"In the darkness, a light appeared. Hesitant, it grew, like the light of a candle slowly being uncovered. This was the light that one day men would tremble under, and soon, die. It was the light of two eyes, the eyes of something from a time older than ours, reawakening to another reign of glory…”

- Taken from “The Chronicles of The Years of Terror”

Circa 8 B.D. – Unknown

Chapter 1

In the beginning…

In the night, a light came into view. It bobbed about, like a will o’ the wisp, but this was no specter. Along with the light came a small boy, of the age of thirteen. For most children, this was a hard year, growing up with changing body and mind. The boy’s name was Arwen, but his friends called him Arri.

As Arri skipped down the dusty path toward his home, another light appeared, over the eastern mountains. Not the light of dawn, but a horrible, or if it could be said of something as pure as it, evil light. Now, for a boy of thirteen, curiosity should have certainly taken over the boy, but something didn’t ring right. So, he ran. Compared to you and I, Arri was fast, and he ducked down in a small, dried up riverbank. And unlike whatever science nowadays may say, light doesn’t always moves at a horrendous speed. For certain, this light didn’t.

Curiosity eventually got a back a little bit of its original hold, so Arri peeked up over the ridge, and gasped at what he saw. When the light touched a tree, it withered and died. And suddenly, before he could do much more than crouch, the light flared down, covering the town, and Arri, in an instant. Maybe it was the protection of the ridge, or maybe fate, or maybe something deeper than both of them, but Arri was unscathed. Startled, he looked up, just as the light began to fade.

After a long pause, Arri got up, and ran back to the town. He quickly discovered his fears. Every person, beast, and plant was dead. His family was just as if they had just fallen asleep, but this was a sleep from which they would not awaken.

If any had survived, to hear anything that night, they would have heard a cry of anguish. A scream of someone who had lost all he had, and yet more besides, someone who had lost all hope of life and laughter. A scream that chilled to the bone, and left the hills ringing with a voiceless sorrow.

That sorrow was lost on all ears that night, on the creature from which that dreadful light came. On the mountain, something old spread new wings, wings that men would see in countless haunting nightmares, and took off to the inhabited south.

“I swear, on the graves of all who died here, that I will avenge my family. I will search until my life’s end, and beyond. ” Arwen stood by the blazing remnants of his home. It would have taken far too long to bury all the dead, and so a pyre would have to suffice. He didn’t really know any of the customs of his people. Living in the Untamed Lands led to being a bit diverse. But it also led to being a bit wiser of the world. Before he lit the pyre, he had looted anything of value from the town, anything that might be useful, and prepared to leave. As any normal person might expect, he didn’t want to sleep in Newtown that night. The untamed lands were, as you might expect, untamed by man, and the control nature has wasn't diminished a tenth. The results of death were usually much more turbulent. A whole town massacred by magic, yes, that would scar the land for a long while to come.

As the fires of other houses, lit by overturned candles, spread through the town, Arwen said a silent prayer to God for the dead. That finished, he turned and left.