Eight hundred years ago there was a prosperous little village called Dunai. The village itself was not very large, but despite its size, it was of great importance to the providence of Jaden. You see, the village was extremely successful in producing crops; mainly wheat and corn. Dunai also produced a large amount of quality wool. Much of the wheat, corn and wool that Jaden used came from Dunai. It was quite easy to say that Jaden relied a good deal upon Dunai. If Dunai could not provide Jaden with its products, then surely all of Jaden would suffer greatly. However, there had never really been the concern that Dunai would not be able to provide for Jaden. Dunai and Jaden had always been on peaceful terms and Dunai itself was an extremely peaceful village. All around it had been an ideal situation. History never really does seem to let be so called ideal situations though.

Death and destruction were to be Dunai’s fate. So had been the fate of many villages before it though, so why should Dunai be so worthy of mention? That is what is essential to this tale, for you see, Dunai was completely ravaged by a child. Her name was Raven, though few would call her by that name in the end. Before the very first cries of suffering had even fallen silent, the name Raven had been abandoned, and in its place was The Wicked Abomination. Those were the words that had been cried out in terror as villagers fled from the child. Few would actually survive the tragedy of Dunai.

It had been an early spring morning when fate turned her cruel eye on Dunai, eight hundred years ago. The weather had been fair; not too warm, though certainly not cold. It had been just right. There had been a slight breeze that had gone whispering through the trees nearby. The first signs of spring bloom were all about. Who would have suspected that such a lovely day was a mockery of what was to come? Certainly no one in Dunai…

Raven was, from what people had guessed, around the age of eight. No one could be quite certain, for no one from the village had actually been present when the girl had been born.

The child was not originally from Dunai. Her family had moved to the village when the girl was just a babe. They had been good folk; hard workers to the end. When the child was two, her parents had gone out to the nearby woods to hunt for deer. They had left their young daughter with one of the neighbors. They never returned for their daughter. A search party was sent out to look for the man and his wife, but the bodies were never found. The only thing that was discovered in the woods was the wife’s bow, charred to a crisp. No one could explain the phenomenon, though some speculated that the husband had gone mad, killed his wife, and then burnt the body. Somehow the bow must have survived though. Few believed that theory though, considering that the man had loved his wife very much, and had been a very gentle man in general. In any case, the child had been orphaned at a very young age.

The villagers had collectively adopted the child. She went from house to house, bonding with each of the families. Most would say that she was a tad uncanny, but there wasn’t really any harm in that. The villagers let her roam about freely, for that’s what seemed to make her happy. As long as she stayed out of people’s way while they were at work, they were fine with the situation. And so for the next six years of her life, that is precisely what Raven did. And then that fateful day arrived.

The girl had gone out early, as was often her habit. She had ventured out into the woods, collecting various berries and nuts. This is what the child typically did in the mornings, and then she would bring whatever she had collected back the house that she was staying at for the night. That was not to be the case on this night though.

The girl returned early from the woods. She bore no berries and nuts with her. A strange look was reflected in her eyes as she entered the village square. The first person she came across did not even have a chance to utter a syllable; fire fell from the sky and consumed the poor woman. The young man that witnessed the horror let out a scream of terror; his eyes locked on to Raven in a stare that was both accusatory and frightened. But why was the young man blaming Raven? It is easy to blame someone when theirs are the hands that raised towards the heavens and then pointed towards the victim, an action which was followed by fiery flames bursting forth from the sky and consuming an innocent villager.

The young man’s scream echoed through the village, as did the roar of fire. The village itself was being consumed by great bolts of fire which had suddenly fallen from the sky. Soon the fire was accompanied by lightening. Great gales of wind began to rip through the village, spreading the fire even more. In the middle of all this chaos, completely untouched, was the girl who had once been called Raven. No more was that the name that fell from peoples’ lips; no, now they screamed the curse of Wicked Abomination.

Just as suddenly as the chaos and destruction had begun, it ended. The fire was swooped back up into the sky, winds disappeared without leaving even so much as a breeze, and the lightning ceased to strike. In the short time this all took, an hour at the most, the village of Dunai was completely destroyed. The village looked as though a great battle had recently taken place and in the process had completely wiped out everything. The homes and other buildings were now pieces of rubble. The fields where the crops had been grown were now acres of charred ground. As for the villagers, bodies lay scattered all about. Most of them were burnt beyond recognition. There was nothing at all left of some villagers. Hundreds of innocent lives had been taken in just an hour’s time by a child that they had called one of their own. The same child that now stood in the middle of all this terrible destruction, an unreadable, yet most definitely cold, expression on her face.

There had been a few members of the village that had managed to survive the onslaught somehow. They had witnessed the terrors of the Wicked Abomination and survived. Having done so, they knew that she must not be allowed to continue on like this. She must be destroyed. How do you destroy something so powerful though? How do you kill something that resembles a child; one that lived among them for nearly eight years? None in the group of survivors could answer these questions. Fear gripped them.

It was fear that finally drove them to an answer. They would lock the demon child away; far away where she could no longer bring harm to anyone else. In that way they would not have to kill her and yet she would cause no one else harm. It was a risky plan, but one they felt bound to act upon. And so they approached the abomination, trying to stifle signs of fear and horror. They attempted to act as though she were still one of them. None of this really mattered, for the child seemed to pay them no mind when they approached her. She stared ahead with unblinking eyes, her expression never changing. It was as though she was in a trance. Not wishing to loose what seemed to be an advantage, the villagers quickly bound the child up. They tied her limbs; hands bound behind her back and fight tied tightly together. They gagged her, so that no deceptive words could slip forth from her lips.

One of the survivors went forward before the group, moving on to the next village to secure horses. They most move quickly, and this would not be the case by foot. And so horses were secured and the party began their journey. They traveled a great distance to get to their destination; they passed through the great plains, crossed the mighty river of Lyx, and finally climbed the mountains of Demazia. Treacherous was the journey at some points, but it was necessary. All the while that they had made the journey, they had been in fear of the abomination; afraid that it would once again unleash unholy fury from the sky. The creature did no such thing; instead it seemed to remain in its trance. It remained in the trance all the way up until it was locked away inside a cave, near the peak of the highest mountain. Massive boulders were rolled in front of the cave entrance. And finally, just in case the wicked abomination woke from its trance, a trapping spell was placed upon the cave. The spell prevented anything from exiting the cave.

For eight hundred years, the wicked abomination had been trapped inside the cave. No one ventured near the cave. For eight hundred years, there was peace among the land; but as history would have it, peace would not remain.