The Twins
The Twins—composed of Nelenor (the dark Twin) and Velion (the light/gold Twin)—are highly advanced alien beings from the planet Starmist Prime and the central figures of the Eldrim religion. Though revered as gods by the elves for a hundred thousand years, they are actually mortal operators of the celestial device known as Xyclami (also called Guruthos or The Fall). Through their connection to the device, they serve as the ultimate source and controllers of all Prime Magic in the universe.
Origins and Arrival
Originally from Sector 421 in the Starmist solar system, Nelenor and Velion fled their home planet after it was threatened by a marauding alien race known as the Xelle. They traveled across the galaxy in search of their older sister and guardian, Kira (also known as Kaela), who had fled earlier.
Their journey eventually brought them to Valaralda during the era known as the Great Awakening. Upon arriving, they were surprised to find the primitive elves already using the passive power of Xyclami via Prime Trees, which acted as natural conduits for the device's soul-based energy. The Twins were initially peaceful and benevolent, possessing no desire to conquer or destroy, simply wishing to locate their sister.
The Imprisonment
The Twins' peaceful intentions were violently interrupted by an ambitious young elven scientist named Aten (later known as Orym or Akhenaten). Feigning a desire to learn from them, Aten drugged the Twins and stole Xyclami. Realizing he could not permanently kill the Twins without rendering the device inoperable, Aten formulated a plan to imprison them forever.
Using the newly discovered Primal Way magic of Soulsundering, Aten's followers severed the Twins' souls from their bodies. Velion's soul was trapped within a glowing golden cypress tree deep within an underwater cave on Earth (in the lost city of Atlantis), while Nelenor was imprisoned within a monstrous, pulsing black willow tree in the sweltering jungles of Eryn. Their physical bodies were discarded, and their souls were banished to the ethereal dimension of Ambarhal. For the next one hundred thousand years, they remained trapped, stewing in their anger and plotting their revenge against "The Imprisoner".
Ambarhal and the Army of Souls
While trapped in Ambarhal, the Twins retained their connection to Xyclami, allowing them to shape the raw energy of the device into the Fourteen Gifts and the disciplined Woodways practiced by the elves.
To facilitate their eventual escape and revenge, the Twins intentionally corrupted the seventh lightform of magic. They made the devastating Soulsundering ritual tantalizingly appealing to the elves, knowing that whenever the spell was used, the severed souls would bypass the normal afterlife and be deposited directly into Ambarhal. Over the millennia—fueled by the rylak's self-destruction on Eryn and the elven Sundering of Earth—the Twins amassed a terrifying army of billions of undead souls.
Religion and Mythology
Despite their imprisonment, the Twins became the central deities of the Eldrim. The Eglaria, an ancient order founded by Aten himself, structured their society around the veneration of the soul's journey and the eventual return of the Twins. The Twins were typically depicted in iconography as two massive, intertwined Trees (named Telperion and Laurelin), or as towering, muscular figures with the heads of Anubis hounds.
Fanatical sects, such as the Devout (or Believers), dedicated their lives to the Twins' worship, violently opposing any interference with ancient ruins or the regulation of magic. The Devout eagerly anticipated the Twins' return, believing their wrath would cleanse the world of all violence.
Release and the War of the Twins
The Twins' hundred-thousand-year imprisonment ended when Trey (the reincarnated Tarathiel) successfully used the artifact Edrafen (The Key). Assuming Edrafen would activate a Defense Mechanism to stop Guruthos, Trey inadvertently severed the magical locks holding the Twins in Ambarhal.
The Twins materialized on Valaralda in the fifty-foot-tall Anubis forms that elven mythology had assigned to them. Mad with a hundred millennia of rage, they immediately laid waste to the city of Ilyrion, crushing skyscrapers, killing tens of thousands, and destroying the remaining Prime Trees. They demanded the world hand over "The Imprisoner".
A massive conflict erupted, drawing in the Department of Magical Research, the United Sky Cities underkids, and hundreds of resurrected Prime Mages. The allied forces attempted to trap the Twins at the Salt Spires using elaborate magical illusions, forceflares, and storm traps, but the Twins' raw control over Destroyer magic made them virtually invincible.
Defeat and Resolution
The Twins' reign of terror was ultimately brought to an end not by force, but by system administration. Rylan, functioning as a "superuser" connected directly to Xyclami, communicated with the machine's artificial intelligence. He convinced Xyclami that the Operators' unchecked emotional rampage and their gathering of billions of souls posed a critical threat to the machine's integrity.
Xyclami agreed and immediately suspended the Twins' Operator privileges, dropping them from the sky and stripping them of their godlike power. Shortly after, Orym's activation of the Pyramid Offensive System forced Xyclami into a hard reboot, permanently removing the Twins from their Operator status.
Reduced to normal Prime Mages and freed from the corrupting, infinite power of the machine, Nelenor and Velion's madness subsided. They dropped their Anubis illusions, reverting to their true, beautiful elven forms, and expressed regret for the devastation they had caused. Relieved of their burden, the Twins agreed to a ceasefire and departed to peacefully resume their original mission: finding their lost sister, Kira.