Iku-Ys
"The Seafarers are bartering with the sea for her deepest secrets. Her price is every soul in Ekos."
The ancient city-state of Iku-Ys was once a beacon of mortal creativity, its gaze turned to the crashing waves on the shore, and the boundless expanse of the skies. Famed for its unbreakable walls, it drew scholars, poets and architects from all over the world.
But no mortal creation can withstand an evil that unmade even the heavens.
Not even the land bridge Iku-Ys once stood upon now remains - not in the wake of the first Harbingers' desperate gambit with fate. Neither the sea-loving wyverns nor the emikun have ever found the city's remains... and yet even the vast depths of the ocean cannot drown such a secret forever.
All Must Drown
The Lure of the Heavens
They aspired to build... which, like the stone it was... would neither fade nor crumble under the heavy burdens of...
But the Ruinous... does not suffer mortal things to endure. As the pride of humankind returned to the pure [seashadow?] of the world, so must all things at last fall under the...
Iku-Ys was constructed on a land bridge between the southern and eastern continents. It began as an institute of learning, which sought to understand the ocean, its tides and the starry sky. But in their research, the scholars stumbled upon one of the world's greatest lost wonders: xephis, an allegedly unbreakable stone.
Whether it was truly impervious or not is a question that likely no longer has an answer. But this 'xephis' held firm against any weapons of the time - and as they constructed walls out of it, Iku-Ys evolved into the world's most coveted city-state.
But of all the priceless knowledge in the city, only a few facts about its structure were not lost to the weeping sea. At its heart, the original college was expanded to accommodate all the scholars who flocked to the new magi-scientific centre of the world. The rest of the city was an unruly labyrinth, even stretching down into the land bridge it was built upon.
Travellers wrote of gleaming spires and high arches, of gold-paved streets and singing oceans.
The Gaze of the Shadow
"It was once the shining beacon of mortal ingenuity. In the embrace of those guarding walls, it is said that humanity was able to transcend their chains for an instant, and build wings to touch the sun...
Then the walls crumbled, and all was lost."
In the distant age when the stars' thrones were usurped, Iku-Ys alone of the mortal nations stood steadfast. The rampaging abominations of the Midnight were repelled by the city's barriers, leaving the scholars within free to devise some way of salvation from the unceasing, shadowy tide. Caravans of refugees streamed into the city, overflowing into makeshift camps on the surrounding stone.
After years of futile searching among the scholars, four Harbingers of Ruin arrived in the city, warning of a final calamity.
And upon that same day, Iku-Ys fell.
For the city's only major defence lay in its walls - but the power of the Midnight, dreaming of casting the stars into the abyss, is not so easily constrained. The world-rift and the emerging evil shattered even the unbreakable stone of Iku-Ys. By the time the Harbingers had begun working to contain the disaster, much of the city had simply fallen into the Midnight, or decayed into dust.
The four Harbingers, too few and inexperienced to overcome such darkness, chose instead to bind it. They inscribed Aspects - castings that encompassed the power of their patron Wolves - on seals granted by the Steadfast Earthrise Wolf, and set them in what remained of the walls. In the ensuing collision, the land bridge itself was torn apart and scattered across the ocean, creating the Archipelago in the process. Whatever remained of Iku-Ys itself sank out of light and knowledge.
The Memory of the Sea
"Why do we praise them for aspiring to ascend to the sun? Did their wings not melt, and fall, and fade?"
The exact details of Iku-Ys' destruction have, for the most part, been hidden from the general public - thanks to the lack of witnesses, and night mages' efforts to keep a certain cult from searching for it. Most people simply believe that the Harbingers' battle with an unknown, long-dead evil resulted in the city's fall and the creation of the Archipelago - which is technically true.
Despite this, Iku-Ys has undoubtedly left its mark on the world. Even millennia later, many regard it as a place blessed by the Wolves, or even a city where the mortal and celestial planes had collided to enlighten their ancestors. Both are ostensibly untrue. That did not stop many civilisations from trying to follow in Iku-Ys' footsteps, notably the human nation of Ekos - whose capital city is the modern-day magiscientific centre of the world.
But the constant interest in this once-great city inevitably led to some of its darker secrets being uncovered. The truth of Iku-Ys' destruction was only discovered recently, and its location has come closer and closer to the light. As the emikun of the Archipelago fight to reclaim their lost land, they have taken to battle in the oceans... yet the tales they tell to their children are not forgotten, and they refuse to even come near a certain isle with a blasted surface. Even the untamable wyverns avoid that place, and the Eternal Seafarers have finally taken notice.
RUINED SETTLEMENT
1323 B.E
Comments