Aeron wakes up, puts on his uniform, and heads to the dining hall for breakfast all with a spring to his step. Today is his long awaited first day on patrol in the seemingly dreaded Mistwood. His mood seems up, and so does the atmosphere. The dewy grass shining in the morning sun, the air fresh after a rainy night, light chatter of his comrades audible in the distance.
“Hey, Aeron, how’s it going? First Day on Duty?” Someone behind him asks.
Aeron turns around and sees his long time friend from his childhood village of Riverwood, Fidomar, catching up to him. He has buzzed brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a pronounced jawline although he is a bit on the shorter side of the height spectrum. His choice weapon (not that we have a choice yet) is a short sword, just like Aeron’s. The weapon of a low-ranked foot soldier.
“Yes, it indeed is” Aeron replies, “Been waiting for this day my whole life!”
“Well that’s gotta be a bit of an exaggeration, you couldn’t have been waiting your whole life, if we only found out about this opportunity a few years ago!” Fidomar’s laughter booms through the quite courtyard. Aeron stifles a chuckle. Throughout their years of friendship, Fidomar always manages to find some way to make him laugh. No matter the mood.
“Well, we gotta get going to the dining hall or else were gonna miss our morning oats all together. Knowing you, you’d spend all day complaining afterwards… And if you’d do that, I’d might as well just leave you to the Shadowlurkers at that point.” Aeron says. Shadowlurkers, small and ball-like wait until their slumbering and carry them off to an unknown location. It is still unknown whether or not they survive to this day.
“Oh come on, that’s not funny.” Fidomar replies in a ironic sad tone hinting at his amusement at the joke.
The dining hall is bustling with activity as Aeron and Fidomar enter the monotone stone construction. Along the back wall a station stands with a plump looking chef giving out bowls of oats. Rafters span the ceiling, barely visible in the candle-lit space. Lord Baelric being to “poor” to buy proper lighting, The inside of the building is stuffy with the many candles and sweaty soldiers sitting in the hall.
“Last call!” Aeron hears a man say who’s standing by a massive steaming pot of oats.
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“Come on man, were gonna miss it!” He hears Fidomar say as he’s slowly fading into the thick crowd. Aeron hurries off after Fidomar as he disappears into the crowd
***
As they are marching to the forest, Aeron looks behind him at Fidomar, he’s starting to feel the nerves.
“Back in line!” Lord Baelric yells. He’s usually kind, but during marches, Aeron’s heard, Baelric becomes a completely different man. “If I see any of you looking back again, your going to be cleaning out latrines for the rest of the week!” His voice voice echoing through the portcullis. The other soldiers would have looked at him, but they don’t dare. As he leaves he sees the terrifying sight he had to pass through on the way here. Beggars tents, except this time all ripped to shreds, bodies of all kinds, mostly beggars who were kicked out of the too-full city, lying on the ground, giant gashes in their sides. Monsters’ work. Aeron, Fidomar, and a few more of the new recruits seem to be the only ones shocked. The other soldiers seem used to it. Is this a common occurrence? Aeron thinks. And why do more of the beggars keep coming each time if they know they’ll die? Aeron keeps pondering this question until they reach the edge of the hill and he sees it. The Mistwood forest.
As they near the forest he hears the other soldiers mumbling “This isn’t looking good…” He doesn’t see anything bad, crows flying to and fro, deer feeding on the grass, some trees fallen after a late early spring storm… Wait. There wasn’t a storm last night.
In the blink of an eye, a massive boulder lands not ten feet away on his left, crushing a small group of soldiers, bones crunching, screams shoving their way into his ears, adrenaline pumping in his veins. A colossal sentinel. Said to be protectors of the forest, these creatures are half myth, half legend. Hundreds of feet in height, rumored able to wipe out entire civilizations in a single day, you can only see their head poking through the trees. And legend says they’re so difficult to anger, that you deserve the fate you face from them.
“Retreat!” Baelric screams.
The sentinel, seemingly unworried by the hundred soldiers at its feet steps past, or over them, and starts heading for Galilona. Alarms already raised, the gigantic cannons turning towards the forest for the first time in a hundred years, the gears’ rumbling audible from here. The cannons, finally aimed at the sentinel, now mere steps away, shoot. Three at once. It knocks the sentinel on the ground, but after that, he just gets back up, un-wavered, and continues walking, towards Galilona. After a few more steps it reaches the city wall, around fifty feet tall and ten thick, slightly tapered, and steps over it. The rest, is history.