Greetings, weary traveler!

My name is Jette Vala, and I'll be your tour guide on the road through the once-grand city of Kardea, home to many a thief, villain, and begger. It wasn't always like this, of course; crumbled, filthy, and littered with mysteries of a people long since destroyed. It was beautiful once, and prosperous, with mankind at the top of the evolutionary chain!

Preposterous, you say? Unbelievable? Well, it's the truth. Ten generations have passed since then, however, two and a half centuries have left the human race fading in the barren wasteland that threatens our very existence. Let me bring you up to speed.

Two-hundred-fifty years ago, when mankind was thriving, with technologies beyond your wildest dreams, and luxuries that men now would marvel at as works of the gods, things began taking a turn for the worst. Tidal waves wracked the shores, leveling port cities in a single crash. Earthquakes shattered whole countries, splitting the earth and swallowing the innocents that fell in their paths. Storms of epic proportions pounded the regions with snow, ice, rain, and hale. No one was safe. These disasters came more and more frequently, bringing with them even more disasters that had the human race broken, and begging the gods for reprieve...

But it was the gods who were responsible. The very deities into which humankind put all its trust had turned against them, punishing them for the vanity of their creations and lifestyles. The survivors were the 'pure' and the poor, those who remained loyal to their gods, and not the boundless technology that had lofted them to such conceit.

Things are different now. We are the descendents of the survivors. We lie, cheat, steal, and kill to survive. We few are those that the gods have chosen to 'reclaim' by making us one with the elements. Our children, our childrens' children, will soon be nothing more than the elements that rules us, and the dregs of human society will finally be blinked out of existence. We're well on our way. They say we're cursed. I say we're gifted. We are one.