The Abridged History of Arcadia: The Buried City

Foreword

The Abridged History of Arcadia: The Buried City As Told by Chronicler Gestalt, Transcribed by Endoth Morvayn

The following text is my best translation of the Arcadian Language. I used “The Arcadian Stone” which are the translation notes of the deceased Harold Webber, a researcher of Arcadian history and culture. You may find at the end of this story the untranslated copy, which you may use for any of your own attempts at translating the record.

Tale

Lo did we seek this land, this salvation amidst crashing waves that bespeak the Convergence. And ye, we were wrong. Let this testimony serve as the final proof of our existence.

Eons ago, in the chaos the Cycles wrought, it appeared, the island. Our seers interpreted this as a positive omen, a sign that not all was lost. Thus began the projects in the shipyards. Never had such a fleet been built in such a timely manner, and I shan't think it will happen again. It was as if the ocean had been replaced with galleons, two hundred strong plus the remnants of our navy. It was hope shaped in vessel form, a nourishment we had craved for so long.

All who we could manage upon the fleet boarded, and we left behind all but our most important golems to defend those who we could not take. As the chronicler, I was among them. I saw tears form on the face of our King ███████. Did he weep for the people? Or was it for his creations? Could it be for this empire we were leaving to fall to chaos? I did not know. It was not my place to ask.

When it finally appeared on the horizon, we all praised it’s beauty. The emerald, our haven, set amidst infinite sapphires. Though we would find that it was not, as we believed, as serene as we had initially thought, having already named it thus “Sarea.” It was not long after we came ashore that our scouts informed us that the Cycles had already ingrained itself here. For this place was dominated by the cancerous powers of the Faewild. And it could sense we were here, for its counterpart was an energy we had much abused before the Grand Revelation.

The minions of the Faewild hunted us down wherever we went, until we were forced into the caves, like the ancient ancestors of life. There at least we could be a stronghold until such a time as the Cycles passed. Though it never seemed to and thus we dug deeper and deeper. The heat of a volcano connected to what was becoming a city became the new source of our power, allowing us to depart from our fancies that brought upon this tragedy.

King ███████, realizing that what had become our bunker had evolved into our home decreed it ‘Arcadia.’ This name mirrored our country, which had been lost. For this was all that was left of it. And yet it was here we prospered. We managed to find happiness in the countless tunnels and growing we had built with our own hands. I find myself among endless brothers of stone, one for each I had lost in the empire past. We believed, despite it all, we had entered a golden age amidst the Cycles.

This would not last. ████████████████████████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ █████ ███████ █████████████ █████████████████ █████████████████████ ███████ █████████████████ █████ █████████████ ██████████████ █████████ █████████████████████████████████████ ███████████ ███████ █████ █████████ █████████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████████████ ███████████████ ███████████████ ███████ ████████

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FORGIVE ME. FORGIVE ME. HE COMMANDED. HE COMMANDED. SEAL AWAY. SEAL AWAY. ARCADIA HAS FALLEN. OUR KING HAS ██████ ██ ████████ ████