In the final moments before Elynie departed from the world, she appeared to the eldest of the Elves. High among the remote peaks of their floating city, where the air grew thin and the star burned closer than anywhere else, she placed the relics into their trembling hands. What passed between them remained a secret, suspended between earth and heaven.
When Elynie faded, the world itself seemed to hold its breath. For the first time in their long existence, the Elves were alone, burdened by a duty greater than any they had ever known. Their floating city, once filled with endless songs and celebration, became a sanctuary of solemn purpose.
The Sword was entrusted to the greatest of their generals, carried into battle against every foe that threatened their people. It passed from generation to generation, and every warrior who wielded it believed they had been chosen to wield a blade forged by a god.
The Gem followed another path.
It was hidden within the ruins of an ancient shrine. The Elves knew what slept within it, they had sensed the corruption coiled in its depths. And so they swore an oath: the Gem would never be used.
Yet not all among them accepted this decree.
Some believed that such power should not be left to gather dust in darkness. With every passing age, the forbidden fruit grew sweeter. And as the temptation deepened, the Elves themselves began to change.
A divide emerged.
From that division arose the Twilights. Where the Sylvan saw a sacred responsibility, the Twilights saw endless possibility. They believed that knowledge itself was holy, that to unravel the deepest mysteries of creation was not to profane Elynie’s gift, but to honor it. To them, her final relic was not meant to remain hidden, but to be discovered.
For generations, the conflict remained one of ideas.
Yet philosophy, left unchecked, becomes obsession.
And obsession becomes war.
When the Twilights finally moved to seize the Gem by force, the Sylvan stood against them. The floating city became a battlefield. Towers fell and gardens burned. Brother fought brother beneath the very sky their ancestors had built.
Then, in the darkest hour of the battle, the unthinkable happened.
The Sword, carried through countless generations and wielded by the greatest of heroes, slipped from its bearer’s grasp and fell from the floating city into the world below. Through smoke and flame it vanished, and no eye could follow its descent. No one ever learned where it came to rest.
The war finally ended, but the floating city would never recover. Broken by grief it was abandoned by the very people who had built it.
The Elves had destroyed their own sanctuary and in doing so, they had lost the very blade they had sworn to protect.
Missed the beginning? Read part 1 of the Lore Piece: The Primordials