Lyra's Memories

In the year 1207 BCE, the scholar Tharon Eldrin—a visionary of the waning Age of Unrest—uncovered the Lost Sanctum of Serenith Velora, a relic from the days when magic had not yet turned against its makers. Within its depths, Tharon found writings and fragments describing a grand machine, one capable of bridging the realms between mortals and the divine source of all magic—the Aether itself. Such a device, the texts claimed, could grant dominion over magic’s flow… or sever it entirely.
  Believing this power might end the centuries of war between the Elder Races and the Younger, Tharon formed the Veilbound Accord—a coalition of elves, dwarves, humans, and others who dreamed of peace through shared purpose. Together they sought Serenith’s machine, hoping it would force all sides to the negotiating table.
  Yet the search proved long and perilous. The war raged on for twelve more centuries, and the Accord became a legend whispered in war camps and temples alike. It was not until the final years before the Sundering that the machine was finally found—buried beneath the ruins of a forgotten citadel.
  An expedition was led by Lyra Aelrion and her beloved husband, Kael Aelrion, both scholars of renown and heartbound partners in the dream of ending the endless bloodshed. Together, they unearthed the Aetheric Conduit, the very machine Serenith had once used to pierce the veil between worlds.
  But none among them understood the danger that awaited. The Aether is not a benevolent force—it is extradimensional, raw and corrosive, a tide of unbridled creation and destruction that only remains safe when filtered through the Aether Well, hidden deep within the Temple of Diana and watched over by the Ghostwise Halflings.
  Long ago, when Serenith Velora first activated her machine, she had stepped beyond the mortal realm and into the raw current of Aether itself. There, it remade her—immortal, powerful… and utterly corrupted.
  When the Veilbound Accord reawakened the machine, they did not bridge peace. They opened a rift—and Serenith returned.
  She came with a hunger beyond comprehension, seeking to consume the very essence of Aethria, to draw all creation back into herself. The Accord realized too late that they had unleashed a god unbound. Desperate, Lyra and Kael reversed the flow of the machine, severing Serenith’s connection to the mortal world. In doing so, they severed Aethria’s connection to the Aether as well.
  That act shattered the world.
  Magic, once pure and boundless, began to twist and decay upon itself. The great cities fell. Mountains groaned and cracked. Beasts and men alike warped under the unstable currents of what remained. The event would come to be known as The Sundering—the moment Aethria was forever changed.
  Of the Veilbound Accord, only Lyra Aelrion survived the catastrophe. The backlash of Aether ravaged her body and mind, leaving her memory in fragments—but it also touched her with the same strange longevity that had cursed Serenith. Lyra lived on, ageless and haunted, with only her journal remaining—a tome of notes and sketches hinting at the machine’s resting place.
  Centuries passed. In 799 SU, as the Democratic Charter was signed in the Republic of Verisara, the journal was entrusted to the Great Library of the Citadel of the Dawn. There it remains, a relic of the world before the Sundering—its secrets perhaps the key to restoring the Aether… or repeating its doom.