City of Light:Makia:Chosen.

Found written in a book currently possesed by the Pardoner Zared

“It was a hot summer day when the Fall came and I had been working all day in my office at the University where it was kept cool by air conditioning machinery during heat like this and warm during the colder months of the year. I was preparing a series of lectures based on some discoveries that a colleague had recently turned up regarding the use of Aetheric by-ways for travel, and had decided to go to the local public house for a quick dinner before returning to my work.

Once I had stepped out of my office the heat hit me like a wall and I began sweating heavily, but the time I had reached the pub I was carrying my jacket and tie and the white dress shirt I was wearing was sticking to me. Down a small set of stairs and I was out of the heat and off the street, my eyes adjusting to the much dimmer lighting in here.

The pub had been around in some configuration for the better part of a hundred years and passed through countless owners hands during that time. I found a seat at the bar where I could see the television and ordered a meal of sausages and potatoes, along with a glass of strong beer. We had recently sent another group of soldiers off to an enemy state in what we were assured was a just war, even though it had been going on for close to forty years. Each time we gained some sort of scientific or mystical advantage the other side would come up with something equally as devastating, so the two countries were locked in a perpetually escalating stalemate.

I've mentioned before the youth groups that I was a member of in my idealistic youth and then the anti-war efforts as I grew older. At this particular time I was in an odd place, I didn't support the war (thinking that after forty years if a victor was going to be decided at all it would have happened by know) but I wasn't actively engaged in opposing it. Instead I just kept my research to the least militarily valuable avenues of research and went my own way.

There was a football game on the television and I joined the rest of the crowd of people there in watching it. Our cities team was ahead one to nothing in the last quarter when the screen flashed a government alert. The green field and bright uniforms were replaced with a stern aging face with imperious and driven eyes looking out through thick black framed glasses.

“Today is a great day.” He began, and then continued to speak and rally the workers to the glory that tonight promised. Our scientists had discovered the final weapon that would be used in this was and it was being deployed now. At this the camera backed up and we could see a group of men in ceremonial robes standing behind him moving and chanting.

I remember catching a glimpse of one of the participants faces and being struck by the familiarity of it, and after a moment I recognized it as a Klaus W*, a man who had been a member of the 'College'. His experiments always ended with terrible destruction and devastation, so I wasn't at all surprised to find he was working for the government.

“Our scientists have worked hard, and we have all suffered. But today will forever be marked for the whole world! The fourth of July will be remembered forever as the day we were triumphant over the Americans! Today will be the true start of the Thousand year Reich!” Screamed the man on the television, his eyes were gleaming with tears and madness, and I knew that this would be the end.

After the power came back on I found the pub I was in far more empty than it had been, it's funny I remember not being able to conceive of what might have happened to so I sat back in my chair and finished eating my meal, all the while watching the unmoving emergency logo on the television screen. When I was done I placed my money on the counter, since the bar keep was no longer there, and walked out the door with my coat and tie in hand.

Outside the bar Berlin was burning in the hot summer night.

I made my way past the screaming people and through the alleys and streets, everything was muted by the dull whoosh of blood through my ears and the flames dimmed to my eyes. Back in my lab where I just sat for hours staring at my hands, unable to work, unable to find any information about what had happened. We had attacked the Americans by using the entities, that much was clear from Klaus being in the ritual, but what had we done?

I spent the night in my lab, eventually spreading out a pile of lab coats and sleeping on them, it was cooler here than my apartment anyways... assuming, of course, that my apartment building was still standing. By morning the radios were up and broadcasting and I tuned through the channels and began to piece together the some information on what had happened last night.

Apparently the Americans had learned of the nature of the weapon and set a plan in motion to redirect the force back at Berlin. Fortunately for me it failed, and I'm here to write these words today, and only a small amount backlashed to the group of casters. The government section of the city had been vaporized and the Furher with it, indeed there was no authority in the city right now and reports were coming in of looting and rioting.

Several weeks passed and military units retook the City while I and other Academics were called in by the interim government to figure out what to do. America had been destroyed, but not before setting off devices and rituals of their own which sank the island of Nippon and flooded the pacific basin. Scattered fighting was still happening but the war was over, and over half of the world's population had died in one night thanks to the ritual performed by our military and the final death throws of the enemy of our empire. It was at this time that people began to disappear.

It was probably more noticeable because when everything had gone wrong on that fateful night people began to congregate for safety within the city walls. The military, once they arrived, took control of the food distribution and declared martial law, hence the need to people like myself to help figure out what needed to be done. More and more people disappeared, and it wasn't just Berlin. They called the outposts in London and Moscow and the same thing was happening; there was no word from the Americas, either they were all dead on that side of the world or they just didn't want to talk to the people who landed the world in this state.

Rumours began to fly that there was something sinister being down by the government and this is when the cities were abandoned and suspicion was cast wildly like a net thrown by a drunken fisherman. People began to abandon the cities.

The military, their numbers lessened by the disappearances, couldn't contain or stop the riot so whole sections of Berlin were abandoned to the looters. I can't speak for the other cities since I wasn't there or in touch with any of them, but there it was horrific to see people turning on each other. As more people disappeared, more people left the city.

Finally there was no government left, and there were only fifty or so people left in Berlin, we all lived in the same block of buildings and shared what we had scavenged and were starting to grow. Strange things were happening then, nature was changing around us. Electricity ceased to work, fire didn't behave the way it always have. Many of the people I was living lost their lives and established principles of nature backfired, and the creatures began to show up.

I've never seen as many of them as I do now, in the intervening years it's gotten worse, but then again we are talking about a lot of years. They would find lone people and drag them off, presumably for food so we stuck together and in the end left the cities since that is where they seem to make their habitats. People drifted apart as we traveled south for the more temperate climates of the Mediterranean, and I watched my companions die off from disease or despair until only I was left.

I settled in the ruin of a small village on the ocean's edge and spent about one hundred years just living day to day and trying to make sense of what had happened. When I had time I would test various thoughts and ideas I had in an attempt to rediscover the laws of nature that had been so clear before that night, and I would teach myself things. Occasionally caravans would come by and I would trade with them, and eventually some people started staying.

I found that my taste for the companionship of other people waxes and wanes with the years, and at the time I was just sick of them all. So one night after a few years of helping them get this place established I packed up what I could carry and I left.”