Prologue
It was an incredibly ordinary day in the village at the foot of Limestone Mountain. Andrew had just blown the whistle that marked the end of lunch-break. He puts on his helmet, pulls the gloves a little tighter on his hands, and takes one last look at the scenery under the clear blue sky before he enters the mine. As Andrew walks deeper into the mine, he notices that something is wrong. He can't hear the usual noises of the men grunting of tiredness or laughing at one of Laz's after-lunch jokes. Laz was Andrew´s best friend. They had known each other since they were kids. Both of them were born and raised to be miners like their fathers and grandfathers before them.
A light shone from the end of the tunnel, which was odd, considering that there should be at least 300 meters of tunnel between him and where they dug last. As he came closer to the origin of the light he started to hear the low murmur of full grown men. He arrives to see the miners all grouped together with their backs against him, looking at something. He pushes through the crowd to find Laz. He was in for a big surprise.
In the hands of Laz was a small child. It was a girl the size of a newborn. One eye colored holy white and sunny gold, the other dark black and evil purple. Her skin was light beige, like the sands of Seabell, and her hair white like snow from Shiver Peak. She was a pretty sharp contrast to Laz, who was a big, rough man with brown hair and beard, and ocean-blue eyes. Laz was singing her the lullaby we made up when we were kids. It was more lika a nursery rhyme, actually, since it missed a melody (neither of us could sing). He was trying to make her go to sleep. It went like this:
The men leave the mine as the sun goes down
The lights start to fade throughout the town
Hush now, sleep, and let your dreams soar
Through all the great things fate has in store
"Where'd she come from?" Andrew whispered to the miners, in order for Laz to succeed with the lullaby.
"From inside that crystal!" someone whispered in response. The y all pointed at the large crystal behind Laz and the girl. This crystal was about the size of a full grown man, in both height and width. What he saw earlier was the ethereal glow emanating from the crystal. The broken shards on the ground suggested that the girl had been "extracted" from a part of the crystal that was a little higher up than Laz´s head.
Andrew took his pickaxe and smashed through the rest of the crystal to see what else there was in there. Another baby, perhaps? No. This was something else. The air was sharp like a blade. The pickaxe hit something. Whatever it was, it started ringing. It sounded like two swords clashing when all of a sudden all the crystals started shining brighter than before. Andrew started pulling out what he had found. When he cut himself on whatever was inside the crystal, he remembered an old prophecy. A prophecy Athena Marie used to tell him when they were kids. The prophecy spoke of mighty heroes of mysterious origins, heroes that would come to rise when Eden most needs it. But the heroes are already common knowledge. There already existed heroes that fight to unite the races and fend off all evil. He remembers hearing the sailors of Seabell talking about seeing warriors who know magic. The Eternal Guardians, the elite taskforce commanded by Temple Knight Amos, who serves as the general of the Eternal Army.
Voices pulled him back to reality. He let whatever he had found be, told all the men to exit the cave fast. Suddenly he was all stressed out, sweat running down the sides of his face. He wanted to bury what he found under the mountain and make sure no one finds it ever again. He felt that if it falls in the wrong hands, something bad might happen. Never could he have imagined how right he was.