FriendsintheShadows
Rain stood before the assembled patriarchs of his house, all of whom had gathered to hear what news he bore. Once, Rain fancied, they would have gathered in one of his houses many opulent manses. Now, the cellar of a dingy barn had to do. The Iselsi had fallen a long ways indeed. As his elders all sat down and made themselves comfortable, Rain couldn't help but notice that they were almost entirely obscured by the deep shadows the guttering torches created. A shadowy bunch of old men and women. How appropriate. And now they wanted to know what news he bore from the northern provinces, the Mnemon holdings. Particularly, what news he carried of the backwater village of Eyrie. Rain silently wondered how they'd react when they heard the truth...
6 months ago, Rain had been assigned to infiltrate the personal dragon of one Mnemon Rofel, Mnemon's favored grandchild and a mean bastard any way you look at it. It was believed that Rofel had been assigned by his grandmother to sabotage the Imperial Treasury's attempts to secure a valuable jade mine and claim it for his own house. Rain was chosen for his excellence in the field of espionage, sabotage, and assassination. He could be anyone, anywhere, anytime. Although he was of mongrel blood, he was viewed as one of the last best hopes of his dying house. The assignment was not easy. Rofel was paranoid and an expert at weeding out spies and imposters. Thrice before he had eliminated Iselsi agents close to his circle. And yet, looking back on things, Rain ruefully admitted that infiltrating was the easy part.
Rain murdered and replaced a lowly scalelord and spent the next 3 months cementing his identity. All this took place as Rofel and his two cronies, Mnemon Bindu and Mnemon Zusa, arranged for secure, unobtrusive passage across the Inland Sea for him and his dragon. It truly did appear as if Rofel had every intention of claiming that mine for his own house, thus committing grand treason. As Rofel's dragon, and thus a well-entrenched Rain, made their way as stealthy as possible towards Eyrie, nobody had any idea what would be waiting for them inside that town.
Rain coughed and cleared his throat. The damp of the cellar was making the place uncomfortably humid, and although his aspect was that of water, Rain didn't care much to sweat so heavily. He privately hoped the elders wouldn't keep him much longer with their questions but such, he knew, was not to be.
As Rofel drew close to the town of Eyrie, his troops came on a young man, fleeing in a panicked flight in a generally eastern direction, as if towards Cherak. Rofel had the boy questioned and what he found out, what Rain found out, wasn't pleasant. The boy claimed Anathema had moved into the town and bewitched his sister, the ancestral ruler, through dark pacts with the local gods.
"Anathema?" questioned Iselsi Luka. "Yes m'lord. Anathema. Two skin-changing devils and a pair of treacherous Dynastic outcastes." The gathered elders clucked their disapproval at that. Rain merely stood there, solemn, wishing the damn debriefing could be over so he could go bathe. The cellar stank of moist earth and mildew.
Most Dynastics would encamp and call for reinforcements on learning of the Anathema presence. Not Rofel. He WAS the reinforcements. He was one of the few Dragon-blooded ever to have mastered his path of Immaculate martial arts. He was no monk however, although he was fanatically religious, Rofel was a general, first and foremost. His two Blooded aide-de-camps weren't too shabby either. Bindu was a talented, if a bit egocentric, sorceror and Zusa was a skilled Five Dragon stylist. Rofel persuaded the boy that he was with the Wyld Hunt, and that if the boy would help him sneak into town, he would take the Anathema out and free his sister. Naturally, the daft country boy accepted. Even with the boys help, Rofel stood no chance against what he encountered.
"What? You mean Rofel is dead, and these Anathema killed him?" asked Whitemane Vocal, somewhat surprised, although not entirely unpleasantly. "Yes m'lord. But it's more complicated than that."
