know it, and yet the threat grows closer and closer. Many do not know this, but dungeons are portals that somehow connect to the Outlands, this is obvious to anyone that has seen the corrupted mana that inhabit the monsters in dungeons and the corruption beyond the barrier, as it is exactly the same.

It is common knowledge that every dungeon has a seal that keeps the monsters inside of them for a long time until they eventually break it and start to leak from the dungeon. How is it that no one has made the connection between this barrier in dungeons and the one to the Outlands, or worse do they simply ignore it.

If Arbren kingdom and the continent as a whole continues to live as they do now and simply send adventures to loot the spoils of the dungeons with no thought of the future, then this land will be a barren landscape of death and corruption. I only hope that there are more heroes from an unknown land ready to save us again, but I doubt that is the case.'

After this the book seemed to derail slightly as it seemed the author was trying to prove his theory by providing more and more details about the past and the barrier to the Outlands with possible theories on the corruption and its monsters. However, many of these topics and ideas were so far-fetched that it had the opposite affect and the book seemed more like the writings of a madman.