The Storm Eternal, Pt. 1

 

P.A. Nisbet

Note: All of modern history is referred to as Post-Storm. This means that the current year would be written as 2022-PS. There is no written history preserved before this time, as it was either torched or lost to the ruins. 

When The Old World died over 400 years ago, many assumed that the end times had come. Screaming in terror as liquid night drooped over their heads and swallowed up the sun. Great pillars of lightning bundled together and struck the earth like hammers. It was a time of equal parts tragedy and horror, but mostly one of change.

In the time before, Bromeiles was an anarcho-primitivist's paradise; Tribal cultures were king. Small communities of nomadic people dominated the continent from coast to coast. Mankind was alone (as far as they were concerned) and thrived due to it. Various ethnic groups propagated the landscape, complete with their own unique customs and scattered communes, with none more prominent than the Roussili.

The Roussili are river folk. Their own namesake is a progenitor of The River Roussillon, a roaring stream which cut through the continent into two discernable halves. They are the most populous of the humans on Bromeilles. Their settlements originated from both sides of the River Roussillon, scattered threads from coast to near-coast. They are a proud people, an arrogant one at that, and it is that arrogance which leads (in part) to their eventual position as "founders" of The Republic.

Michal Karz

It was the druids who first noticed the signs. The coughing gust of winds. Blackened clouds the shape of inkblots. It was all reminiscent of a vile tornado, an omen encroaching slowly on the horizon. But the first mark of illness was no wind but light and a crackling ball of electricity. The records now call it Le Mauvais œil (The Evil Eye), but many argue its proper name was L'oeil des cochons. The Eye of Pigs.

This ball of static fire was the forerunner. It hung from the sky like a pendulum on electric strings. As it spun, dark clouds formed, and fields burned beneath it. With each swing, bolts of lightning carved trenches in the earth. 

The children of these circles say that there were many such conduits. (under whispered tones, as if horrified that merely speaking of the event may summon it again.) Others argue that there was only one. This discourse doesn't do much other than spawn arguments between bitter astrologists, but it at least keeps them occupied. Nobody knows the truth, after all.

As you might have noticed, all of these images are heavily overcast.

There was a mixed reaction to the storm's first appearance. Although strange, there was hardly anything that could be done to prevent the great event, and what was the point in assuming it was anything more than some natural phenomenon? 

Not all of the settlements which clambered together during the storm had been nomadic. Some (many roussili) had formed small towns or villages, held together with wooden palisades and piled stones for walls. They were shoddy even for their standards, but they were better than exposure to the open elements. Hundreds clambered to these forts, hoping to be sheltered from the increasingly darkening sky. Many of the dead are said to have spawned from these towns. A poor location, idiotic harbouring, or simply bad luck was all it took for an entire section to be wiped from reality. An electric current through a weathervane. A tornado on an open plain. Simple starvation.

Thunder roared with pouring rain for days on end. Lightning struck barns and trees, torching cattle and settling forests ablaze. The weather seemed to fight with veiled malevolence, a threat of some vile consciousness targeting the land. But there was still hope in the eyes of the needy. Perhaps this was all a haughty storm. A bad dream gave too much thought. Villages flocked together in communion, fear in their hearts, in the conjoined belief that this too shall pass. And so it was that the rain did revert to drizzle, and the clouds returned to silence.

But the blackness remained, for it had swallowed up the sun and all of its light. And for twenty days and twenty nights, the world was plunged into nothingness. A glance into the void.

That's on purpose.

Humans do not have darkvision. The closest comparison we have is a form of low-light vision, but even that is more or less subpar. We can see in the dark, but our ability to navigate in said darkness is better said than done, especially when likened to tigers and other predators. 

Spending upwards of a month in complete and utter darkness is not a beneficial scenario for your race's continued existence. Especially when you can't see anything. That doesn't even consider that the pitch-black void isn't the only problem. The storm is still there; the rain, the mud, the lightning. Natural predators are still wandering the woods. (albeit pretty blind, but not nearly as blind as you.) There's also the other stuff.

The Storm Eternal is not something I can explain in a single post. Well, I can, but it would either be a milquetoast rant or a page far longer than anyone would comfortably want to read. It'd probably be both. This is also for archiving my own thoughts, and so I'd prefer it to be in a digestible format! So, I'll definitely come back to this. I feel there's a lot of information here (both shared and not yet discussed) that is more or less paramount to understanding what exactly is happening in a lot of Bromeilles.

Or you could just skip this and pick up the pieces from whatever else I write. I don't judge.