Rise of the Shadow Dragon (Season 3)

Rise of the Shadow Dragon
There is a cycle to life. Cycles within cycles. Day turns to night, which turns to day once more. The months pass with the waxing and waning of the moon. The years bring cold and silence, then life and summer once again. Cycles within cycles.

There is a summer and a winter to civilization as well.

It has been a thousand years since the darkness last came to the world. A thousand years of summer. A thousand years for the world to build and to prepare. A thousand years... and they forgot the winter. The arrogant kingdoms of Comairos had put aside the legends. The had forgotten the portents, the secrets, the warnings. They had forgotten why their calendar was marked with the year 999.

They had forgotten Istraza.

There is a mountain in the center of the isle which few dare to tread upon. At the peak of this mountain is a cathedral; now ruined, dedicated to a god that none alive can name. Below the stones of this dark temple there is a black pit: empty, lightless, and yawning wide. In the center of this pit--the center of Comairos itself--there is a darkened stone, scattered amongst the bones of the long dead.

It is not a stone, though. Not in truth. It is inevitability.

At the start of the year 999, the stone began to stir. Runes etched in inky shadow writhe across its surface. A glow begins to suffuse the ground beneath, a steady heat that can be seen in the sand of the pit, in a shimmer in the air. The monks and explorers on the mountain left their temples and dungeons, and the towns at its foot began to depart, family by family. Even without any knowledge of what was coming, they could feel the darkness spreading, and could feel the urge to run.

All of Comairos could feel it.

For some, it is a nameless fear, a nightmare that fades too slowly with the dawn. They are the ignorant. They cling to the belief that they know everything there is to know, and that nothing is beyond their ken. They will learn. Too late, but they will learn.

For others, it is an awakening. Scholars dust off ancient texts, marked as heresy or myth, searching for answers. Warriors dig up heirlooms long locked away, purpose lost by time and found in dreams. The Empire returns to a hasty and unexpected peace with its neighbors to the north. Across the world, there is a quiet call to arms. Debts are forgiven. Plowshares are turned to swords. Even as the ink dries on the peace, the drums of war begin to beat.

Something is coming. None can explain it, but something is coming.

She is coming.