Location: Northen Asterra.
Far in the northern watchtower, Master Yeru, famed watchman of the north and keeper of Asterra's Northern Bells, climbed the iron ladder to the rooftop. The wind lashed against his face, carrying smoke and the acrid stench of burning. He plucked a scroll from Groggin's raven, letting the bird take flight into the darkening sky.
Under the flickering light of a swinging lantern, he ripped the scroll open, the paper crackling loudly in the tense night air, as it read.
"Yeru, an imminent change has began, becareful old man, protect yourself and protect the future of asterra, see you soon"
Yeru's jaw tightened as he crushed the scroll into his fist. His breath hissed through his teeth, and for a moment, the old watchman's face betrayed his fear. His eyes turned northwest, where the sky glowed orange and black, fire still eating at the horizon.
"If Groggin is right," Yeru murmured to himself,
his voice shaking as his eyes took in the devastation, "then this is the day Asterra will never forget."
Behind him, the Northern Bell hammered without pause, its booming toll rolling over the snowy plains and echoing from town to town all around the north, a sound that meant only one thing: disaster.
Smoke smeared the sky the color of bruised steel.
Then a hand slammed onto Yeru's shoulder, pulling him from his thought. Ray, covered in soot and dirt, gasping for air, stared up at him.
"Northwest," Ray coughed, voice shaking. "Southeast. Southwest. All three regions hit, sir. They… they're all burning."
"Hurry, lad!" Yeru snapped, his tone sharp. "Keep the bells sounding. And I want the total counts of the fallen, every message from every town you can reach. Give priority to reports from Lady Selene or our Sovereign, lord Eryndor himself!"
"Aye, sir!" Ray sprinted down the tower stairs two steps at a time, vanishing into the smoke-choked dawn.
Yeru broke open another scroll, scanning it quickly. His throat tightened.
"352 dead in the western town. 92 dead and counting in the southeast villages…"
Yeru immediately sits back heavily against the wooden beams on the watchtowers rooftop, his hand shaking with the parchment still crumpled in his grip. His hands seemed to vibrate as the tolling bell pounded overhead.
Slowly, Morning bled into Asterra.
As smoke still clung to the alleys, mixing with the coppery stench of blood. The bell's mournful peal had not stopped, its toll filling every home and corner of the realm with dread.
In Olsmere, the surviving quarter of the town throbbed with frantic energy. Shouts tore through the streets as desperate men and women called for loved ones who never answered.
Blackened buildings leaned broken and crumbled, smoke curling into the gray sky. Every corner seemed alive with grief, fear, trembling.
Two-thirds of Olsmere lay in ruin.
The few survivors in olsmere had began building a shantytown of patched tents and wooden frames to help wounded survivors.
Women tore their linens into strips to bind wounds, while some Survivors dragged out the bodies they could find from the burned buildings and smoking streets. Most were unrecognizable, reduced to nothing but blackened bones. People began to kneel beside the ruins, crying and wailing, their voices rising into the smoke-filled sky.
"Where… where is God?" a woman sobbed, clutching the empty space where her family had been.
"Why… why us?" a man whispered, tears streaking the ash on his face.
Grief hung heavy over Olsmere, blanketing the streets like the smoke that still rose from the ruins.
Within one of the tents, Mira stirred awake.
A soft groan escaped her throat as her eyelids fluttered open. Her whole body felt fever-hot, stiff, and heavy, as though the weight of the night still pressed down on her. She tried to move, but pain shot through her limbs as she laid back down.
The heat inside her skull throbbed like fire.
Through her blurry vision, she spots shadows of survivors passing in and out of the tent. The smell of smoke clung to them, mixing with the scent of herbs.
When Mira tried to speak, no sound came out.
When a gentle hand touched her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. The touch was tender, grounding her.
"Rest, child," a woman's soft voice murmured near her ear. "You are safe for now."
Relief washed over Mira in weak, fading waves. She let her eyes close again, unable to fight the exhaustion that claimed her. Though she drifted toward sleep, she kept listening to the weeping outside, to the hammer of the bells in the distance, and to the heavy silence of a town that had lost too much to ever be the same.
Among the chaotic survivors, five hooded figures glided like shadows through the chaos. Their black cloaks swallowed their forms, faces hidden in darkness. These were the Inciters and the Whisperers, masters of rumor and manipulation, whose whispered words could twist the minds of the crowd and stoke fires of fear and anger with deadly precision.
They leaned close to the some of the grieving, their words soft and corroding.
"This is the work of white lumin crystals," one murmured.
"Lord Eryndor laid hands upon them," hissed another.
"He is responsible for this horror."
Their whispers spread through the survivors like plague, enlightening the vulnerable.
"The weapon was Valesse craft, the Heavens Blitz." They continued.
"Roaring flames, cutting winds, no mistake it is valesse weapon"
Gasps and uneasy mutters spread among the survivors, and with the growing incites, silence bellowed.
In mere moments the silence breaks with a loud cry from Abel, a rugged man with bandaged arms and soot-streaked face.
"This was no foreign attack!" he shouted. His voice rang across the square. "This was the work of our very own sovereign, Lord Eryndor of House Valesse!"
Gasps rippled through the survivors outside, everyone shocked to hear such from abel. Mrs. Trinket, the local nurse tending to Mira's wounds, gripped keith, her husband's sleeve.
"Is it true?" she whispered, fear in her voice.
"I'll find out more," keith muttered grimly and hurried from the tent, his boots crunching in the ash.
Mira, weak and fever-hot, tried to speak but could only slump back against her cot, her lips dry, her strength spent.
Outside the tents, voices sharpened as people begin to band together, moving close to abel to hear what he has to say.
"Where are the Sovereign's Guard?" Abel roared. "Where are the men who swore to protect this town?"
"Aye!" others cried, fists rising.
But another man shouted back from the gathering crowd: "Lies! You blaspheme! Our Sovereign swore to protect us, he would never turn against his own!"
Abel's face hardened. He pointed toward the burning horizon.
"He swore to protect us?! Then where is he?" Abel spat. "Where are his soldiers? Every week they march here to tax us, but on this very night, they vanish like ghosts!"
The crowd roared, voices cracking under grief.
A woman called out, voice trembling, "Why would our sovereign turn his weapon on defenseless people? What could he gain from slaughtering his own?"
Abel let out a short, bitter laugh.
"You know nothing of politics!" he barked. "
Those high nobles sit safe in their mansions, fighting for power. But it's always the common folk who suffer and bleed for their games!"
The survivors muttered their agreement. "Aye!" "He speaks truth!" Someone yells randomly from the crowd.
Abel pressed on, his voice roaring over the quiet gathered crowd.
"We have all heard tales of the Heavens Blitz weapon in the wars fought beyond Asterra," he shouted.
"Bombs that scorched the earth and tore men apart. Isnt this familiar" He gestured at the blackened ruins around them, as people turned their grieving faces towards the charred ruins. "This is stronger, greater, it is fueled by the forbidden crystal, the white lumin!"
Cries of outrage rippled through the crowd, as people murmured and argued against theirseleves within the crowd.
"Do we call this coincidence?" Abel thundered, "that months after the break into the Wardens' fortress, the very fortress where the white lumins are stored, we see this horror unleashed upon us?"
Gasps broke from every direction. Someone shouted, "He is sending a message!"
"Aye!" Abel voice thundered. "Mark my words, war is coming to Asterra, war within, and war from beyond!"
The square erupted, grief turning to rage. Mothers clutched their children close. Men clenched their fists. The air itself seemed to hum with anger.
Location: Town Nareth.
In the southeast region of Asterra, Nareth was still engulfed by the Heaven's Blitz inferno. Only a handful of survivors remained, fleeing in ragged groups, as the fire devoured what was left of their homes.
Jori the bricklayer, had managed to lead a handful of people away from the ruins. They moved like nomads searching for safety, with a gear wagon creaking down the dusty road following behind them slowly, their rescued belongings seated ontop of it.
At last, they stopped by a fountain in a half-deserted square. Twenty-six commoners in all. Mothers and children huddled close, their clothes caked with ash, their faces hollow with grief, alongside old men, as they all sit near the fountain.
The gear-wagon hissed softly as its steam engines cooled down, coming to a stop.
A deafening silence hung heavy until two men began to speak. Tomas, another bricklayer, and Jori himself. Others leaned in, listening with weary eyes.
"I saw it with my own eyes," Tomas said, holding up his scorched sleeve. His voice trembled with rage. "Lord eryndors men and Lady Selene's followers marching toward the hills and forest side, Hours before the blasts. The blinding light came from their direction."
Jori spat into the dirt. "Those fires, those winds… no doubt. That's the Heaven's Blitz. Only one house owns them, House Valesse, the house of our sovereign, Lord Eryndor." Jori says his shoulders shrugging with grief.
"There is no doubt lord eryndor is tied to this attack" Tomas continues as he gulps down water from a bottle.
"Always parading himself as pure," an old man muttered bitterly. "We should've known better, lord eryndor is a sick man lust for power"the man's fists trembled as he spoke.
"I want justice on whoever is responsible!" Another weils, tears pouring from his eyes. "My daughter. My wife. Both scorched" He cries, as he slams his fist into the fountains bricks, his hands shaking from grief.
Seated on the fountain's rim, an old woman raised her hands to the empty sky. Her voice broke as she wept. Jori and Tomas felt a deep sorrow as they watched her.
"Lord Eryndor swore he would protect us," she cried. "But my husband is dead… my grandchildren are dead." Her sobs shook her thin frame. "Take me instead! give them back!" She says as she aobs with intense grief.
"If lord eryndor is guilty, he must face justice." Says another cold, old and feeble man.
The words of eryndors betrayal flowed through the group, some continued to cry and mourn, some uncertain what to do next, however they all sat back taking their time to rest.
Location: Calensport, the capital of asterra.
Inside the royal chambers, Sovereign Lord Eryndor of House Valesse stirred awake, not from dreams, but from the relentless toll of bells and the murmurs pressing at his doors.
Idris, his whisperer and sworn messenger, was already at his side. He stood composed, but unease showed clearly on his face.
"Your Grace," Idris said, his voice taut, "multiple regions have been struck. The towns and cities are restless. We suspect foreign hands in this, yet… there is something else you must see."
Eryndor rose swiftly, knotting his robe with unsteady hands, his expression hardening.
"I slept through all this noise? And no one thought to wake their Sovereign?" Eryndor snapped softly, his eyes narrowing in annoyance at Idris.
At the door of the sovereign chamber, loyal guards of Valesse lingered, their faces drawn pale.
"Fetch Lady Selene at once." Eryndor's voice rang sharp.