The Great Cloud

Above arid plains and east of the sea, there hovered a great cloud.

Dark and billowing in its brilliant sprawl, it flickered and glowed, a heart ablaze within. The hidden flame of glory, honor and power. Beneath its shadow a chosen people followed the great cloud wherever it settled, and beneath its shadow they dwelt, desiring to be under its protection. All who saw this peculiar people were terrified of the great cloud, and in their fear garnered hatred of its very presence and the people beneath its shadow.

To those outside its covering in the lands surrounding it appeared as a cataclysm, great and terrible. A harbinger of doom. And yet, the people outside the covering of the great cloud also wondered at its power, having heard tales of the deeds accomplished by the people beneath it.

Unbeknownst to the nations surrounding, the people of the cloud did nothing in their own strength, nor was the cloud a conjuration of some sorcery or arcane knowledge. The Presence was within the cloud, the manifest spirit of the creator, and it was he who brought about providence in their time, time and again.

The great cloud brought protection and peace. Manna and provision. Wrath and Mercy. Judgement and Jubilation.

All of their days the people of the cloud were diligent and dutiful to do all that they had been instructed, until some grew weary and distrustful of the one called the Herald, who communed with the Presence to give decree and instruction from on high.

The Herald had led the people out of a forsaken land of slavery and toil and pain, and yet he was maligned and rebelled against. Deceit and conflict and every manner of ill will was slung and then from one tribe of the people of the cloud onto the other.

In response, the Presence raged. It sent down fire to destroy upon those who sewed discord, and exhibited the rage of mercy scorned.

Seeing this from afar, Seers from the land of Khaon, far outside the shadow of the great cloud began to conspire with one another, to capture the Herald and to learn what they could of the power of the great cloud's power, that they might harness it each for their own means.

And so it was that in the night, a garrison of troops comprised of many of the different lands descended upon the encampment of the people of the cloud. The battle that ensued would leave many dead.

The people cried out to the Presence of the great cloud for help, to send down fire as it had to punish and rebuke the rebellious among their own people.

But the Presence was silent. The Herald was captured.

For days the people mourned and wondered what to do. Leaderless and scattered, the people of the cloud began to fall into discord, many dispersing from their number.

Until one rose up from the midst of this broken people. A young boy who's father had pledged himself to the protection of the Herald, and died in effort to prevent his capture from the Khaonites.

It was Geltian son of Fathias who was chosen to go forth and gather from the warring tribes those who would aid him.