Arcs Before The Immortal War
0-12
Gith was always a little different from his peers. While the pride he grew up in was friendly and supportive, he always thought of himself as an outsider. He didn't bemoan this concept, but embraced it. The Raionans of his pride attempted to cheer him, but he only grew sour to their presence. He longed for alternate companionship, a kind that wasn't obliged by blood or unconditional acceptance.
So upon reaching the age of 12, after a somewhat idyllic childhood by all accounts, he put himself to work for a local scribe in the area of Ne'haer.
13-32
The years of his adolescence into early adulthood were spent burying himself in books, all while pursuing the scribe's art under his master. He gained a love of prose, and fiction as an adolescent, and often found himself lost in a story about this or that hero or heroine. In time, he came to think of these characters as his own companions.
He continued to grow misanthropic toward humanity and other mortals, who grew more intolerant and spiteful by the day. Gith decided that he would always have bad luck with the people he met, and so stuck to his fictional accounts and even began to expand his horizons by listening to the thoughts of great thinkers in non-fictional treatises on this subject or that.
33-125
The next hundred years were more of the same, with little in the way of variation for the Raionan. He had some tenuous relationships and friendships during that time, but none of them lasted very long. He often found disappointment in the living creatures of the world, and was forced to turn his gaze back toward the people in his books. As he reached his hundredth year, now as a fully fledged professional scribe, he began eschewing the childish holdovers of the past such as fictional stories of adventure, drama, or tragedy. He turned his eyes back toward the pursuit of knowledge full-sail.
It was in this that he truly began to expand his horizons, to other people who shared his interests. Finally, he had a avenue to meet with and converse in real time with the people whose thoughts he'd only previously read about in treatises. Now he could pluck the threads of wisdom directly from the source. His life began to brighten after this.
126-185
And he spent much of that time studying fractive sciences, as well as continuing to improve his scribe skills. He learned about the vergeances between Emea and Idalos, on a functional level. There were wells, there were places where they were found, concentrations of etheric power that tore the veil between worlds. It fascinated him. He continued his various correspondence with the greater minds in the world, until it all went wrong.
186-200
There were rumblings and rumors of war, disaster, and other things afflicting the world. The atmosphere had shifted in Idalos, from idyllic period of peace, where learning and exploration, and adventure were celebrated and embraced. Now the tide turned toward rumors of war, of intimidation between powers and nations. It all culminated in the assassination of Daia, whereupon Ralaith took the Raionan under his wing, to reemerge later. Gith would never forget the contacts and collection of all the worlds old wisdom that had been stolen from him that day. Nor would he forgive.
The World wasn't as empty as it is now. There was a time before the Immortals took it upon themselves to wield their powers against each other, and against those beneath them. Idalos was a place of expansive civilization, towering cities in the Hotlands, beyond just decadent Nashaki. There were cities now buried, revealed only by the crumbling stonework on which their empires had been founded. Vast and sprawling island cities in the south and south west. Cities of marble and bronze-pipe irrigation, propped up by magics. An era of tolerance and prosperity it was.
Then Daia was murdered. Some say by a mage, others that it was Faldrun wielding some artifact forged in malice which allowed an Immortal to take another's life. Whatever the case, we were taken under the wing of Ralaith, without much more than a cursory explanation, and forced by some compact between the Immortal of Wisdom and our creator to sequester us, suspended for who knows how long in Emea.
To preserve our minds, we were given a place to safely dream in his own realm. I don't know how the others felt about this arrangement. Perhaps the illusory and mysterious flow of time in Emea caused them little distress and they felt as if they'd awoken from a deep sleep upon returning.
I remember it like the scholar's backboard, of a poor child made to etch the same message in chalk over and over on a granite slate, as punishment. Most of the other Raionans I've questioned upon awakening felt no such repetition, so perhaps it was a quirk of my perception, that the dream repeated rather than spread out over the length of our exile. Every single repeated moment, grated upon my nerves. And while the rote repetition of every moment in the life I experienced in Emea, I felt my scholar's mind sharpening, taking in details to memory with greater accuracy than before even, when I was a researcher in Ne'haer.
Now I awake, in the midst of the Lion Induk's forest. I crawled out of that dimensional prison along with many others, who I came to understand emerged in different places.
I have spent the past few cycles and arcs just teetering on the drastically changed world. Rumors of war, famine, diseases ravaging the countryside, and Immortals treating everyone poorly. One would wonder why Ralaith had bothered hiding us at all, if this is what we awaken to. Perhaps Ralaith knows the tides of time better than any, but he lacked foresight. And so thinking to put us to use, he has granted us freedom.
I reject the call to service. I will use this time to build myself a new order. An order of mortals who will rise to power, enough to challenge the Immortals, Induks, and Dragons, and any other being that looks down upon mortalkind. However we grasp at power, we must avoid the lure of Immortal Favor. It is a trap, and one we must keep ourselves insulated against. There are other ways of finding power, fractures that open the veil between Idalos and Emea. Stones powerful enough to subsume the will of the gods. This will be our avenue to power.