Foundations for Hope
Prologue
The world has ended.
A thousand tongues
Are screaming at our plight
A thousand lives have ended
And their spirits sing lament
Oh, the night was calm and bright
On that, our world's last hour.
A glint in the sky like a star belied
That which, in truth, was our doom.
A creature of stone and fire and hate
Set the sky itself aflame.
Cleaving asunder that sacred stone
Our Keeper of Memories usurped from her throne,
The Great Crystal shattered
To the horizon its fragments were thrown
Our Lady of Light was lost to us.
All was lost, with nary the glow
Of the Crystal's Memories to guide us on
What was once a mountain proud and clean
Became a pit, a chasm that lead to hells
That no mortal dare to know.
We who survived fled eastward
To havens we hoped had survived
What choice had we?
For from the gaping wound in the earth
A wound so cursed it would never heal
Poison flowed, like fog from the sea
Bringing death to all it touched.
We prayed the wind would sweep it away
But the foul mist was carried on its breath
We cannot outrun this Miasma forever
Yet onward we ran, we few who remember
Yet soon, we too will be lost.
My memories here are recorded on paper
For that is my trade and my art.
The Great Crystal is gone
And our memories fade with it
All but this poem
And I pray it survives.
For the world has ended
And from its death was born a demon.
- Terrand the Poet
