so much is still unknown

WESSEX after all is said and done you're just a carnivore let you in and drink my blood you're nothing but a monster “Ahhhh, okay,” Wessex says with a smile, settling down on a stone wall at the edge of Haulani. The port lays before them, dark and quiet other than the drunkards and the water lapping at the boats and docks. “Have a seat, then. This might take awhile.” Where to begin? At the very beginning? That might be too far, but perhaps she can abridge some of it. “I’ll try to give you the short but important version. Three hundred or so years ago, the Old Gods imprisoned the Voice in the Spire in the Hollowed Ground. They put a magical barrier around it to keep her in, effectively cutting my people off from the rest of the world. Before that, she had connected Caido with portals, she’d done things that challenged the Gods, gathered enough power to transform herself from an Acquired - what we now call Abandoned - to what she is now.” She was once human, once mortal. Hence, the New part of that distinction. “Fast forward to three years ago, when Outlanders began arriving en masse. She pulled them here from their own worlds - like she pulled you - in an effort to try and free herself from her prison. That’s about the time when I Ascended and myself and a few others were able to open the Spire. It was a controversial move. The Old Gods told their followers to stop it, but they couldn’t - they couldn’t convince everyone not to try and take the barrier down, because they’d all experienced life in that cage, and it was terrible.” Her gaze goes a little distant as she recalls what life was like before, memory zooming through all the horrible moments of her life, all because of the cage the Old Gods put them in. “And the Old Gods will say it was necessary, that they had to put us in the cage to stop the voice. But then they disappeared leaving the heralds in their place, and the heralds are… a fickle, petty bunch. They wouldn’t help us when we were dying from illness or starvation. No amount of prayers or offerings could change our misery. Anyway, once the barrier came down, the Voice told the Ascended to explore, so that she could see what we see.” Wessex grimaces a bit, hating this part of the story. “And I’m not sure if it was for revenge or an accident, but everywhere we went, a magical Blight followed. It affected people and plants alike, poisoning the Greatwood and turning our friends mad. We didn’t know it would happen, didn’t know we were spreading it, but they’ve never let us forget it. Even though no one died, and plants are struck by blights and fungus and bugs all the time, it was understandably a traumatic experience. So they fear another blight, despite the Voice saying she’s fixed that bug and our assurances that it won’t happen. Every time we enter a new part of Caido, the story goes with us, along with a few others.” Here she pauses, wondering if it’s enough for Letha or if the girl wants to know more. And so Astor doesn’t write a novel in one go.