The Mage War – Ninivehs sacrifice

Mythodea lives. The power of magic flows through everything it flows like a steady stream of blood through the land making it more than the sum of its parts, letting it breathe and speak to the beings that inhabit it. This infinite energy is a gift but also the objective if envy for those in search of a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy. And it happened that a group of mages in the deep south, who become powerful because they knew how to use the power of the world they walked on for their own purpose. Their ability grew as they learned to use the magical power of the land. Like a slow ceaseless flow of blood, this power seeped out of their surroundings and imperceptibly at first, weakened everything around them. 

Here lies the origin of the great war and the story of Yora and Nineveh.

The seemingly unlimited power intoxicated the two as much as their mage brothers and sisters. And while Yora was well versed in harnessing the power inherent in plants, Nineveh had a special access to animals especially birds. While the two of them roamed through the still intact Mythodea, Nineveh talking to the birds that settled on her shoulders, Yora with her eyes always on ground., seeking communion with the roots of trees and herbs, they met again and again an found great pleasure in each other.

While their affection grew, the powers of those who were so important to them dwindled in the same period. Nineveh heard it from the birds, who told her of their weaking broad and of the fact that the trees, once their home and shelter, now needed help themselves because they could hardly bear the weight of their leaves. 

Yora, who had not failed to notice that something was changing in the world as it once was, also knew of this. Together with her beloved Yora, Nineveh sought out the other mages and told them about the changes.

But all she saw was the greed in the eyes of the others and it almost broke her heart to see the same spark glowing in the eyes of Yora. Regardless of the state of the world, the ancient rulers practiced their magic with relish, manipulating living and dead things and intoxicating themselves with the feeling of immense power. For, they always argued, power was born of power and even if it cost sacrifices, the result of their actions were immeasurable valuable to the country: No one could escape this logic.

Yora traveled the country on search of more energy for her magical work, while Nineveh only used magic when there was no other way. And even though the lovers were separated, their thoughts were with each other. Letters testified to their affection, but also of Nineveh’s concern for Your, who made no pretence of desisting from her harmful actions. Whenever they saw each other, Yora brushed aside Nineveh’s concern and referred to the cycle of magic. That would bring everything back into balance and, she was convinced, that could be influenced by them being so powerful themselves. More research, more use if magic was needed to understand the innermost nature of this power. She should not close her mind to this explanation after all.

Every now and then, when the seasons changed, Yora and Nineveh would come together in the north of the southern continent and spend some time together. Then they forgot that they could not agree, forgot their worries and enjoyed each other’s presence. 

Nineveh, who renounced magic more and more, noticed with each meeting how much her companion changed. Deaf to her words of warning, Yora displayed all facts of what magic was capable of accomplishing during their time together, from the simplest fire spell to raising dead animal, but the taste in Nineve’s mouth was bitter, for she had long since understood what her loved could not: that this power did not come without price. 

She loved the land, she loved Mythodea and the creatures upon it, and even though her heart beats for Yora, she could no longer ignore the great harm her companion was doing. In a final attempt to explain to her what her actions were doing, she put all her feelings into the balance and showed Yora in a vision the effect her actions were having on all life in Mythodea. As the traces of the vision died Yora’s eyes, Nineveh could see that she had failed. Greed and the ardent desire to be ruler over live and death had finally captured Yora. And so it came to an act of love and despair when Nineveh podded all her strength to deprive Yora of hers. 

As if the land supported this action, such tremendous energy flowed through Nineveh at that moment that Yora was no match for it. As is struck by lightning, she stopped and witnessed her ability to work magic pass from her and the energy she carried flowed out of her. The magic was followed by her life and so she sank down dead at the feet of her beloved. The last thing Nineveh saw was the incredulous look on her beloved’s face then the immense power she had channeled stole her sight in return for this great deed. 

Nineveh’s sacrifice, meanwhile, didn’t go unnoticed. Guided by her birds, the blind mage who no longer worked magic roomed the world. More and more mages, who like her had recognized what her actions were doing, joined her and together they decided that it was time to bring about a decision. The salvation of the world now lay their dwindling power. 

The great war began, at the end of which raged the mightiest battle the world had ever seen. Mage fought mage, brother fought sister and the land cried out in pain. In the end, what the intemperate mages had never thought possible happened. Even though they thought themselves omnipotent, their powers could not match those who stood against them, descending the land and all life. The forces of all life united and so the magicians who would not hear the voices of nature were defeated. And they fled, fled in terror and anger at being limited and having their magic taken from them. 

Fleeing north, they found Mitraspera, untouched full of magic and with seemingly endless energy. Here they wanted to build a home, here they wanted to rule and subjugate all life. 

To protect their “new world”, they built a wall of ice and mist with the help of crystals, which they fed with the suffering energy of countless victims, so that it would protect them eternally, from the persecution of the moderate magic of the south. 

In the south, Nineveh’s army, as the mages who followed Nineve’S footstep called themselves at the beginning, roamed the land in search of mages who could not resist the alluring call of power, they were captured, banished and stripped of their power, locked away in abbeys at the edge of the ice barrier. Nineveh wandered the world for many lifetimes, guided by the voices of the birds she loved so much, but she always returned to the place where she had killed her beloved Yora. She built a memorial for Yora where she lay down to sleep for the last time at the end of her life.

The people of the south buried her under the memorial she had erected for her beloved and henceforth made a pilgrimage to the burial place of the first inquisitor