CHAPTER ONE

The Mines. Ancient. Decrepit. Feeble. Once the sign of strength, the leverage of might, the lifeblood of the proud people of the Highlands, now just a rotting, hollow, lifeless, dusty maze of veins belonging to the corpse of a dead nation.

Here, long, long ago, on the hills of the Highlands, seven tribal leaders swore a blood pact to protect all the people who called the Highlands home. Simple folk, herders and potato farmers, ended centuries of petty boundary skirmishes to unite under one flag. Quickly, through technological innovations they shared with each other, the Highlands began to prosper in ways none of the tribes could imagine. Their leaders became the Seven Council Lords for the Highlands and integrated and assimilated their people into one strong nation.

They thrived even more when they found black diamonds in the Southern Rolling Hills. Trades opened up between the people of the Highlands and the dwarven kingdom of Gilkindayne. Through their relationship with the dwarven Thanes, the gnomes of Berrymareanderus Junction began sending merchants to the Highlands. Even the reclusive elves of the Reverandan Forests came to the Highlands to trade.

Roads were built, towers and temples dotted the countryside, and towns and cities and villages and hamlets teemed with a new way of life. Of cultural inclusion and immersion. Of acceptance and evolution of social structures. Literature and Art. The dawn of a new age. And the Highlands were no longer known as the Highlands, but as the Empire of Seven.

 It all changed when the War of Ages came.

From the frozen wastes of the north, the lands of the ice and bones, rode as a black, smothering cloud of destruction and death, came the Legions of Dakroth. Plodding on sickly, pale, dire wolves were the war soldiers of High-King Villechezk. Orcs and ogres and trolls and goblins, no longer content in the frozen wastelands of Dakroth, wanting to destroy the peace and tranquility of the humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves built. Their motives were simple for war. To kill everything that breathed.

They attacked the gnomes first, nearly wiping the entire race out of existence. The dwarves came to their rescue but even the combined axes of the dwarves and the technologies of the gnomes were no match for the Legions of Dakroth. The humans of the Empire of the Seven joined the fight as did the Reverandan elves, eventually forming the Confederation of Free Nations. And the War of the Ages began.

The war brought nothing but fire and death. The world, from the tip of the highest mountain peaks of Mount Calysta to the deepest valleys of Wernerdale were shrouded in the smoke of battle. The massive lakes of Hammervale and great oceans of Ghendelstrom bubbled with thick blood. The people, the children, the fathers and mothers of Arboran, fell, littering every road and every hill.

For the war, the mines of the Highlands were excavated until not a single black diamond was left. Along with the commodity the black diamonds brought, they also teemed with magical energy that the mages of the Confederation used to fight against the invading forces of evil. It was barely enough to stall the Legion of Dakroth.

The War of Ages, a war to end all wars, after generations of fighting, still rages on to this day.

So why am I guarding the Mines? Why am I guarding just a bunch of empty tunnels? A place that hold nothing but metal echoes of pick axes and shovels? A place long dead and forgotten?

I’m a Hunter. That’s what I do. I guard shit.

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