After this, the changes in the world began to happen at a faster and faster pace. There was the so- called goblinization of 2021. Overnight, people be- gan to change into fantastic creatures once thought to exist only in fairy tales. The stuff of legend.

And buried deep within the Awakening was a mystery from the past.

A time so far away from present events that only a handful of people knew the truth.

About how the world once was. And how it might become again.

When magic was as much a part of life as breath- ing, or eating, or seeing, or feeling. And how the world was made full of heroes and troubadours, and mages, and wild things the modern world could not fathom. And how the very magic that flowed through this world also drew the greatest evil to it.

And when that evil came for the people, one great race understood the futility of fighting this new plague upon the land. The Theran Empire promised a way to survive the hundreds of years this Scourge would last. They sent the people of the world into deep underground kaers where they would live magically sealed against the invaders until the time when they could come back to the surface again.

But such generosity of vision always has its price.

However, that is another story.

And now we have come back again to the magic. And to those who would guard the world from the horrors of the past.

Those who have lived through it all before.

Prologue

Let me tell you a story…

Once upon a time there was a woman.

Sometimes, in the story, her name is Pandora. Sometimes it's Eve. And sometimes it's Lilith.