Chapter 2: The History

Within the year, two very big events happened within Igrisos.

The first thing had to do with one magically empowered woman.

Six months before the four adventurers entered Veezla’s lair, a trading vessel arrived from the eastern continent, Eldbann, carrying not goods, but people. The ship docked at the trade city-state of Jeley and the occupants pleaded for refuge.

They told a story of how a powerful pink-haired sorceress named Mary Sueddon had declared herself “Queen of All”. This was known in Igrisos, but dismissed as Eldbann politics and not anything of much concern. Countless eccentric nobles had dappled history with their hijinks at that point, so Mary’s claims were nothing new.

However, the peasants onboard also said how the young sorceress stole the souls of those she met, and possessed enough magical power to enlarge herself to titan-dwarfing scales.

The peasants explained to city officials how Mary had been sieging the lands of Eldbann with an army, but the army rebelled. They said they had seen her massively enlarged self on the horizon declaring her intent to conquer the entire world of Leoria and “all there is”. Some said they had seen her destroy the entire ancient elven city of Fyaserin under her feet after sucking its magics dry.

Naturally, the story wasn’t believed at all. As part of their tale, the peasants admitted to convincing the ship’s sympathetic captain to ditch cargo so they could fit in the hold. So, Jeley officials arrested the captain, crew, and refugees on charges of goods destruction and lying to officials.

Yet, in the coming weeks, magical scholars and practitioners all over Igrisos reported large amounts of magical energies emanating from Eldbann. The fabric of magic itself within the material realm carried echoes of misuse originating from one very powerful source.

On top of that, ships flooded in with refugees to the point that trade with Eldbann became non-existent. Every ship spotted was assumed to be carrying people escaping the eastern and most populous continent.

The people onboard not only collaborated the stories first told at Jeley, but provided more info. Mary Sueddon magically enlarged herself and was single-handedly attacking every city in her kingdom. Even those loyal to her rule were crushed so their souls could be hers. Every town meant a horrible end at her hands or from of her vain gold and giant magical constructs.

The city-states of Igrisos grew concerned enough to heed the advice of magical scholars. Almost every wizard and sorcerer in the land agreed to take turns focusing their powers to create and maintain a barrier of force around Igrisos. The Continental Barrier, as it was called, functioned as both a literal barrier of glimmering force as well as an anti-magic barrier. The borders of Igrisos were closed, with no ships sailing in or out. No teleportation either, or even scrying.

The timing was impeccable too, as the very next day the barrier was under attack by powerful divination magic. It was assumed Queen Mary was trying to gain an idea of the continent before attacking it, but the barrier held back her attempts at scrying, and the frustrated attempts at teleportation and barrier-disintegration magic that followed.

Days went by and the barrier was under constant magical attacks originating from one source in Eldbann. The casters holding the barrier up were exhausted. After every shift, half of them would collapse from the focus required. But, they held fast and within a few more days the severe attacks stopped. Only the occasional poke-like scrying attempts tingled the barrier, and they were farther apart as time went on.

Since the four adventurers entered Veezla’s cave, it had been over a month since the last tickle against the barrier. It would seem Mary Sueddon had grown bored and given up.

But, the Continental Barrier was held all the same, as a sorceress with such divine-like levels of magical power couldn’t be allowed into their lands at any cost.

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The second major event within those past 6 months had to do with a semi-humanoid titaness named Veezla. Veezla was one of the titans, which were the primordial, gigantic, and immortal beings created by the gods. Originally created to wander the material realm for divine amusement, there was a time where these gargantuan entities battled one another in contests that helped carve the lands mortals walk on. Eventually the god-spurred conflicts relaxed, and the titans relaxed alongside the end of those giant battles.

Veezla was often called the Chimera Queen for her amalgam of animal and monster traits, though she didn’t treat the much smaller chimera creatures with any special favor. Unlike most Chimera, she also possessed the lower body of a snake, and thus would be more similar to naga if not for her green dragon-like wings and goat-like horns. The purple skinned and scaled being also had other features like fangs and sharp, hard talon-like claws.

Others dubbed Veezla the “Mother of Monsters”, but this wasn’t accurate as she had never sired any spawn--far as mortals knew--within her millennia of existence. In fact, she didn’t seem to treat any creatures she encountered with any particular affection or detestment. She was just as likely to ignore any settlement of old she came across as she was to attack and devour it.

Thankfully, titans were inactive, languid beings. They sleep for hundreds, if not thousands of years at a time typically. Veezla was known to only have destroyed one relatively modern city, several hundreds of years ago, when a dwarven city inadvertently settled in her mountain lair and woke her up.

Indeed, Veezla was not an exception to the rule of “titans are lazy and dormant most of the time.” At least, not until recently.

A few weeks before the four adventurers arrive to her lair, Veezla awoke. She slithered out of her lair and all the way towards the small city-state of Glainberg. Everything between her and that destination was crushed beneath the underbelly of a powerful tail about half-a-mile wide.

There were no surviving denizens of Glainberg at the time, but merchants en-route to the city witnessed the titaness lean down and devour the city, mouthful by mouthful, swallowed whole, to it was all gobbled up. Then, with more quaking of earth, she slithered back to her lair to sleep.

It was naturally a bit of a disaster, and it came at a time where the economies of Igrisos were already hurt by not having intercontinental trade thanks to the barrier. Yet, most of all, it was confusing.

Why would a titaness awaken for such a short time, eat just one city, then go back to rest?

Glainberg wasn’t even the closest city to her lair, either, it was as if she had deliberately targeted it. As far as the city-states of Igrisos went, Glainberg was among the smaller and unimportant ones. In fact, it was really only notable for holding a few rare artifacts within its borders. In particular, the Dragon Orb.

It was for this very orb that four adventurers sought to brave the lair of the titaness Veezla, as anything that could potentially fight off Mary Sueddon was worth a fortune these days.