The Last Day
A cataclysmic event so named because the world was forever changed after its passing. The flourishing landscape became almost completely devoid of civilization, leaving previously thriving villages, towns and even cities abandoned to be reclaimed by nature.
The Council had been in session first thing in the morning to discuss more mundane matters. Luckily for the Dwarves, as they only attended for votes of great importance, their seat was empty that day. A great concussive wave of energy boomed through the city, leaving a tingling sensation on the skin and a general feeling of unease, but caused no damage beyond a few broken windows and skinned knees.
As they hurriedly gave orders to evaluate the city and its people, the Council began to discuss how they should go about investigating the event. Their job was to bring calm to the chaos. Most of the guards had been sent off on their errands, leaving only the immediate royal guards. Afterall, Kheiron was a safe place. They didn't notice the shadow that slunk into the room. Not until the Human king, Aine, had been attacked by a creature that none had ever seen before. It seemed at first to be composed of shadow and smoke. The churning blackness made up the vague shape of a canine body but the only corporeal part of it seemed to be the luminous grey eyes.
And of course, their teeth and claws.
They managed to kill the creature, but not before King Aine and two of the royal guards were slain as well. In death, the shadows melted from its body, leaving nothing but a desiccated skeletal frame covered in leathery skin pulled too tight over jagged bones. It looked like a creature dead for years, not minutes. But it was, most certainly, dead.
The explosion of magical energy was forgotten in the wake of the deaths and the city’s focus turned to grief and funeral rites. King Aine’s body was being prepared when the true end of Kheiron began. His corpse moved. Not a lot, but enough to startle the attendants. It wasn’t unheard of for this to happen occasionally and it was just a biological reaction, but this wasn’t what they witnessed. Then it moved again, his torso jerking like it was tied to a string. His skin started to rot and fester, decaying months in mere heartbeats. His bones started to snap and joints began to pop, muscles contorting into impossible shapes. It was as if something was crawling out of his chest while consuming him from the inside at the same time, crumpling like a ball of paper.
What burst out of the King’s corpse was the very creature that had brought his end. Yet more people were killed before the second creature was destroyed. Then the two guards killed in the initial attack turned too. Before they realized the only way to control it was to kill the creatures as they were turning, it was too late. There were simply too many; too many warriors needed to kill the predators, too many people turning into them and too many people for them to attack.
By the time the sun set, the ordered and refined city of Kheiron was gone. The docks and harbor warehouses were ablaze, lighting up the darkening sky like a false sunrise. For days the grand capital city of the Kingdom of Thrasos screamed and burned. People fled the city and Devourers went with them. So named because they devoured the corpse of their prey to come into being, and because devouring seemed to be their sole, rabid purpose. Refugees and Devourers spread over Thrasos faster than a plague and far more deadly. Hundreds of thousands perished until the fourth day when it suddenly stopped.
Another surge of energy erupted from the Library of Thrasos, far more powerful than the first, and Kheiron was encased in a powerful ward. No more Devourers came into being. But the damage had already been done. A population decimated, towns, villages and cities wiped from the landscape. The Devourers that remained might have been the end of the civilized races were it not for the Orcs. Powerful warriors in their own right, they were able to destroy those that remained. They took in the refugees of the other races and taught them how to survive in the fashion of their own nomadic lifestyle while they rebuilt homes and towns.
Despite the fact that the Dwarven ruling family hadn’t been in Kheiron on the Last Day, their race seemed to have disappeared completely. Practical to a fault, they had closed the gates of their mountain cities immediately upon hearing the news of the chaos that spilled forth out of Kheiron and they’d simply never opened again. When no messages, pleading or threats would open them again, fearing the worst, a city teeming with thousands of Devourers, the gates were forced open, a feat that took many months. When they entered, they found nothing. No Dwarves, no Devourers. They didn’t even find signs of them. There was no blood or disarray. If the gates hadn’t been firmly closed for nearly a year, one would assume they’d simply gotten up and left en masse.
In the nearly two centuries since the Last Day, most cities and towns of any notable size were reclaimed by nature which seemed to grow back more lush than ever, except for Kheiron.No one talked about reclaiming the city. It remained a shadowy, forlorn ruin where only Devourers and the occasional brave looter or explorer roamed. The wards kept the Devourers in like a prison with an unknown warden, but they also kept everyone else out. They barring passage by way of a feeling of dread and lethargy, like trying to walk through waist deep mud on a moonless night. On rare occasions these wards will weaken or break, allowing the brave in and the Devourers out, but they're always promptly rebuilt.
Someone still dwelt in the dead city with the creatures. They were never seen and none could guess who, though it was assumed to be the same one that either created or let free the first Devourer. A terrible fate, said some. A just punishment, said others. Many came to believe the Goddess of Death, once a deity to be revered and not feared, had grown angry and claimed the city. Now, she keeps her agents of chaos in check, until such time as she requires them again. Some even believe that invoking her name will cause them to turn into a Devourer upon their death, and because of this her name has been largely forgotten to time.
Still, none know with any certainty how the Last Day occurred, or even why the cataclysm suddenly stopped. The races were far too preoccupied with the survival they still scrape for to this day. Even when those who had witnessed the events of the Last Day had passed, the memory of it remained in the minds of the next generations, as if it had been soaked into the very soil over which they rebuilt their homes and grew their food.
The unique and beautiful funeral rites of each of the races disappeared completely, replaced with a hurried pyre and armed vigil until bones were nothing but ash. It didn’t matter that no new Devourers had come into being since the wards went up around Kheiron. The people never recovered from their initial appearance in Ouranos and another resurgence might mean the end of what little they had left.
Life had gone on in Thrasos but, for all except the Orcs, in a way that was unrecognizable and perhaps even reluctant. In the abandoned cities it was still easy to see the splendor that used to exist, even to those who hadn’t known the shape of the world before the Last Day. The centuries it would take to repopulate and rebuild felt like an insurmountable task so many just contented themselves to quiet, simple lives. The days of learned mages, towering palaces and libraries that touched the sky were gone, seemingly forever.