Allow me to introduce myself to you.  Very few souls have known me, and over time the few who do know me have begun referring to me as the Archivist.   My sole duty in life is to write the journals and maintain the archives of our World, so that its history -  and the irreplaceable lessons contained within it - may never be forgotten.     That you are here, right now, reading these words of what will become the fourth chapter of our story is a testament to the passion of a select few Champions who refused to let our World fade into the darkness and oblivion, who would not allow it to pass from the realms of men.    This is a story that needs to be told, and so now here we are, you and I.

By now you will have already learned of the strange night on a quiet mountain pass that led to an even stranger encounter by chance - it was the night that Erika would meet the mysterious traveling merchant known as ‘Sad’, a person who is much more than he ever reveals to those he meets.     Both parties would unknowingly share information with the other that will likely drastically change each of their futures, and in time, I am almost certain that both of them may come to regret the unintended assistance that they provided each other on that fateful night.  

Erika is considered a “Dilenchi” by most people she has encountered in her young life.   If you are unfamiliar with the term, consider yourself lucky.   Across most of Jaelara, Dilenchi are considered to be lesser folk and unwelcome in most public settings.   Poor and destitute, Dilenchi are often ignored by the more well-to-do members of society, known as “Pasha”. 

For Erika, much of her internal conflict arises from her memories of a World that no longer exists, a World in which she had once enjoyed a comfortable life as the child of a well respected Pasha family in her village, along with her beloved pet Bai-Hu.  What Sad could never have realized during that fateful night on the mountain pass was that in this chance encounter he would unintentionally give Erika two valuable gifts that he never meant to.  

First, he gave her the self confidence of knowing that she had not in fact been born with a broken mind, for now she knew that her conflicting memories were in fact all real, despite her two lives being impossible to both be true.

And secondly, he also gave her the inspiration for the journey of a lifetime - one that he could most definitely someday regret starting her out on.   Erika would awaken on that lonely mountain pass with a new purpose in life - to find whoever has caused the events that led to this Metamorphosis of her World, and to punish them for all of the pain and loss that they have caused her.

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As with any tale a writer commits to parchment, I have no way of knowing where you - my dear reader - will be when this story finds its way to you.   Are you one of the society of dedicated scholars who have been putting their very lives at risk for ages to explore the Labyrinthian Library that I built so long ago, when Jaelara was still being molded into its form in the great beginning?   Or are you perhaps one of the readers whom I have seen in my mind’s eye - the ones who dwell in such a strange, different reality from my own?   Yours is a strange realm indeed, where parchment no longer is needed for words to be written, and where written words can be shared across your entire World in the blink of an eye.  

I may never know the true reach of these words that I am inscribing here for all of time, but know this my friend - we have an amazing journey ahead of us for both you, and I.   And it all begins with my saying to you these three most powerful words of all…

Welcome to Jaelara.