East of the Western Continent's winding, shattered western coastline lay an ancient basin swallowed by lush vegetation.
On modern adventurers' maps, this place was marked in striking red as the "Cursed Land."
Mutated Demonic Beasts prowled among the collapsed ruins, while warped magic fields hung like invisible swamps, ready at any moment to swallow those who wandered in by mistake.
A disturbing pale-purple mist lingered in the air year-round. It was pollution left behind by runaway magic, like ghosts that had yet to disperse.
Yet in some ancient and obscure elven ballads, this place had once borne a more glorious name: Asteria.
It meant "Daughter of the Stars."
Its very birth had been a miracle.
Back in the age of the elven royal court, before humanity had risen to prominence, the High Elves who lived here built a flourishing city.
Until that catastrophic night, when a meteor shower tore open the heavens without warning.
That rain of destruction was no ordinary meteor shower. Like spears of heavenly punishment, it effortlessly pierced the magical barriers the elves had taken such pride in.
Lofty spires were snapped in half, and exquisite palaces crumbled to dust in an instant.
The elves discovered in terror that conventional magical defenses were as fragile as thin paper before these visitors from beyond the sky.
For within the meteor fragments that brought destruction lay a powerful magic never seen before.
Violent, chaotic, unimaginable.
After the disaster, most elves were deeply afraid of these objects from beyond the heavens and advocated treating them as a curse, sealing them underground.
However, some elven mages held a different view.
They believed this was a sacred gift from beyond the heavens.
Defying all opposition, these elves began obsessively studying the strange power contained within the fallen fragments of stars.
With the