Prologue
The world knows the elements.
Fire and water. Earth and lightning. Air and metal. Light and dark.
These elements are as eternal as the world itself. It all depends on upbringing in what part of the world to know how to utilize these elements properly. In ancient times, priests, lords, witches, and warriors alike tried to harness and master these elements to use for their purposes. For conquest, for peace, for war, for prosperity. Many reasons stake claim as to why and how the means to practice came about.
One ancient kingdom - whose name has long since been lost to time - was written to be a prosperous paradise that had a court of chosen peoples consisting of mages, warriors, healers, paladins, and more. People of different origins, different upbringings, different viewpoints, and different perspectives. This court of chosen were the country’s masters of the respective elements of the world, and they defended their kingdom and land to no end with the utmost loyalty to its royal family.
For millenia, many were chosen in this court to uphold the titles of Elemental Meisters. One for each element, they upheld prosperity for the land they called their home. But, one day, a young Meister of the Dark had grown bored of so much peace and prosperity. He saw it’s meaning pointless, and wanted it to change. He wanted something new.
In a spur of curiosity, he used his power to assassinate the wicked of the kingdom, lowly criminals and vandals. With each death, he felt a surge of energy that seemed to spark his interest. He decided to take things too far when he then assassinated the king from the shadows. Then his queen, then the princes and princesses. He, then, turned against the court using his power against the ones he once called his brothers and sisters, engaging in a furious battle that shook the kingdom. The battle lasted for days with seemingly no end...
On the fifteenth day of the battle, the Meister of the Earth discovered a ritual that would seal away the Meister of the Dark in the depths of the World’s Void. They did not want to seal away their mislead brother, but they had no choice. Many innocent lives were lost from this corruption of power and so they had to do it.
Led into a trap, the Meister of the Dark was soon caught in their ritual circle in which the other Meisters used their elements to their fullest to seal the Meister of the Dark into the World’s Void, all while he fought to break free but to no avail. After grueling hours of their ritual draining heavily on their energies, the Meisters collapsed from their efforts. Their physical forms dispersed into their respective elements, leaving behind colored crystals in their wake. These crystals contained the souls of the Meisters who had fallen to seal away the madness, containing them to secure them in slumber.
The kingdom was lost, but priests of the land had discovered the work of the Meisters, and so, they made it their duty to honor their sacrifice and make sure the Meister of the Dark would never break free. A temple was made in secret, hewn deep into the mountainside where the priests and a select few were chosen to remain and keep vigil over the area they had dubbed the Sealed Site. All the while, each priest had taken possession of one of the crystals that were found, each referred to as a Soul Crystal, as such for they harbored the soul of each Meister inside with their own.
With each Meister they carried, they would be able to control and master their respective element as well with their proper guidance. The ones who bore the crystals of the Meisters were soon called Bearers, they were the ones that shown to have the most promise in their youth and were the ones to carry on the tradition of their forefathers. When the title was passed onto the next generation, the Bearers of old were decided by their Meisters to be full-fledged priests to remain in the temple to resume the vigil over the Sacred Site.
With each new generation, the generation prior remained in the temple as the new went out into the world to practice their element they were born into. It soon became a cycle that the generation prior had to stay behind to ensure their power would carry on strong to the next once they came of age. Over the millenia, the more the Bearers practiced over time, the more qualities they would bear from the Meisters they learned from. They were born with specific marks on their bodies similar to body ink but resembled the element they were practicing, as well as their hair bearing some color to their respective Meister. Some carried the qualities with pride, others with timidity, but were made into their very being regardless.
This carried on for millenia and into the modern times, the previous priests carrying the tradition on to their children. With the thinning of the bloodlines and passage of time, the story became another doubted legend, another bedtime story to entertain the youths. But to those who took its words to heart, they were cautious and aware of the dangers that were carried on the warnings should the Meister of the Dark escape. Only a few that remain in the world truly believe the stories, but they’ve long since spread out over the years that it became hard to keep in touch with the other priests.
The Bearers are now scarce across the world, and they all bear different walks of life as their ancestors before. Seven families in the entirety of the world who’s lineages were forever changed by this never-ending cycle of vigil and practice. Sacrifices were made as well, but the priests and Bearers of the past have made it their eternal goal that the Meister of the Dark should never break free from the World’s Void and step onto mortal soil again.
But now, in the year 201X, the seal that was keeping the Meister of the Dark sealed was starting to grow weak on the verge of breaking. The priests felt they needn't panic but hurry to train the new generation to ensure the Meister of the Dark would never wreck havoc upon the world again. And the Meister of the Dark grows more and more eager to see the world once again...
