Before the silence, there was the Song. Before the grey, there was the Radiance.
In that lost epoch, the world was a living tapestry woven with threads of pure arcane energy. Magic did not merely exist; it was the fundamental medium of existence, flowing in great, argent rivers through ley lines beneath the earth. Forests of singing crystal and plains of ever-blooming light thrived under a sky perpetually softened by a luminous haze. Cities were not built of stone, but grown from harmonized crystal, their spires humming in resonance with the cosmos.
This sublime symphony was maintained by the Grim. They were not deities to be petitioned nor demons to be exorcised (they were not gods to be worshipped, nor demons to be feared), but fundamental aspects of the cosmic equilibrium the curators of the Great Cycle. Their sacred charge was to shepherd souls from the vibrant shore of life into the silent ocean of the beyond. When a living thing—be it a great emperor or a humble blade of grass—reached its end, a Grim would be there, unseen, a gentle hand on the shoulder of the departing spirit. They guided it through the Veil, not as a reaper claiming a prize, but as a guardian ensuring a safe passage from the shore of life into the quiet ocean of the beyond. This sacred return was the source of the magic itself; a soul's peaceful transition released its energy back into the world, replenishing the rivers of power in an endless, perfect cycle.
Among them was a young Grim, known in their silent tongue as Elian. He was newer to the eternal vigil, his heart still holding a resonance with the vibrant, fleeting beauty of mortal life. His purpose was to walk the borders of reality, mending small frayings in the Veil and guiding souls who had lost their way. He was a gardener of the unseen, his touch causing wilted flowers to bloom with spectral light and silent birds to sing a final, haunting melody before their essence returned to the source. He carried the Grimoire of Eternal Passage, a tome bound in what appeared to be shifting twilight. To any mortal eye, its pages were a blur of incomprehensible script, but to a Grim, it was the living ledger of existence. It contained not spells of domination, but the profound truths of being the True Names of every soul, the liturgy for quieting a restless spirit, and, most crucially, the protocols to gently open a passage to the afterlife or, in absolute extremity, to recall a soul freshly departed a power so immense it was scarcely more than a theoretical axiom.