Haelin's history was nearly forgotten. It was never put to paper and only few remain who could recall it. For most, it was a history that was gone and seemingly didn't affect them, thus hardly anybody attempted to fill in the gaps. Those who tried gave up, realizing that all they had left betrayed no secrets and there didn't seem to be a way of finding more information. The only thing that remained of this lost history was a region called The Barren, appropriately named from the lack of any life that existed there. It was toxic – the waters were a strange grey purple colour, the air was unnaturally dark, ad not even grass dared to grow, producing a perfect ring of grass that marked the boundary between life and death. The country that shared a river with The Barren, Vedia, was forced to build a dam that prevent its toxic water from infecting their livelihood.

The whispers that there was more to The Barren than met the eye began with a woman who claimed to see the future. She appeared seemingly out of nowhere, with flowing red hair that reminded everybody she talked to of fire. She couldn't see the past but she surprised everybody when she called The Barren a barely tamed beast that sought freedom from its chains. She advise that nobody ever set foot on The Barren, not just because it was dangerous, but she claimed that it would help free the beast. She promised to lead an unimportant country called Adoss to prosperity, to finally gave Adoss its place among the countries of Haelin.

They built her a temple, where she stayed and lived for the rest of her life. When she died, they erected a statue of her and burned her body. She resembled the flames even in death, like they were reclaiming a long lost family member. She had no children but it only took ten years to find a child who had a knack for predicting things. He was pulled from his life in a noble family and he too began to live the rest of his life in the temple.

Even the second oracle, a man not unlike the first oracle in appearance, tensed around the idea of The Barren. Not unlike his predecessor he spoke of The Barren like it was a living being and instructed that nobody go beyond the edge of the grass. Upon hearing his words, the king at the time erected a long wall among the border of Adoss and The Barren but the rulers of the other countries refused to do anything similar even though they also shared borders with The Barren. Adoss was alone with their oracles, so while everybody agreed that The Barren was bad, they did not think anything ore of it.

Five years after the second oracle died, The Barren changed. Grass began to grow. The citizens of Vedia noticed that the river that flowed through The Barren was cleaner and contemplated on removing the dam. The air didn't seem as foul. The rulers got together to discuss the matter, though Adoss lacked their third oracle. Everybody agreed to wait for twenty years and see how The Barren progressed before they would even begin discussing how to divide up the land. The land may been cleaner but there were no animals and with the words of the previous oracles hanging over the King of Adoss' head, he refused to let anybody to go in without waiting first.

After all, the two oracles had nothing good to say about it. He used that to fact convince everybody to wait, even though he lacked an oracle at the time to show the rest of Haelin just why he placed so much trust in their words. The oracles were very good – it wasn't a case of simple fortune telling. Their ability, he believed, was real and Haelin needed to heed their warning and stay out.

Zahan, a country with two great mountains, wouldn't wait twenty years and Queen Asteria brought her army to The Barren, only allowing elven years to go by. She wanted more fertile land and she thought that Adoss' reservations with The Barren was absurd. If everybody else was going be cautious about it then they deserved to get nothing from The Barren. Her father may have agreed to it but Queen Asteria only saw the benefits and she didn't want to divide it – to cut it between five countries basically amounted to little land for everybody. They were going to race for it, but Queen Asteria was the only who was aware of the race.

The beast smirked but nobody saw. It may have taken centuries but freedom was insight. The chains were looser. The beast was aware and ready.