Canadian Pen Pal Part 7

This piece is several pages long (on the small steno pad) and covers the legend/history of the land in Not a Hero:

A long time ago, the world was different. The fae practiced majic without restraint. Dragons flew from city to city to share their knowledge and services. The other mythical creatures were not so mythical and were as common as the mute animals that we know now. Humans were well kept as well.

The fae don't know where the humans came from; apprently they were found on the shore in tattered ships that were not fit to sail in the first place. The fae took in the miserable remnants of the new, strange rance and decided to foster them. The humans were homely compared to the fae and without majic. They had no special talents like many of the mythicals. They had no history or skill like the dragons. They were only somewhat more intelligent than the mundane beasts, but capable of language and learning.

The fae collectively decided to take on the humans and their developments as their pet project.

Right around that time, several researchers discovered a majic residue existing in concentrated areas such as cities. This caused slight concern before an engineer found a way to collect and use this residue through mechanical means. This allowed for fae to create mechanical tools for human to use to mimic some majic. It seemed like success because even with these new machines, the residue never decreased. In fact, it continued to increase.

The humans also had a high population increase. They blossomed under the fae's watch. They were able to set up their own culture, their own cities, their own place in the world. This became a period of peace and growth.

Until the illness started to manifest. It was pieced together between several cities and separate events. Certain fae were facing extremely destructive bouts of insanity. People were getting hurt in large numbers because of rogue fae. The cause was unknown.

A seeming separate epidemic of sterility was affecting the fae. It was only affecting cities as well. So between the two string of events, a percentage of the fae moved out of the city. The number of new cases of insane fae and sterility dropped in the cities. The concentration of the residue decreased in the cities but slowly increased now in rural areas, which was a boon to residue equipment. The fae continued to practice majic. The total amount of residue in the environment increased.

When concentration levels returned to increasing, the cases of insanity and cases of sterility also began to increase. The trend continued. The use of majic increased residue. As residue increased there were more cases of insanity and sterility. The connection between the symptoms was made and then related to the increase of residue. Efforts were made to eliminate residue and reduce additional majic poisoning but the trend was inevitable.

The Age of the Fae was coming to an abrupt end.

They used the end of their days to prepare the humans for their reign over the land because majic poisoning was not affecting them. The mythical creatures faded away. The dragons retreated from the miasma. The sterile fae defended the humans from those who went dangerous. Within three generations, the fae fell. The insane were hunted. The sterile died childless. The world had changed. Majic was renamed to the use of the machines left behind and man rose to the vacuum. The fae and mythical creatures just become stories.