Adventures in Mythvale! - The Missing Light
Mythvale. The mystical land that once hosted the massive World-Tree from which all life in Xanara had sprouted, the land that thousands of kings and emperors had sought control over to no avail, the land where the Gods themselves made their residence - as much as they could be said to reside in Xanara, at least. And though the protection they conferred to the peaceful mortals who lived in the village at the heart of Mythvale had spared them many tribulations and hardships, and had saved them from the shadow of war and conflict, many other times their meddling turned out to be rather... troublesome for the men and women of Mythvale Village. Indeed, while the Xanaran gods held power beyond a mortal's wildest dreams and secrets that no other creature could grasp, they could be... rather clumsy, during their visits to the world. And though most mortals knew nothing of this and revered them with utmost respect, the inhabitants of Mythvale Village were well acquainted with this side of their gods, with most of them having even grown used to it.
The folly of the gods showed itself once again when one good day, after a long week of work, a young man was relaxing on the roof of his home, lying on his back and looking up at the sky. The sun had recently set on the far west and night had fallen upon the village. The stars that now danced in the sky were unusually bright, for the simple fact that the night was unusually dark, and the young man soon realized this, which led him to furrow his brow as he scanned the nocturnal sky. Yzora and Tatari, as he had suspected, were nowhere to be found. "Twin void? Now that's just bloody suspicious." Alrik growled as he sat up on the sloped shingles, feeling his mood quickly sour as he contemplated the strange event.
Of course, Alrik was no idiot: he could count a fair bit higher than the other kids, he could tell apart a tree from a treefolk, and he knew that it was perfectly natural for both moons to be absent from the night sky once every few months. It was a phenomenon called twin void, which supposedly happened when both moons drifted too close to the sun to be seen at the same time... But it wasn't supposed to happen two nights in a row, and this was what fueled the villager's suspicion. Grumbling something about all the dumb things that happened in that place, he clambered down from the roof of his house, before heading away from his house near the center of Mythvale Village and walking in the direction of the tavern. He didn't feel like drinking, but he was likely to find someone there, if not to help, at least to have someone to complain to.
As he walked through the village, he looked around, seeing the other inhabitants of Mythvale going about their businesses. Some, he figured, were too silly to figure out what was going on, but some had undoubtedly realized by now that something was amiss in the sky. Either way, few of them had gone to sleep by now, besides Mayor Berry, as the night was still young, and Alrik had the feeling that it was going to be a long one.
