You have been trekking the deserts of Iria for many nights to come across a peculiar man at a campfire. He’s lost in a gypsy tune emitting from his violin, all the while adorned in mystical, crimson desert robes and face concealed.

When he sees you he fades out his song instead of abruptly halting and would then bow his head some as if to beckon you to a seat at his crackling fire. Eweca and Ladeca both listen keenly when he speaks.

“The power of the eye is substantial, and so often misinterpreted.” - The stranger mutters, pausing to blankly view your surroundings.

"Erinn is more than a place but a decadent tome full of history. In its earliest chapters existed the first manifestations of magick and its wonders - things that were not completely understood at first glance.

Initially, those born of magic were a spectacle, nothing of the sort of a shadow wielding specter. But in time, people had blossomed with thorny ignorance and had lost sight of the truth. The truth being that light and darkness cannot exist without one another, and to conquer both powers does not necessarily make one evil...

This implicated mystics across Erinn, and particularly, the Sabah people. Far beyond the reaches of the desert winds existed a village where our story takes place. It was here where the ancient spiritual desert dwellers lived. The third eye being their major symbol, it was easily understood that they had a powerful inner sight. For it was a tribe consisted of every race who dared ascribe to their enigmatic ways, all except those who persecuted the Sabah.

A war was soon brewing between those who utilized their inner gifts, and those who shut them out. When learning that those who criticized magick would soon plan execution, the spirit leader of the Sabah came up with a plan. Those put to death would have an advanced arcane enchantment, appearing to die at the stake but turning to ash and dissipating into the wind.

Those brave enough to be put to this test of displaying powers that led to be sacrificed would be spirited away. The escape led to another plane among the aether, and it is here where the Sabah could live freely. Except for one thing.

They had sealed themselves away with 5 absolute magics. Power, love, wisdom, skill, and spirit. This barrier existed on Erinn and in their new world, a monument to the ways of magick. The new dimension was coated with used up spells and enchantments that settled in their new home among the aether. It was infested with spirits, powerful demons, and seemingly harmless relics. This was no home for the Sabah. Their destiny remained on Erinn, leading the people (if not in secret) to better understanding and acceptance.

Eventually they had managed to break the barrier, and had cascaded the 5 powers away into the soul stream, where they would be reborn as living embodiments and carriers of the now ancient ways.

Presently, the lost souls and unstable magick falling back into Erinn are the Sabah’s first priority to reclaim their place in society. This first means to reassemble the barrier using the five powers now lost, and it would not prove easy.

The night of the seal breaking was ominous. One of those eerie wind had whispered forebodings through the desert valley. Even the sister moons hung their heads low in concern.

A caravan’s hideout had been posted carelessly outside of the barrier between the planes. They were led by an evil man who chose to go into his own than retreat with the Sabah. When the Sabah evacuated back to Erinn, the warlock Zalaam entered the seam, and came back with presumed riches. They were followed by much more, specifically a witch.

This witch would have killed Zalaam if not for his powerful mysticism. She was eventually trapped as a djinn in one of the relics and forced to do his bidding. He wished for riches, and power to destroy the ‘cowardly’ Sabah people. His last wish cursed the now named Djihara - for he knew her intentions if she were to be freed. Her magic would always backfire in some capacity, and if she were to be set free from her prison, it would release the inner goodness she carries deep within the darkness of her soul. This power would manifest her twin, a benevolent witch intent on nullifying the evil within her.

Leaving her in the sand dunes, now discarded, he disappeared for many years. Meanwhile the Sabah had stealthed themselves excruciatingly deep within the desert. Their temples were cloaked under mirage, and their new lifestyle required anonymity at all times, for the people of their past truly believe they are dead or evil. They would become spirits of the desert, and with the all powerful mystic eye, watch over and from afar.

The temple guardians called into the soul stream for their champions. The Sphinx in the temple of Visions expressed a prophecy in which 5 dragons would call out to the soul stream to resurrect the separated powers.

Eventually, one by one the champions would show up. That of power, love, and skill were the first that had arrived. They were hidden away and given instruction to wait patiently, to cloister themselves away until the time is right. However the ones of wisdom and spirit were still lost in the powerful ebb and flow of the Soul Stream.

It was on a fateful night that a human boy was born with the power of wisdom, one of the final pieces to re establish a gate between the planes. He would meet many different individuals on this journey, but one in particular stood out. On his attempt to follow the signs back to the now secluded Sabah temples, he was intercepted by a cloaked desert man (a disguised Zalaam), who offered him a jeweled lamp.

It was a peculiar magick, for it did not seem to grant any type of wish. It had the option to open and release whatever was within, or to keep it shut. The boy believed it was another of the signs calling him back home, and released whatever was inside. However this contained Djihara, who was now hell bent on destroying the man who sealed her, and the Sabah who had opened the gates to her home.

Djihara’s power bolstered over time from being imprisoned in her jeweled cell. She also knew where 4 of the 5 powers were that would be instrumental in keeping the portal open to free her dimension and take over this world. Believing she had the human in her clutches, it was then that the curse had come true, refracting a twin of light, Djihira and taking half of her arcane magick.

Djihara would stop at nothing, and with a flourish of her bangled wrist, cast a powerful spell on the boy. He began growing marble wings from his back to represent the gargoyles she coveted in her dark magicks.

Before she could continue, her sister utilized the last of both their power for the time being, and magically refracted the boy’s soul the same way the curse had with them. This was not a curse but a righteous gift, for the powers of the djinn-witch had flowed into the Soul Stream, delicately fusing to create the final individual power.

For it was also foretold by the Sphinx in the Sabah Temple of Visions, that the only way to obtain the final power of Spirit was to achieve it through an exceedingly high form of magick, and even then it could only be withdrawn from the one who held the power of wisdom as a foundation to synthesize such a power.

It was true, with this gift of finalizing the last true pieces to the barrier and perhaps saving the Sabah people from extinction, Djihira so named the winged human and his magical counterpart “Ultimus” and “Ultima”, for they were the last components to the ancient prophecy to protect the Sabah people.

Djihara fled, tailed by her twin. She angrily disappeared in search of the man who hindered her plan for all of those years in the sand. We should not forget the other part of her curse, and that was that every spell backfires. Her magick was also given away to a capacity, and it was laid deep within the stone of the Ultimus’ wings. He would continue his journey of wisdom as a gifted marble angel.

Ultima was born from the aether and hidden away among the mystic elves in a present-day magic-friendly Erinn. He currently grows and trains in the mysterious ways of the Sabah, to one day become a Sage, who’s mystic spirit will one day reseal the gate to an exiled dimension.


- End of Part 1 -

(Constructing this into a role play as well as a short story collection, please message Ultima in game on the Nao server if this interests you! Thank you for taking the time to read, traveler.)