Kehvarra - the destruction of the Isle of Respite
The Isle of Respite has been almost as much of a home for us as our great ships for time immemorial. But that came to an end in the sixteenth Time of Water in the Era of Black Clouds. Of course, the Isle was far less inhabited at this point than in a Time of Ice, for the Times of Water are better suited to our expeditions. And as the Isle was less inhabited, so also was it less defended. And at this vunerable time, the Isle was invaded by a great horde of Mazormed. Though we had, of course, come across these shelled monstrosities many times before in our travels, battles had only occured when we had entered the vicinity of their land. We had heard of invasions before, but few and small ones only.
This invasion was the largest ever seen, and has ever been seen since. The Mazormed burst out of the oceans and swarmed onto the Isle. The first wave took out three villages before it was repulsed. After this, we believed that the invasion had been defeated, and began to repair the damage and mourn our losses. How wrong we were.
The second wave was much larger, and this wave swarmed the entire Isle, right to the centre. The majority of Kehvarra on the Isle lost their lives in that attack, though they sold their lives dearly. The survivors took refuge in the central building, the Healer's Rest, and brought out the most powerful magics and weapons the Kehvarra had found on our journeys, those artifacts forbidden except under the most desperate of circumstances. Though exhausted and terrified, the survivors cast a spell of tremendous power, one that destroyed two thirds of the Mazormed horde. The spell's cost was great, and almost fifty Kehvarra sacrificed their life forces to it, so that the Isle would survive.
But the disaster that ended the invasion ended any meaning that sacrifice had. A huge monster appeared amongst the Mazormed. To this day, no one knows what the monster was or where it came from, but from the description that the lone survivor gave, a few have whispered that it resembled a larger, more grotesque version of the monster created when the Yalei twins called Sharra and Tevwex merge into one being, the demonic Sharex. Whether or not the monster was a Yalei, it did the unthinkable. According to the surviving reports, it floated up into the sky and eclipsed the sun, causing the Mazormed still living to flee into the oceans. Then the beast flew straight down into the ground. The impact caused the very Isle to shatter and break up, to sink into the oceans, dragging the few surviving Kehvarra with it. Satisfied with this horrific act, the monster disappeared into the ocean, with the Mazormed following.
Of the tens of thousands of Kehvarra that were on the Isle of Respite at the time, one single Kehvarra survived the attack. This was Sember, now last of the family of Farseekers, who would eventually grow to become the greatest Kehvarra hero to ever live. At this time, he was still a child, not yet nine Two-Times. Yet despite his age, his injuries, his fear, and being alone in an expanse of water, rubble and corpses several miles wide, Sember recognised a duty. He swam to the only seaworthy boat he could find and collected as many treasures and artifacts as he could before the ocean claimed them all. For six Sun-Sights, with little food or drinkable water, he kept his boat in the site of the Isle, writing an account of the disaster. It was then that the lead ship of the family of Unknown Shores returned to the Isle and found nothing but a child on a small boat.
Sember grew up with the Unknown Shores as they sent the Call of Gathering to the horrified Kehvarra. He told the tale of the Fall of Respite, and in a few Two-Times would lead the Kehvarra on a mission to find a new settlement. It would be only half a Time before he died when he forged a pact with the Kii and brought our people to a new settlement, but his legacy lives on in the Farseekers, the elite Kehvarra knights and defenders who hunt the Mazormed and guard our race.