Deadzones
What are they? How did they get here? What is their purpose? These are questions with no answers... yet.
what we know
The deadzones are what is left of the wastelands.
Paradise spread as time went on, sunlight warmed the trees and brought back the leaves, breezes ruffled the plains. This prosperity spread faster in some places than in others. A darkness settled over areas where, no matter what they did, the cats with powers couldn’t seem to do anything about. The black souls were sent in to fight off the injustices and the evil within the souls that lived in these areas. It worked-- for a while. The deadzones were slowly and surely diminished, until hardly any remained.
Then about two years ago, the first deadzone came back. One week the forest was green and blooming, and the next, the trees had died again. The branches shriveled and the ground turned black. Fog floated through the dense underbrush, heavy and damp. The prey died in masses.
In a panic, the Legendaries closed the deadzone off. No one was allowed in, no one was allowed near it, as much as they could manage. The Legendaries worked tirelessly to try to figure out what had happened, what went wrong… but then more deadzones started to appear.
They shut down access to all of the deadzones. More and more started to appear, and the Legendaries started to assume they were doing something wrong. For two years, they debated on what to do, argued and fought, until finally a decision was made: they needed help. They needed new Legendaries.
They crafted Trials of their own; a series of tests meant to bring out the soul powers within the cats that dwelt in the world. It was there they would find more complete souls, and afterwards, the new gods could help them get rid of the deadzones once and for all, though they wouldn't tell them of their duties just yet.
This is the true reason for the new Trials.
If you were to step inside a deadzone, it would seem completely lifeless. Nothing moves, nothing breathes. There are no normal forests sounds of wind rustling or prey scuttling or the noise of insects. The fog settles over your pelt like a blanket, threatening to suffocate you. If you walked deeper into it, you would start to notice...things. A buzzing hum hangs in the air, like electricity waiting to crack. Bits of light shine between the trees, but you can never quite see the source. The light is red, unnaturally red, not like fire or sunlight. It is a harsh and dangerous red. An eerie red. When you get closer, you see things like red fireflies floating through the trees, silent and ethereal as they flickered in and out of existence. Nothing here is natural, you realize with a jolt. This feels wrong. This is not what the world is supposed to look like, or how it is supposed to behave.
This is something else.