In the harsh winter of Acevia, two elven soldiers are searching for a place to set up camp on their way back from training.
The air bites at their exposed skin, each breath forming pale clouds that drift into the frigid wind.
The soldiers had wandered too far during their training and ended up in uncharted territory.
They'd been walking for about an hour at this point and are contemplating whether or not they should just take turns sleeping when the taller one says:
"Hey, I think I see a cave. It looks like a good one too. We should set up camp in there."
"Good idea, the light coming from the ice is great for keeping watch at night," says his partner.
A faint, unnatural blue glow flickers inside the cave's throat like it's breathing.
They head into the cave to set up immediately, as they were ready to go to sleep as soon as they could.
As they stomped across the snowy terrain, feet crunching the fresh snow, they come to realize something about the cave.
The radiant light, that they thought was perfect for keeping watch for dangerous animals, is unnaturally blue.
It reflects off the cave walls like shimmering glass, bending and warping in quiet waves.
On top of the almost unreal light, as they got closer to this cave, they started to feel euphoric.
A warm, numbing sensation crawls across their nerves, dulling the pain of cold and exhaustion.
Before they even realized it, they ended up inside the cave in front of a big, glowing blue wall with rune stones surrounding the room.
Each stone hums faintly, vibrating with a rhythm that was soothing, yet also nerve-racking.
"Do you think it's a ritual site for an unknown tribe?" asks the taller soldier.
"Unlikely. The Acevian winters are too harsh for elves to have moved this far north. We should probably report this to the general; he might know what it is," states the other.
"What if there's something valuable down there? Wouldn't it be worth checking out? We barely make any money here anyway. What would a few unknown artifacts do? Nobody knows about them anyway!" the taller one rapidly explains.
His excitement grows, pupils dilated, reflecting the cave's eerie glow.
"Calm down. We get a small fee for a discovery of this caliber. If we call the right people, we can all benefit," calmly states the other.
Now the tall one starts to scream.
"What's a small fee going to help us with? One bill? Why are you suddenly against me?!"
His partner quickly interrupts with a reassuring tone.
"Nobody's against you here. I want you to make it back to your family just as much as I want to make it back to mine. And safely, at that."
As they continue their argument, neither of them realize that the light is growing stronger and brighter.
The glow pulses in time with their rising emotions, as if the wall listens.
The walls glow stronger in its blue color, while the rune stones are glowing in sequence—rhythmically, almost.
Each rune pulses brightly like a beating heart.
The emotions of the tall researcher start to rise further as his partner tries to calm him down.
Just as the moment of chaos is about to end, the light from the wall, and the ones from the runes, just disappeared.
The smaller soldier calmly asks himself:
"When did it get dark out? And did the light provide us with warmth? I didn't feel cold at all this whole t—"
Before he could finish his thought, he's interrupted, from shadows of the now dark cave, by hands to his chest.
He falls to his back, and as soon as he hits the ground, he gets a chilling thought followed by a feeling that shook him to the very core of his being.
His calm demeanor quickly changed.
Even though his fall knocked the wind out of him, he screams loud enough for a scout to hear it at their base, approximately 200 paces away.
"Don't touch anything, it's dangerous!!!"
But unfortunately, the thought that made his very core quiver in fear was exactly what was happening in that moment.
The wall wasn't natural, and it was likely that the runes were helping contain whatever was on the other side.
Something dark, something ancient, something waiting.
What the actual purpose of the runes were is a mystery to us still.
What we know is the wall was likely a seal, keeping the "waves" out of our side of the world.
We just barely recovered Acevia from the "Noctharyn" a year ago, which makes that 87 years since the incident in the cave.
That whole time, we really only knew what was told by the remaining Acevians.
The light was followed by the Noctharyn and the immediate destruction of 6 of our 15 great kingdoms.
We quickly lost 5 more kingdoms in the following few years.
Now, I know you still have a whole bunch of questions, but let me finish the story of our two soldiers.
So, as I said, the calm soldier was right in his assumption.
That wall wasn't natural and was incredibly dangerous; the way it was glowing was suspicious enough, but as they were arguing, the wall seemed to be reacting off of the rise in emotion.
The calm worker might have been just calm enough to realize something wasn't right.
The soldiers didn't know it, but their squad was looking for them after all this time, and they were so close they could hear them at this point.
The shouting stopped for a second, and the rescue squad stops and looks at each other, unsure what to do.
Then they heard one last chilling scream that was so terrifying that they froze in fear—before the entire area was consumed by light, and half the squad vanished, including the lost soldiers.
The last things heard before that light were:
"Don't touch anything, it's dangerous!!! We could seriously be kil—"
And that's the day half of the world's population was killed.
The light is what we call the waves… well, it was the very first and most dangerous wave.
The waves we now deal with are a sort of break in the dimensional barrier.
They let the Noctharyn into our world, where they have been destroying our kingdoms and killing our people whenever they feel like it.
We've been fighting a losing war for nearly a century at this point and still have no clue about why our enemies are attacking.
The once beautiful and peaceful planet of Alniri is now reduced to mostly ash and blood.
The remaining Alnirians are banding together as a whole to fend off the Noctharyn and eliminate the waves, but it's taken decades to even recover 2 of the 11 fallen kingdoms.
It's a huge task to get rid of the waves, let alone keeping everyone safe while doing it.
Before the waves, the Alniri people were thriving with over 3 billion populists; the current world population is a little over 600 million and decreasing rapidly, so we came to the start of the crisis to find answers.
All we have are more questions, but that doesn't mean we can quit.
My family must survive, and so must the Alnirians.
I am Arsheo, and that's my vow to Alous, our God of Beginnings.
A lot of things have happened since the first wave hit in Acevia and half of the world's population died.
Since then, we have lost a significant amount of manpower—considering my kingdom had 300 million citizens before the first wave hit, around 200 million right after, and 87 years later, we have my generation, which only has a whopping total of 120 million Dragonkin.
And we were lucky to not have been invaded because of the mountains of Qitor.
Alnirians alone lost 11 of the 15 great kingdoms to the Noctharyn and well over half of our entire population.
The fight won't stop until we either finish off all of the remnants or close the dimensional tear.