The Empire is the jewel of progress. Magic pushes the Imperial City forward, leads its people into a golden era. It was the very definition of glory.
For those on top.
In the Imperial City of the Empire, those who use magic are the ones who rule. The better you can use magic, the stronger your abilities, the higher in society you stood. It was even more impressive of your skill and your rank if you lived outside the main city walls, to own land of your own and be confident in protecting it. Even if your family before you had not been so talented, you were able to climb the social ladder simply by demonstrating you had more potential than they. It does not matter if you're human, elf, shapeshifter, or fae, though it is rare to find anything more than humans on this side of the crag. The nobility is highly competitive, constantly trying to improve their skills and show them off, determined to climb higher and higher, to one day grace the Grand Sage who ruled their city, but thus far, none could beat the guards, much less get close to the Sage.
But if you were unfortunate enough to have no abilities at all, you lived in the street or in servitude- unless you were related to those who did have magic, and then you could hide in their mercy if they let you. Many did not get the luxury as their families would not have their names tarnished by someone so useless to society.
But those with power always seek more. Hence the need for this journey. Those with magic seek to control the beings that are impervious to even their strongest spells- dragons. The beasts were sentient, strong, and batted off magic as if it were a flea. They were the only things that could threaten the safety of the Empire. None had, as of yet, because it would force them to cross a dangerous crag. The crag spanned far enough that you could not stand one side and see the other at its widest. It took nearly a century to get a bridge across, and not just because of the width. The crag itself is the source of magic, as the eldest in the Empire believe. However, around the crag, at its source, magic is evil. It is dark and twisted, and nothing that lives close to it is safe from its evils. There are beasts in the dead woods that surround it that have been twisted and deformed by the energies surrounding the gap. The Empire and its closest neighbor, Waylox, have distanced themselves, or at least their capitals, from the crag until it was clear their residents would not be affected by its evils. The sages within the Empire have come to believe that one of the beings that formed the world was punished for their destructive nature and was placed inside the world where they could not affect those who lived on the surface. The crag was the place where that being had been forced inside and the energies that pour from the crag come from the being. They are malicious and destructive in nature at the source due to the beings rage at its imprisonment.
The dragons, the beasts that could destroy the world of mortals should they see fit, had not come for them, had not terrorized them because they dare not chance getting close to that energy. But the mages of the Empire will take the chance. They will cross the crag, they will cross the war-torn country of Waylox, and they will go into the mountainous regions that surround the far country of Caradia in search of a dragon pearl that research has led them to believe can be found- a pearl that would allow them to control one of the original dragons, the strongest of their kind. It will be a perilous journey, and death is not a stretch of a possibility, but those with power will always seek more.
The nobles of the Empire will pay top dollar to those who make it back with the pearl. Though the Grand Sage that is currently the head of the Empire, the strongest magic wielder- unchallenged in their claim-, has decided that they will accept some from each class and there will be a lottery choosing from the lower classes for each noble that joins so that there will not civil unrest because they were not “given a chance.” Any peasant that makes it back alive will be given the status of nobility regardless of their magical capabilities.
All that remains is for those chosen to prepare themselves for what lies outside the walls of their glorious domain....
