City of Bridges

There was a time when a large troll raged in the lands of Mentis Schaffe. It tore villages out of the earth and caused even the most powerful grand city -Ratio- to crumble. Eventually, thirteen of the twenty-seven grand cities worked together to defeat it. The war was devastating: -scars mark the earth even today and even then, they hadn’t managed to defeat the troll.

The war saw hopeful events such as an arm torn off by cannon fire, a leg chopped off by Dragons tamed by powerful mages and finally the day they shot a stake as large as a castles tower through its skull. However, the limbs grew back and duplicated, the head healed around the stake, the roars… only grew louder.

After years of loss the troll had many extra limbs, losing track of which was arm, leg or both. Its head was a mess of stakes of varying materials, some being actual castle towers and others being the equivalent size of castle towers. At some point it seemed it had grown tired, as if the extra limbs had begun to drain too much energy: -it began to rest more often, it began to rest for years and eventually it stopped waking for decades.

With the advancement of technology and the increasing amount of knowledge on topics like magic, the thirteen kingdoms decided to seal it away for good while it was still in deep slumber. They began by sealing the body in a large fissure -created by the giant during one of the wars many battles- and then to strengthen the seal they built a special bridge over it, connecting two of the grand kingdoms. Eventually they made bridges connecting all thirteen kingdoms involved in the war, thus creating the City of Bridges: -a crossroads between them that served to remember the bond they forged, and the lives lost to the troll.

The bridges were created with tubes of a blue liquid substance that was a living being of sorts, it hosted many fairies that consumed the energies of those passing through and used them to further strengthen the seal. The city’s main buildings were made at the edges of the fissure and towered high above the clouds along with the thirteen main bridges. There were many smaller bridges connecting towers to buildings and stairs that connected the main bridges to each other.

The city flourished as many crossed it for safe passage between the grand cities and for a chance to view the history of the slumbering beast at a museum in the lower areas.

Fen Traur

A young man, 20 years of age, -now visits this city in search of an old friend whom he had first met four years ago.

They had met near the fields of Fen’s village as he was practicing his archery, an arrow had flown into the forest by accident and urged on by a guilty conscience, he checked to make sure he hadn’t hit a traveller with it.

To his surprise he had found a boy the same age as him asleep on the ground. However, his arrow had landed only a few feet away and had not harmed the body.

The boy had no memory of who he was and was eventually given a name by Fen: that name was Steff and from then on, the two grew close. Two years later, however, Steff had set out on a journey of self-discovery and hadn’t been seen since.

Fen set out a year later to learn more about archery, magic and how the two could be fused to create a valuable power useful in combat and perfect for his travels.

Within a year of his studies and near the final exam for first years, he had received a letter from home which had shocked him, Steff had visited home and sent him a letter inviting him to meet at the city of bridges.

After passing his exam the week after he set out to the city.

He was now finally here after days of traveling through plains and a few more days on one of the main bridges.

There were thousands of people walking to and from other places, the noise of the other cities he had visited was nothing in comparison.

One could easily get lost here and then could just as easily find their way again.