• Tales of Xalthia

    Act 1: Warm Beginnings

    Prelude:


    Mana, the source of life in all living things. The world is dependent on mana for daily life. Working at a job, fighting off monsters, treating the injured even travel by land, sea and air. Mana is what drives human life and continues their advancement. It's what gives birth to not only life but magic. Mana is controlled and maintained by the Four Great Spirits. The element of Fire is maintained by the Great Spirit, Efreet. The element of Water and Ice is maintained by the Great Spirit, Undine. The element of Wind is maintained the Great Spirit, Sylph. Finally, the element of Earth is maintained by the Great Spirit, Gnome. With the power of the Four Great Spirits, the balance between every element can be properly maintained and can be distributed evenly to all living things. However, whenever something becomes seemingly balanced, there will always be something to cause a shift in the balance, throwing everything into complete and utter chaos.

    As technology and humans advance with each passing year, the price for Mana continues to increase. Mana starts to become high in demand and that causes conflicts to occur. Those conflicts causes the balance of Mana to be thrown off which can end in dangerous and sometimes life-threatening results. Humans are siphoning the Mana faster than it can reproduce itself. Pure Mana has become such a hard thing to come by now with all the advancements that scientists have created Boosters to compensate the lack of Mana. Boosters give a person an increase in their abilities but the side-effects can be life-threatening if they're used too much. If a person uses a Booster one too many times, they will lose their life. For that reason, Boosters are only administered to military personnel. Everyone else had to make due with the lack of Mana themselves or acquiring a third means of tapping into Mana; a Blastia. Blastia's are a less common form of tapping into Mana that's slowly starting to become a popular use again. Unlike Boosters, using Blastia is a safer way to use Mana as it doesn't put the user at risk of death. Blastia is more commonly used by adventurers. Others prefer to fight with their own abilities, unassisted by Boosters or Blastia.

    As Mana becomes more scarce, nations start to become corrupt. They desired more power. The desire of having more power led to the world's deadliest war, the War of Mana. Every nation took part in this bloody war and the death tolls were uncountable. The war would be the end of all ends, if the Four Great Spirits hadn't intervened. They put all their Mana into single attack that's known as Divine Redemption. This attack erupted in the center of the battlefield, killing thousands of soldiers from all sides in a flash. What resulted from the attack was not only a higher death toll, but a massive crater in the center of the world. The humans then realized what the Four Great Spirits were fully capable of. If they wanted to, they could of wiped the world clean and begin the growth of the world anew. The battlefield and crater is known as the Fields of Mar, according to history. Witnessing the devastating power of the Spirits, the nations backed off and returned to where they belong. The war and witnessing the end result from the war caused humans to rethink their way of life and the position they were in. They needed to change their ways.

    One hundred years have passed since the war ended. The Spirits never again showed themselves to humans. Humans have achieved a better way of life now. Rather being dependent on technology and Mana alone, they had other advancements in agriculture and other methods of life to sustain the human race. The nations never again waged war on each other. That doesn't mean that they were all at peace though. Nations still had enemies. War could still be on the horizon. Humans still tend to abuse the use of Mana even one hundred years after what happened the first time when the abuse went on too much. Boosters still exist and remain in use by the military forces and Blastia is now the second most common use of tapping into Mana safely. The question remains, however. Can the humans continue on the road they have been walking along for one hundred years or will they deviate from the road and repeat past mistakes?