THE FIRST WATCH
Beyond the old border, the watchfires of Runegard burned for a hundred years against the dark. Their keepers guarded the roads, the river crossings, and the last safe road to the old capital. They learned every sound the forest could make, marked every stone that shifted beneath the snow, and kept a ledger of travelers who passed beneath the gate. In those years, the watch became more than a duty. It became a promise that somewhere behind the walls, a lamp would remain lit for anyone still searching for home.

Then, on the longest night, every flame went out at once. No messenger returned from the towers, and a cold wind carried unfamiliar bells across the valley. By morning, the silence had spread from the frontier to the castle walls. The old captains argued over maps whose ink had faded, while villagers whispered that the darkness had crossed the river without leaving a footprint. For seven days, no one dared to open the eastern road. On the eighth, a single bell rang from the abandoned watchtower, and every locked door in the valley was found standing open.

At dawn the gates opened for the first time in a generation. The streets were still, the maps were incomplete, and old banners stirred above places no living citizen remembered. Bakers returned to cold ovens, smiths found strange marks in the iron, and the town scribes began copying names from tombs that had never been recorded. Beyond the bridge waited a kingdom changed by the darkness: valleys without roads, ruins beneath new roots, and distant lights that moved when no traveler walked. It was dangerous, unfinished and full of unanswered questions, which made it exactly the kind of place where a new legend could begin.

That is where the story of Runegard begins. Every hunt, alliance, discovery, and rivalry will leave its mark on the chapter ahead, and the next legend will not be written by a distant king, but by the adventurers who choose to enter. During this public beta, the world may change as its first inhabitants reveal what is broken, what is missing, and what deserves to endure. Bring patience as well as courage, report the dangers you find, and remember that the first names written into the chronicles will belong to those who stepped through the gate before the road was safe.