"The world rebuilt from fragments, but the cracks still bled."
From the ashes of countless broken worlds rose a new realm — Aetherion, the Rewoven World.
---
At first there was only the hum of ruin.
Then, from dust and drowned memories, threads of light began to weave.
Across the void, fragments of a thousand sundered realms drifted together like stars seeking a shape.
Mountains found roots again. Seas remembered their shores.
And within that slow-turning miracle, a new world exhaled its first breath.
Aetherion.
The Rewoven World.
It was not born perfect — no world ever is — but it was alive, and that was enough.
---
──────────────────────────────
[World Log Updated: Aetherion Established]
[System of Records: Online]
[Guardian Gods: Status — Merged with Aetherion Core]
[Malevolent Influence: Residual Detected]
──────────────────────────────
---
The God of Archives stood alone in the silence between creation and memory.
Around him, endless script spiraled — divine code binding continents to the law of record.
With each line written, light poured into the fractures of reality.
"May knowledge become the chain that holds this world together,"
he murmured, pressing his hand to the glowing seal.
The Records ignited.
They flowed into every living soul like distant song — not voice, but resonance.
To some it became instinct, to others a visible interface of fate: glowing runes that answered thought with revelation.
The System had returned.
It was law and mercy entwined — measuring hearts, granting gifts, and whispering potential to those whose will harmonized with the Guardian Gods' fading essence.
---
In Aetherion, eight great races reawakened beneath unfamiliar skies.
Humans raised their banners on the plains of Veyra, crafting citadels from the bones of old empires.
Elves returned to the silverwoods of Elaris, planting groves where moonlight could heal the land.
Dwarves descended into the ember veins of Mount Khaz'Tor, shaping forges from the heart of fallen stars.
Beastfolk claimed the thundering savannas, their roars a hymn of renewal.
Mermaids rebuilt crystal cities beneath the Sapphire Sea.
Dragons, weary of solitude, nested on peaks still hot with creation's fire.
Demons carved their obsidian kingdoms within storm-wreathed valleys, sworn to leash their chaos rather than spread it.
And from the unseen glades, spirits fluttered, guardians of balance unseen yet ever near.
Together they forged the first accord — the Pact of Continuance — to protect the fragile harmony Aetherion demanded.
---
But peace, even reborn, was brief.
Where the Guardian Gods' sacrifice had stitched the realms together, the Malevolent clawed again.
Their hunger seeped through dimensional scars as dungeons — ulcers of reality that birthed monsters in the dark.
Blood orcs, goblins, insectoids, crawlers — things that carried both the stink of flesh and the echo of divinity.
They poured from rifts that gaped like wounds too deep to heal.
---
"Temptation first, fracture after,"
the sages warned.
"They offer power before they devour."
Villages vanished overnight.
Skies dimmed above tainted ground.
And still, new dungeons opened — each a mouth whispering promises of dominion.
The System recorded every loss, every corrupted soul.
But records alone could not fight.
---
Two centuries after the Reweaving, the races of Aetherion faced the same truth their gods once knew:
that survival demanded unity more difficult than war itself.
And so, under the silent watch of the Archives, the rulers of the Eight Nations were summoned to convene — the first gathering of their kind since the Binding.
---
The summons arrived not by messenger, but by manifestation:
a silver sigil blooming in the air above every throne, every ocean spire, every forge and forest.
It was the mark of the God of Archives, radiant and final.
Its words appeared in every tongue and none.
──────────────────────────────
[Summons Issued: Council of Eight]
[Location: Sanctum of Records — Central Aetherion]
[Agenda: Dungeon Crisis / Malevolent Reemergence / System Integrity]
──────────────────────────────
---
Across mountains and seas, sovereigns looked up from their labors and felt the same pull — the command that could not be denied.
◈ THE SUMMONED ◈
Loleil the Human Sage, keeper of the first libraries and bearer of the Codex of Wills.
Oberon the Fairy King, whose laughter hid sharp bargains and whose court governed the seasons.
Batibat the Demon Queen, flame-eyed sovereign of dusk and dream, her name a lullaby and a warning.
Aeloria the Elf Queen, eldest of the sylvan line, her song said to still storms.
Fireforge the Dwarven King, born of ember and oath, hammer-lord of Khaz'Tor.
Raon the Dragon King, wingless by choice, yet bearing the weight of the skies.
Aslan the Beast Lord, golden-maned and wise, heart of the primal tribes.
Oceane the Mermaid Queen, whose realm sang beneath miles of pressure and pearl.
Eight powers — eight fragments of the old divine design.
They would meet at the Sanctum of Records, where law itself took shape.
---
A stormless dawn greeted their approach.
From north to south, from sea to flame, the rulers traveled through portals of script and light.
Each carried the scent of their realm, the weight of their people, and the unspoken fear that history was looping back upon itself.
For in every age rebuilt from ruin, there comes a day when the cracks begin to show.
And this time, even gods might not be enough.
---
──────────────────────────────
[Quest Chain Initiated: The Council of Eight]
[Objective: Unite the Nations of Aetherion to Counter the Malevolent Gods]
[Sub-Objective: Determine Source of Dungeon Proliferation]
──────────────────────────────
---
The Sanctum of Records stood at the center of Aetherion like a memory made stone.
No road led to it, yet every path knew the way.
Its walls were carved from petrified moonlight; its floor shimmered with the reflections of every age that had ever existed.
At its heart waited eight pillars encircling a ninth—blank, untouched, expectant.
The air trembled once—
and the first sovereign arrived.
---
LOLEIL — THE HUMAN SAGE
Robes of pale ink and candle smoke trailed behind him.
Tom es orbited his shoulders, pages whispering equations that only the Records could read.
His eyes were mirrors—soft with knowledge, heavy with what that knowledge cost.
"Two centuries of peace," he murmured, "and still the same arithmetic: courage against chaos."
A rune on his wrist flared.
──────────────────────────────
[Class: Arch-Sage of Records]
[Skill Unsealed: Chrono-Recall]
──────────────────────────────
He took the first seat.
---
OBERON — THE FAIRY KING
Light folded inward, then burst into laughter.
Oberon stepped from it wearing spring itself—petals swirling in his wake, eyes too bright to trust.
Every motion was poetry composed for mischief's sake.
"You called for unity, Sage," he said, voice a melody. "May the world forgive us if we achieve it."
Loleil inclined his head. "We will try not to disappoint history."
---
BATIBAT — THE DEMON QUEEN
The temperature fell when she entered.
A scent of myrrh and midnight.
Her shadow arrived first, her body followed—a perfection sculpted to hide the abyss beneath.
"The summons reached even my dreams," she said, smile thin as a dagger. "And dreams are rarely polite."
Her pupils burned crimson.
No chains jingled when she moved, though everyone heard them anyway.
---
AELORIA — THE ELF QUEEN
Wind-bells rang. Vines unfolded.
Aeloria stepped out of green light, silver hair cascading like riverwater.
Her presence calmed the Sanctum; moss grew where her feet touched.
"The forest remembers every scar," she said softly. "Even those carved by silence."
Oberon bowed with theatrical grace. "Still the fairest song of all our meetings."
She smiled—thin, knowing, harmless only in appearance.
---
FIREFORGE — THE DWARVEN KING
A hammer struck stone and sparks announced him.
Stocky, broad, his beard braided with fragments of glowing ore.
He smelled of forge heat and stubbornness.
"If talk could smelt iron, we'd have peace by now," he grumbled, taking his seat with a rumble like rolling thunder.
---
RAON — THE DRAGON KING
No flash of light, no roar—just a quiet step.
Humanoid in form, yet every breath carried the gravity of mountains.
Scales glimmered faintly along his neck, half-hidden by simple robes.
"I left my wings behind," he said. "The ceiling seemed too low for arrogance."
Batibat's smile curved. "A shame. Arrogance makes such lovely company."
---
ASLAN — THE BEAST LORD
The scent of rain and fur.
A lion-shaped silhouette padded forward, shifting into a man crowned by a mane of gold.
He bowed only to the room itself.
"The plains are restless," he said. "Predators without prey make easy converts for the Malevolent."
Raon nodded once. "They tempt hunger because hunger never sleeps."
---
OCEANE — THE MERMAID QUEEN
Last came the sound of surf inside the hall.
Water spiraled upward, forming a translucent pillar that resolved into her shape—skin like dawn across the sea, eyes deep enough to drown in.
"The trenches sing again," she said. "Their hymn bears the moon's name."
Every gaze turned to her at that.
The nine pillars shimmered—the eighth now claimed, the ninth still blank.
---
The God of Archives' voice rolled through the chamber, gentle as tide and just as inescapable.
"Council of Eight. Constellation complete. Speak."
The runes above the dais spun into a map of Aetherion.
Red points pulsed—dungeons, spreading like fever.
Loleil touched one. "Forty-eight percent increase in emergence since last census. They multiply faster than we can close them."
Fireforge slammed his hammer's butt against the floor. "Then we close them harder."
Batibat's laughter rippled like smoke. "And when the hammer cracks the anvil? Do we forge another world to hit?"
Aslan's tail flicked once, restrained. "Enough jest. Villages vanish while we trade philosophy."
Aeloria leaned forward, calm but cold. "The corruption spreads along desire. It rewards ambition. How do you forge humility?"
Oberon's wings shimmered faintly. "By making hope more beautiful than temptation."
Raon looked between them. "And if beauty fails?"
"Then strength," Fireforge growled.
"Strength breeds pride," Batibat countered. "Pride breeds bargains. Bargains breed dungeons."
Loleil closed his tome with a sigh. "We circle the same equation. The unknown term remains—the hand behind the Sundering."
Oceane's gaze darkened like deep water. "My scouts call it the Eightfold Sundering. They echo our number, mock our unity."
"Temptation wears familiar faces," Aeloria said. "It sells mirrors, not monsters."
---
The silver floor brightened; new glyphs spiraled outward, forming lines of glowing script.
──────────────────────────────
[Alert: Malevolent Activity Rising]
[Sub-Directive: Establish Counter-Temptation Circles]
──────────────────────────────
The words burned, then dissolved into motes of light.
Raon folded his arms. "We build defenses, yes—but walls do not cure hunger."
Oberon twirled a petal between his fingers. "No, but gardens do."
Fireforge snorted. "Then plant fast."
Batibat's eyes flicked to the blank pillar. "Where are your gods now, humans?"
Loleil met her gaze. "In the world itself. They became the law we obey and the memory we consult. They no longer speak—only record."
"And yet," she purred, "you still listen for whispers."
A pause.
Then the floor itself answered—
a ripple of light coalescing into runic form, letters folding until a voice emerged.
---
"You build. You debate. You bleed. This is worship."
The God of Archives manifested again—robes woven from living text, pages turning in a wind that did not exist.
"Council of Eight, hear the condition of covenant.
The System cannot command virtue; it can only count it.
Deed and intent must sing in one tone—else the Record withholds its song."
The rulers bowed their heads—not out of servitude, but recognition.
"Fear the Malevolent," the voice continued, "but more than that, fear forgetting why you resist them."
Then, silence. The apparition dissolved, leaving only the echo of script fading to silver dust.
---
The eight looked to one another.
Oberon broke the stillness with a half-smile. "So. We are reminded that salvation remains inconvenient."
Aeloria breathed a quiet laugh. "Then let us be inconvenient."
Fireforge raised his hammer. "To the inconvenient."
They tapped the hammer's head to the floor together.
Runes flared, forming the sigil of alliance—an eight-pointed star interwoven with the mark of the Archive.
---
──────────────────────────────
[Alliance Formed: Eightfold Aegis]
[Primary Objective: Investigate Pearl Trenches Rift — Designation 'Spiral Choir']
──────────────────────────────
---
A shimmer crossed the hall; the map displayed one new light—far in the ocean's depths, steady and silver.
Oceane rose, water swirling. "The hymn continues. If its name truly honors the moon, then the Heir's legacy calls us."
Loleil looked toward the glow. "Then we answer."
Aslan's claws clicked once. "Together."
Raon nodded. "For now, that word still has meaning."
The Sanctum dimmed, preparing to seal the record.
---