FirstEra The Final Abandonment
Timespan: Years 2201-2250 of the Era of Chaos
The Weight of Horror
The smoke rising from burning human cities could be seen from Aelarion (Pre-fracture) on clear days, carrying with it the acrid smell of magical fires that burned with unnatural persistence. What had once been the most beautiful coastlines of Eldara, the Shimmering Veil were now scarred by craters where magical weapons had been tested, their waters polluted by the runoff from alchemical warfare and cursed battlefields.
Lady Silviana Moonwhisper, who had lived through the rise and golden age of human civilization, found herself struggling to comprehend what humanity had become. The reports reaching Aelarion painted a picture of warfare so brutal and comprehensive that it seemed to contradict everything she had believed about human nature for nearly two millennia.
“They are using spells that drain the life force from entire battalions,” reported Messenger Aelindra Swiftwind, one of the few elves still maintaining contact with the mainland. “Magic designed to heal and preserve life has been corrupted into weapons that age soldiers to death in moments. They have created plagues that target specific bloodlines, turning the very bonds of family into vectors for destruction.”
The Circle of Aelarion, which had once blessed humanity’s first exodus with hope and celebration, now convened in emergency session after emergency session as reports of atrocities grew too numerous and terrible to ignore. Elven observers described magical weapons that poisoned the earth for generations, making farmland uninhabitable. They spoke of cities deliberately starved through agricultural warfare, their populations reduced to cannibalism before finally surrendering to equally desperate enemies.
Ysalyn, whose expertise in human culture had made her the elves’ primary interpreter of human behavior, found herself unable to provide explanations that satisfied either her own understanding or her people’s desperate need for comprehension. The beings she had studied and admired for centuries seemed to have transformed into something fundamentally alien to everything she thought she knew about them.
“This is not the humanity we helped to raise,” she told the assembled Circle, her voice heavy with a grief that seemed to age her visible features for the first time in her long life. “Something has corrupted them at a level so deep that they no longer recognize their own nature. They fight with the fury of cornered animals, but animals know when to stop. These… these are no longer the children who emerged from the Ythraewyn.”
The Great Debate
The question that paralyzed elven leadership was whether their former allies could be saved, and at what cost. The Circle of Aelarion split into three major factions, each representing a different response to the human crisis.
The Interventionists, led by Lord Thranduil Starweaver, argued that elven civilization had a moral obligation to stop the destruction, even if it required military force. “We helped raise them from infancy to greatness,” he declared during heated Circle debates. “If madness has claimed them, it is partly our fault for abandoning them when they needed guidance most. We must intervene before they destroy not only themselves but contaminate the very fabric of the world with their corrupted magic.”
The Isolationists, represented by Lady Miriel Moonbane, contended that humanity had made their choices and must face the consequences without dragging elven civilization into their self-made destruction. “They rejected our wisdom, expelled our teachers, and declared our perspectives unwanted,” she argued with cold logic. “Now they reap what they have sown. We owe them nothing, and intervention would only validate their belief that elves are responsible for solving human problems.”
The Compassionates, a smaller faction led by Ysalyn herself, believed that some form of help was morally required but questioned whether traditional intervention would be effective or even possible. “They will not listen to us as enemies, and they no longer trust us as friends,” she observed. “But perhaps there are ways to help them rediscover their better nature without imposing solutions they will reject.”
Lady Silviana Moonwhisper, as the eldest and most respected member of the Circle, found herself torn between her maternal love for humanity and her responsibility to protect elven civilization from contamination by the madness consuming the continent.
The Final Embassy
After months of debate, the Circle authorized Ysalyn to lead a final diplomatic mission to the human kingdoms - not to impose solutions, but to offer aid and attempt to understand what had driven humanity to such extremes of self-destruction. The embassy was granted safe passage through Liralor, the Feywild and emerged near the borders of Verdant Reach, where the civil war between Prince Marcus and Prince William had left the landscape resembling a hellscape of magical devastation.
What Ysalyn found exceeded even her worst expectations. The forests she had once admired for their harmony with human civilization had been reduced to twisted wastelands where magical weapons had poisoned the very soil. Streams ran colors that had no names, their waters corrupted by alchemical warfare. The air itself felt wrong, thick with residual magic that made even elven senses recoil.
The humans she encountered were barely recognizable as the people she had known. Soldiers moved with the hollow-eyed desperation of beings who had seen too much death, while civilians cowered in ruins that had once been proud cities. Children played games that involved reenacting the magical executions they had witnessed, their innocence corrupted by a world where horror had become commonplace.
Prince Marcus Swiftblade, when she finally secured an audience with him, received her with suspicious hostility that would have been unthinkable during the golden age of human-elven relations. “Come to witness our weakness, have you?” he snarled, his once-noble features twisted by years of warfare and the whispered poison of Zoroth, the Hollow Prince. “Come to offer the wisdom you withheld when it might have prevented this tragedy? Your timing, as always, serves elven interests perfectly.”
Ysalyn’s attempts to offer aid - medical assistance for war victims, magical knowledge to counter the worst effects of corrupted spells, even simple food and supplies - were rejected with paranoid accusations that elven gifts must contain hidden costs or secret purposes. The humans had become so accustomed to suspecting each other that they could not imagine any offer of help being genuine.
“We know the price of elven aid,” Prince William told her during a secret meeting arranged by mutual contacts. “Dependency. Submission. The slow erosion of human autonomy until we become your pets again, dancing to melodies we cannot hear. We will solve our problems with human solutions, or we will die as free people rather than live as elven vassals.”
The Corrupted Land
The embassy’s magical specialists, led by Master Enchanter Elrond Brightsong, documented the extent to which magical warfare had damaged not just the immediate battlefields but the fundamental structure of reality itself. The Aetheric Weave (Magic) showed signs of trauma and distortion in regions where the most powerful weapons had been deployed, creating areas where magic functioned unpredictably or failed entirely.
“They are damaging the very foundations of magical reality,” Elrond reported to Ysalyn with barely concealed horror. “The spells they are using draw so heavily on the Weave that they are creating tears and weaknesses that will take centuries to heal, if they heal at all. Some of these magical scars appear to be permanent, creating dead zones where no life can flourish and no magic can function.”
The corrupted magic was beginning to affect more than just battlefields. Crops failed in regions hundreds of miles from actual fighting, their growth stunted by magical contamination carried by wind and water. Animals fled affected areas in massive migrations that disrupted ecosystems across the continent. Even the weather patterns seemed to be changing as atmospheric magic was disrupted by the constant deployment of weather-control spells in warfare.
Most disturbing were reports of humans who had been exposed to corrupted magic beginning to show signs of physical and mental transformation. Soldiers who had survived life-draining attacks aged prematurely and showed gaps in memory. Civilians in contaminated areas developed strange ailments that resisted both magical and mundane treatment. Children born in heavily affected regions sometimes displayed unnatural abilities or physical characteristics that suggested the corruption was becoming hereditary.
The Unbearable Truth
After six months of witnessing human self-destruction firsthand, Ysalyn returned to Aelarion (Pre-fracture) with a report that shattered the last hopes of those who believed humanity could be saved through external intervention. The humans were not simply caught in a temporary madness that could be cured with patience and wisdom - they had become fundamentally changed by their exposure to Zoroth’s corruption and the magical devastation of their own warfare.
“They are no longer capable of the cooperation and trust that once made them great,” she told the assembled Circle, her voice breaking with emotion that she had struggled to contain throughout her mission. “Every offer of help is seen as an attempt at manipulation. Every gesture of friendship is interpreted as a threat to their independence. They have become so accustomed to betrayal and violence that they can no longer recognize genuine compassion when it is offered.”
Her detailed accounts of the magical corruption affecting both land and people convinced even the most optimistic Circle members that the situation was beyond redemption through any means available to elven civilization. The humans had not simply chosen a different path - they had become incapable of choosing any path that led away from self-destruction.
Lord Thranduil Starweaver, leader of the Interventionist faction, abandoned his calls for military action after reviewing Ysalyn’s magical contamination reports. “We cannot save people who are determined to destroy themselves,” he admitted with bitter resignation. “And we cannot risk allowing their corruption to spread to our own lands and people.”
Lady Miriel Moonbane, vindicated in her Isolationist position but taking no satisfaction from being proven correct, summarized the grim reality: “They have chosen their fate. Our obligation now is to protect ourselves and preserve what can be preserved for whatever future may come after they have finished destroying each other.”
The Decree of Withdrawal
In the 2235th year of the Era, the Circle of Aelarion issued the Decree of Final Withdrawal, a document that formally ended two millennia of elven presence on the Material Plane. The decree was not issued in anger or judgment, but with profound sorrow for what had been lost and what could never be recovered.
“The children we helped to raise have chosen paths we cannot follow and destinations we cannot reach,” the decree began. “Love sometimes requires the wisdom to step aside when continued presence becomes harmful to all parties. We withdraw not in anger but in grief, not in judgment but in recognition that some transformations cannot be reversed through external intervention.”
The decree established Liralor, the Feywild as the primary refuge for elven civilization, with limited exceptions for essential magical monitoring stations and a few scholars dedicated to documenting the final phases of human civilization for historical preservation. All other elven settlements on the Material Plane were to be evacuated within two years.
Lady Silviana Moonwhisper, her voice heavy with the weight of nearly two millennia of responsibility, made the announcement that broke hearts across elven society: “We are abandoning Aelarion (Pre-fracture) itself. The island that witnessed humanity’s birth will be returned to the natural forces, with only the Ythraewyn remaining as a monument to what was once possible.”
The decision to abandon Aelarion - the sacred island where human civilization had been nurtured and guided, where the Council of Five Crowns had once met in celebration of cooperation and shared achievement - represented the final acknowledgment that the relationship between elves and humans had ended permanently and irreversibly.
The Great Evacuation
The evacuation of elven civilization from the Material Plane became one of the largest and most complex magical undertakings in recorded history. Over two years, entire communities that had existed for millennia packed their accumulated possessions, dismantled their settlements, and prepared for permanent exile to Liralor, the Feywild.
The process was complicated by the need to avoid human territories, where elven refugees faced hostility and suspicion from populations that had been taught to view any elven presence as a threat to human independence. Several evacuating groups were attacked by human military units who interpreted elven movement as preparation for invasion or an attempt to establish strategic positions for future interference.
Ysalyn coordinated much of the evacuation effort, using her knowledge of human behavior patterns to plan routes and timing that minimized contact with hostile human forces. The irony was bitter - her expertise in human culture, developed through centuries of admiration and love, was now being used to hide from and avoid the people she had once hoped to serve as a bridge between worlds.
The most heartbreaking aspect of the evacuation was the number of elves who chose to remain behind, either unable to abandon places where they had lived for centuries or unwilling to accept that the humans they had known and loved were truly lost. Many of these elves simply disappeared, presumably killed by human forces or magical contamination, their fates unknown and unknowable.
Master Crystallwatcher Aelindra Starweave, the elven mage who had helped establish Noldruun’s first academies, was among those who vanished during the evacuation period. Her last message, delivered by a wind-sprite to her elven colleagues, read simply: “I cannot abandon the knowledge we built together, even if those we built it for no longer want it. Perhaps someday they will remember what we tried to teach them.”
The Silence of Abandonment
By the 2249th year of the Era, the evacuation was complete. For the first time in over two millennia, no elven settlements remained active on the Material Plane. The last elven ships departed from Aelarion (Pre-fracture) in a ceremony that felt more like a funeral than a strategic withdrawal.
Ysalyn was among the final departures, standing at the base of The Ythraewyn for what she knew would be the last time. The great tree that had given birth to humanity still pulsed with divine energy, its connection to The Aetheric Weave (Magic) unbroken despite the corruption spreading across the continent. But it stood alone now, a monument to failed hopes and abandoned dreams.
“Forgive us,” she whispered to the tree, tears streaming down her face for the second time in her long life. “We tried to raise them well, but perhaps we failed them somehow. Perhaps we held too tightly when we should have let them grow, or perhaps we let go too soon when they needed guidance most. We will remember what they were, even when they have forgotten it themselves.”
The silence that settled over Aelarion (Pre-fracture) after the last elven ship disappeared into the mists leading to Liralor, the Feywild was profound and terrible. For the first time since humanity’s emergence from the Ythraewyn, the island that had served as the bridge between human and elven civilizations was truly empty of conscious life save for the tree itself.
The Isolation Complete
With the elves’ departure, humanity found itself more isolated than at any point since their original emergence. The elemental enclaves had already withdrawn their cooperation due to concerns about magical contamination. The dwarven holds had sealed their entrances after several incidents where human refugees had attempted to loot dwarven settlements for resources to fund their wars.
The few remaining non-human communities on the Material Plane - halfling villages, scattered gnome settlements, isolated aarakocra eyries - had either hidden themselves so effectively that humans could no longer find them or had simply fled to other planes rather than risk contamination by human violence and magical corruption.
Humanity stood alone on Eldara, the Shimmering Veil, armed with devastating magical weapons and technological innovations but lacking the wisdom, perspective, and moderating influence that had once guided their use of such power. Their civilizations were weakened by constant warfare, their populations depleted by magical contamination and deliberate targeting of civilians, their cultures perverted by the glorification of violence and the demonization of cooperation.
Zoroth, the Hollow Prince, observing the completion of humanity’s isolation from his throne in Udugmar, felt a satisfaction that exceeded even his original ambitions. Not only had the humans destroyed their relationships with potential allies, but those allies had voluntarily removed themselves from the field of play. When the time came for his direct assault on the Material Plane, humanity would face him alone, weakened, divided, and without hope of assistance from any quarter.
The whispers had accomplished more than he had dared to hope. The corruption had proceeded beyond his most optimistic projections. The stage was now perfectly set for the final phase of his plan - the direct conquest of a world whose only remaining defenders were too busy destroying each other to mount any effective resistance.
The elves had retreated. Humanity was alone. The end of the Era of Chaos was approaching, and with it would come the beginning of Zoroth’s long-awaited triumph over the cosmic order that had denied him his rightful place since the dawn of creation.