[h3][color=000000][b]Archenos Pinesorrow[/b][/color][/h3]

Cold crystals mounted themselves at the tips of the python tongued steel boots on Archenos’ feet as he walked through the crisp undergrowth. The lightning forked branches above him, spread aside at the centre like veins from the heart, cast strafing shadows across his already shaded face as he took slow and wide steps forward. Frost poured over the earth at his feet as he stepped, the natural spring of the grass withering away. Replaced by the jagged state of glass, each strand of sharp green blades snapped away under his weight.

It had been but a few days since he had come across the Vikon raiders, the last of their blood had finally fallen away from his cold ivory steel breastplate, though he had kept the leader's shriveled heart to use as bait for predators in the abyss of night. He was perhaps a few minutes from the Royal Road, as he had spotted a handful of travellers heading to Conra on hunters paths and farmer routes.

He had kept his distance for the most part, the dim lights of their swaying lanterns not reaching the dark sparkle of his mirrored helm, though his hand never left his endlessly black hilt through cautious instinct. It would take perhaps another few hours on the paved Royal Road to reach the Southern gate, where he would blend in to the masses. He had had enough of his life in the wilderness.

Archenos lusted for the knowledge the Great Library could gift upon him, the millions of pages and incalculable words that he could drain into his wisdom, seep every last drop until his eyes rolled back into an enlightened slumber. It is said there are Tomes older than man himself, written in the bile of ancient dragons, slain by the Mountain Dwarves of the Old East. The pure magic that could be observed, absorbed by his mortal ocular registries, his comparatively insect like imagination could not begin to put together the intelligent structure of the First Ones.

With his wandering feet and pondering mind rolling down the passage of time, Archenos found himself but a few feet from a hanging oil lamp on the Royal Road, the Queen’s Flower stamped into the wood to mourn her passing. With his forked cowl low and his deep blue cloak wrapped around his wide back, the echoing chink of his armor as it rose and settled was the only sound that met his ears as he made his way to the Capital of Man.

[hr]

It was two hours since the first oil lamp passed under Archenos’ notice, and after the fourteenth a hundred yards behind him, he was growing close to the edge of the city. Five groups had passed by him en route, and only one dared to gaze into his empty helm. It was a child and his mother. She had held his soft blonde hair so close to her waist when he passed, she whispered down to him too quietly for Archenos to hear her words, but he stared up at the shadowy figure of armor and blades without fear, despite presumably being advised the opposite.

Others that passed were caravans and travelers, searching for any hope that they could scavenge from the world as it was now. Wealth, stability and safety. Luxuries that are slowly disappearing from these lands, and soon from all lands if the tides of so called evil aren’t stopped. These preachers were boring Archenos, even from afar he grew tired of their theories of mass destruction. He dared not think of the cities sects and chapel fronts, after the Queen’s death, they were sure to be sewing doubt and misery into the populace.

He would soon reach the gates, from there he would make his way to the Great Library, should the heightened security allow it. If not, he would see what there was to do around the city. Maybe a cult or two had fragments of magic that they would part with, willingly or otherwise, Archenos would take them for himself.