Year: 1800 A.D.
Northern Europe.
A small, forgotten town named Blackmoor.
Winter there was not just cold.
It was cruel.
Eight-year-old Alaric Viremont still remembered the sound of his father's carriage bells cutting through the snow-filled streets.
His father, Edmund Viremont, was not merely a dessert seller — he drove a handcrafted cream cart through the town square. In an age where sweets were rare luxuries, his frozen milk confections were magic to children.
But Edmund carried more than sweet cream in his wooden chest.
He carried a secret.
In the year 1798, Edmund borrowed money from a powerful and feared nobleman known as Lord Malrick Dorian — a man whispered to practice forbidden sciences and ancient alchemy within the ruins beyond Blackmoor.
The loan was not large.
But the debt was not about money.
One fog-heavy evening in late October 1799, Edmund failed to return home.
His cart was found near the old cathedral road.
Horse trembling.
Lantern still burning.
Snow stained dark.
No witnesses.
The town priest declared it "divine punishment."
The townsfolk avoided speaking his name.
But little Alaric knew—
His father had been afraid.
His mother, Isolde Viremont, slowly faded after Edmund's death.
She would stare into the fireplace for hours, whispering things Alaric could not understand.
"Blackmoor watches," she once muttered.
Then, in the winter of 1800, she vanished.
No note.
No farewell.
Only her wedding ring left on the wooden table.
Alaric was eight.
And alone.
He survived for days in their freezing cottage until an old man named Silas Crowe found him.
Silas was the poorest man in Blackmoor — a hunched scrap gatherer who lived beside the forbidden woods known as Blackmoor Hollow.
The Hollow was older than the town.
Older than the cathedral.
People claimed the trees there whispered names at night.
Silas looked into Alaric's pale eyes and said softly,
"You have the mark of the old blood."
Alaric did not understand.
But he followed him.
Life with Silas was harsh but disciplined. Bread was scarce. Firewood was precious. But Silas taught him survival.
How to read old maps.
How to handle mechanical contraptions.
How to remain silent when others speak.
And sometimes, late at night, Silas would unlock a hidden chest beneath the floorboards.
Inside were strange blueprints. Ancient alchemical sketches. Symbols that matched the emblem carved on Edmund's cream cart.
A broken circle.
Split by a vertical line.
One night in late 1800, during a violent snowstorm, Alaric saw something impossible.
A faint blue glow pulsing deep inside Blackmoor Hollow.
Not fire.
Not lantern light.
Something unnatural.
Silas saw it too.
And this time—
He did not stop the boy.
Alaric entered the forest.
The wind howled like a warning. The trees bent inward as if guarding something ancient.
Deep beneath tangled roots and stone, he found it—
A hidden iron door, half-buried in frost.
Engraved with the same symbol from his father's cart.
Inside lay a forgotten underground chamber.
Strange glass containers. Metal coils. Blue liquid humming faintly inside tubes.
Documents marked:
"Project Aetherveil — 1796."
And a line that froze his blood:
Transport Carrier: E. Viremont.
His father had not been merely a vendor.
He had been transporting a rare alchemical energy — something discovered beneath Blackmoor Hollow decades earlier.
Lord Malrick Dorian had been studying it.
Trying to weaponize it.
When Edmund realized its destructive potential—
He tried to hide it.
The loan had been leverage.
The murder—
Retrieval.
Alaric returned to Silas, shaking.
"You knew," he whispered.
Silas closed his eyes.
"I once served Lord Dorian," he confessed. "Until I saw what he planned."
The energy beneath Blackmoor Hollow was not just power.
It was something older.
Something that reacted to bloodlines.
And Alaric…
Carried the key.
Far away, inside a towering manor lit by candlelight, Lord Malrick Dorian stared into a glowing blue vial.
"The boy lives," he murmured.
"And the Hollow awakens."
Year: 1800 A.D.
The Industrial Age was rising.
Empires were expanding.
But beneath the snow-covered forests of Blackmoor—
An ancient force was stirring.
And young Alaric Viremont…
Was no longer a helpless child.
He was the final heir to a forbidden secret.
And history—
Was about to change.