The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (REMASTERED)

Chapter One: The Silver River

A thousand years can hold within it so many stories. Stories of friendship and warmth, or tragedy and loss. Stories that warm our cheeks and make us laugh, or well our eyes with tears. Stories can shape our very being, and teach us lessons we never thought we'd need to learn.

So sit comfortably and allow me, if you will, to tell you a story.

This is a story in the world of Eclypse, a place where all streams of magic converge into our mortal realm. Life here is vibrant and diverse, and the elemental energy that pours into it has created a habitat for all manner of strange and marvelous creatures.

With all good things, however, there will always come conflict to claim it. Many had tried, none had succeeded, but one had come very close.

He was a being of pure malice and hatred, a vengeance born of envy, envy of all things pure and bright, which he had sought to extinguish forever.

Whatever name he once held was lost in the minds of the free people. To them, he was known simply as the Dark Master.

The fury of the Dark Master seemed to know no equal. His lust for vengeance consumed all that he touched, the very world withering beneath him as he marched through the free lands. All efforts to stop him fell short. No weapon could hurt him, no mortal could challenge him. Exactly how many lives were lost I'm afraid I cannot say, as they were truly beyond count. It seemed as if hope was lost.

But, in the darkest hour, as the war threatened to consume Eclypse forever, a young dragon stepped forward and challenged the Dark Master himself. He, Ignitus, was the most powerful of his generation, and he fought a long and brutal battle against the Enemy for an entire night.

When the smoke cleared, and the first light of dawn cracked over the horizon, Ignitus emerged victorious, and the Dark Master was sealed away in the darkness beyond.

Dragonkind reveled in its victory, holding Ignitus on its shoulders as the elder Guardian, the highest honor any dragon could ask for. But where victory shone, Evil was left to fester in defeat.

Though the story of this epic battle is truly one for the ages, 'tis not the one that I have promised for you today. Our story takes place far later, on a bleak, quiet night. The Moons of Eclypse hung low in the sky and bathed the world below in an ethereal white glow. For a hundred years the dark master had brooded in his poisoned domain of dread, pondering and calculating every aspect of his defeat. What little sanity he had once possessed had long since been lost to madness and wrath, and whispers of his anger had begun to reach unsavory characters elsewhere on Eclypse.

On this fateful night, the beginning of the new Lunar year as it were, a small pack of Apes wandered the black mountains, led by their gilesome king, Gaul. The hulking ape king had heard tell of his master residing somewhere in the north, and had led his surviving army through thick and thin to find him.

A stinging chill hung in the air as night closed in around them. Even their thick, rough fur was not enough to combat the elements deep in the uncharted mountains. After countless hours of trekking through snow and rock, the apes came upon a valley, wherein below sat a fearsome sight.

The head of a great beast, hewn into the rock, standing just below the mountains around it in height. Its outer layer was covered in a skin of thick ice, which made the empty stone sockets seem even emptier than they already were.

"At last," Gaul said, his breath smoking in the chill, "The Well of Souls."

The apes descended the jagged rocky slope into the sea of snow below, and trudged solemnly through to the base of the beastly mountain.

At its roots they found a door, carved roughly into the rock, scribed with ancient runes whose meaning had long been lost to time. Gaul sneered at the door, his one eye squinting before he gave it a hearty shove.