On a day like any other, as the sky turned to dusk across Capital Isle, many lives were lost. It began with the ground shaking harder than it’s ever shaken before. The shaking was so fierce that most of the buildings on Capital Isle crumbled outright. As desperate families of every humankin escaped their ruined homes, they could all see them lighting up the sky. The towers stood tall. Bright beams of light shone across the sky seeming to connect the towers together by some otherworldly force.
At first, it seemed that the towers grew taller, yet before long all could see that they had lifted into the sky taking huge sections of land with them. Massive chains extended to the mainland of Capital Isle and as the chains became taught the ground shook again this time with enough force to topple even the strongest buildings. Capital Isle had been lifted into the sky.
The raising of Capital Isle, the creation of The Floating Lands, was the start of what would later be called “The Great Calamity.” Capital Isle was the center of one of the world’s first superpowers. They were a central hub for trade all over the world and were a technological powerhouse having benefited the most from the recent magi-technological revolution.
Capital Isle was home to the world’s best universities and schools of magic. Many of the world’s brightest and most powerful minds were lost from the initial quakes and lift off. The demons began pouring into the cities from the surrounding woods as people were escaping from the rubble and many more lives were lost.
Evacuation efforts would have been impossible if not for one excentric dwarf, self-named “Goldbeard the Inventor Magician Aeronaut.” Goldbeard had been trying to invent new ways to make things float using a combination of heat and very “thin” (meaning very safe) diamond magic. He had been trying to bring his “Autonomously-Trailing-Levitating-Blue-Flame-Containing-Device” to market for about half a year, but didn’t manage to sell enough to warrant any plans for mass production. Goldbeard’s most recent invention, the “Mini-Wand-Directionally-Influenced-Hot-Air-Balloon” would play a vital role in saving many lives.
The inventor magician was exceptionally curious when had spotted a massive chunk of land suspended in the air and thought his new invention was perfect for investigating the anomaly. Goldbeard landed on the edge of what used to be Capital Isle. Mere moments after stepping out of the basket a family of elves dashed into view from over a small hill and pleaded with him to take them with him to the mainland. The dwarf didn’t understand the danger, and so he was reluctant, but the fear in the elve’s eyes was plain to see, and the fear became shared when a variety of horrors began spilling over the hillside.
There was not enough room for all of them. The parents loaded the children into the basket with Goldbeard and at this point, the basket was over capacity. The parents bid him fly away. “I’m sorry! I’ll make sure they stay safe!” Goldbeard shouted, tears forming, as the balloon lifted into the sky. “Don’t look!” said Goldbeard, but the children did not listen. They cried out as they saw their parents cut down.
Goldbeard was true to his word. He directed the balloon to a nearby Dwarven settlement. Family was there who he could trust with the orphaned children. There was also a large number of Dwarven laborers working in a nearby lumber camp and diamond mine. Goldbeard broke an unspoken rule among inventors. He drew and shared schematics for his “Mini-Wand-Directionally-Influenced-Hot-Air-Balloon” and rallied a group of Dwarves to build a small fleet of them. And with this, the survivors of The Great Calamity had a shred of hope. A rescue effort was underway.
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