Back in the Ancient times of Untold History, our story begins.
East StormCove - Sprout Village, A young oprhan boy by the name of Hope was doing odd jobs to support himself and to survive the harsh calamity that would strike the village once every month or so. Hope was very poor and only lived in a small house in a farm that the village elder had given to him for being helpful around the village, the only payments he would get from doing jobs were mere coins that would only buy him bread and milk. Even though Hope could only eat bread and milk, he was still strong and willful about himself and his ability to accurately copy anything he focuses on with his eyes.
One Fateful Morning as Hope was about to finish his daily job of collecting water for his neighbor, the clouds turned dark, the ground trembled, and a ferocious roar could be heard from the skies..."Dragon!!!" yelled the guard from afar. As soon as Hope heard someone yell dragon, he immediately looked up and saw the true meaning of fear and terror.
Hope saw a Black-Winged Dragon, with red eyes, extremely sharp teeth, breathing fire and destroying everything in it's path. Hope panicked and screamed loud enough for the unbelievably huge Dragon to hear... as the Dragon descended to the ground to eat the helpless and trembling human, the cannon was fired by the village guard and hit the Dragon to catch it's attention, the Dragon thought that a helpless human is worthless and wants a challenge so it left Hope alone to live another day and flew to the cannons to continue eating the humans that angered it and destroyed the rest of the village, leaving Hope as the only survivor.
After the Black Dragon destroyed the village completely and turned everyone into it's dinner, it flew away towards North StormCove. Hope knelt down, devastated, crying silently and trembling to see his beloved village turned into ash... after a few hours, a strange man who was passing by who witnessed the destruction from far away and thought everyone had perished in the wake of the terrifying Black Dragon, saw Hope. The man rushed towards Hope and took out his canteen to give him water, Hope was startled and rolled over to his side to avoid what touched him. Hope silently and slowly looked at the man to see if he was dangerous and the old man spoke "calm down child, I bring you no harm". Hope spoke slowly "what just happened?", "the legends told of the awakening of the Ancient Black Dragon to destroy the world, who knew that the prophecy would start today".
The old man started explaining what he knew about the legend of the Black Dragon, "from the words of the Ancient Prophet Hambu'ul, Dragons shall one day awaken from dormant volcanoes all over the world to roam freely and that the Black Dragon would destroy the world if humanity would ever lose Hope". Hope could not believe what he was hearing, but after witnessing what just happened to his village and everyone of his friends and neighbors, Hope could only think about what he would do with his life with nowhere to go and nothing to eat for miles.
Hope lost everything he had and didn't know what to do next, the old man told him "young child, fear not, for I will take care of you" Hope looked up at the old man and showed a little smile. "I am the grandchild of the Ancient Prophet Hambu'ul , my name is Ashford and I can help you get to South StormCove where it is safe as it is the most guarded town in the continent of Empshire. There we can train you to protect yourself from any more Dragon attacks.