A man lost alone in the impenetrable and obscure darkness of his own grief-twisted mind once called out in a voice that echoed of death and despair for whatever power that existed above to save him from the terrible, hideous void of his own tortured consciousness. As he implored the heavens to spare him the madness of knowledge, and as he prayed on his knees for swift and resolute death, the heavens stared back unflinchingly. In voices cold as iron, they asked him why he should be granted mercies he had never shown to others. He replied, his own voice as dead as the cold heaps of skulls that surrounded him, that to kill a monster was a mercy to both the beast and to those it threatened. He begged the powers to understand why he had done what he had done, and that his repentance was now the only tie that bound his immortal soul to this world.<br/>The only words from the clouds were that of his own sins and atrocities, and the accusations of his search for salvation only after he had traveled the dark road to his end. And that then his fate was in his own hands. And the Gods shut the doors to their realm to him, and he was left alone in endless gloom with the ghosts of his memories.<br/><br/>Warden Isaac Murin was found floating in a stone well, face up, arms spread wide in a gesture of contrition, eyes closed. There were no signs of a struggle, and no explanatory note. It could only be assumed by Imperial investigators that he had been stunned from a surprise attacker and thrown in the well to drown, unconscious.<br/>There was no funeral for a dead Warden. He was taken to the sacred cemeteries of Niris and his body was burned with little ceremony. As the flames licked away his body, the ashes were caught in the smoke and spiraled skywards, as if making one last grasp for eternity before being scattered to the wind, forever to wander, unknown, the world that he had once been a master of.<br/><br/>Elandris Forsythe had been made aware of Murin's demise shortly after his waterlogged body had been found. The message had not been particularly descriptive, and merely warned the two surviving Wardens to be on their guard against possible identity compromise and attempted assassination. Elandris had immediately departed his current temporary residence, leaving his payments behind in the form of unmarked gold coins, and had spent the next four weeks making his way to the other side of Dale territory in an effort to throw off any possible pursuit. It was in a small village in the lush forests of Dale that he had happened to recognize a former Knight of Dawn in the local tavern, and had spent another three weeks shadowing the elderly murderer, and closing in for a perfect, seamless kill. Not even all the power the Empire could muster in its quest to create insurmountable assassins was entirely sufficient for its aspirations. Elandris was fully aware that had he not scoped out the ancient tomb of the village ancestors and been prepared to face his victim within, he would have undoubtedly fallen prey to the knife of the other man. Even with the element of surprise, a Warden was not a match for a Knight of Dawn.<br/>Which made hunting them a dangerous task indeed. But the Knights of Dawn were not his current assignment; their elimination was merely a goal to pursue when there were no important matters to be dealt with.<br/>Speaking of which...<br/><br/>Elandris' half-shuttered eyes snapped wide open, pupils dilating dramatically to compensate for the sheath of gloom that blanketed the forest floor below him. A crashing of rough feet disturbing undergrowth had caught his attention, and the Warden leaned forwards on the bough he was currently perching on, scrutinizing that which was exercising little caution by the manner with which it tore through the shrubbery.<br/><br/>The Orc dashed nonstop through the trees, its fur tunic catching on twigs and branches, usually tearing the offending object from the trunk it belonged to, so great was its haste. It carried only a shard of razor-sharp crystal as a weapon, for it was a messenger, not a warrior. Into its rough rope belt was thrust a scrap of paper scratched with the symbols of the rudimentary Orcish written language, which was often indecipherable between mildly differing tribes.<br/>A thin stream of spittle leaked from its mouth as it panted heavily, not daring to slow its pace, for its warboss had informed it that he would be flying along behind him on a giant dragon-bird that would eat him if he stopped running for even this many seconds(it was at this point that the warboss had held up two fingers). And so it was that even a conspicious rustling in the arboreal line above his head failed to activate the Orc's natural survival instinct, and it kept running until something rather resembling a giant red dragon-bird plummeted down on it from above, smashed onto its shoulders, and rammed a long dagger hilt-deep into the top of its top-knotted head. It took the running body a few moments to realize that it was dead, and slowly it marked down its speed to a leisurely walk before crumpling, face-down, to the forest floor.<br/>Elandris put his foot on the Orc's head and gave the dagger a vicious combined twist and jerk, freeing it from the thick bone of the Orc's skull, and ignoring the resulting gush of green blood. Turning the wiry body over with his booted foot, Elandris knelt and retrieved the message, scanning its contents briefly and determining with absolute certainty his inability to read the crude markings.<br/>Rising to his feet and folding the parchment carefully before stowing it in a carrying pouch, Elandris looked about to get his bearings. If he remembered correctly, southwards was a small settlement, the last bastion of humanity before the wild wastes of the southern forests. Most villages in the unprotected woods of Dale had someone capable of reading the writings of local Orcs; it made it easier to prepare for their attacks. Billian's Rest would likely have one such man capable of reading this. Ordinarily, Elandris would have ignored the Orc and its message, but due to the nature of his current assignment, he suspected that it may have contained some relevance to his own purposes.<br/><br/>And so to Billian's Rest it was. Setting off south towards the small village, Elandris sheathed his weapon and, like a leaf fluttering in the crisp evening breeze, became one with the night.