Prologue 1

[Year 130 Month 3 of the ethereal calendar]

Over the peaceful world of crandune sun shone brightly over the many thriving cities situated on the singular continent. Everything was peaceful, almost too peaceful.

Within the towering triple peaks mountain range a cluster of lively mines, buildings, and industrial tools were situated. Everyday the miners would go about their lives almost as if it were an untouched and flawless carousel.

The day was playing out harmonically when the 7'0 miner-666 woke up with his feet, sadly, way beyond the reach of his bed. The miner lived in a cramped dormitory housing on average 16 people on triple stacked beds. When the miner got out of bed, the ground creaked but this wasn't a surprise, it was merely a wooden building meant only for quantity purposes.

666 seemingly on autopilot got into his orange jumpsuit and put his intentionally blue, glowing helmet over his red hair. The orange suit was covered in glowing dust as a reminder of the previous laborious days. 666 stretched out his long and muscular arm, grabbed the door ducked down and walked out, the gleaming rays of light hit his face almost immediately.

"Another day... here I come I guess."

The miner sighed and walked towards the wooden sign with the words `cavern four` engraved on it. After a long walk the miner stood Infront of a gaping hallowed hole and in front lied a cluster of worn down iron pickaxes, moreover they were so rejected that if one were to look at them they would have a hard time making out the once glistening material.

As 666 descended into the abyssal darkness he passed by many other workers of all shapes and sizes occasionally calling out with an unenthusiastic "good day" or a laidback "morning."

As a senior amongst the taskforce, 666 was entrusted to a mysterious, and newly discovered opening. The fresh cavernous area spanned the length of over two football fields and the ceiling felt almost non-existent it was so high. 'Wonder how this was never found before now' the miner thought to himself.

Mining in the company was purely based off of a performance system, encouraging the miners to try harder and naturally giving them dopamine rushes when valuable ores were mined by them.

666, with the rare privilege of getting the first servings of a potential ore vein, ran around the apparent rocky terrain using all of his dimly lit helmets potential trying to find any ores he could mine because, of course the more the better.

After a search of 30 minutes that seemed to last forever, the worker used his toned biceps, picked up his nasty pickaxe and started shattering the rocks. His experience in this expertise allowed him to find ores so easily it almost felt like a sixth sense at that point.

~BANG~ ~BANG~ ~BANG~

***

[Year 130 Month 1 of the ethereal calendar]

On a huge and dark planet called prode a gigantic figure of over 20 feet in height sat upon his throne. The figure harbored a skin tone that was grey with light black stripes, four arms with every finger on his hands looking like a sharp devils claw, and a frown that seems to have existed longer than eternity it's self judging by the obvious wrinkles.

Three soldiers clad in black robes, hood included and of the same race as the man on the chair, though much smaller with only two arms as was the norm, all entered the room with fragile expressions as the giant' pressure was weighing down on them.

However, the soldiers weren't there to ask for forgiveness as their expressions all were crying out. On the contrary they entered with fantastic news expecting to benefit from this interaction. The robed soldiers all bowed to their leader and the two on the sides of the trio took and step back and kneeled while the one in the middle spoke up and presented a triangular shaped crystal with a purple hue that emitted an aura only dreamt of in fantasies.

"Sir, on our most recent raid we discovered an ether crystal.. I wish to offer this to you in hopes that we can all benefit from a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter a hidden world."

World connection to the ethereal realm happens when a planet reaches a certain age, although for the most part its completely mysterious. The ether realm, a place where all the worlds seemingly converged. Previously mentioned features make the ether realm the epicenter for all of the connected worlds. And the realm is the livelihood of hundreds of billions if not trillions of humans and human-like species. 

Ether crystals were formed deep under ground once every million years under rare conditions, in other world they were a priceless treasure. These could be used to bypass the rules ethereal realm and forcefully connect a new world.

The mention of such an unfathomable resource such as the ether crystal being found made the giant sitting on the throne, for the first time in his centuries long existence, give a mischievous grin moving his lips higher up than a man who had just had his life changed for the better. A swift decision was made.

"Recall every last one of our soldiers, and mercenaries! And as soon as our forces have gathered here on prode I will activate the crystal in secrecy and order an invasion!"

With the roaring commands of the leader the hooded figure in the middle shouted "Yes sir, right away!" The soldiers were the commanders of the army and communicated the words of the leader right away using their communication devices in the form of an inspiring message that read.

"This is commander 'pride' of the prode army speaking. We have all encountered a fortune far beyond the scope of our wildest dreams. For an ethereal crystal was uncovered in out latest raid and our generous, ever powerful leader has given the command to recall all soldiers and mercenaries in the hopes of conquering a new land. Vast riches await in this endeavor, as some of you might have heard in history books, when one activates an ether crystal they will the ability to arrive at a connected world before anyone else. I order the return of all of our forces for a takeover of a new world. Our leader has given us a once in a millennia opportunity!"

Prodes army boasts a force of over two million soldiers and all across the connected worlds word began to spread of a mysterious recall. Even with enough soldiers to fill many lakes the army didn't mutter a single word of this, rectifying the pure importance and rarity of the matter at hand. 

[Year 130 Month 3 week 2 of the ethereal calendar]

On large and circular platform attached to a grand and oddly pointy castle that stretched for miles clad in red and black colors, a figure stood with a commanding presence. The figure standing dwarfed any soldier of the vast army standing below, and so did his grin compared to any other.

"Welcome home, I know some of you may want some time to visit family but at this moment as all of you know there is a matter of the utmost importance for all of us. Today is the day that we open the portal to a hidden world."

Deafening cheers could be heard from below out of excitement. As quickly as the cheers started they ended when the millions of gazes were all drawn to the ether crystal presented above.

"within the next five minutes I will open the portal next to our home world' portal and from that point forwards all soldiers will storm the world. You will destroy and plunder everything in sight as quickly as possible because we have at most a week before the mercenaries begin to appear. Before then, we must lay claim to the world by eliminating any natives giving me complete rule!"

***

Back on crandune a miner lay on his back dripping in salty tasting, polluted looking sweat. "Yes! Yes!" 666 cried with a vein of ores creating dazzling light in the cavern previously devoid of any light, just sitting right next to him all for the taking. 

"If I hide this from anyone, and slowly but surely lay claim to this ore, I'll be rich in no time retire in a short amount of time and I'll never have to even think about work again!"

After devising a plan on how to sell all of these stunning rocks 666 perked up and turned around to look at and take in what he had found one last time before finishing with the collection. A bit more time passed and he took hold of his pickaxe with his calloused and strong hands.

~BANG~ ~BANG~ ~SHERRR~ ~SCHLING~

A head fell onto the ground devoid of life and all that could be heard in the cavern were repetitive sci-fi sounding portal noises, many footsteps, and fulfilled laughing.

"That was so easy, would every native of this planet be like that because if so this was even better than what I had originally though."

Within the following moments thousands upon thousands of ominous footsteps could be heard deep in the cave. And the miners began quietly murmuring to each other.

"What is that?"

"Wait I think I can see something.."

In the darkness a giant curious looking blob appeared from the everlasting night of the cavern.

Within seconds screams could be heard from the mines then, soon thereafter, everything within the triple peaks mountain range was devout of any functionality.

Within a days all soldiers had successfully entered the world once hidden to the universe, wreaking havoc across the thriving, peaceful countries of candune.

Hellfire spread everywhere, sounding like a campfire everywhere you went. The natives became helpless and afraid seemingly giving up on life as the immanent army they had nicknamed 'catastrophe' approached.