Part One: The Population of the World.

Across the world the children of the daughters swelled, each generation twice or three times the size of the previous at least.

The first generation had numbered two, the second generation had numbered two, the third generation had numbered five, the fourth generation had numbered one thousand and twenty seven.

Of the mortal generations, the fifth generation numbered two thousand, the sixth generation numbered four thousand, the seventh generation numbered twelve thousand, the eighth generation numbered twenty-four thousand, the ninth generation numbered fifty thousand and the tenth generation numbered one hundred thousand.

The first true population centers formed, cities grew and agriculture and industry spread. With the need to eat and drink, cuisines were established and with the need to sleep, housing became more and more important.

Part Two: The Earth Fall.

By the eleventh generation the first of the great disasters struck, the event known as the Earth Fall.

Until this point in time there had been no wars, there had been no widespread death by anything but age. Empires formed upon each continent, and armies were formed to prepare for the inevitable conflict with the Dae’haruvas.

Csuri and Rohvana still journeyed the lands, and the Daughters and Primogenitors still resided with their tribes as leaders and guides.

From below the world, the darkness stirred and from the depths it spilled forth across all the lands. The many tendrils of its void being rose to tear at the very foundations of the fledging civilisations of Humanity.

Arca the Black, Daughter of Rohvana and Vykana, led the first of the mortal armies against the Dae’haruvas as it emerged. The world was plunged into violence for the first time.

Upon seeing Arca and the mortal armies march to war, Csuri ventured out for the first time to find her mother Auri whom had left the world to continue their crafting of worlds. They would return after many years with the armies of the Dae lead by Auri herself.

Rohvana remained behind to awaken the Fae, within days the Fae had pushed back the Dae’haruvas to the underworld but were not enough to defeat it entirely. Sporadically the Dae’haruvas would resurge only to have to be pushed back again and again.

Csveti, arriving with Auri and the Army of the Dae, saw the dire circumstances and knew that the Army of the Dae could not push deep into the world. The soldiers were Fae, and were not made to save the world but to destroy it and seal the beast within forever. He ventured from the world to seek help from the Naak and returned with their army and with them the mightiest of the Prime, the Pillar of Lust.

Part Three: The War Below.

With the Army of the Naak by her side, Arca the Black pushed the Dae’haruvas deep within the world itself and struck at its heart.

Her war would last for many generations, within the twisted realm that the Dae’haruvas had forged for itself to inhabit. Armies were raised and then sank into the world to fight the darkness by her side.

The Naak grew and changed, they remade themselves for the dark tunnels and the Pillar of Lust stood upon the world itself. Many would come to worship them as though they were Dae.

Auri stood amongst the people, bringing her tenderness to the children and grandchildren, soothing their pain and comforting them in the darkness. She had seen a greater challenge before them.

Under her watch, Rohvana raised an army from the Rohvanese and Csuri spread to the world the first true religion - Dualism. By the words of Csuri, faith in the Mother and Father grew and the Naak were no longer amongst the Dae.

Part Four: The Sky Fall.

For when it came, it came quickly and savagely.

Above the world the skies filled with the machines of the Naak. They came with fire and metal and drove from the lands the peoples of the Daughters.

Auri, who had foreseen the treachery riled the Fae and sent Csveti forth to break the armies of the Naak as they descended upon the world. Yet their number was too great and he destroyed only a fraction of their number.

The Armies of Rohvana marched forth, with Rohvana and Csuri at their fore and they clashed with the Pillar and their armies.

The Daughters raised their own armies to resist the invading armies.

All while the war below still raged.

The Naak believed the universe must end.

Rohvana, who had been forged from the heart of Csuri, born of this world and had seen the world populated by her daughters and granddaughters, stood against the Naak and upon the fields of the land that would come to bear her name she clashed against the Pillar of Lust and was brought down by their armies. Yet left none of them standing, except the Pillar itself.

Csuri, so taken by sorrow and rage, tore from the bodies of her grandchildren their arcane and with it rendered the Pillar and its armies to dust, ash and void. With the arcane of all the world’s people she reached down to tear from the world the Dae’haruvas to shackle it in light and darkness and make of it a weapon to unleash upon the Naak.

This monster, the Devourer of the Pillars, the Naak’haruvas, would leave the world and hunt the Naak for all eternity.

Dismayed by her daughter’s actions, Auri departed to hunt the beast so that eternal war may be prevented. Though it pained her to see her child suffer, and to face the betrayal of the Naak, she knew there must be balance if the universe was to remain and the cycles to continue.

And as her heart had died, so too did Csuri die, shattering into seven pieces. Her father Csveti turned her broken body into seven artifacts, taking two and giving five, so that Csuri could not return until the Naak’haruvas had been slain and peace between Dae and Naak restored. To each of the Daughters he gave one of the artifacts, and to himself and Auri he gave two. Once they were reunited, she could return.

Nothing could be done to restore Rohvana, and so her body was enshrined and cared for until Csuri returned.

The Daughters, tired from the many battles, retreated and slowly disappeared. Many believe they descended into the vaults to patrol the now shattered halls. Others believe they died of sorrow for the loss of their mothers. Only one remained in the world, Nira, who locked herself behind the walls of her palace and slowly lost the will to even talk to her people.

The Primogenitors, those not lost in the Falls, remained. The bodies of the fallen were enshrined within the cities they helped to create. Those who remained no longer held much interest in leading the people, and became little more than spiritual figures, sages, philanthropists. For it was now up to Humanity to lead themselves, to grow and to thrive.

For it had been Humanity that had survived the Falls, that had won them - if there was anything to be won. Though it had been Csuri that had ended the threat, she had done so with Humanity’s arcane, she had stripped of them their magics to enact revenge when the war had already been won.

And the Daughters and the Primogenitors and the Dae no had right to lead them any longer.

Part Five: The Collapse and the Long Winter.

Civilisation was fractured by the Falls and with the death of Csuri and Rohvana, the departure of the Dae and the decline and disappearance of the Daughters there was nothing to pull it back together.

With no natural leadership it fell to Humanity itself to provide the next generation of leaders.

First, natural instincts drove sisters and cousins to compete as the Dae ordained Queens of the land. Such instincts took root in the lands of Ys and Ifrane.

However, others sought to allow all the chance to choose their leaders. Such ideas took root in the lands of Nyss, Stychia and Nira.

But with a new generation of leaders came divergence and change, a disunity between the many different ideas on what the paths forward should be. Wars were inevitable and frequent.

A long winter set in, spurred on by the destruction of the Falls, one that would last a generation and leave crops frozen and houses cold. Many would die of starvation or frost, and worse, in the winter the wars grew more desperate as the petty queens and tribal councils sought to expand and grow and reunite the fractured empires.

In this period came the prevailing logic that there must always be an empire, for only an empire could unite a continent and prepare for future war against the return of the Dae’haruvas. The old empires of the Daughters, the unified tribes and nations under their rule, had ended and had to be remade.

It would take several generations for the first to emerge.

Next Chapter: The History: Chapter Five - The Three Queens of Ys