Dusk had already settled over the tree-topped village by the time the assassin wreathed in shadow returned to a familiar haunt.

He’d spent some time in Moonveil Village in the past - though he preferred to camp in its forests, the elven man who breezed silently through the streets clearly knew where he was going. Amongst the peace-loving druids who preferred to adorn themselves in natural clothing of the forest, the tall man clad in dark colors stood out like a sore thumb - from the way the shadows from surrounding trees seemed to cling to him, nipping at his heels like an excited puppy, or the concealed daggers that one might spot if they knew where to look, or even the patch settled over his right eye, it was clear that he was an outsider. One that most common folk would avert their gazes from and leave him to his business. For whatever might have brought him here was clearly not honest work.

Most people were not as desperate as Farmer Tally.

The druid was not normally a careless man. He double and triple checked the pens keeping his livestock in every night to ensure they didn’t wander off into the dangerous woods surrounding his property. He cared for his animals as readily as he cared for all nature - but even a man as cautious as him could not account for the natural disasters that plagued the land. When he awoke to the sun, Tally was in for a nasty shock to learn that his fence had collapsed entirely, setting his animals free into Moonveil Village and the surrounding forests. Cows, goats, woolful, all of them gone. He’d spent hours combing the land, attempting to find his beloved animals, but in the devastation of the quake, no one could lend a couple of hours to help him.

Until the poor, frazzled man spotted the wisp of an elf silently making his way through the village.

Cyran noticed the druid’s approach out of the corner of his eye before he felt the tap on his shoulder. He did not reach for any of his weapons - rather, he merely turned around, tilting his head.

“Oh, please, you have to help me! An earthquake hit us last night, and all of my animals seem to have wandered off… truly, all I need are a couple of extra hands, and everyone around here is busy with repair efforts. Those animals are more than my livelihoods, they’re my friends. Kind sir, won’t you help me? I promise I can pay!”

There was a beat of silence where Cyran stared at the druid that the young man was perhaps struck with the cold feeling of dread that he’d spoken to the wrong person. But then Cyran’s gaze softened, the corner of his eye crinkling as he offered the man a kindly smile.

“Of course.” He murmured. “I would be happy to help you as much as I can. No payment necessary.”

“O-Oh… are you sure? I have some earnings saved up - not much, but to compensate you for your time-“

“-Please, I insist you keep your money. You’ll need it to help pay for supplies to repair your fence. I’ll help track down what I can.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, uh…”

“Cyran.” As usual, offering no family name.

“Cyran.” The druid breathed, shoulders sagging as he gripped at his staff. “The name’s Tally. I’ll show you to the farm. With any luck, we might find another extra pair of hands to wrangle the animals while I try to repair the fence… two heads are better than one.”

Cyran nodded his assent and followed Tally through the village to the farm.

Javal was running through the wilderness by himself, he had gotten separated from lost Nadia and Bootsamon earlier, he knows he shouldn’t have gotten distracted by that squirrel. Now he was running away from a terrifying monster that had started to chase him and the squirrel. Javal dared not to look back for in fear of what he would see looking back at him. He had only heard it’s dreaded howls and for Javal that was enough evidence for that it was indeed a scary beast. Soon he stumbled out of the forest and into a a dirt path. He was trying to catch his breath and relax, it seems that mysterious beast whatever it was stopped chasing him as he stumbled on the path. Javal was relieved, at least he had that not to worry about. He saw Nadia and Bootsamon in the distance to the right but to his left he saw two people he didn’t know a farmer and a elf it seemed. It didn’t take long for his friends to arrive while it seems the other party was about to get there in a matter of minutes “Hey guys, I think I can make new friend today”. As the elf and farmer finally approached him, he stood up straight, smiled and said, “Hello there, my name is Javal Zarrias, president of the Drakon Security Company, would either of you like to be my friend, or are in need of aid?” he then proceeded to hold his hand out awaiting a handshake.

There was no real small talk while Tally led Cyran to the farm - the poor man was too frazzled to engage in anything. As they approached the farm, though, the monotony was broken up by a blue tiefling, a little taller than Cyran himself, bounding up to them wearing an amicable grin on his face. Cyran and Farmer Tally came to a stop, surprised to find someone blocking their path, and with such a frank offer of… friendship?

Well.

Far be it from Cyran to deny such a kind request, especially one that seemed entirely genuine. He accepted the handshake, perking up in interest. “My name is Cyran. I wouldn’t be opposed to friendship. A security company? I’ve never heard of it… are you local?”

Farmer Tally on the other hand, perked up at Javal’s other offer. “Help? Young man, would you be willing to offer your services to assist me? I can pay, I promise!”

“His livestock got loose after the earthquake last night.” Cyran explained, filling in the gaps where the young druid was too panicked to speak. “Not quite security work, but I could really use an extra set of hands to gather up the wayward animals. I’m not exactly a herder…” He admitted sheepishly. “If you’ve got the time I’m sure we’d truly appreciate the help.”

Javal was excited that Cyran accepted his offer of friendship, he was happy he had another person to call his friend. “Drakon Security Company is a relatively new organization, we travel all across Charon looking to either crush the wicked or help anybody with whatever we can. These are my friends Vice President Nadia Sadrine and Officer Bootsamon Pensworth” Bootsamon and Nadia both give Cyran and Tally handshakes. “You may have heard of me from my days as a member of the infamous Black Dragon Pirates, one of the most fearsome pirate crews on sea”. He bows deeply towards Farmer Tally “I would be delighted to help you with whatever you need, however I should tell you both that I was running away from some sort of foul beast earlier that I couldn’t get a good look at due to being chased”. The group all made their way to Farmer Tally’s farm and prepared to look for the troublesome farm animals and bring them back home at any cost at least in Javal’s mind this mission was that intense. It was now dark out and the group started to look around the farm itself with Nadia suggesting at least one of them would be here.

Cyran couldn’t say he’d heard of the security company or the pirate ship - he rarely kept up with current events, and the world had been so crazy as of late that he rarely had much focus for the regular comings and goings around Charon, much less those of pirates. But he did know a few… perhaps next time he saw Vi’ira, he could ask her what she knew about the black dragon pirates. “It’s nice to meet you all.” He greeted, all manners - Farmer Tally looked a touch impatient, mostly just antsy to get his animals back, so after greetings were exchanged, they made their way to the farm.

“A foul beast?” Cyran asked, frowning. From what he remembered, there were wild animals in the Moonveil Forest, but he couldn’t remember if there were any monsters. At the mention of such a creature, Farmer Tally started looking alarmed, increasingly worried about his poor pets. “I suppose that we should hurry and search for the missing animals.”

They decided to search around the farm first under the assumption that at least a few of them might be lingering around. Cyran and Javal went to look in the surrounding area while Farmer Tally got to work repairing the fence. Cyran’s eyes weren’t really that impaired by the darkness, allowing him to search the scattered trees and branches for anywhere that livestock might be hiding. Eventually, movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Cyran turned to one of the nearby trees, surprised to see…

A sheep stuck on one of the branches?

“How did you get up there?” Cyran murmured, unable to hide his bewilderment. He turned to Javal, tapping on the tiefling’s shoulder to get his attention before pointing at the animal. “I think I found one of them. Any idea how to get it down?”

Javal was currently looking under rocks bushes anywhere where he thought farm animals would hide. He felt his shoulder get tapped and looked over to See cyran pointing into a tree, at first Javal couldn’t see anything and was a bit confused until he saw a fluffy sheep stuck on a branch by their fur. He asked Cyran to give him a boost up to the branch. Cyran agreed and he did Javal managed to reach onto the branch and pulled himself up. He managed to untangle the sheep from its trap and hoist it up with him on the branch. Now Javal holding the sheep sitting on the branch was a bit worried now that he had to find a way down with the sheep. He thought about throwing the sheep and himself at Cyran to catch but he didn’t think that idea would go well for any of them so he had to think of something else. As javal sat there thinking the thought hit him he could jump down but as soon as he thought of this he heard something break and he could feel himself falling. He landed roughly on his feet holding the sheep in his hands. It was now time to catch the other 2 sheep a cow and a goat. But where could they be?

When the branch snapped, Cyran nearly panicked, but Javal and the sheep seemed to hit the ground without any injury to their body thanks to Javal’s quick reaction time. He inspected the two, careful to look out for any injuries, but both man and animal looked unharmed. “Good.” He breathed. “That looked like a nasty fall… are you alright?” He patted down his pockets as if looking for a healing potion or something, but he was not the kind of person to carry such things on him. “At least that’s one animal down.” He offered with a sheepish look.

They deposited the sheep back in Farmer Tally’s property, which he’d repaired enough at this point to house one animal in, and then it was back to the search.

… Easier said than done.

Cyran was an expert tracker for humans, but his skills did not quite lend to hunting animals. He could not smell any blood in the air - no animals had been injured in the quake, which was fortunate for them, but made it a touch more difficult for Cyran to follow where they went. Fortunately for him, as they were searching the surrounding glade, Cyran caught the sound of running water. Faint, but it couldn’t have been too far off.

He turned to Javal and explained what he’d heard. “Couldn’t hurt to check.”

Javal agreed with Cyran it would be good to check out the noise that Cyran had heard earlier thinking it was better than just looking in the dark. As they made their way there Javal was talking Cyrans ear off asking him questions like where he came from, is Cyran his first name, what was his favorite farm animal and various others. After a decent ways walk away from the farm, they had finally made it to the source of the noise that Cyran heard earlier. Both of them looked over the source of the noise while hiding behind a bush. There were two sheep dancing and playing around a small waterfall area. Javal then saw something horrifying: a third sheep appeared next to the other sheep. This sheep was walking on two legs and almost had a human look to it. He whispered “Cyran what should we do? I’m a bit creeped out right now”? As Javal whispered that to his new friend the third she turned over and stared at Javal right in tieflings eyes. Javal stared back and saw nothing in its room and eyes just cold and lifeless eyes that frightened Javal right to his core.

They made their way to the river, hoping to find some more of Farmer Tally’s animals getting a drink there. He kept his footsteps light and quiet, as to not scare any livestock that might be lingering around. Thankfully, as he ducked behind a bush, his natural stealth and kicked in, allowing him to hide while he observed those animals with that strange bipedal creature. What was it? On the surface it looked like a sheep who had simply decided to walk on two legs, but those eyes. There was nothing behind them.

All at once Cyran was reminded of an old children’s story he once heard, back when he was still living in Moonglade. He used to read it to Marlow in storybooks until his daughter would get scared and hide under the covers. A farmer, who disappeared into the woods in search of livestock until he became more beast than man. He didn’t realize there might be any truth to that tale.

“… I’m not sure.” Cyran tapped at his chin in thought. The sheep knew the two of them were there, so the element of surprise was ruined. But maybe they could cause a distraction.

“I can send some birds in there, and we can go in and snatch the sheep while that strange one is occupied.” He suggested, keeping a wary eye on the two-legged creature. It wasn’t the best of plans, but it was what they could work with. He waited for Javal’s nod before calling down a swarm of ravens from the sky, all diving for the creature.^[1]

---

1. Raven Storm

Javal pushed forward as fast as he could and grabbed one of the sheep while Cyran grabbed the other one. They both sprinted away from the seemingly strange sheep. The sheep seemed distracted enough for them to pick the other sheep up. As Javal was running away he heard a loud screaming in his head “DEATH, PAIN, BRING WHATS MINE BACK OR ILL BUTCHER YOU AND MAKE YOU MINE” this voice was screaming in his head making Javals head hurt. But he pushed through not willing to let these sheep be taken. They were a decent ways away he could see the farmer in the far distance when the voice he heard earlier was heard again in his mind “I WARNED YOU. HERE I COME” Javal felt that sheeps presence for a second and in front of them appeared the sheep black evil eyes staring at them.

Cyran heard the same voice whispering in in his head, piercing the back of his mind in dissonant chords, threatening death and slaughter to the ones that had stolen his flock. The sound - or absence of it - pierced him to his very core, threatening to instill fear into him. But Cyran would not allow himself to be rattled. He had the cooled discipline of an assassin, a killer’s mind and instinct. He kept a grip on his sheep, refusing to look behind him at the looming, infernal presence that threatened to swallow them whole.

And then it appeared in front of them.

Cyran dropped the sheep to the ground, raising his hands in the air. In a burst of shadow, two daggers manifested as if they’d been plucked out of thin air - his preferred blades, Spell Slicer and Cold Steel.^[1] In a commanding, warning tone, he uttered, “This is not your flock to lead, herder. Leave us be and allow us to pass, or face the sting of my blade.”

“FOOLISH MEN AND THEIR CONCEPTS OF OWNERSHIP. THE WILD HAS NO SUCH RULES. ALL THAT ENTER MY FOREST ARE UNDER MY PROTECTION. FREE OF FENCES.”

Its eyes were wide, unblinking. Its mouth did not move as it spoke.

“NOW LEAVE, BLADESMEN. YOU TWO REEK OF DEATH, BUT I AM MORE THAN THAT. I AM AN INEVITABILITY.”

Cyran glanced at Javal, giving the man a silent nod. There was no way around this creature - they were going to have to fight this thing.

---

1. Summon: Possession

Javal was terrified of the sheep or whatever it is was standing in front of them screaming in their heads. Javal unsheathed his katana “Katana” and got into a fighting stance.

“YOU WILL PERISH UNDER MY HAND, EVEN IF YOU KILL ME I WILL BE BACK. UNLIKE YOU MORTALS I EXIST IN DIFFERENT LEVEL OF EXISTENCE”

Javal sprinted toward the sheep who was quite short at about 5 foot tall and yelled “Javal Style: Downard Style” and slash downward towards the sheep. He saw its body getting sliced in half, he laughed “I did it Cyran it’s gone” his happiness was quickly offshoot by evil laughter

“YOU DIDN’T EVEN SCRATCH ME”

Javal looked down and saw the sliced sheep he saw earlier completely not there.

“Cyran what do we do against this monster”.

What were they supposed to do against a creature that could not be killed by normal means? Javal managed to land a killing blow on the beast with his katana, but his celebration was premature - the moment that the sheep’s body disappeared, Cyran felt that presence in his mind, as if the creature was all around them. Was this thing a demon? A spirit? Cyran had no clue. He dropped his daggers to the ground in favor of clenching his fists, something tugging on him as Del’s movements came to mind. He’d watched her unarmed combat plenty of times before - it felt second nature to draw upon her fighting style, light on his feet as he looked around him, waiting for the sheep to reform.

And then it appeared behind him.

Cyran whirled around, driving a cold-iron fist straight into the bipedal sheep’s face, delivering a wave of fear with the blow.^[1] In a burst of shadow, he resummoned his daggers to his hand, which he then used to drive Spell Slicer into the sheep’s shoulder. The sheep was engaged with him, giving Javal another chance to do more damage.^[2,3] If these attacks did nothing, then they might have to cut their losses and run.

---

1. Del's eternity Ring - Delaela's Cold Iron Touch
2. Summon: Possession
3. Magic Blocker Enchantment

With the opening that Cyran gave him, Javal puts his entire weight and strength into a single strike against this evil sheep. He yells “Javal Style: Single Slash and cleaves his katana into the sheep's head cutting him straight in half. The sheep body falls to the floor with black mist leaving it and appearing in front of both of the men. Javal falls to the floor holding his head as he hears a voice scream inside of it, “YOU KILLING MY MORTAL BODY MEANS NOTHING I WILL SIMPLY REFORM I AM A BEING OF PURE POWER YOU CAN NOT KILL ME OR DESTROY ME. I WILL REFORM AND KILL BOTH OF YOU AND THAT FARMER.”

Cyran’s distraction allowed Javal to strike the sheep from behind with a devastating cleave from his katana, this time aiming for the head. The blow ought to have been a mortal one - but only moments later, that same, haunting voice struck them both to their very core, so overwhelming that Javal dropped to his knees, clutching at his head.

Cyran winced, bending down to put a hand on Javal’s shoulder. “We’re going to have to switch tactics.” He muttered, voice low as he kept a wary eye on the mist. He was accustomed to killing, but facing a being who seemed to be able to reform itself at will was far beyond his capabilities. If this creature couldn’t die, they would simply have to figure out another method of disposing it. “Follow my lead, okay?” He whispered.

He waited for Javal’s acknowledgment before straightening, staring down the mist with a death glare befitting of an assassin known as the Specter. When he spoke, his voice was calm and cool.

“We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to intrude upon your domain. We should have known better than to test a being of your power.”

“APOLOGIES ARE PALTRY. RELINQUISH MY KIN TO ME AND BOTH YOU AND THE DRUID WILL BE ALLOWED TO GO FREE.”

Cyran glanced at the sheep that they’d been tasked with retrieving. He didn’t want to have to use them as bait - that meant risking their safety and possibly returning to Farmer Tally emptyhanded. Thinking on his feet, Cyran quickly said, “And relinquish them we shall. But first… how about a game?”

Silence. The mist seemed to… hover in the air for a moment, as if considering Cyran’s words.

“I DO NOT PLAY GAMES WITH MORTAL MEN.”

“But you’d play them with your kin, wouldn’t you?” Cyran gestured towards the sheep. “How about a game of hide and seek? Find them in the forest, and we’ll leave them alone. I used to play this game all the time with my daughter - trust me, they’ll have fun.”

“… HIDE AND SEEK.” The creature mused. “THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. THESE ANCIENT FORESTS ARE MY DOMAIN. NO MATTER WHERE YOU HIDE THEM, I SHALL BE ABLE TO FIND THEM.”

It was a good thing then, that Cyran didn’t intend on allowing this demon to find the sheep in the first place.

“Give us time to hide them.” He requested. That would give him and Javal time to figure out what in the world they were supposed to do next.