IN THE YEAR 941 AFTER MONRO OUR GODDESS, ALSO KNOWN AS YEAR 1 OF THE SINGING KING'S AGE, A GREAT NOISE FILLED THE ATMOSPHERE OF OUR WORN-DOWN, WAR-WEARY EARTH. AND THE SOUND WAS CALLED "RADIO."

From walled city to walled city, from continent to continent, across the glaciers of the Eternal Ice in the north, over the ruin steppes of Old Juro, over the lands of mighty Awrica, across the oceans spread the rediscovery of radio transmission, quickly replacing the nobility's centuries-old laser networks.

The man brought down to us from the Golden Age in a frozen sleep, DARC, who rediscovered radio, called this change "democracy of the air." Commoners and burghers, who had barely glimpsed the world outside their fortified cities, were suddenly exposed to voices from other lands and peoples. And all classes of people listened in to Darc's continued broadcasts in "The Voice of Liberty." Darc gave them the gospel of the Plague Cure, and the music of the Golden Age, and the songs of Vis the Singing King which carried the power of Rokenrol.

And so the world slowly, fitfully, began to rebuild the greatness it had once lost.

But there were yet cities, cut off from the ancient laser-transmission networks, or suspicious of change, that would not turn their old ways so easily. Where messages could or would not reach, messengers had to be sent in.

The master physician Mechao the Nineteenth founded a University of the Sciences on his home island Kap Verita, off the northwest coast of Awrica. And in this year, for the first time, he sent his offspring into the world to teach and to learn, to spread the knowledge of the Plague Cure and help put an end to the dark centuries.

While I still went by the name Awonso of Damon City, a humble apprentice librarian in the castle of Lord Dohan Damon, I joined this great work. And thus my eyes were opened to the mysteries of other lands, above and beneath the ground.

Together with Mechao's son Threo, Sir Kensaburé Orbes and Lady Okono Yota of North Castilia, I was sent on a mission to northeastern Italica, to bring the Plague Cure to the city of VANITIA.

Here follows the tale of our adventure in Vanitia, the city of masks...

Excerpt from Librian's "Chronicles" (translated from the original language)

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