A world bathed in flame and rubble and death. Shrouded in ash with an atmosphere of toxicity. That is what we were given upon our day of birth. Many generations of our ancestors took their first breath deep underground. Far below the inhospitable wasteland that burned, unending and unyielding, above our self-constructed prison. It might have given the ruse of protection but it was a cell, the walls coming ever closer to crushing us and snuffing out the smoldering ember that was our lives. We were dying. Slowly but surely. Devolving into animals, resorting to monstrous means of survival. Cannibalism, arcane rituals, and deals with beings of who's origin we could not even begin to comprehend. Ten generations we were caged in that infernal realm of misery and revulsion. Then came along a savior. A king we deemed him. Able to muster the courage needed to escape to the over-world. With his guidance our race built an empire of unprecedented perfection. Villages built and a nation reconstructed. Our people began to function like humans again. A grand nation resurrected from the ashes of the cleansing. Like the Phoenix from the tales of old we rose from the rubble and destruction of our own hand. For we had caused this catastrophe. A nuclear war had wiped the earth almost clean. Purging the world in a blazing inferno of biblical proportions. Fire rained from the sky as the few lucky ones fled to the safety of the intricate and soon sprawling underground city of the olden country of America. The once magnificent metropolis of safety crumbled apart in our hands. Falling into a slum. But after the savior arrived we were reborn. The first to leave the city of Hades encountered strange and almost mythical beings. Birds without eyes and a pale white plumage. Wolves whose mouths split into four sections, each ringed with rows upon rows of grinding teeth. Their tongues split into two like a snake and they had eyes like the devil. Creatures who we could never quite see. Impossibly fast and strong, able to mimic voices and desperate cries for help to lure more prey into their grasp. For three generations we fought them back. We set traps and learned their hunting methods. They got stronger and faster, but we got smarter. Eventually we forced them out of our area and built a base. From there we expanded our empire to the far reaches of the lands. From sea to sea our people expanded. There was peace. We learned to exist in harmony with most of the beasts. All except the quiet ones. But that is the story of the origin of my home. The Phoenix Kingdom of Hephaustia. But my story begins much later.
