It would be easy to start with “Once upon a time, a pair of particles collided…” It would be easier to explain the way Euverna came to be in something so scientifically relevant, but random chance is just that and the two particles that created our earth, in the other dimensions had a much different outcome. In some places, they didn’t collide until much later, or never did. In others, when they collided they created an anti-climactic fizzle punctuated by the sad trumpets of a sitcom. In one layer, though, a layer in which we do not live, a mirrored world blossomed. Just like ours, it started off as a stone that was caught, then conditions were just perfect to create layers, water, land, plant life, and eventually, living organisms. It went as far as to have humans, but the outcome of things were a bit different. In our world, the event that set things in motion to go in whatever direction we went did not happen in this other world and while Euverna formed instead of our Earth, it, by complete random chance, ended up as rich and developed as our own world in our own universe.

Humans were flawed no matter which layer you stood in. Selfish creatures with too much intelligence, the higher races would say and in Euverna, the elements knew that the walking meat bags would be their demise, even before the humans realized what they were doing. The Kobolds tried their best to work with the elements, but it was only a few centuries before the elements realized that as the squishy ones grew in mental capacity and cognitive complexity, their blind following declined and gradually, they were stamped out. The elements were nothing like gods, far from it. They were the air, the rocks, the fire, the water, and the electricity that flowed naturally throughout the land. The elements kept the balance, but were spirits in their own right, and for years, humans would worship and harness them as necessary, but it was when they discovered how much power they truly could take when things began to look bad for the natural world.

All it took was control of fire and water and the steam age of Caspin began. They were the first country to create a steam engine and the first to use it for travel. Ships took months at sea, but once they had a way to turn water into steam, they had a way to conquer the air with a steam engine and a large balloon. Air travel approached fast and hard and the moment that the humans of Caspin took over the skies, was the moment that the country of Caspin lost their religion.

The dicephalic beast that was sinless curiosity and vehement greed began to fuel the advancement of the race gradually, Caspin had provinces in their pockets all over the other continents. Promises of wealth and governing positions came from the dignitaries who brought back the nobles of every politically and financially conquered district. Not a single war had to be fought, because as the Tin Ruby’s white hydrogen balloon appeared in the distance over the ocean and the body of the ship skimmed, but never touched, the surface of the sea, the dockworkers threw their arms up in a state of immediate relinquishment at the sign of the first flying machine. Many remarked on the absurdity of how Caspin became such a large organism to contend with, some of these were published in satire papers across the world. A particular cartoon featured the man with his enlarged head and monocle poised as he motioned to the rendering of the Tin Ruby behind him. The dialog between the man and the savages on the docks said, “Join us!” The savages yelled, “No!” In response, the Lampoon Sylvester replied, “But we have an airship!”

It was assumed, then, that the savages portrayed in the piece immediately dropped their spears and became part of the harems of Caspin. The Consul, though amused by the satire, decided to travel to the plains past Eurictown where the piece originated and the moment that airship arrived, the governing body sighed and relinquished their claim as well. The cartoonist is presumed dead. The cartoon, however, still hangs in Consul Sylvester’s office proudly where he can refer to it as the sardonic chaff it was. “But we have an Airship!” He would say with his pipe in one hand and his whiskey in the other and the men in his office, mostly his hangers-on would guffaw alongside him.