The black gate opens

Never, not in your whole entire life, did you ever expect to see the inpenetrable black gate open.  Yet only now, for the first time since the city of light was destroyed thousands of year ago, does the black gate open.  Now, that you are the last of the shards of light (according to the words of the assassin), now that the Exile choose to make a last stand for their defence, now, with only two year until the Great Enemy arrives, does the Black gate open.

People can leave, and they do.  At first in timid groups shyly cringing between the black barbicians, now in great throngs.  They go to find allies, to find freedom, to find peace.

But it will all mean nothing if they don't prepare for the Great Enemy.  Three things must be done:

1- the warring nations must be convinced to join together for their own safety
2- powerful wepons must be found to defeat a God.
3- you, yourselves, myst be read to weild those weapons against a God.

Yet as you ponder your future, one thought fleets accross you mind.  It was not Palayon, the chair of the High council, that opened the gate.  It was not the ambitious Saphire lady, whose desire for that chair is well known.  But it was the voice of a single hero, one much younger than any who rule on the council.  The voice of Lukat, sorceress and priestess.

What has the city become?

The fallen city of light

Entering the room, it is filled with the most palpable sense of sadness you have ever encountered.  The room itself is desolate except for two things. First, a lone humanoid skeleton, clearly the last line of defence against the enemy, lies shattered on the floor, a small piece of parchment clasped in its hands.  And second, a once bright gem imprisoned in a dark miasma, floating high up in the ceiling.  The room here is split in half by the most oppressive dark curtain you have ever beheld.

...

First, there were no hero’s to champion our cause, we could not take the fight to his areas of crucial weaknesses. You left, you left not two years to the day before he arrived.

Second, even if we did have such heroes they would have no weapons that could slay a god. We would need to find weapons that can slay a god and typically, that requires artefact level magics.

Third, the nations were all divided. The sultancy and tris had spent their strength in war with each other, the beastmen were engulfed in civil strife, the skylings had just tried to ignore it and the pirates had fled cowardly. There were none to stand with us, and after he’d destroyed us, he destroyed them all as well, just out of spite it would seem. It was horrible…
...

Child, I am but a shadow of my soul, the last remaining memory that has clung to this tortured realm to give you this message! But I cannot last here… there is only one way to save me. Go back in time, make sure this never happened. Allow me to slip back into the time stream. Make me what I should be, by your success! That is all you can do to help me!

With that, the skeleton releases its grip on the parchment, and dark tendrils of evil reach out and draw the spirit shrieking away into the benighted realm.