Back in the faraway land, an old man in long flowing white robes stood atop a balcony. He was known as the High Priest. His face was thin from a lifetime of fasting, and his eyes had bags under them. His robes were laced with reflective gold, and he wore a purple sash around his waist. 

He was miles above a shining city, and a small part of him almost felt like a god from up here. He shuddered. Thoughts like those shouldn’t be entertained. Such arrogance was not healthy to indulge in. 

The High Priest looked upon his City with joy. Conelike stone buildings were built in a large spiral pattern, each as tall as 12 people and as broad as 8. Expertly merged glowing stones made up the structures, causing the buildings to glow.

Citizens bustled along with their daily lives moving through the City with the efficiency of a hive. They walked perfectly in harmony with the others around them. Each wore a colored cloak. The colors varied from red, blue, green, purple, orange, and yellow. The colors made the packed streets like moving rainbows. Usually the movement would be random as people went to get drinking water, receive their ration of food, or whatever else was necessary to be done in their day-to-day lives. 

Today was slightly different. Large masses of people were all moving towards the center of the City. They kneeled wherever they could, facing a large spiraling tower stretched to the sky. The Protectorate Tower.

The Protectorate Tower’s protective light kept the storms of smoke away. The younger generation had started calling the swirling storms of smoke Vortexes, which the High Priest conceded was a fitting name. The vortexes sucked the life out of people, draining them until only shell corpses were all that was left. 

A servant walked up behind him. “Sir, the commander wanted me to inform you that there will be a war council at noon.”

The High Priest sighed and waved the boy away. Oh, how he hated this war, but it was the Goddess’s wish for him to fight it. The First City and its allies had been at war with a group known as the Nomads for generations. The fighting had slowed to border skirmishes for the past few centuries thanks to the Treaty of the Red Mountain. However, it seemed the Nomads were starting to forget that treaty. Already his forces had gotten reports of raiding parties amassing on the border. Unlike the good people of the City, the Nomads lived in the vortexes, using some dark, unholy magic to survive there. They attacked without honor in small raiding parties against any armed force they found. The brutes engaged in guerrilla warfare, attacking a group and zipping into the shadows before any help could arrive.  

The High Priest looked down as a young boy in a white cloak conducted the Relighting Ceremony. Every half a year, the people of the City banded together to reenergize the Protectorate Tower and give it the strength it needed to keep shielding them. The young boy raised his hand to the air, and the circle of people started to chant. They spoke in an ancient language that had been passed down through generations. Their voices were melodic as if they were singing. As they chanted, the people started to glow. The glow was weak at first, but soon each person’s light rapidly increased in power. Each person glowed with the color of their cloak. Red, blue, green, purple, orange, and yellow colors filled the air. Finally, the energy meshed together and started to become a brilliant white. The white light started to move to the Protectorate Tower. The structure began to glow brighter as the light connected with the tower. The High Priest felt a warm glow, and a surge of energy as the strength of thousands upon tens of thousands flowed into the structure below him. When the High Priest looked up, he saw the vortexes on the horizon retreat against the surge of power. As the ceremony continued, the boy turned to the Priest on the balcony and formed a diamond with his hands, a symbol of immense respect. The High Priest smiled and made the same gesture back to the boy.

The boy, Avion, was doing well. This event was the first Relighting Ceremony Avion had conducted, and he managed it with flying colors. It was the dawn of a new cycle, a time for prosperity, and as he looked down, he could see Avion conversing with the crowds around him, describing what would come in the future.

It was clear to the High Priest that Avion was the one they had been waiting for all these years. This boy had been labeled Goddess’s champion and was destined to destroy the hated Nomads and their unholy vortexes. The High Priest looked at the boy, and suddenly the Priest’s eyes started to glow. Instead of seeing the typical light spectrum, the world went black and white. The High Priest saw an extra layer of reality invisible to the normal eye. With his special sight, the High Priest saw giant domes of color surrounding each citizen. The domes flowed toward Avion and through him into the tower. The boy’s dome was much larger than everyone else’s, overshadowing the crowd around him. The High Priest felt quite content when a guard walked up behind him.

“High Priest,” said the Guard, making the diamond symbol of respect. He stood a head taller than the High Priest and was of a bulky build. The Guard wore padded white and gray armor and long leather-like gray gloves. They wore a round stone mask with two eye slits and had a hood over their head.

The High Priest turned, “What is it?”

The Guard bowed his head, “I’m sorry to bother you on such a holy day. A Paladin is waiting for you at the base of the tower.”

The High Priest’s face contorted to a look of surprise, “A Paladin, you say?”

“Yes, your holiness.”

 “Interesting, tell him I will be down shortly.” the High Priest looked back out to the distance, lost in thought.

…

Helron looked up to the wall of darkness and nearly fell to his knees. The Vortex’s approach was relatively slow. However, it was unrelenting. Nothing short of the Protectorate Tower could hope to stand against it. 

Regaining control of his legs, Helron started to run. Several enormous chasms blocked his path to the City; however, a series of small shinestone bridges would allow him to cross. 

 Helron only needed to go a little further. Because today was the Relighting Ceremony, the light from the Protectorate Tower would be brighter than usual. Its light may just be powerful enough to stop a Vortex out here. 

From his peripheral vision, Helron saw the smoke start to surround him in a large dome. Helron’s legs screamed in pain, and his chest shook violently as he increased his pace once more. Finally, he sprinted over a bridge and gave a desperate leap as the smoke completed its dark embrace around him. 

Crashing through the shadow, he barely reached the chasm’s other side. The wall violently stopped inches from him. The black smoke billowed in anger and tried to extend towards its prey but wasn’t able to move any closer due to some unforeseen shield. 

Helron wiped his forehead as he fell to the ground in relief. He started laughing uncontrollably as he realized he had survived. That was the closest call he had ever had in his life. He slung his backpack off his back and opened it. The shinestone inside glowed so bright that Helron was temporarily blinded. The Vortex was forced back suddenly until Helron fumbled and closed the bag. The smoke moved closer and stopped at its earlier position, where it continued to attempt to breach through the invisible shield that stopped it. Heron’s face expanded into a larger smile, and he started to laugh again. This bag contained the powerful shinestone found in generations! 

Helron rose and started to move to the City, which glowed as a brilliant beacon of hope. The spiraling Protectorate Tower stood as tall as the Vortex behind him. He breathed a silent prayer to Shivara and her protective light. 

Then suddenly, something changed. The brilliant light coming from the Protectorate Tower suddenly dimmed. Shadows formed all around Helron as he felt unbearably cold. Helron froze as, once again, the sky was eaten away by darkness. No, he thought that wasn’t possible. He slowly turned to look at the wall of darkness behind him. The Vortex seemed to roar in triumph as it blasted forward and enveloped Helron in its grasp.

Helron was running for his life. Perspiration raced down his forehead as he stumbled across an uneven stone land. He was slightly overweight with a round, pudgy face. Despite this, he had deceptively strong legs and lungs. He was wearing a metallic-looking brown cloak over a white gi and brown pants. Even though his chest was killing him, and his muscles screamed in pain, he continued to run. He knew if he didn’t keep running, he was surely going to die.

The ground he ran over was spiky and stretched out for thousands of miles. Around Helron were several large chasms that cut into the ground like giant wounds. They seemed to stretch down to infinity. Several glowing stone bridges had been constructed across the chasms allowing large caravans of people to cross through. 

The horizon didn’t seem to exist. In its place was a large circular wall of darkness, stretching up to the sky, surrounding the area in its large chokehold. The walls seemed to eat the light from the very air and roared with an insatiable hunger. 

In the distance, Helron could see a large glowing pillar stretching up to the sky as tall as the wall of dark smoke. Around it was a large white wall made of the same glowing material. He was almost home.

On Helron’s back was a large rectangular bag filled with an assortment of glowing rocks. Each shone with near blinding brilliance. They were more precious than his life itself. He was a gatherer. Gatherers explore the plateau, attempting to find any sort of treasures or items they could find. Despite the fact that Helron had never been officially certified as a gatherer, his bounty was worthy of even the most adventurous explorers in the City’s history. If he got home, his certification would not matter. As these thoughts ran through his head, his foot caught on a small indent in the ground, and he tumbled onto the ground, causing several glowing rocks to fly out of the bag.

He stumbled to his feet and hesitated for a second as he looked back at the lost rocks. He then closed the open flap on his bag and sealed it with a latch. As he stood wrestling with his bag, he felt a cold chill shoot through his body. It was as if something was pulling the heat out of his chest. A shadow started to pass over him, and he froze. He was no longer sweating just because of the exertion from the run. Turning slowly, he saw a wall of black smoke swallowing the brilliant blue sky. It towered so far into the air that Helron couldn’t see the top of it. It made a series of internment roaring sounds, which sounded like maniacal laughter to Helron.