Friends in a Foreign Land

"Well, if your society feels that kids are to protected then your society failed our friends," Eric replied in a serious tone.

"Yes," Khatar said with obvious shame in his eyes. "Yes, we did. And not just your friends. The Elves as a race have failed our goddess and even the world of Traum as a whole. Tell me, what do you know of the wars the elves have fought in since leaving the Feywilde?"

Khatar looked around and after seeing blank looks on everyone's faces, he continued, "Then we will start today with a history lesson. I’ll keep it as brief as I can but you need to be aware of the elven race’s biggest sin. In year 8500 BR, the giants and the dragons teamed up and tried to wipe out the dwarves and the elves."

Raising his hand, Eric cut in, "What's BR mean?"

"I keep trying to give you a good foundation and I keep realizing I haven't dug deep enough to hit bedrock," Khatar said with a chuckle. "BR just stands for Before Reformation. We'll get to the Reformation shortly. Now, this war with the giants and dragons is called the War of Dominance, and it lasted for about 2,500 years. After that, we had peace for about 2,500 years. During that time of peace, our societies urged everyone who could to have children because we lost so many elves during the war. Our birthrate more than quadrupled during this time. Similar explosions in birth rates happened for the other races as well. And try as we might, we elves could not keep up with the population boom seen in the humans.

"And to make it even worse, there were these new beastkin races that were being encountered for the first time. And the humans just welcomed them into their cities, like a seven foot tall bull walking on just two legs was normal. And with the halflings and the gnomes and all the other races joining in, the humans expanded far and wide. We elves viewed all these races as lessor. We had a grudging respect for the dwarves, dragons, and giants. But these humans and beasts and everyone else, they were to be pitied or reviled, depending on who you asked. And this expansion by those we viewed as inferior angered many elves. We were trying to rebuild and were happy to just get back to where we had been before the war. And we look out and see that all these other races were everywhere. And they all thought they were our equals.

"After many meetings and much planning, the elves eventually decided we were going to put these lessor races in their place and show them why the elves were superior." Khatar ended his sentence with a grin.

"How'd that work out for you?" Regina asked, also grinning.

"Worse than you can even imagine. In the year 3300 BR, we started what became known as the Fey Wars. And it did not go the way we wanted. In the years of peace we had simply rebuilt what we had lost. But the other races had called that same period the 'Era of Wonders' due to all the advances they made in magic and technology. We had not kept up. We had not evolved. And we were outnumbered.

"We turned to our gods and begged them for help. And they did. They gave us knowledge. They gave us powers. They anointed many of our best as champions, raising them nearly to the level of demigod. We started winning battle after battle. The war started to turn in our favor. But then the other races prayed to their gods as well. And then all the mortals became nothing more than pawns on a chessboard. 1,300 years into the war, it became known as the War of the Gods. We pulled our deities down to our level and embroiled them in our sins. By the end, the gods themselves were taking part in battles. I mean that literally. The came to Traum in their avatar form and fought like the rest of us. Gods fighting gods.

"The number of lives lost in every battle increased by orders of magnitude. During the War of Dominance, about seven percent of the sapient beings on Traum were killed. During the Fey Wars, about five percent were killed. The War of the Gods lasted for fifteen hundred years and the population of Traum dropped by over sixty percent. Even the beastkin and humans could not have children fast enough to fight in that war. Billions of people were killed. Every race prayed constantly asking for the gods to make peace. We all begged the gods to stop. But the years continued to pass and nothing changed. For the shorter lived races such as humans, something like thirteen generations lived their entire lives knowing only war. While no war is pretty, the war of the gods was horrific. They didn’t just wipe cities off a map. They removed continents. They literally reshaped the planet itself in their fighting. Entire countries were lost."

"How did you ever get it to stop?" Mira asked, clearly on the verge of tears.

"We didn't. We couldn't. But Quo, the supreme god, could. He, Ba, Fo, Belseri, and Shikotel were the only deities that weren't in their avatar form, fighting on Traum. Angered by the actions of their children and seeing the perfect time to act, Quo locked all the other deities into their avatar form, trapping them all on Traum. Additionally, he severed the connection to plane of magic. Suddenly, no one could regain mana after casting a spell. This time is called The Collapse. Quo's actions ended the war. But by cutting off the mana supply, every race suffered.

"The cities that the humans had built back then were works of wonder. Runes were laid that provided all sorts of magical help for society. Everything from blocking disease and disposing of waste to heating and cooling homes. But all of those runes soon ran out of mana. The runes they used to help grow crops swiftly failed and abruptly the harvests were a fraction of what they used to be.

"All the races were forced to rebuild and this time without the aid of magic. And the gods and goddesses were stuck on Traum during this time, forced to see the hardship their actions had brought about. Many hid in shame. Some demanded to be worshiped even then. And some of those were slain.

"After a thousand years, Quo showed back up and offered all the gods a chance to regain their power. But they had to agree to a new set of rules. These rules limited how they could interact with Traum and the life on it. And if you didn't agree, then you stayed an avatar. All of the gods and goddesses except one agreed. Quo reconnected the plane of mana and magic was once again possible. This was known as The Reformation and it happened about a hundred years ago.”

“Wait,” Mira cut in. “So you were alive when that happened. When magic came back?”

“I was. It was… odd. Suddenly everything felt more alive as mana permeated everything around me, and me, too. And at the same time some text appeared before my eyes. No matter where I looked it was still visible. It was a message from Quo introducing us to the system.”

“Wait? I thought that had been part of the world of Traum forever,” Eric questioned.

“It has. But until this point, only the gods could see it. When we were given the ability to see it, we saw our strengths and weaknesses. We saw the progress we had made in certain areas. It was quite interesting, as you all no doubt know. We had access to magic once again, and a new system to help guide us a bit. Too bad no one alive had ever done magic. Everything we know had to be learned from scratch. And so many things still have yet to be re-learned.”

“So why did Quo give access to everyone?”

“It was expanded to include everyone because, now, everyone can become a god. That’s what happened to those who killed a god during The Collapse. Each one absorbed the power, and the responsibilities, of that god.

"So just about every society has spent the last hundred years trying to learn magic. Trying to learn how this system works. Archaeologist are everywhere trying to dig up cities from thousands of years ago hoping to find tomes of knowledge. Treasure hunters dig for artifacts that have started working again now that mana has been reintroduced. The deities are helping where they can, but they claim the new rules limit them from doing much. And no one is sure how truthful they're being. Most of them weren't any help for a thousand years and the vast majority of people still blame them for the wars.”

“Is that why people dislike the gods?” Mira asked. “We’ve literally freed people from a cult and they still yelled at us when we told them the gods sent us.”

“It is indeed. Many still blame the gods for all the destruction and death they caused during the war. And they accuse them of not doing enough to make up for it since they returned to their full power.”

“Why aren’t you angry at them?” asked Regina.

“I honestly don’t know. Part of me feels that I should be. But I’m more suspicious than anything. A single Migrant Spirit can change the world. Much of the advancements that happened during The Collapse was due to people like you. A single person with knowledge can make a huge difference. So why bring so many of you here at one time?”

“They never did give us a straight answer to that question,” complained Alexis.

“And they likely never will.”

"That's interesting an all," Ramiro cut in, "but what does it have to do with the children your society failed?"

"Thank you for bringing us back on topic, Ramiro. How long does it take to rebuild a society? The war only ended eleven hundred years ago. My parents were on a battle field that day. My generation is the first to be born in peace and to try and rebuild what the previous generations destroyed. On your home world, how many generations were needed to recover from a multiple-generation war?

"The society that should have been there to support me as a child did not exist. Instead I was told stories of it and told that I should strive to rebuild it. And so I, and countless others, have spent our life trying to rebuild our society, and to improve on it while doing so. This city? This king? It's all happened in the last five hundred years. And it's strange. We're trying to blend what we were taught of our old ways with what we learn from the other races. And, like everything we do, we're going slow. This leaves many gaps for people to fall through.

"Historically, Elves have never cared much for government. Most of our ancestors lived in small groups where everyone just respected one another and spent their lives trying to create works of art. We had no need for someone to make laws. We had no need for cities. But we're trying to advance our race. And we're doing some things right, but we're also making mistakes. And some people are getting overlooked. We're trying our best, though."

As Khatar stopped to take a breath, obviously upset by this topic, Alexis got up and approached the elf and gave him a hug. Khatar leaned into her for several moments before pulling away, "Thank you, Alexis." Looking to the rest. "Let's take a break for two hours, get some food and exercise. Then we can come back and discuss the three parts of elvish culture that sets us apart from the other races."