As it has been for generations, the Nharkim remain by far the most advanced race,

  by quite the margin as anyone can tell just by looking at their city from far away - their

  greatness is known to all.

  No other civilisation at this time can even come close to competing with them, and

  so his majesty Hervies the current Human king must push even more. He is ruthless

  and carries much fear in his chest, more than any other ruler before him, and if his

  heart is tight, the borders of his scruples extend far and wide.

  There is nothing that the almighty Hervies will not do for his ambitions.

  The feelings of admiration and awe, of respect and fear towards anything Centra,

  have long been replaced by folly and greed, by petty and misguided ambitions.

  Perhaps nothing shows this better than the Human king’s efforts in his perpetual quest

  for his race to take the front seat. He and all under him have been doing whatever is

  deemed necessary to not fall behind for generations. Hervies is just the next in line of

  a long succession of rulers living in constant fear of what the Nharkim could do at any

  time. But something makes him different however, and no other king that has come

  before him has gone as far as he is willing to go. No other Human ruler before him has

  had so much pressure felt upon his crown either.

  The Nharkim technology seems to grow almost exponentially, improving almost

  by the day and soon who... even now, can guess what they could be scheming?

  The necessary measures must thus be taken even further than that, such as the constant

  deployment of all sorts of scavenger teams to all the known corners of the world in

  desperate attempts to try and uncover more Centra property. All in the hopes of finally

  unveiling some of their biggest secrets, something that could give the Humans the

  necessary advantage to at last take their place as the most powerful in all the lands.

  Hervies holds nothing back when it comes to achieving this; he is well known even by

  those outside his race, as a ruler with complete disregard towards anyone’s welfare and

  how much it might all cost. Time and again he has proven that he is more than willing

  to pour any amount of funds, and he has no restraints in raising taxes either to do so.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He is a dangerous man.

  Not just to others but also to himself. He is perhaps the most dangerous human

  to walk this world in quite some time. Desperation drives him and the fear he feels

  himself, he has no qualms in casting upon others. With each passing day, he tightens

  the noose around his own people’s neck; he demands skin and teeth from all the

  hard-working folk and quite the percentage of his kingdom are on the verge of

  starvation.

  Then he comes and offers insurmountable amounts of currency to anyone willing

  to do his bidding and in doing so, obviously, Hervies has no problem finding the

  required man labour for the more outrageous efforts the Human kingdom is putting

  up these last years. For many years these desperate searches have been going on, for

  the slightest glimpse at any Centra secret and the Celitian Continent has been entirely

  dug up three times over or so, it seems. They have searched any and all ruins, they

  have excavated the soil to the point of not even one more hole can be dug up. In their

  efforts, they exhausted all the land around them and so the time came to look further.

  The time to spread and send search teams outside the known charts, to venture forth

  into the unknown dark corners of the world that most are afraid to even mention

  let alone set foot in. This is how the “Cloudsiras” came to be, Human expeditions

  hell-bent on finding and bringing back what their king values most. No other race is

  known to do this, either because they don’t have the means to cross entire landmasses

  or because they don’t feel that desperate. Humans, however, are second only to the

  Nharkim so they can go anywhere. Their numerous airships can sometimes cover

  entire clouds and as for motivation, well, a man must eat, and their king offers plenty...

  There is still much-uncharted territory across this bleak world, still many landmasses

  and dark continents waiting to be explored.

  So these Human Cloudsiras are always stretching their limits, increasing the size

  of the known map, they are constantly pushing how far can they go; how much

  distance can they cover and how deep can they reach, for as Human technology keeps

  advancing so do their means of exploring.