Chapter I
Three thousand years ago, a great evil came to our world – creations of the Shaab Abyss, the Dark Gods of hate and destruction. Their horrid bodies with thousands of hollow eyes, gaping jaws and whip-like appendages towered over the horizon like mountains. The sun grew dim and the moons became blood red. Ashes fell from the skies for weeks, showering the remains of our cities.
A terrible price we paid for curiosity of the cursed Empress Pandeya who opened the Arks of Shaab, for in these Arks resided the abysmal spawns, trapped there by the Ancient Gods before they departed for their heavenly halls. A thousand years had passed since their departure, and the Gates of the Abyss swept open again. That day could have been the day when the world ended.
If it weren't for the Dragons.
Winged guardians of the worlds, created by the Ancient Gods from stellar light and sparkling ether, they crossed the cold and darkness of space to battle the awakened evil. Like burning meteors, they descended upon the Dark Gods of Shaab, tearing apart their slimy flesh.
An army of Lesser Dragons was led by ten Elders: Argos, the master of wind and storm; Sirianna, whose magical voice could charm or kill; the igniferous Fenir; mountain-like Henor Stone Scales; Saimana the Sting, the mother of all poisons; the shadowy dragon Shedar; mistress of the water element Mydara; Tygeana the Ever-Changing, precursor of the metamorphs; Yarist, Guardian of Order; and Chirona, the Daugther of Chaos.
The world's foundations trembled when Guardians of the Heaven and Lords of the Abyss clashed on the field of battle. Dragons and Gods perished in that war, and alongside them – mortals. All races of the world – Humans, Moon Elves, Fiery Elves, bull-headed Minotons, cat-like Fenris and their sworn enemies – the canine Kinos, the able gnome mechanics known as Dedaires, and their winged neighbors the Ikarim – all gave their lives to free Adan from the plague of Shaab.
Chapter II
But one race didn't enter the war against the Dark Gods.
Only ancient scripts hold that name now, and it bears all the horror, loathing, and memory of the Dark Ages. It is a reminder of the events that must not happen again.
Tangors. Masters of the Void.
They were an ancient race, strange to the magic that was granted by the Dragons to other races. Nor did Tangors accept the sacred rites of the Fenris, the Kinos or the Minotons. Even the amazing mechanics of the Dedaires struck no chord in their hearts.
The Tangors had such command of the mind that they could even kill with it. In the forbidden Tangor language, their art was called "psY-chO" - "The Power of the Void". They created artifacts that could broaden the horizons of the mind, and the most dreadful of those artifacts were the Sovereigns. Tangors used Sovereigns to conquer other races, turning them into obedient slaves. It is said that it was the Tangors who influenced the Empress Pandeya into opening the Arks of Shaab and releasing the ancient evil. But the Tangors were too proud to feed the bottomless appetites of the Dark Gods with sacrifices. They never bowed down before the Abyss.
Instead, they turned their eyes to the lords of heavens. Looking at the Dragons, they saw a chance to spread their influence outside this world, into countless realms of space. They saw a chance to match the Ancient Gods, and perhaps, even exceed them.
The Tangors turned the power of their mind-controlling relics against the Dragons. First, against the Lesser Dragons which fell easy prey and came to serve as beasts of burden and war mounts. And when the skies were filled with masses of Dragon-riding Tangors, then came the time to subjugate the Elder Dragons.
One by one, the Tangors subdued Saimana, Shedar, Tygeotl and Henor. The other Elder Dragons were more resistant to the power of the Void, but even they were doomed to sooner or later fall in battle against Shaab's hordes – or become mindless slaves of the Tangors.
Chapter III
It is in this dark hour that Humans stepped forward to help the Dragons. As weak and fragile as mortals were, they were still the beloved children of the Ancient Gods. What they lacked in strength and magical skills, they more than made up for in trickery and cleverness. And their souls blazed with the Ancient Fire, the same Fire that gave birth to the Dragons.
Combining their skills, Dragons and Humans created Amulets of Melding, magical items that allowed them to join the ethereal essence of a Dragon and the body of a mortal. The creatures that resulted from this process were powerful wizards and deadly fighters, but above all things – unaffected by the mind-controlling artifacts of the Tangors.
And thus the Dragon-Knights arose, the world's last hope in the war against Masters of the Void, and against Shaab.
Two joint armies of mortals and Dragons entered the war against the Tangors and the Dark Gods. Argos, Yarist, and Mydara commanded the Humans of the West, the Moon Elves, the Ikarim and the Kinos, while the Humans of the East and the Fiery Elves, joined by the Fenris and the Minotons, were led into battle by Fenir, Hiron and Searyana. Only the shrewd Dedaires refrained from direct confrontation, though they amply supplied both armies with deadly war machines.
The wars lasted for seventy years. At the expense of countless lives, the Humans of the Weast and the Moon Elves killed the rider of Henor, thus freeing the Elder Dragon. Meanwhile, the Fiery Elves and the Knights of the East stroke down Shedar, who was ridden by none other than the Tangor Dictator-Psyarch himself. But alas, the Elder Dragons suffered a grievous loss in that battle: the vociferous Sirianna fell.
Chapter IV
Faced with imminent defeat, the Tangor committed a heinous deed: stealing and contorting several Amulets of Melding. With their help, the Tangors tried to combine their forces with the appalling essence of Shaab's Gods. Had they succeeded, the world would face a dark being of unprecedented power.
In this desperate hour, the Elder Dragons called upon their forefathers, the three Great Dragons.
Eldior, the Master of Life.
Velet, the Lord of Death.
And Aeona, the Mother of Eternity.
The Great Dragons answered the call. Their gigantic wings eclipsed the sky, casting earth into shadow. The armies of the Protectors of Life, the hordes of Shaab's spawns and legions of Tangor slaves converged on the place of the final battle, the Knossos Canyon, in the mountains of Kmeer, at the very center of Tartu continent.
To overcome their eternal foes, the Great Dragons united their strength. Their ethereal bodies merged into The One, a three-headed Dragon of colossal might. Like a furious comet, this mighty beast dove from the skies onto the hordes of Shaab and Tangor. One of its colossal heads opened its jaws to sear the enemy with incredible heat, one summoned cosmis cold, and the third turned enemy to ashes with nothing more than a look.
The Great Rift that divided the Kmeer Mountains in two still bears witness to the fury of The One. The Rift devoured the minions of the Dark Gods and the Tangor slaves. But the sorrow of the Dragons grew as well, for their sisters Simana and Tygeotl didn't survive the day, falling with the remains of the Tangor army.
Once again, the Dark Gods of Shaab were sentenced to imprisonment in the Forbidden Arks. The location of the keys to these Arks became the greatest secret of the alliance of mortals.
To this day, fate of the Tangors remains a mystery. All that iremains from them are a few taboo artifacts scattered around the world. Mayhap the ancient race of the mind lords was destroyed by the Great Dragons or imprisoned in the Arks together with the spawns of Shaab.
The Great Dragons, as well as the Elder and Lesser Dragons, left our world, promising to return in an hour of great need. Temples have been built and legends told in their memory, and the Knights of the East and West have decorated their standards with creatures' likenesses.
A golden era of peace and prosperity began. Many of those who survived the Day of Dragon's Fury thought that this era would last forever, and that evil had been banished from our world once and for all.
But in time, these survivors will find out how wrong they were.