The stockade in the Main Center and An Eladrin.

The captain seemed calm and emotionless at the moment. As if lost in thought about something. She didn't protest, or try to beg for her own release. She did how ever, yawn a bit looking over the crowd.

"Will no one step forward? No one with an answer? How can the people of this city accept the life of a caretaker, an inventor, someone who's house was directly responsible for the creation and upkeep of the soulless who had protected all of your lives. You would be so callous to accept the loss of such a valuable member of our society!" Tears were forming, she looked away wiping her eyes with a silk handkerchief then turned back. "This opportunity to reply to my demands, and spare Captain Pearl Oxford further torment and humiliation will be available for the next 12 hours...Upon which time The captain will be taken away." She would turn to leave.

Spica then steps forward, her new HS of Dramordis sparkling in the sun. She looks very nervous but faces the Eladrin. "I will answer. I will tell the tale of Dramordis .. and of Nima Sihndora's noble sacrifice of herself to ensure peace among the Gods. I was not there at the time of her death, but I was told she willingly sacrificed herself ... for the Greater Good. Pearl is not to blame ... and if you do NOT release her from those shackles .. I will do so."

*nods* Very well ... She then turns to the crowd and unrolls a scroll. "Hear the Words and Story of Dramordis - as told to me while exploring an old temple. Dramordis, The Father of the Gods .. and Creator of the Cosmos."

She reads from the scroll ....

We found ourselves floating in what appeared to be a representation of the Cosmos. I have to admit, this was rather awesome, and really relaxing. We soon found ourselves drifting above what looked like our home planet, with it's two moons, but was barren.

Dramordis then spoke saying “I saw this place and what it could become. I knew that it could be more to it. Those that dwelt there believed in me, they trusted my judgement. So I told them to delve deeper and deeper into the surface, that it would change soon, and they must be ready for it. And when they had gone deep enough, I brought forth the waters and shrunk back the grasslands. I changed the world so that it could be what it needed to be.” And as we watched, we saw the oceans grow from the plains and the land itself shifting and breaking apart until we saw the shape of the Milerian continent below us.

Dramordis then continued. “When it was done, I gave my Blessing to my Chosen. She created the first that would dwell above. I gave my children that had served me so faithfully, the understanding of what they must do with those she had created. They sent them above – they gave to her children the knowledge and understanding of survival, the markers of society, the respect they had learnt from their many centuries on this world before it was broken. Her children took this knowledge and used it to grow for themselves. Some stayed below the surface, others rose above it. They formed order and community. They found others that were there as well – others created to be part of this world. And while my people lay down their heads and slept until they were needed once more, her's rose up and began making their place amidst the world”. As he spoke we could see lights dotting the surface of Mileria, Huang Cho, and other places, marking the locations of where settlements were being created.

“I was weakened, my Chosen laying down their heads for their long sleep. Without their faith, I felt myself fading. Others saw this as an opportunity. So I placed upon the world my last command – no being of the Divine could affect the world directly, only through those that was faithful to them could they act. Many who supported me thought that they could stop my Fall from happening – they descended upon the world, and gave up their immortality to worship me.”

We then saw balls of light falling towards Mileria from the north, north of the peaks of the mountains over the sky touched tundra. They fell and landed upon the ground there but, they did not stop. They began to travel south, over the mountain peaks and down through the land of plains and forests. They travelled to the shore where Black Mar would be and then vanished, reappearing further south and east, on the island that would be known as Varde.

“But they soon found their own disagreements too great. So, while some stayed where first they settled, others left to travel south. How could they be the perfect believers – even if mortal – if they could not keep themselves from the same evils and acts that prevented the heavens above them from being more than a battleground? So they took the essence of their hatred, their fear, their anger, their frustration – everything negative about themselves – and they sowed it across the land like seeds. And from these seeds grew something different, something great and terrible. A new race … And by the time these followers settled in their new home, far to the south – they could not fathom what they had done to change the world they had passed across”

More lights appeared below us. In the west and in the east. Lights moved to the western coast and disappeared – they moved to the east into the desert. They moved south and disappeared, only to reappear in Huang Cao. New villages were formed, scattered over Mileria, the land lighting up with pockets of twinkling lights, winking up at us from the surface.

“And my followers lived in peaceful harmony, away from it all in a land where they had no worries and could be free of tyranny – or so they believed. Far, far above them, in the realm of gods, the war raged on – and those who wished me to finally fade, made their plans. The final betrayal against me from my own Chosen – my greatest, fondest, creation – came from the disobedience I had given them the right to have. And they acted upon it”.

We watched as the light marking Varde suddenly flared up as an explosion. It lit up the whole area as a torch then faded away leaving nothing left. But a new light appeared, in a place we all knew. Tel Vinrae.

“Those that had survived had lost their direction. Centuries of practises were lost, extinguished, and with the betrayal of my Chosen, there were none to guide them back onto the Path. I drew my last breath, and faded from existence. One day I would return – but the world I had shaped and created, would be a very different place”

The lights changed as cities grew becoming larger dots of light, scattered all over Mileria.

“There was a foretelling of my return – an event that would change forever how the world was perceived. It was set in motion by the first races to rise to the surface, though they did not know what their decision would commit the world to, until it was done. When the face of the world was changed forever, my return was near. The true catalyst though, was the race born of all the worst of those who had descended from the heavens. What was that act? What was the foretelling of my return?”

One amongst us answered “The Creation of the Burning Wastes”. When that was said, the landscape erupted in flames beneath us and across Mileria was scorched, a scar. Flames leapt from fissures in the land and we could feel the heat, even this high up.

We then found ourselves standing among the battle, fought a hundred years ago between Omicron and Imperial forces. Catapults slung boulders overhead and ballistae archer fire filled the air as soldiers clashed against soldiers in a struggle for life and death – a conflict that played out all around us. It was truly terrible, and yet the battle raged around us as if we were not actually there. Massive creatures, Imperial mastadons, plowed through Omicron ranks while an armopured figure wielding two blades crushed the resistance around it. The Omicron, however, put up a massive fight as they bravely rode their mounts in flanking manoeuvres. We watched as fireballs and other spells soared overhead. Then the sounds of screams and explosions faded into the background as the voice spoke again.

“They began this blaze, fighting over their lands – looking for the best advantage. They turned on allies, on friends – they turned their back on each other. The joining of all the races once more in a cataclysmic event that foretold my rebirth was at hand and the gods knew it. So the one that started it all – that had sent their servant to destroy me, at last gave it one final command. One final task it could perform until she needed it again. Do you know what that task was?”

One of us replied. “She ordered her servant not to burn Dramordis but to burn the Burning Plains themselves”

At those words, we found ourselves travelling through the fire and into it, descending down into the earth, surrounded by stone and rock, finding veins of fire beneath the surface. We finally arrived in a cavern, far beneath the Planes where stood a massive winged dragon that was red in scales, a Great Red Dragon I surmised. It roared fire onto the ceiling which crackled and burned. The stones themselves burned red hot Accompanying the dragon was a woman, cloaked, with arms raised up, one hand palm upwards with fingers splayed, the other arm terminating in a stump where a hand had been. She was identified as the First Betrayer, Andarta – the Iron Maiden. She, and her dragon servent, was the reason the Grasslands still burn. As her name was spoken, the dragon breathed upon us, but we felt no heat. Instead we found ourselves back in the room where this had started.

Spica rolled up the scroll and concluded by saying: "It was for the Return of Dramordis and the Redemption of Andarta that Sihndora chose to sacrifice herself. Remember her as a brave, courageous, and intelligent woman." Spica continued, sounding like a street preacher. She would also be appalled at the treatment you have given Pearl. I know you feel a great loss, so did I ... and many others ... but .. this is not the way we should show it. Let us not mourn her .. let us celebrate her life - and remember her always. For .. as long as we remember, she is not truely gone".