Many years ago on a continent to the east of Ichrak lived a people who spent most of their lives as miners from the age of sixteen after their coming of age ceremony down to their late eighties and even nineties for some, mining all types of ores within the earth, from gold to uranium and even to Ganbo the hardest element within their known world, was like breathing for them.
These people earned a living by trading everything that could be found underneath their feet to those around the world, for food that couldn't grow on their land, and technology they couldn't make from their very own natural resources to security and protection from those who may want to exploit or abuse them.
Progress of such nature had never been recorded in the history of humankind. Leading this land to become the very first land to gain the title of a Kingdom, as the people of this world only consider a land with advancement and success that surpasses the borders of that nation a Kingdom.
Many years passed and those who thought this Kingdom would crumble from greed or lust for power or laziness caused by being consumed in all their great achievements and resources that could last them for eons, could not believe it stood tall without shaking like a slender tree in the winds of a stormy land. As many Kingdoms after them had risen and fallen all in a short span of time. But only the Kingdom of Vena stood the test of time.
That is, until the day of the Great Drop.
It all happened within a minute. An experience that changed the course of history for all within the world, but most of all, for the people of Vena.
With the Great Drop turning the whole world upside down, making the impossible become possible and the abnormal very normal. Things that would be considered fiction in the world before were now considered reality and things that were once part of reality became fictional to those born years after.
And to the people of Vena, this was their story.
A land and a people so prosperous, that even in the face of doubt they never fell, fell so hard it shook the whole world.
Being a Kingdom founded on mining, taking from the core of the world, the resources and minerals within it and using it to enrich themselves, so also did they all become the very land they stood on.
No one noticed it until it struck like lightning hitting the lake of Maracaibo. In the sixteenth year after the Great Drop, a year that changed the course of history and way of life for the people of Vena. A year recorded as the first wave in the fall of the Kingdom of Vena.
It all started in the Ganbo town of the Vena Kingdom, the main town on the continent, centered around mining Ganbo.
Deep within one of its Ganbo mines, lamps on the helmets of miners flashed as the work, with the strong smell of Ganbo, a musty and choking smell mixed with the pungent smell of the workers sweats. The clanking of pickaxes hitting the solid mass of earth surrounding the fragments of the Ganbo ore resounding within the mines.
An elderly miner, stops and wipes his face, he asks his group in the east mines if they'll need anything as he was planning to return to the central point to get water and food for them.
"Oi, you, rookie." He called out to a new miner who was farther out than the older miners who mined in the deeper parts of the mines. "Do you need... Hey?" He called out as he walked closer after noticing the young boy had stopped moving all of a sudden.
"Oi, stop joking around. Answer when your elders are... Hey, hey. Guys help?" He screamed out to the other men as he noticed the young miner had completely turned into a black metallic substance, with its point of origin being around the heart of the boy.
The other miners came running only to move backwards in fear of what stood in front of them. Immediately regaining themselves they rushed out of the mines with the body. To their surprise they ran into the miners from the west wing of the mines who were also carrying someone with the exact same condition.
On reaching the town, all they could see were multiple statues of every sixteen-year-old within the town. A sight so dreadful the bells of a crisis which had never been rang in any town for centuries were rang for the first time that day all over the Kingdom of Vena
Like an airborne virus spreading its wings everywhere, more cases began springing up like moles out of their holes all over the continent within that same month, and just like that every sixteen-year-old male and female within the Kingdom of Vena were transformed into solid black metallic statues.
The news of this great loss and incident was well hidden and kept away from crossing the borders of the continent, with all the bodies frozen in time taken to an underground shelter to be hidden and preserved, for the day a cure or miracle could be found. As the people of Vena believed it was a curse from the gods upon them for mining nonstop for so many years and neglecting their religious beliefs.
And so they went into a great fast, sacrificed a great number of animals to cleanse the land and did a lot of prayers and rituals all to beg for the forgiveness of the gods for neglecting them for years and wallowing in their success as the Kingdom of ores.
Months after that dark period for the people of Vena, there were no more cases of the curse which was now called Ogun. As the metal that swallowed the youths was a metal far stronger than every ore they have ever encountered, as no one and no metal used could break it in an attempt to free the youths. A Metal so beautiful they gave it the name of their very god.
The people of Vena returned back to their daily lives but this time, with constant, consistent and compulsory worship of their god on every last day of the week, to thank it for granting them with great ores for the week and for keeping them as the most prosperous nation in the world.
But as if mocking them, time ticked and the day it all began rolled over again, and on exactly one year since the first incident, Ogun reappeared in the Kingdom of Vena.
And just like the first time, everyone who had turned sixteen that year became frozen in the black shiny metal once again. Another generation of Venas completely erased.
Panic flooded the Kingdom, the people didn't know what to do, and even the chieftains couldn't help as many of them had sons and daughters who were afflicted by Ogun this time.
Slowly but steadily the panic grew into madness, with people demanding the sacrifice of male infants, the first sons of every household or young female virgins to appease the god, Ogun. As it seemed to them as though their last efforts fell on deaf ears, or was not enough to appease it.
Many opposed this idea, as killing their own was never a thing recorded amongst the people of Vena. Something so vile and inhuman. How could they?
What if Ogun did not accept it again, would all those lives be thrown away for nothing? But what if it does accept it, won't that save their whole people from being completely wiped out?
Questions kept rising as people began realising how grave the curse could be if every year that went by, the next generation of youths kept disappearing, in a mere sixteen years the whole of Vena could have no younger generation to continue their story.
So, in a search of a solution for their inevitable doom. The Kingdom of Vena issued a fake news to the world, claiming it needed the best doctors, herbalists and healers from every nation and whichever nation's medicine men can cure all diseases will be granted access to a new ore they found, an ore of much greater value than gold, uranium and even Ganbo.
The thought of gaining such a material threw the whole world into a frenzy, of course none knew such an ore didn't really exist within the grounds of Vena, but knowing the history of Vena, everyone trusted their news.
Meanwhile, all those who were above the age of getting affected by Ogun took it upon themselves to go around the world to find a cure for the next generation before the clock ticks again, just in case their request didn't reach places that may have the perfect cure for their problems.
At the same time, the Ichrak Empire who were already dealing with the plague of the Canchelle, a new flower that came to be in the land after the day of the Great Drop, were lucky to have the Egwus be a part of their continent, which helped in dealing with and containing the bone melting disease the pores of the Canchelle spread across the land.
The Ichrak Emperor at that time, Fuanfo the second, decided Ichrak must be the one to have the metallic ore that the people of Vena claim to have found in their land.
Of course, sending a military there, wrecking the place and stealing it would have been much more effective and efficient, but the news spread by the Kingdom of Vena did not describe what the ore looked like, leaving anyone who tried to go in to take it by force in a never ending hunt for a pin in a haystack the size of a mountain.
He decreed to the Egwus that they move their finest dancers, which in turn meant their best healers to the Kingdom of Vena and show them just how great the medicines of Ichrak are, all for the sole purpose of his will to gain Ogun.
But, unfortunately for the world, this single act was the biggest mistake the Emperor, the Egwus and the Kingdom of Vena made and the sole fuel that started the flames of hatred that now eats up the two nations, as it led to the great fall of the Kingdom of Vena.