Part 1

A feeling of deep unease creeps across Skire.

The earthquakes have been plaguing you for a while now.

The first one was just a little shiver; the ground jittering so gently you might not have noticed if it weren’t for the flower vase on your counter shaking like it had taken a soft breeze. Though, there were no windows open, and the cacophony of notifications on your social media feed told you that others had felt it too. Even if it was small, it was all everyone talked about. Quakes were far and few between on Skire.

Two days later there was another one, and people started to get a little worried. Between talk show hosts sharing hopeful theories about the development of a new layer of Uto, all that was on the news was the quakes. You were listening to one of these casts when the room started to shake… violently. Running outside, the ground under your feet seized and swayed as if you were on a boat in rough ocean. You’d never felt anything like this before.

Your neighbor’s distant panicked cries sank to the background of your mind as you stared out over the layers of hills and houses. Even the swaying of the ground becomes secondary, because out of the corner of your eye you saw it.

A strange, dark amalgam was crawling into the yard.

---

The Nautipods are telling you that Ofae’s magic is out of control. While more reports come in about the earthquakes and the oozing beasts, they say they don’t know anything else. It’s just a feeling they have -being the moon’s children- that Ofae is in distress.

The news says that since the earthquakes started, Ichor Beasts started to appear all over the place. The shrouded creatures came in many shapes; aggressively stalking and even chasing anyone who came near. That thing you saw was one of them. Though they’ve been sighted in the deep wilds before, it was extremely strange to see them wandering in towns, or even densely populated areas.

The worst part of all this is that nobody knows why.

You start to take home extra water and food. You pick up first-aid kits from stores, which is something you’ve never felt like you had to do before. You just have some urgent feeling that you must prepare yourself for, inevitably, whatever happens next. It could be nothing, but you’d rather be ready instead of sorry.

---

You go about your day as best you can, but you cannot shake the feeling that something is coming. The strange reports of magical fissures around meteor lake do not help either. Chaos slowly swells, the continent unable to ignore the warning signs appearing all around. It almost feels like the world is pending some kind of upheaval. Those more magically inclined have begun their investigations, but many remain unsure of what's to come.

It feels that nobody is immune to the anxiety, Nautipods especially impacted by the weight of what's coming. Their connection to the world's magic is different, drawn often to strange wells of magic unfamiliar to Skire. These fissures crack and shatter the earth, upending homes, displacing many. They pierce deep into the planet, past the crust, beyond... You cannot see far enough down. The magic feels familiar in a way, pulsing like veins from the cracks. Energy erupts with a static that feels almost heavy.

What's on the horizon?