Darkness presses against your eyelids like heavy stone. You are weightless, drifting in a place without breath or heartbeat. Without warning, a spark ignites behind your eyes. A voice, neither male nor female, neither old nor young, unfurls inside your skull with the softness of a whispered prophecy.
“Welcome, Lost Soul, to your new Reality.”
The darkness peels away. You fall—not down, but forward—into a swirl of crimson dust and blazing red light. Heat washes over you, sharp enough to sting, and the air tastes of iron and ozone. Something beneath your boots hums with a strange energy, a pulse that vibrates up through your bones.
“You have awakened upon the Red Venom Plains, a place where the strong endure, the bold prosper, and where those not willing to take risks will fade from memory, absorbed by the thirst of The Land.”
The last statement helps you focus your vision, and you start to see what surrounds you.
Scarlet grasses stretch across an endless horizon, rippling like silent flames. Thick air presses against your face. Far in the distance, something streaks like lightning across the landscape. But it is bent, spiraling, tinted with motes of purple and black. As you take it in, you hear a thunder that follows sounds like distant screams. This place must be a realm of nightmares.
Yet, something here is warm to your soul. Something here feels comforting, and familiar in some way. There are many dangerous things in this new place, but also many opportunities to find what you were brought here to search for. This is your opportunity to find… no, to make your place. To shape the world as you see fit.
The voice continues, observing your confusion.
“You may not recall your journey here, Chaos Seed. Few ever do. Be comforted—what you once were matters less than what you will become.”
The ground trembles under your feet. Not an earthquake—just energy moving around you, reacting to your sudden presence. The voice continues,
“Here, power does not come freely. It must be carved, earned, stolen, claimed. Every choice you make will echo through soil and sky. Every action will shape what you become.”
The voice softens, almost amused.
“You are not the first to arrive here. But you, and those like you, were brought here for two reasons – to survive, and to change The Land.”
A final surge of warmth spreads through your chest—like the last breath of a dying star, or the first ember of a new one.
“Stand, Chaos Seed. Open your eyes fully.
The Red Venom Plains are waiting.”
The voice fades.
The world is silent.
And your story begins.