Night of Sorrow: Dutybound

The Templar was not amazed at this change of fortune, at missed opportunities. He stood in a room splattered with the flotsam and jetsam of men: skin, guts, limbs, hearts... the place was truly a horror to behold. But the Templar had a duty, this he knew. Only moments before a monster stood in this place, and with it a female, or a phantom thereof. The monster had had two faces, one a stranger, but the other...

"The shoggoth has arisen," said the Templar to the Guard.

"SHUT UP!" growled a third soldier, and they began to advance upon the black knight.

"I am sorry," said the Templar. And then he drew forth vara’dsie – the blade he believed to be forged in the fires of the Living God-City. It gleamed in the eerie half-light of smoldering wicks and broken lanterns which permeated this room of the Quadrodome. A battle then ensued. With much crashing of steel against steel and leather against flesh, with much grunting and yelling and some screaming, it broke into the night. The Templar had made a decision – rather than accompany the enforcers of this City and try to explain the truth to rulers and their commanders, rather than waste time while the un-thing roamed free – he chose to leave this place, to seek refuge where he knew it lay, to restock, retool, and rethink. That face...

The Guardsmen, though trained, were unaccustomed to one such as the Templar. Indeed, one such as the Templar had not been seen in the lands of Allaria for quite some time, not since the Four Sons of the Wind. The Templar was able to leave the temple church only after one Guard was dead, two seriously wounded, and one with nothing more serious than a concussion. Then he was off – he drew about him the cloak and clothing of the merchant so as to not draw any more attention to himself, and he used a hex to hide himself in a stable – the night was now alive with the sound of the Guard. Three attacks had occurred this night, and all visited upon Guardsmen – the first in the Outer City, but the other two in the Inner City – this was unheard of, and the news and rumors were flying swiftly.

The Templar lay himself on a bed of hay. Escape from this City was now impossible, the Gates were all shut tight. He would have to use more magicks to cover himself and hope for a safe exit with the light of the sun. As to the shoggoth… he wondered if it still remained in the City, in some other part, or if it had left altogether. He did not hear all that the monster and the female had spoken, and all his memory now was seared upon the second face of the beast...

The Templar lay upon a bed of hay and he pondered the steps which had brought him to this place, to this day. He rubbed his face, scarred and ugly, unlike the one with which he had been born. He thought of the fire which had burnt him so long ago. He stared at his hands, rough and callused and equally burned; he looked upon his hands with only one eye - the other having burst in a pyromanie of ethereal light and heat when that Tower exploded and the men of Ilxior became no more.

The Templar's thoughts returned from years past to the present, and he shuddered at the memory of the second face which the demon had carried, it was the face of Fredrigo, Fred… his brother. The Templar sighed and whispered his own name, one not spoken by any in many years, the name of a dead man, or at least one presumed dead: Earlath D’Honaire.

1. Further into the night...
2. The next day...

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