Written by Aelyzabeth von Thors.
Seven hundred and forty-two million years ago — in an age so remote that even the memory of creation had grown dim — the world still breathed in slumber beneath the shadow of mountains and the chill of endless stone. The human race, descendants of the ancient survivors of Utumma's Darkness, rose once more upon the weary face of the earth. Though the skies yet trembled with the ghosts of past calamities, the flame of human reason endured — silent, but unextinguished, awaiting the hour of its rebirth.
To the far west of the world — where the volcanoes had fallen silent and become vast plateaus — there stood a realm named Romulius Regnum, the Great City of Stone and Fire. Its people were heirs to the divine bloodline of Empress Julia Caesaria Crenus Thorsius and Prince Julius Caesar Augustulus Thorsius. They lived amidst the eternal conflict of nature: wielding stone as weapon, fire as strength, and faith as their only shield against the wrath of beasts and storm.
Yet from among these souls arose a man unlike any other —Senator Diocritian Communus Thorssius,a forgotten scion of the House of Thorsius, whose mind burned with the light of knowledge and the will to transform the destiny of mankind.
He was no king, no priest, nor conqueror — but a seeker of truths hidden in the bones of the earth. He believed that beneath the soil upon which mortals trod slept a divine substance, a gift of the abyss — metal, stronger than stone, more enduring than flame, and purer than water itself.
One fateful night, beneath a crimson moon that bled its light upon the peaks of Mount Akeni, Diocritian heard the Voice of the Earth Mother. Guided by that voice, he descended into the chasm of Atherum, where rivers of molten fire whispered through the veins of the world. There he beheld a stone unlike any known to man — a silver-grey crystal that shimmered with cold radiance, harder than all stone, and alive with an otherworldly pulse.
He carried it back and cast it into the fires of the sleeping volcano, mixing it with the sacred crystal of Utumma. From that fusion was born a substance that gleamed like moonlight upon the anvil — the first metal ever wrought by human hands.
The tidings of this wonder spread throughout the realms of Romulius. Scholars, priests, and smiths gathered to behold the miracle. Many declared that it was the Gift of the Goddess Julia, bestowed upon her children so that mankind might forge their own destiny. Thus Diocritian was honored with a name eternal:
"The Father of Iron — The Forger of the Second Civilization of Man."
With his newfound creation, he forged the first sacred tools — hammers, blades, and spears. From that moment, the world itself was transformed. Stone yielded to steel, brute survival to craft, and fear to mastery. Humanity rose from the ashes of struggle and learned to command the elements rather than flee from them.
Soon they built the Holy Hammer of Romulius, the instrument that shaped the heavens' metal, and with it, they erected towers of steel that touched the clouds. They forged machines of levers and wheels, tools that bit deeper into the bones of the world, unveiling copper, tin, and silver in hidden veins.
As metal supplanted stone, humanity stepped beyond mere survival. They discovered the Age of Industry, the first spark of creation. The clang of hammers became the new song of the world — the anthem of progress. And in but a thousand years, Romulius had become the cradle of an era now remembered as"The Metallic Stone Age."
Yet in their triumph, there were whispers of caution — voices that warned that metal, though divine, was soulless. It was a friend that could become an enemy; a tool that could become a chain. For in its cold reflection, man might someday lose the warmth of his own heart.
But those voices were drowned beneath the thunder of the forges —for the will of mankind had been set aflame,and no god, nor nature, could ever still the hammer that builds the world.
In the twilight of his years — at the age of one hundred and twenty-six — Senator Diocritian Communus Thorssius inscribed upon the first forged tablet of iron these immortal words:
"Man was not born to bow before fire,nor to worship the stones beneath his feet —but to kindle his own flame,and to forge the world by the strength of his own hands."
Thus I, Aelyzabeth von Thors,record this chronicle in reverence to that sacred dawn —the age when iron was born,and humankind ceased to be mere survivors,becoming instead the architects of creation itself.
Thus ends Chapter A-X.