Cylus 29, Arc 719
This was the beginning of the end of all things.
The sun had been eclipsed by the moon, and the dying ring that remained simply wasn't enough to sustain life. The Eternal City was a metropolis of life, before the cataclysmic event. Sprawling in all cardinal directions, in beautiful, if at times abstract, stone buildings, the City simply had no end. One could walk for arcs in one single direction, and would only find new streets, new places to rest a weary head during city life. Even as the last inches of life eked their final breaths against the dying sunlight, men and women were commonly seen walking the streets, still holding onto some hope that normalcy would prevail. In truth, nothing could be farther from the truth. As the ringed sun hung upon the sky like a condemned criminal, the borders of the Eternal City had finally decided to show themselves. Darkness and ash began to overtake the city, birthing an insidious illness that spread upon the populace: Eternal Fever.
This story begins at the last remaining seventy acres of urban life.
It was getting harder to breathe the air. It was becoming claustrophobic with just how much of the populace managed to squeeze themselves into this small swathe of land, buildings overflowing with bodies, both alive and dead. It was becoming more and more common that these bodies were just left out, not even properly burned or buried. The charred corpses were believed to spread the Eternal Fever, an innately Choleric disease that was spread through the fires and ash from the eclipsed sun itself. There weren't enough professionals left alive to properly care for the bodies, or the sick. Life was slowly beginning to descend into tribalism, those still holding onto precious few memories and possessions forming an almost reverent worship of the past, desperately clinging onto the hope that their family members were living a better life, beyond the borders of the disintegrating city. That there was a place to run to, after all.
Among those that had adapted to this new style of life, in the slow, gradual heat death of the world, there grew a sentiment of divine punishment. The Dancers of Ash began to proliferate as a horrific example of what would become of those who took their beliefs too far, opting to burn the bodies of the dead, regardless of what was implied by the men and women researching the Eternal Fever, but worse still, they would burn themselves, and others, alive. No one knows where such a belief got its groundings, but among those that remained, there was an increasing friction between the two factions that remained. Those that wished to survive, and cling to the past, no matter what it took, and those that were accepting of the end, celebrating it, and dragging down those that remained with those that believed that there was something else to live for, in this doomed world, cooked by the ever nearing boundaries of ash.
Among the surviving men and women, there was Xanthous; a dancer and bard known by the people of the Eternal City.
Xanthous, wrapped in thin veils, and silken wrappings, was among a crowd, in the town square. Or rather, the swathe of land that was in the direct center of what remained of the city, speculated by many to be the last place that would be engulfed by the border of ash. Sitting upon the lip of a fountain, Xanthous simply began to pluck at the lute in hand, as the bustle of the crowd simply overtook the bard's sound, all but obfuscating Xanthous's attempts at tuning the ragged lute in hand. It was a chaotic din, the sound of rushing water, the sound of coughing and illness, and above all else, the endless murmuring of those in the crowd. The distant bell began to toll, announcing the death tally of the day, as night began to approach. Twenty seven. Xanthous simply hummed, softly, leaning back into the fountain, but not quite enough to get wet, letting out a soft breath... Lips relaxing behind thin veils, and eyes closing, just for a moment.
Perfect for anyone to approach by surprise.
