The legend of the
Coldfrost tells the story of the fourth War of the Sword and the rise
of the all-King. It tells a story filled with kings, queens, wars,
magic, sorrows, and joy. The legend, although told from many points
of view, revolves mainly around a seventeen-year-old farmhand named
Liam Cadarch. Now, before such a story can be written or told, one
must understand just who this farmhand is.
Liam Cadarch was
born on the 27th of Andeas in the year 1315 CM in Camarid,
the mountainous capital city of the country Gellion. He was born to
Tepheus and Ellin Cadarch. Tepheus worked as a city guard and Ellin
spent her spare time doing needlework. The family lived happily for
the first four years of Liam's life, until Tepheus had a fatal run in
with dark magic practitioners. Tepheus, as a member of the city
guard, had gone investigating cultist activities in the caves near
Camarid. While in these caves, he was unknowingly marked as he
attempted to open a cursed door. The curse targeted him as the next
prey for a nearby evil, the Wanderer. That night, when Tepheus
returned home, the Wanderer followed.
The next morning a
close friend of Tepheus's, Jonathan Aexa, stopped by the Cadarch home
on his journey back to his farm. Upon entering the home, he found
both Tepheus and Ellin slain. He then buried his friends, gathered
what remaining belongings he could, and took Liam with him back to
his mountainside farm.
It was at the
Greenedge farmlands, about seven miles south-west of Camarid, that
Liam was raised by Jonathan and his wife, Salla, alongside their own
son, Artimedor. It was hear that he learned hard-work, increasing in
both stature and strength. Because of his traumatic experience in his
early life, he found it hard to confide in others on an emotional
level, only ever becoming close to Artimedor, his adopted brother,
and Evlynn, a neighboring farm-girl.
As he grew, he
found great interest in the pursuit of knowledge: an interest which
was shared with Evlynn. They began by reading books and eventually by
meeting with scholars during visits to Camarid. It was on Liam's
first such trip, a celebration of his eleventh birthday, that he
received his first musical instrument, a wooden flute. Receiving this
instrument marked the beginning of his interest in the art of
creating music.
Between working on
the farm and learning, Liam had little time for leisure, but when
such a day would come when Liam was left to his own devices he would
almost always be found alone, deep in the foothills of the white
mountains. Here he would spend the long hours reading, playing his
flute, or pondering deep things.
When Liam reached
the age of fifteen, a Dayrunner war party attacked some homes near
the Aexa farm. This reawakened Liam to his memories and planted a
seed of unrest deep in his heart. This seed grew slowly, taking up
more of his thoughts with each passing day. Finally, two months
before his seventeenth birthday and with the help of Evlynn, he had
formulated a plan; they would both, upon him reaching the age of
seventeen, leave the farms on which they were raised and seek entry
into the Scholar's Guild. Liam thirsted for change, and he saw this
plan as the opportunity to begin making something of himself.
The legend of the
Coldfrost begins at this point, two months before Liam's coming of
age, months away from the fourth war, and at the beginning of a new
era in the histories of Gildora.
