Part 4

All that's left is to pick up the pieces.

When you think back about everything that happened, you’re not sure how much time has passed. Everything feels like a blur, yet crystal clear in your mind at the same time.

Yes, Eeridi had shattered. You recall the emotions you felt when that information dawned on you. The world you once knew no longer existed, at least not in the same way you remembered.

Eventually you mustered the courage along with the others to approach the edge of the world as you know it. It made your stomach turn to look down and see a vast expanse of nothing but air, clouds, and Ichor below. Down there, under the mist and mire, you could still see the looming Titan moving like a leviathan across the surface of some inner alien world. You feel dizzy just looking at it.

When you look up you can see other fragments of Eeridi suspended far in the distance. They remind you of the floating islands near Meteor Lake, or Stonewing, though you know these fragments of the planet are much larger than they appear. Whole continents suspended in air… it’s still hard for you to wrap your head around even now.

In the weeks that followed the Shattering, people tried hard to adapt as quickly as possible. You think that if Skire had been less keen on advancement before all this, the change would have been harder for you all. Somehow everyone has found a way to band together and push towards solutions.

The Ichor Beasts still spawn here sometimes. With time you learn that you can predict where they appear if you follow the trail of the Titan below. Guilds have been popping up all over the place with this exact knowledge in mind. They’re training people on how to fight the Ichor Beasts. These guilds go by many names, but they are all sworn to fight back and keep us safe.

The air feels heavier around the edges of Skire, and authorities warn you all, especially those with abilities to fly, not to try and traverse the openings at all. The gravity is too great; able to suck down any craft that attempts to bridge the gaps at land level. The only way to travel from one island to another is from space. Over time you see an explosion of new types of space-faring shuttles and crafts built to ferry people from one island to the next.

It seems daily that you hear new stories of adventuring parties and researchers attempting to go down to the surface below; the “Core Planet” as they’ve been calling it. It seems to you like it’s a death wish to want to go down there, but they keep insisting that the information they gather is priceless. Half of them don’t come back.

Despite the enormous change to your physical world, you find that things are starting to move on like normal. Yes the air is a bit thinner, and the Ichor Beasts can be a tad annoying to deal with, but life goes on. Skireans are resilient beings. You all work hard to repair what has been broken.

Of course, researchers are still trying to figure out why all of this happened. You yourself wonder what the greater meaning of all this is, if there even is one. Everyone everywhere has their own theories. All you can really do is go on with your life, adapt, and hope that nothing worse happens to your precious planet.