Before the Fall

It did not happen in a single night.

For generations, the world had relied upon magic. Temples answered suffering, mages drew power from the unseen fabric of creation, and enchanted works upheld cities, trade and kingdoms. Then the answers weakened. Prayers reached only distant avatars. The well of arcane power ran shallow. One by one, lesser wonders failed.

Within seventeen years, the gods were silent.

Without magic, nations fractured. Barbarians crossed failing borders. People fled the cities. New religions rose in the silence, while surviving relics and magical creatures were hunted. Strange sealed towers appeared across the land. When belief itself was outlawed, witch hunters carried persecution into homes and villages. In regions haunted by incorporeal dead, the living simply withdrew.

Yet some continued to believe.

Travelling merchants moved between isolated communities, bringing news—and quietly searching for exceptional people who still believed that the gods and magic had once been real. Those they trusted were invited to join a hidden organisation devoted to answering two questions: what had happened to the gods, and where had all the magic gone?

The recruits journeyed to an island Safehold resembling a vast university. There they trained together in every conceivable discipline. They learned weapons, survival, stealth and scholarship, but also religion, magical history, wizardry and clerical practice. No spells answered them. No divine power came. The knowledge was preserved because one day it might matter.

Ten recruits were formed into a single group and taught to think and fight as one. They were promised that, when their training was complete, the true purpose of their preparation would be revealed.

That explanation never came.

While the group trained in one of the Safehold’s martial yards, the attack began.