A rift to the Abyss tore open in the Melisano Sea, and the horrors that came through drowned the continent of Prodea in a single season.

The survivors fled west across open water to every continent, and the war followed them to every shore. It has not stopped since. The things from the rift press outward against every coast, devouring all in their wake. The threat of what happened to Prodea looms in every region on every mind, and only the nightly work of thousands has kept it from happening elsewhere… yet.

Battleships burn what surfaces in the cold northern lanes. Wyvern cavalry falls on what crawls out of the tideline. In every settlement still standing, mages draw wards across the harbor mouths so the people behind the walls can sleep. None of it would hold alone, and the cost has never once stopped being paid.

The old order is gone. Each surviving city has hardened into its own small power, relying heavily upon their mages and military to defend those that live within their newly erected walls. The cost is tremendous, and all of Arendia feels the strain.

And out in the Dread Gulf, where the warm shallows give way to the cold deep, there is one stretch of the war that is not being lost. The merfolk are winning, and no one above the water knows why.

There is an old story, told in every language and believed by almost no one. Before the gods, before the Sundering, thirteen dragons were set to guard the Mother. Thirteen of them fell, and where each one died, its power is said to have poured into the earth and stayed there. Find those places, the reasoning goes, and a war that cannot be won might yet be turned.

That thought has begun to draw seeking eyes toward the eastern lip of the Dread Gulf, to the warm gold city of Tlachixcoatl, which sits all unknowing above the deepest secret of them all.

Our story begins here.