Chapter 1: Tree Goddess Wareharun
The air shimmered with the scent of sap and moss, a living perfume that clung to the vast expanse of Wareharun's domain. She stood alone at the heart of her forest, a towering figure woven from the essence of bark and vine, her presence both gentle and unyielding. The Tree Goddess Wareharun, youngest of the Twelve Gods of Falmart, had never sought the adoration of mortals or the respect of her divine kin. She was content to listen to the whispers of leaves, the creak of branches, and the soft songs of the creatures that darted through her canopy. Her forests stretched across the continent like a verdant sea, their roots threading deep into the earth, a testament to her quiet power. Here, in the stillness of her realm, she was more than a goddess—she was the forest itself, its spirit given form, its will made manifest.
Her body was a marvel of nature's design, a living tapestry of the wild that seemed to shift and breathe with the rhythms of the seasons. She stood tall, her height rivaling the ancient oaks that flanked her, her frame lithe yet imbued with the strength of a storm-bent cedar. Her skin was a smooth expanse of pale green, its surface faintly luminous, as though kissed by morning dew or bathed in the soft glow of a forest dawn. It shimmered subtly with every movement, catching the light in iridescent flecks that danced like fireflies across her flesh. The texture was not uniform—here and there, faint ridges rose like the grain of polished wood, spiraling in delicate patterns that mimicked the rings of a tree felled centuries past. These markings traced her torso, curling around her hips and climbing her spine, a map of her own eternity etched into her being.
Vines coiled around her limbs like living jewelry, their tendrils curling upward to frame her form with an elegance that was both wild and deliberate. They sprouted from her skin as naturally as roots from soil, their deep green hue contrasting with the paler tone of her body. Thin and supple, they wrapped her arms in spiraling bands, looping around her wrists and trailing down to her fingertips, where they swayed gently as if stirred by an unseen breeze. On her legs, thicker vines wound like ivy, clinging to her thighs and calves, their tips brushing the ground where she stood. Tiny leaves unfurled along their lengths—some broad and heart-shaped, others needle-thin—each a miniature echo of the forest she embodied. They rustled faintly when she moved, a soft chorus that blended with the wind.
Her hair was a cascade of deep emerald, a flowing river of green that spilled over her shoulders and down her back, reaching past her waist to pool upon the mossy earth. It shimmered with a glossy sheen, as though coated in the sap of her own trees, and was threaded with blossoms that bloomed and faded with the turning of the seasons. In spring, white petals nestled among the strands, delicate and fragrant, their edges tinged with pink. In summer, they turned golden, bold and radiant as the sun above. Autumn brought crimson blooms, their hue as rich as spilled wine, while winter adorned her with silver flowers that glittered like frost. These blossoms were not mere decoration—they lived, opening and closing with the days, shedding petals that drifted to the ground and sprouted anew where they fell. Her hair framed her face in wild, untamed waves, parting slightly to reveal the curve of her neck, where a single vine traced a path downward, curling just above her collarbone.
For centuries, Wareharun had watched the mortals of Falmart encroach upon her realm. Humans and demi-humans alike felled her trees for firewood, cleared her groves for farmland, and waged wars in the names of their favored gods—Emroy, with his bloodlust; Hardy, with her dominion over death; Zufmuut, with his blinding order. The other gods reveled in their worship, their altars dripping with offerings, their names chanted in battle cries. Wareharun, though, remained apart. Her forests were her temple, her solitude her prayer. She had no need for mortals' fleeting devotion. She stood motionless as the seasons turned, her amber eyes tracing the paths of birds and beasts, her vines swaying in time with the wind, her body a silent sentinel amid the green.
But the year 687 of the Imperial Calendar changed everything.
The Saderan Empire, a sprawling dominion fueled by ambition and conquest, turned its gaze to the sacred Alnus Hill. Emperor Molt Sol Augustus, a man whose greed outstripped even his pride, dreamed of a Dimensional Gate—a portal to other worlds ripe for plunder. His priests and magicians toiled for years, their rituals staining the holy soil with blood and ash. Wareharun felt the disturbance ripple through her roots, a tremor of violation that shook her solitude. She watched from afar as the Gate flared to life, its arcane light splitting the sky above Alnus Hill. The emperor's armies marched through, eager for new lands to subjugate.
It was then that Wareharun saw her chance.
She had no master, no god to command her, but she had her will—and her will was the forest's survival. For centuries, Wareharun had watched the mortals of Falmart encroach upon her realm, their axes biting into her trees, their fires scorching her groves. Each felled trunk was a wound, each cleared field a scar upon her domain. Yet she had remained passive, content in her solitude, believing that the forest would endure as it always had. But the opening of the Dimensional Gate on Alnus Hill shattered that belief. The emperor's ambition threatened not just her forests but the very balance of the world. Wareharun could feel it in the tremors of the earth, in the way the wind faltered as the Gate's magic tore through the fabric of reality. This was no mere mortal folly—it was a violation of the natural order.
Slipping through the shadows of her trees, she moved with the grace of a predator, her bare feet soundless upon the mossy ground. Her vine-wreathed form blended seamlessly with the foliage, her skin shifting in hue to match the dappled light filtering through the canopy. The priests, drunk on their success, chanted and reveled around the Gate, their voices a discordant hum that grated against her senses. They paid no heed to the rustling leaves or the sudden stillness of the wind, too consumed by their triumph to notice the forest's warning. Wareharun raised a hand, her twig-like fingers curling as she seized control of the portal's magic. The air crackled with energy, the Gate's light flickering as she bent its destination to her design. She would not allow the emperor to plunder another world—she would turn his greed to her advantage.
With a thought, she opened the Gate not to a world of riches or slaves, but to a realm of endless green—a plane where plant life reigned supreme, untouched by mortal hands. It was a place she had glimpsed in dreams, a sanctuary of eternal growth. From the depths of her being, she summoned her Apostle, a lithe creature born of moss and thorn, its body a tangle of vines and sharp spines, its eyes glowing with the same amber light as her own. It moved with eerie fluidity, slipping through the Gate like a shadow. Wareharun's command echoed in its mind: Bring me the seed of the World Tree.
The Apostle returned swiftly, cradling a seed no larger than a walnut in its thorny grasp. The seed's surface pulsed with a faint, otherworldly light, its power thrumming in harmony with Wareharun's own essence. She took it delicately, feeling its warmth seep into her skin, a promise of life unbounded. Kneeling at the heart of Alnus Hill, where the Gate still hummed with residual magic, she pressed the seed into the earth. The soil parted eagerly beneath her touch, rich and dark, as if it had been waiting for this moment. Her amber eyes glowed brighter, twin suns in the gathering dusk, as she poured her divine strength into the seed. She merged her essence with its potential, her breath becoming the wind, her heartbeat the pulse of the earth.
The ground trembled. A low rumble spread from the hill, growing into a roar as roots erupted from the soil, thick and sinuous, spiraling upward in a dance of creation. They twisted and coiled, forming a trunk that stretched toward the heavens, its bark shimmering with the same pale green as Wareharun's skin. Leaves unfurled in a riot of color, each one larger than a man, their veins glowing with inner light. Within a year, the World Tree rose—a colossus three kilometers high, its canopy blotting out the sun, its roots threading across the continent like veins of life. It was a marvel and a monstrosity, a testament to Wareharun's power and her desperation.
From those roots sprang millions of smaller trees, their gnarled trunks resembling the Grandidier's baobab of distant lands. They dotted the landscape, their branches heavy with fruit—glistening orbs of deep violet, their scent intoxicating, a blend of sweetness and decay. The mortals who ate them changed. Their strength swelled a hundredfold, their bodies became near-invincible, regenerating from wounds that would fell any ordinary being. They no longer needed food, water, or air to survive, but the march of time still claimed them, as they aged and eventually succumbed to the inevitable embrace of old age.
But there was a price. An endless hunger gnawed at them, a craving no other sustenance could sate. They could eat nothing else, condemned to consume only the World Tree's fruits for eternity. And when they died—whether by the slow creep of age, or by fire, the only force that could truly end them swiftly—their bodies dissolved into the earth, their souls drawn inexorably to Wareharun. She had not intended to become a goddess of dominion, but the fruits of the World Tree made her one. Millions ate, and millions became hers—soldiers, farmers, nobles, slaves. Their souls fed her power, swelling her presence until the other gods could no longer ignore her.
Yet, even as the World Tree's influence spread, human nature remained unchanged. Wars still erupted across Falmart, driven by greed, ambition, and the insatiable desire for power. With death from injury rendered nearly impossible, battles became prolonged sieges of attrition, where victory was measured not in lives taken but in territories held and enemies captured. Armies clashed with brutal ferocity, their near-immortal soldiers hacking at each other with swords and axes, only to watch their foes rise again, wounds sealing before their eyes. However, the specter of old age loomed over all, a slow but inevitable end that no amount of regeneration could stave off. Thus, warfare evolved into a grim spectacle of endurance, where the goal was to incapacitate and imprison enemies, forcing them to live out their long lives in captivity until time claimed them.
New forms of torture emerged, born from the twisted ingenuity of those who sought to break the unbreakable. Since physical pain was fleeting and death from injury impossible, tormentors turned to psychological cruelty and the exploitation of time. They exploited the endless hunger that plagued the fruit-eaters, withholding the violet orbs and watching as their victims writhed in agonized craving. Others devised methods to trap their enemies in states of perpetual suffering—burying them alive beneath the World Tree's roots, where they could neither die nor escape, condemned to decades of darkness and starvation, aging slowly toward their eventual demise.
Despite these horrors, society adapted. Farming and hunting became obsolete; the fruits provided all the sustenance needed, and the land once tilled for crops was reclaimed by the forest. People turned to gathering, roaming the woods to collect the violet orbs that sustained them. Cities shrank, their stone walls crumbling as vines and moss crept over them, returning the land to a wilder state. Yet, even as the population swelled—growing tenfold as hunger and disease lost their sting, and more people lived to their full natural lifespans—humanity found new ways to divide itself. Factions formed, some worshipping Wareharun as a savior, others cursing her for the curse of near-immortality. Territories were claimed in her name, and bloody skirmishes erupted over control of the most fruitful groves.
The Saderan Empire, once a mighty force of conquest, bent the knee to Wareharun. They named her their protector, their goddess of eternity, and reshaped their society around the World Tree. Yet, even in submission, the empire's rulers schemed, using their near-immortal legions to enforce their will upon the land. For a thousand years, Falmart stagnated under the shadow of the World Tree, a continent caught between paradise and purgatory. The people lived in symbiosis with the forest, tending its roots like gardeners in a vast, unchanging Eden. But beneath the surface, resentment simmered—among mortals and gods alike.
The other gods did not forget.
In the year 1687, a millennium after the World Tree's rise, the air above Alnus Hill stirred once more. Wareharun felt it—a prickling along her roots, a dissonance in the wind that set her vines trembling. She emerged from her grove, her vine-wreathed form shimmering in the twilight, and gazed toward the hill. The Gate was awakening again, its magic pulsing like a wound reopened.
Deep beneath the earth, in the shadowed halls of the Underworld, Hardy paced with restless fury. Her skeletal fingers clutched a staff of obsidian, its tip glowing with a sickly purple light. For a thousand years, she had watched her domain wither, its caverns silent without the souls Wareharun had stolen. The dead no longer passed through her gates; they belonged to the Tree Goddess now, their essences feeding her ever-growing power. Beside her stood Emroy, his hulking frame clad in armor forged from the bones of fallen warriors. His eyes blazed red, his voice a growl that shook the stone walls.
"She has gone too far," he said, slamming a fist against the wall. "No wars, no death, no chaos. My altars rot while her trees choke the land. The mortals fight, yes, but their battles are mockery—endless, bloodless farces that bring no true glory."
Hardy nodded, her lipless mouth curling into a grimace. "And my halls echo with emptiness. The souls she claims do not pass through my gates. They are hers alone, bound to her roots like slaves."
"We must act," Emroy snarled. "The Gate—she used it once. We can use it again. Let us open it to a world where her power cannot reach, where fire and steel can still bring death."
The two gods descended to Alnus Hill, their presence cloaking the sacred site in darkness. The Saderan priests, now little more than caretakers of Wareharun's legacy, fled at their approach, sensing the divine wrath that crackled in the air. Hardy raised her staff, channeling the power of the Underworld, while Emroy poured his fury into the ritual. The Gate flared to life, its light a jagged tear in the fabric of reality. This time, they would not let Wareharun interfere.
The portal stabilized, revealing a glimpse of a strange new world—blue waters, gleaming ships, and a sky filled with the roar of machines. Honolulu, Hawaii, during the mortals' RIMPAC exercises of 2012. Neither Hardy nor Emroy understood the place, but they cared little. It was a world of conflict, of fire and steel—perfect for their purpose. They summoned the Saderan Empire's army, still loyal despite a millennium of peace, and sent them marching through the Gate once more, their near-immortal soldiers eager for conquest.
Wareharun arrived too late.
She stood atop Alnus Hill, her amber eyes narrowing as she watched the last of the soldiers vanish into the portal. The air reeked of Emroy's rage and Hardy's spite, a stench that made her vines curl in disgust. Her roots, vast as they were, could not follow them through the Gate. For the first time in a thousand years, she felt a tremor of unease ripple through her being. The World Tree loomed behind her, its branches swaying as if in warning, its leaves whispering of dangers unseen.
"They think to undo me," she murmured, her voice a rustle of leaves carried on the wind. "But the forest endures. It always endures."
She turned her gaze to the Gate, its light pulsing like a wound in the world. Whatever lay beyond, it was a threat she could not ignore. The mortals who ate her fruit were hers, bound to her will, but this new world held dangers she could not yet fathom—fire hot enough to kill even her blessed ones, perhaps, or weapons that could sever her connection to their souls. For the first time, Wareharun stepped beyond her solitude, her bare feet sinking into the soil as she approached the portal. The game of the gods had begun anew, and this time, the stakes were higher than ever.