It was just a normal day in their environment and the three were perambulating about their business and getting things in order. When there was a loud horn sound from the direction of the center of town. Normally, if it was anything else, they would have ignored it, but this horn, in particular, was only used when there was the grave issue of a threat to the town
The Three of them equipped themselves with daggers and headed toward the town square and after a few minutes of walking, they arrived, witnessing an unsettling commotion. But before they could make sense of what was happening, the head of the Town Council Katina Kora, arrived on a platform before them standing with someone beside her.
Katina was from a long lineage of people who had governed the town. She was also a direct descendant of the founder of the town. She and the council assessed the town's issues and gave feedback to the people. Not that the trio actually cared about that information, to begin with since it was fairly common knowledge to even those who hadn't seen her before.
They were more interested in the new face standing behind Katina. Quite a short figure and slightly muscular, with a small broad sword on hip and light armor. With red hair, bright as crimson, that shone in the sun. Ari stared at the red hair for a long time before she was snapped out of it by Kalvin. Katina began her speech about what was currently happening and the reason for the horn being blown. The person beside her was apparently a commander of the royal army from the Reginal Kingdom which was placed some miles away from the town. His name was Lin Teryul and he had come to inform…
"Wait, HE?!" Ari gasped in confusion.
"Yeah, I thought it was a girl too". Kalvin agreed in slight discomfort.
The old man just stared and continued to listen to the speech. There was a beast hoard approaching, big enough to annihilate the entire village in a matter of minutes. It had been predicted by King Reginald the IX'th's sorcerer whose name was not disclosed.
The hoard would be arriving in 3 months and it was the commander's task to make the town into the kingdom's last line of defense. In the case of failure, they would have more than enough time to report back to the kingdom and advance since the kingdom would be the hordes next target. All who were capable of fighting were to be drafted to assist the kingdom's army and those who were incapable were to move over to the kingdom where they would be given aid.
The speech concluded and all hell broke loose. But the three just stared forward trying to make a decision. Two of them looked at the old man and they smiled as he blew out a thunderbolt made of smoke. They moved over to the army camp to begin signing up.
As they approached, a soldier said to Ari "Run along little girl, you have no place here.". He attempted to grab and move her out of the way while she was staring at him. When he touched her, she grabbed his wrist and quickly spun inward where she lodged his harm over her shoulder and flipped him onto his back. She straightened up and continued signing in as all the other soldiers stared. The old man let out a satisfied chucked and signed his name as well.
Their next task was to find out as much information as possible about the task at hand. Any carelessness would result in unnecessary death. The old man had told the two teens about his time in a distant kingdom where he had fought countless small hordes that threatened many cities and countries. During these times, there were many raids that almost failed due to carelessness. And the more hoard raids he went on, the more cautious he became. He assigned Kalvin the task of listening in on the conversations of the army since they would know more than was currently released to the public.
He then tasked Ari with going to the local blacksmiths to get some materials and weapons before they became busy making weapons for the army and the villagers going out to fight. The old man himself was planning on going back to their home to put things in order, in other words, burry things he didn't want others to find in the event that they all died during the raid. There was also something else he needed to do, that he couldn't involve the 2 in. Something that involved why he was such a dangerous individual at such an old age. He went back and into his room where he pulled a box from underneath his bed. The box had a star marking on it, marked with red. And a red gem in the center.
He opened the box but nothing was inside, Is what he tried to convince himself in believing. But even though he knew that he couldn't see it, it was still there. The cause of all the pain of his past, the thing that kept him alive. The thing that he was enslaved to for the rest of eternity.
The Egg of the World.
He came across it on an expedition he went to 200 years prior. His entire team had been slaughtered but something he could not even describe. He had an arm and leg cut off, but he still tried to survive. Through his tenacity, the creature bestowed upon him the Egg of the World, of which there were only 10 in the entire universe. The creature told him it would let him live forever. But at the cost of his happiness, anytime he got attached to anything, the egg would take it away from him and cause him to suffer. Many times he desperately sought death but he was unable to die, and by eating the invisible egg that continuously regenerated in the box at unknown times. He could alter his body at will making him look whichever age he wished.
Remembering all he had been thorough, he smiled and ate the egg.