(DISCLAIMER, this my first time making a fan-fic, so if you guys play the game and notice a mistake of any kind, please notify me so i can improve, i know this series might not last too long, but i will be very happy to have you come along for the ride :D )
Exposition: The World Beneath
It was 1919 when the world split in two—on one side, the Golden Empire; on the other, the Royal Nation. Their ideologies were incompatible, a clash centuries in the making. The peace forged in the wake of the Great War was brief and brittle. One political spark—one assassination—was all it took to ignite something far more destructive than the world had ever seen.
The first bombs fell with ceremony, striking military targets. But that quickly escalated. Strategic became indiscriminate. Gas followed fire. Cities vanished into craters. Forests blackened. Crops withered. The skies turned yellow, and the air turned sour. In time, there was no world left to fight over above ground.
So the war continued below.
Humanity dug deep to escape the ruin. Subterranean tunnels became cities. Mines became highways. Nations re-established their war machines in the dark.
But the world that now exists beneath the Earth is no less violent than the one we lost. The King's War, the Queen's War—it doesn't matter what you call it anymore. Peace is an illusion. And for those of us still alive, survival is the only truth.
Chapter 1a: Ruin
I looked back one last time.
Yakutsk was unrecognizable—just ash and smoke on the edge of the horizon. I remembered when it was a quiet town, bitterly cold in the winter months—minus forty degrees was normal—but the people were warm. It wasn't perfect, but it was ours.
Now, four hours after the final bombing, nothing remained.
The Golden Empire had struck before, but this time was different. This time, it was as if they meant to erase us.
I stood still, letting the wind sting my face, eyes burning from the smoke and cold. Somewhere beneath the rubble were friends I'd never say goodbye to. Family I'd never see again. My breath misted in the air, but I couldn't feel it.
"Hey," came a voice behind me. "We're moving out soon."
I turned. A few dozen survivors remained—some wounded, all silent. We had salvaged what we could. Horses from a military depot nearby had been distributed—old, tired creatures, but enough to carry us to the only place left to go.
A new settlement. They called it Renewal. Seventeen days of travel to this underground settlement in the works. days of uncertainty, cold weather, and hunger. We were told it would be safe. I didn't believe it, but it was the only hope we had.
I packed the last of my things and mounted up. My hands trembled—not from fear, not from cold, but something in between.
My name is Joseph Aslanov. I am nine years old.
And this is how my story begins.
Chapter 1b: The War Below
It started, they say, with a single death.
A prince of the Royal Nation—assassinated in the capital of Eboncourt during a diplomatic summit. No evidence. No claim of responsibility. But the Royal Nation didn't wait for answers. They needed none.
They blamed the Golden Empire.
Retaliation was swift—bombings, gas attacks, military strikes across the border. The Empire responded in kind. Cities were swallowed. Crops turned to dust. The air itself became a weapon.
The surface was choked in months.
Entire continents became uninhabitable. The sky was painted with smoke. The oceans grew sick with ash and oil. No longer able to breathe above, the world was forced beneath.
Both the Empire and the Nation began building their futures underground—but brought their hatred with them.
Even now, the war rages in the deep. Mines became battlegrounds. Underground cities became fortresses. Trenches snake through caverns. Soldiers choke on dust instead of gas, but the dying hasn't stopped.
From the fringes came the solace coalition, a third faction forged not for conquest, but for survival. Neutral, they say. Cowards, others whisper. But without them, the war would have starved long ago. They feed it—manufacturing arms, medicine, and fuel for both sides, walking a razor-thin line to avoid being wiped out.
And then there are the Bandits—deserters, criminals, or just desperate souls who refused to fight, left with nothing but the wilderness between tunnels. Most people shoot them on sight.
It has now been two years since the war began.
Yakutsk was among the last cities to evacuate. Everyone knew we should've left earlier. Everyone said it. But saying something doesn't stop bombs from falling.
Food is nearly gone. The surface is dead. The underground grows more crowded and cruel by the day. The stalemate is eternal—neither side strong enough to win, nor weak enough to die.
Somehow, I survived the last bombing. Somehow, I'm still breathing.
I don't know what Renewal will be like.
But I know I can't go back.