Bell of the Dawn: Prelude

High above the roof of the World, beyond the mountains and beyond the imaginations of but a few, there stands a keep as old as the Universe...forgotten by time.  The sun rises and sets here just as it does upon the homes of the mortal world, but the rising and setting bear no meaning here other than that the Universal Clockwork is still upon it's course.  This is the World Keep, a mighty fortress built by the mind of The All. It is also the home of The Bell of The Dawn, a great mithril bell older than even the keep itsself.

As the dawn begins to break, we see the vibrant royal blue and scarlet red of roof tiles for the keep.  It is a beautiful day full of promise and tinged with the unknown yet to come.  The air is shifting however, and has become the wind of change. On this day we find a wise dragon intently reading a tattered scroll.  His platinum scales glisten rose and gold in the light of the rising sun.  


When all the brilliance of days has gone
Who shall remain to sing the songs?
Of love and glory of unending time
Wound with care into steadied rhyme.

The words set down by poets pen
Memory and lifetimes of a thousand men
Heroics, villainy, love scorned forlorn
Magic, and mysteries, and pacts undone

The voice of the sages, minds of the All
Sing out in the cosmos, history’s call
The breath of the Mother our feet beneath
Whispering, telling for those who but seek

It is in these things our souls remain bound
Till across time shall echo the sound
Of the great tolling of the Bell of the Dawn
And then shall arise the age of The One



Tanus has read these words every day for a thousand years.  Perched atop the bell tower of the World Keep, just as he has done a thousand mornings before, he looks out across the Mystery and down onto the mountain range that hides the keep from the eyes of men.  Something is different this morning.  Tanus sniffs the breeze that drifts past his nose and is puzzled.  It is faint, but deep within the sweet notes of the Mother's breath, there is a hint of woe...musty, acrid, and putrid all at once.  It is unlike anything that Tanus has smelled before.  Not far off Tanua, his mate, sits upon the temple roof.  She looks to him with the same concern that now lines his own face.   Tanus looks back down upon the mortal world, and in the far distance sees a small plume of black smoke rising from the distant horizon.

Suddenly from beneath him Tanus feels movement.  A slowly building sway glides up the beams of the bell tower.  Tanus leaps into the air, and turns to look.  As Tanua joins him the first toll from the Bell breaks like glass in the morning air.  It is the most beautiful and most terrifying sound that Tanus has ever heard.  From the mountains behind him  Tanus hears the rumbling of stone falling away as the Sentinals of the Keep awaken from their slumber.  The path through the mountains and across the Mystery will be open that The One may find the keep.  The Sentinals, in their ageless forms, will set upon and destroy all else to attempt to come near.

"It is time, my love."  Tanus touches a wing gently to his mate.  

Turning towards the sun the dragons begin to beat their wings in time with the tolling of the Bell.  With each movment the vast cloud cover above the mountains dissapates until Tanus can clearly see the path lined with Sentinals.  As the Keep is revealed Tanus and Tanua sweep down from the mountains and into the Mortal world to seek out The One.

The time of the prophecy has begun