Alistar awoke the next morning with a renewed sense of resolve. Prior to falling asleep the night before, he'd thought about the course that his life had to take if he wanted to have any sort of shot at freeing Kaila from Crystellum. She was eleven years old, so there wasn't much time before she would have to start mining like everybody else. He wasn't sure if she could handle the workload, but knew that she would manage to get by so long as Talon was around. Terrible as the thought was, everything depended on how long her grandfather could survive.
At the very latest, Alistar had to return to the mines within five years. Any sooner and there wouldn't be any chance of success, while any later and his remaining loved ones would definitely have succumbed to their surroundings. Even five years from now, he doubted that he could actually achieve his goal, but he couldn't afford to wait any longer than that. At the very least, he definitely couldn't just sit back and do nothing.
