Welcome to Gaia! ::

Pre-ATE

It all began with a box.

A box which contained the spirit of Chaos personified. Trapped by her own anger, tormented by demons which sprang forth from the shadowy corners of her own mind for century after long, lonely century, the Sentinel and her Trickbox were locked away from the sight of mortals. But not immortals.

Released by Jack, the spirit of Hallowe'en, to wreak untold chaos across the land, there was only one person who could stop her - her own brother, the Overseer, spirit of Law and goodness, himself trapped within a defensive shell for the millenia, but living a comfortable life cared for by humans. He gathered followers - Gaians (and non-Gaians) of valour and courage, who were willing to stand up to the threat of his sister's ultimate plan; to infest the world with otherworldly demons, via a massive portal the likes of which the magical world had never seen before.

Although hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Benevolent Order of the Overseer fought on and on, and neither side could gain an advantage. The law of the land and the governing bodies of Gaia were on the side of the Order. The criminal underworld flocked to the Sentinel's Infernal Nation. Finally, after several months of war, the climactic battle to end it took place. The Overseer and the Sentinel struggled for dominance, but neither could win. Their powers were stripped from them and they were cast off to an unknown location. The First Setinel War ended at that instant, casting both sides of followers in total confusion!

For most people, that was the end. The War was over. Gaia was not infested by demons. The portal collapsed. Nobody won.

But for a small group of faithful Ordonians, the end was not the End. It was only just the beginning...



After The End

The remnants of the Order retreated, broken and confused, to the only place where there was no hostility to their cause - the Isle de Gambino. Setting themselves up in a dingy converted condo was not enough - things were not fated to go smoothly in these dark times. Barely enough money to survive, conflict between the administrators, conflict between the members. In the darkest times, the High Priestess was not certain that things could go on.

The situation only got worse when a mysterious lady elf - a sorceress name Cressa - arrived at the Order. A fight broke out between her and the Spellcasting master, resulting in his untimely death... and half of the Temple being reduced to ruins in a massive explosion.

The destruction of the Temple, however, would prove to be a rallying point. The Order had a cause again. It took weeks of work, but the Temple was restored, better and brighter than before, and there was sufficient media interest in the Order's story to bring in a flood of generous donations. The Order ended the year with a Christmas Ball, and what a Ball it was! There was hope again for everyone, for the first time in weeks.

Meanwhile, Cressa and the Order's Combat master, Jessie, were searching for a way to restore their good name. Well, not just a way - a person. The missing Overseer. By restoring him to his followers, they hoped to be welcomed back into open arms. Their search eventually leads them to a strange, ancient temple in the mountains, where it seems a dead magical cult once lived. They find in its depths a strange creature which calls itself the Oracle.

It claims to be a god-like creature, created by Mother Gaia to hold knowledge of everything about the past, present and future. Once mighty, it is now contained in human form, because the humans who built the temple to contain it wanted to use its power as a weapon against their enemies. It claims to have created the Overseer and the Sentinel, long, long ago, in order to better understand the forces acting upon itself - those Chaotic, and those Lawful.

Out of kindness, the elves use the wish granted to them by the Oracle to free it from its ancient imprisonment. Eventually, they find the Overseer, hiding in a forest home surrounded by hundreds of child-like boobytraps. The Overseer had been having a whale of a time as "master" of the forest, his sister at his side.

Unfortunately, the Sentinel cannot put her anger and jealousy to the side at this time. She is enraged and hurt that the Overseer's followers have been searching for him, whilst hers have all trickled away. She storms off, and the elves return - Overseer in tow - to much New Years rejoicing at the reconstructed Temple!

Meanwhile, the Sentinel is trying to drum up support in a town, but the crowds boo her, and she's forced to sit in an alley and despair, alone. It is then that a mysterious man appears, long, hooded cloak covering him from top to toe, and offers her greatness far beyond her former power... far beyond any power the mortal world has ever seen.


After the Finding

The Sentinel isn't the only one moping, because the Overseer, whilst happy to be back amongst his kin, is morose about his lack of divine powers. He trains with the three instructors - Lorika, Jessie and the newly-appointed Cressa - and their students every day to try and rekindle the sparks, but to no avail. Lorika and the other priestesses, however, can still access their powers, and bear the marks of the Overseer's favour - their strangely-coloured eyes - for the world to see. As they are no more than catalysts for his power, they conclude it must be dormant or locked away somewhere else, rather than truly gone forever.

They keep trying, and trying. But strange things begin to happen around the Temple and its grounds. Energy fluctuations... random destruction in rooms.. one of the acolytes has an odd, unexplained seizure after encountering a man in a long, black cloak, who offered them power beyond their imagination on the beach. By this time, a second Spellcasting master has arrived at the Order - a replacement from the academy of the former master. He and Cressa are unable to agree or share their power (or office), but soon enough they're forced to work together. During an argument, they detect and track a demon lurking around the halls, pursuing it down through the basement and into the holding cells, where it leaps through... a portal.

They dismantle the sinister construction and call an urgent meeting. Everyone is upset and nervous. No one knows who could be behind, since the Sentinel has supposedly lost her powers. They conclude it must have been someone on the inside, and the next few weeks are rife with suspicion and finger-pointing.

However, they don't have to speculate very long, because the true culprit soon makes herself known. The Sentinel is back, and she's bigger and badder than ever - more aggressive, more evil. Her brother is scared of her. There's something very wrong. And her new goal is not to just infest the world with demons, but to annihalate it by sucking it through the most tremendous portal ever known in the universe, to a place where nothing exists at all.

But first, she has to sate her jealous need for revenge on her brother and his miserable, clam-licking followers.

Thus, the Second Sentinel War begins - a battle for life and limb between the Sentinel's army of demons and the Order. The waves of demons grow stronger and more frequent as the weeks pass. Initially, they cannot penetrate the holy barriers set up around the Temple, but when the stronger demon Generals begin arriving, the barriers break one by one. Meanwhile, Lorika is working frantically with the Overseer, trying to regain his powers - they can't risk sending him out onto the battlefield in his state, no matter how much he wants to go.

Finally, the demons break through the final layer of shielding. Most are prepared and hurry inside the Temple, but a small number lose their lives at this point; they're caught in the clamour, carried off by clawing hands and ripping teeth. All of the magicians of the Order work together to construct one final, desperate, powerful shield, to keep them all from descending at once. And there are hundreds of them. Demons, demons and more demons, ripping at the walls, breaking in through the windows - but they're stopped by this barrier... until their mistress arrives.

The Sentinel is unrecognisable. She's been warped by whatever unholy power she's been drawing from, transforming her into a hulking, misshapen beast, no longer recognisably human, or recognisably anything! The Order retreat to the Overseer's throne room for one final stand. A magical hurricane is whipping outside. It pulls the roof off the Temple, whilst other demons set fires and cause untold mayhem on the floors below. The Sentinel slowly climbs the stairs to face her enemies, who put on a brave, determined show. Everybody fights together to keep her off, but it is as if the Sentinel is swatting flies. She sweeps everyone to the sides of the room with her raw power - everyone except the High Priestess, who is pouring her energy into one last powerful shield to protect herself and the Overseer.

The Sentinel cannot immediately penetrate the shield, but when she finally does, she picks the green-haired woman up like a doll and, with her long, inhuman claws, disembowels her as the rest of the Order can only look on in horror, pinned in place by the Sentinel's unearthly power.

It is the Sentinel's hesitation to proceed straight to the Overseer that is her downfall. She makes the same mistake most villains invariably make, which is stopping to gloat over her victory after she finishes playing with the Priestess. Cressa has been searching for a way to defeat her - and she finds it. With Deylin providing her with extra power, she takes hold of the evil, unnatural energies surrounding the Sentinel and yanks them out of her before she can end the Overseer, too. A great, black mass escapes out of the open roof, and the members of the Order are immediately freed as the Sentinel transforms back into her normal self - powerless and fragile.

But while the rest of the Order is in confusion, Cressa and Deylin are still working together to catch hold of the energies that escaped her - they contain them together, and drag them back down to earth. The vortex returns into the room and solidifies into a man wearing a long, black cloak... a man with a wicked, pointy grin, who looks identical to the Overseer... but wrong...



Towards the Reawakening

The lookalike reveals himself to be the Underwatcher - the Overseer's Mirror World equivalent, who really is much, much nastier than the Sentinel of our world. Another battle is about to break out when a second stranger arrives on the scene; a lady who looks very much like Sentinel, except reversed! She's blonde and pale and wears a beautiful dress, and she proclaims herself to be the Guardian - the Sentinel's equivalent in the Mirror World. She commands her brother to skulk back to wherever he skulked out of, and he goes without a fight. She takes this as a bad omen, stating that he must only have some bigger plan in mind to have given up so easily...

Over the coming months, the Guardian pops back and forth between the worlds, her travel made easier by an enchanted mirror the spellcasters install. She reveals that she has been struggling against the Underwatcher for a very long time - the inverse of our own world, where the fighting only went on for a few short months after the deities were imprisoned for millenia. She frets that her brother has been gaining in power, and fears he truly does mean to destroy the normal world - which would have unknown repercussions on the mirror world, being just a shadow of Gaia. Now, the Order is not only fighting for the fate of their own world, but for another.

The Guardian's ultimate plan is to defeat the Underwatcher once and for all, and she strikes a deal with the Order that if they help her, she'll make it so that the Underwatcher's powers can be transferred to the Overseer after he's defeated. Because of the reflective nature of the mirror-selves, despite the Underwatcher's powers being composed of evil, when transferred to his counterpart this would restore the Overseer's divinity. During this time, the regular Ordonians have the opportunity to accompany her back to battle her brother's minions, and are able to fight their own mirror-selves if they desire.

Finally, the Underwatcher enacts his plot. Whilst his minions wreak havoc on the real world, he transports the minds of the Order members to a strange place - a kind of nightmare realm, populated by more of the Underwatcher's minions in the guise of whatever each of the Ordonians fear most. This is a horrible place. It's like being physically trapped in one of those typical dreams where you're trying to chase someone, but are always too slow to catch them: inside your own mind, if you don't believe in yourself, or have insecurities, it can tear you apart. This renders Ordonians who are all-powerful in the real world but lacking in self-belief, such as Lorika and, surprisingly, Cressa, weak as babies. Your own mind is your worst enemy inside a nightmare.

After escaping from their own personalised nightmares, the Ordonians are able to regroup in the nightmare world and plan their escape. The Underwatcher has again provided himself with a fatal flaw, as technically, he cannot exist within the dream world either - it is not a physical place. Physically, everyone is where they were before their minds were transported away.

So, by eventually appearing to our heroes, he lays himself open to total destruction. After battling him in a series of increasingly horrible transformed forms alongside the Guardian, the Underwatcher and his counterpart end up duelling together. The Overseer is not constrained here like he is in the physical world, and so he can fight him on his own level. Miraculously, the Overseer's will proves stronger than his. He lands the finishing blow using a sword the Guardian made, composed of her own will, and as the Underwatcher's mind collapses, the nightmare world begins to fade away also.

The dream and physical worlds begin to merge as the will that created it perish. It is at this point that the Oracle steps in, returning the favour of its freedom by transferring all of the Underwatcher's powers to the Overseer and simultaneously destroying his body.

As the world fades back to reality, our heroes can hardly believe it. It's over! The Overseer has had his power returned to him! The long battle is ended, and everyone rejoices. Everyone except the Sentinel, who still hasn't got any powers of her own.

But still... perhaps she's better off without them anyway.