Irene 

"An Exploration into Resilience and Strength"

Dictated by Sovereign Xy

Written by Mycanoid Swift

 

Introduction: 

Irene is a land of renewal, discovery, and rebirth. Many people travel to these lands to redefine who they are. Like the season of spring, Irene is a place for people to shed away winter, wake up from hibernation and be who they truly want to be. The island only has two cities, Islelume and The Colony. Recent years of conflict finally coming to an end has led Irene to have a new age of friendship. Join the people in Irene as they grow as a nation, become the person you want to be and rediscover and colonize their lost island. Rediscover what has become unknown!

 

Lore:

Entry 1:

Irene was an island nation wrapped in mystery kept hidden in its own darkness. Many travelers used to fear the land known as Irene for their friends would travel into the woods and never return, not even the bones of their friends were ever found. The local Elf population never gave an answer to the travelers for why the disappearances happened, this led to rumors of cannibalism, and ritualistic murder sacrifice by the wood elf people. Unfortunately under Sovereign Zer he sent his people out to catch locals and foreigners to use their corpses to create the next brood.

 

The local populace took it upon themselves to try to rid themselves of the “Mycanoid Curse” as they put it, evidently that wasn’t a very smart or effective plan. Sovereign Zer also had a similar idea to assimilate as many corpses as he could to build an army to eliminate the elven population. Surprisingly he accepted me, Xy, as one of his colony. Why? I am still not sure but he did. I joined his colony unknowing of the grand plan that he had to kill my kin. I studied and grew there, during this time the locals began to arm themselves and Sovereign Zer began to mutate future broods to produce specialized Mycanoids for battle.

 

One fateful day the local Elves attacked the Mycanoid colony, the resulting bloodshed was horrific for the Mycanoid people. I stood by idly and watched the carnage confused why my kin would hurt my family. Once they finally reached and killed Sovereign Zer, a Mycanoid I came to see as a father figure I finally broke and attacked my kin. I killed their numbers to the point they retreated. I still feel the blood on my hands.

 

After this act somehow I was chosen as the next Sovereign of the Mycanoid people. I did not want anymore bloodshed on the island or travelers being killed. I went to the Elves and brokered a treaty. After many months I finally got their city to agree to capitulate under the Mycanoids under the clause they will not kill anymore people and will help the future development of the island. For now our numbers are still too small to help them so I personally went to help the people. I helped them design new buildings, new commerce, and a tourist system to bring fresh faces to the city. I set up monsters ushered by the Mycanoids to remote places for adventurers to take quests and kill the beasts to help bring in more people. We are seeing success like never before, the Queen Izra Aelin even came to ask us to join her. I am still not sure what all of this entails but it is nice to have allies and a safety net. I plan to meet with her when my cough gets light. For now I must rest, I hope to explain more in my next entry. Thank you.

 

Entry 2:

I’ve spent the last four weeks talking to the local Elves and doing research in their..er…uhm…I mean my libraries…sorry still not used to it…what yeah I am doing great. Where was I? Oh yes, I have spent weeks on research trying to rationalize why the Elven people saw my family as a curse and how they even got to these lands to begin with. Apparently when they first made it to these lands they were desserts. This island used to be a barren wasteland, a dessert. These people came here as adventurers and decided to make a life here. They spent many years residing on this island alone. A wasteland that provided nothing but sand and sun. They used ocean water and distilled it to make drinking water. They took that water and added sand and dirt to make adobe to build houses. They were peaceful people. They lived on these lands for decades not knowing the truth that lay below them.

The history books stated that in a flash life came to the island in some tumultuous storm. Quickly a dessert became a vibrant island. Large forests grew quickly in their new environment, an island bathed in the rejuvenating energies of spring. The people were happy and quickly improved their home. They built a large city and began to grow crops. They made a life for themselves. A beautiful island that brought plenty of people to their shores. They were happy.

The history books got a bit bare in the time they considered their dark ages, a time where travelers stopped coming. The Mycanoids broke through the surface and moved their colony, that had been underground, to the surface. My family was the curse. When the Mycanoids came children began to go missing in the woods. Husbands and Wives would lose each other and never find their counters again. I am pretty sure I was supposed to be food but because of my destined path the mushrooms saw me as friend not food. This means Sovereign Zer fed my parents to his colony. People would just go missing and the only thing people had to remember them was a mushroom…it is all so horrible…I need a moment Swift…Stop writing…Damn it boy                         Stop                        Writing

 

Entry 3:

Are you writing? Yeah I am telling you to write again…No I won’t steal your pencil this time. You know you got some attitude…What do you mean you are currently writing, ugh. The past weak I visited the Mycanoid colony and went to the memory spores. I communed with them to try to learn why Sovereign Zer was so aggressive, and to know why he kept me. It was a rough experience trying to crack his memory spores but I eventually did it.

Sovereign Zer was the Sovereign of his colony for a few centuries before his passing. In his reign he actually had a few would be adventurers find the surface entrance to his spore from the desert. At first he invited them in and let them join his colony…two of those people being my birth parents. A total of five elves were allowed to join they claimed to be a research team that wanted to write on the history and anatomy of the Mycanoid people. For the first few years everything went fine, but eventually Mycanoid began to come up missing. Turns out an elf by the name Rathul was stealing Zer’s people to dissect them.

 

On a fateful night one of these stolen people actually managed to escape Rathul and make it back to its Sovereign. Zer’s fury was boundless as he attacked all of the elves for one elf’s poor judgement. My parents were the last to die…my mother was pregnant with me. I watched Zer’s memories…she begged him not for her own life but for mine. She screamed and pleaded with Zer. “The child is innocent, she hasn’t done anything she can’t take her as one of your own. Teach her your ways!” Zer ended my mother in the midst of her screams, but he took me out of her before sending the body to the rebirthing pool…he chose to save me for I was innocent.   (The Sovereign begins to cry.) uh..uhm..I was saved because I was innocent.

 

Once the surface was rejuvenated Zer took his people to see the sun and was only met with more of these Elves…his prejudice condemned him. He attacked the elves first in fears they would begin to steal his people. In an attempt to protect his people he became exactly like Rathul. History is condemned to repeat itself as they say. Elves hurt the colony so the colony hurt the elves. This is a dark past that I want to forget but as the Queen of Spores I can’t.

 

Yeah that is what the Elves started to call me, the Queen of Spores. I rather like the title and I feel it is fitting. I am scared of the past but I will work with everyone to make sure it isn’t repeated. I also set up a meeting with Queen Izra Aelin, the Conqueror of Aelin. Her title scares me a bit but I have to meet with her if we are to have a good working relationship, maybe I will even make a friend out of it. I fly to her home on the ‘marrow. I hope this goes well for me and my people. The next entry will be for a new era of Irene. The Era of Rebirth. Thank you.

 

Entry 4:

It didn’t go at all how I expected it to go. The Conqueror of Aelin, Queen Izra Aelin was actually a really nice person! Though I noticed a few weird things about her. She talks a lot better than most people to the point it is really confusing. I only understood her half the time, which leads me to believe she has a fishbowl situation going on. I heard one of the elves use it. It is in reference to high standing people constantly being watched by everyone around them…I bet I am also in that situation but no one around here seems to question my leadership, I’ll have to do research on why that is. Past that her smiles while nice never seemed to be all there, almost like she didn’t want the people watching her to realize she was happy. It is really sad to say she is so nice. She is sending Irene an assortment and I have to think of what we can send back.

 

What do you think Swift? Oh yeah we could do that. Take a note to have the Mycanoids prepare Ergot alkaloids and Statins. We can take those to the apothecaries to create an assortment of medicines. Also prepare some fungi to produce penicillin, and a good amount of yeast. I am sure they would like low cost and abundant ways to produce bread. I think I saw a bakery while flying over. After that is underway I will have the farmers set up their fields and I’ll help grow abundance to give a food gift as well. This is going to be great. Though she seems to know a lot about her lands. I am going to have to do more research.

 

Entry 5:

While making preparations for Aelin I decided to do more research. Turns out Wood Elves, the predominant elven race on Irene, are not good at keeping records. The reason I have been unable to learn more than a few hundred years back is because they didn’t write any books. Most of their history is passed down through fables that they tell their kids. It is going to take a long time to figure out which are just tall tales and which are actual history. I have a citizen compiling all the fables for me so I can begin deciphering the history.

Aside from that I finally also learned why these Elves were so okay with me being in charge. Apparently wood elves have a deep spiritual connection with nature itself and they normally flock to a single member of their community who is most attuned with nature. They call these people Druids. Apparently I am also an animal…it is crazy to think about. Apparently all the magic and shapeshifting into animals that I do on a day to day basis isn’t as normal as I thought. People weren’t silent when I cast magic because they thought it was mundane. They were silent in reverence for the art of nature. Luckily I think this means I won’t have to worry about being in a fishbowl, wood elves won’t want to follow anyone other than another druid.

 

Irene, a land of spring and rebirth has no real written history. I am going to have to hire adventurers to delve into the forest and jungles of Irene to find ancient homes of the wood elves to see if we can dig up more of their past. I am also cautious about what happened to their last druid, they have many fables about his grandeur but nothing about his death, just that he left one day to deal with something and never returned. I really hope that doesn’t bite us in the booty…What? No it is booty, what do you mean ass? That is a curse…ugh stop writing.