The city was filled with buildings of stone and brick, with 2 or 3 storey homes that continued on and on. A stone lined road for [horse-drawn] carts was lined with two ditches at its side. There must’ve been many people who lived here at one time.

There should’ve been hints of families, artifacts of people who once resided in the homes, or
at least a sign of the very last breaths those people took... But there was nothing of the like.
Not even corpses.
The thing that Darius thought was a corpse at first glance, suddenly, a faint light started to
drift above from it... Above the rooftops. Perhaps it was the soul of the dead, but at another
moment, it showed its real form.
It noticed Darius, too. And fluttered around him cheerfully.
“Darr-iii-usss...”

For a hundred years, this land could sustain not even one single life.
Not a blade of grass, a piece of moss, simply a stretch of land where muddy-coloured dust
kicked up in the air, spanning the length of perhaps 10 small villages. If one could say
anything of note, it would be the stones big and small on this barren land. In the skies above,
far above, were only birds that seemed to shimmer in the heat.
This place where neither residents nor animals could be seen, however, used to be a place
with a name. An empire by the name of Rieubane.
Rieubane.
An empire that could boast of its overwhelming power, its weapons, as if it was the sole
commanding force on this continent of Edinbury.
Atop a small mountain was Castle Rieubane, serving as the center where the towns below
were lined with beautiful cobblestone in all four corners... Or as it was said to be. In one day,
this city and the villages around it all disappeared, leaving the barren land behind. All that
remained were a few villages at the very borders, suddenly all on their own without the
politics, the ways of life they lived by. And the very next day after the empire’s
disappearance, the land that was so blessed before could return only half of its planted
grains, its scrawny vegetables, and a dwindling amount of livestock. Famine snatched up the
lives of many.
Some villages, with more power than the others, started to attack and steal from neighboring
villages, and a bitter war broke out. Still, the people were greatly weakened by hunger, and
eventually the looming sense of dread brought out not more skirmishes, but rather an
alliance between the villages.
The villages that came out of this alliance were Solta, Morea, Seclue, and Riklute. And from
these four villages came a new name of the country, Fontraile, and a government made of
representatives of each village was formed.
Even if formally recognized in documents, what alliance could remain stable in a devastated
world? There immediately arose more skirmishes from those who desired profit above all, to
those who could make the most out of this barren land.
And as these fights grew larger and larger, there came a scholar who theorized a certain
idea: