Most of the long years were peaceful, but as time crept on, the Lord's agents began to approach. We built battlements atop the cliff wall to ensure there were no breaches. Yet, it would do us no good to hide behind walls. At the foot of the cliff, we built a small fortress and filled it with traps to test the Lord's creatures before we engaged them.
Once my son came of age, he too attended the fort. He was beloved by all, especially the knights who admired his valor, heart, and strength. Yet he felt more at ease among his mother's people and sometimes seemed lost within himself. I still regret that I never saw what he was looking for.
Still, there were men who followed him before even myself. My own captain was among them. So too a pair of Dragon Cult Tree Sentinels who wished revenge on the Lord who had betrayed the Erdtree. One was a swift hunter who channeled the dragonbolt into his greataxe. The other wore armor hewn of stone dragonflesh and was nigh-on invulnerable… so long as someone else kept his enemies from fleeing. The last was one of our knights, a descendent of the Ancestor Followers who still wore the antlers on his helm.
We were fortunate to have such a strong second generation of warriors. Mortality was weighing on us old-timers more than we thought it would. We had thought little of the pygmies and perhaps did not keep up with our training as best we should have. One day, we suddenly found there was more to the Lord's forces.
We could not tell their origins, but a new breed of Omen appeared among them. Omens are not always the bloated brutes so often thought of. They can appear among any people exposed to the power of the Erdtree. A pygmy Omen was no cause for alarm; the assassin lent to me by the Gloam-Eyed Queen was one.
These were something else. Something new. We couldnt discern whether they were pygmies or some survivors of the Capital's burning.
They were knights, tall and mighty as our best.
They weren't quite like the Crucible Knights of the early Erdtree era. They weren't proud and stout. They were lean and somber-looking things, like the Frenzied Flame had burnt them to husks. Yet, their strength was unmatched. We could no longer rely on simply being so much better. Victory would fall to our organization and combined forces.