Legendary Fire

The Legendary Fire.

The Legendary Fire was an incident inadvertently caused by a young Eve Belduke in which a fire destroyed an entire town, killing almost everyone within; this incident would ultimately lead to the creation of Labyrinthia. There were only three other survivors; Eve's father Newton Belduke, Arthur Cantabella, and Espella Cantabella. Eve would mentally block the fact that it was her that had caused the fire, with both her and Espella believing that it was the latter who was responsible.

The incident

The incident started when six-year-old Espella Cantabella was told by her father to never ring the bell in the Bell Tower, or else the Great Witch Bezella would possess her. Despite her father's warning, Espella's childlike curiosity convinced her to ring the bell anyway. On the night of the annual Fire Festival, she borrowed her mother's pendant and convinced her friend Eve Belduke to bring hers, as they were both needed to reach the Belfry. However, when the moment came for the bell to be rung, Espella's conscience returned, and she instead went to watch the festival by a piece of dragon-like fretwork on the opposite side to the ringing mechanism. Eve, however, decided to ring the bell herself.
Unbeknownst to the two girls, they, along with the rest of the townsfolk, had contracted a condition from the groundwater that would cause immediate unconsciousness at the sound of pure silver being struck. Since the Bell of Ruin was made of pure silver, the condition took hold of the entire town when it was rung, save for Arthur Cantabella and Newton Belduke, who were out of earshot at the time. With no one to control the fire at the festival, the wind blew it out of proportion, and the entire town was burned. In the belfry, Espella and Eve both regained consciousness, with the former seeing the flames through the fretwork and thinking that a fire dragon was burning the town. This image would be branded on her mind for the rest of her life. Cantabella and Belduke found their daughters in the belfry, and managed to get them to safety, but it was too late to save the rest of the townspeople.

The First Story

After the incident, Espella was in an almost hypnotic state, refusing to eat or speak rationally for several days. She kept telling Cantabella that she was Bezella, believing his warning to have come true. Desperate, Cantabella read her a story of his own writing, where a witch was punished, and Espella started to return to her old self. With Eve and Belduke's help, he acted out another story of witchcraft, and his cast grew as the town became repopulated. This eventually led to the creation of the medieval-themed Labyrinthia that would later become the location for the events of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Aftermath

Eventually, Cantabella realised that Eve's presence was too much of a reminder to Espella of the fire, so she was "reborn" as High Inquisitor Darklaw, while the name Eve was given to Espella's cat. The new residents of Labyrinthia that followed after the incident would know it as the Legendary Fire, and were persuaded that it occurred over a hundred years ago, and that it was caused by the Great Witch Bezella summoning a fire dragon with the spell Granwyrm. Although there was evidence of such an event throughout the town, such as at the Great Archive, the townsfolk considered the jury to still be out as to whether it actually happened. It was not until Espella's trial as the Great Witch Bezella that Phoenix Wright and Hershel Layton uncovered the truth of the Fire and of Labyrinthia.