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Courts of Scorn
Meetings in the dark

Meetings in the dark

Prologue...

Viscount Dumane raced along the damp, cobblestone floor of the ancient tunnel. The echoes of his footsteps slapping the stagnant water echoed as Dumane began to lose his breath. Dumane knew he didn't have much time before The Sons of the Sun caught up with him and found the sensative information he was smuggling over to the Royal Lunar Fmaily. The light from his torch cast a flickering golden ring around him, displaying the shifting arcitecture of the ages of the Lux kingdom pass away as it finally gave way to the most recent architecture of the Nox Kingdom. Dumane called out into the pitch darkness: "hello? Mr. Gurywn?" per usual, the darkness didn't call back.

"I hear you, Dumane! Don't do something you'll end up regretting, I can guarentee you'll find no solace is selling info to the Moonies." Callled a sing song voice from the passage Dumane had just come back from. Dumane yelped and scurried further down the tunnel. Suddenly, a behemoth figure materialized seemingly out of nowhere, causing Dumane to slam into his barrel chest, knocking him to the floor. Shadow cloaked the figure's features.

A deep voice, as vast as the night sky rumbled through the cavern. "We have not allowed a sunshiner to pass into the Nox kingdom for a thousand and more years, the Royal Lunar Family will not allow one to pass through now. I have simply come to trade."

"Yes, yes, here you are." Dumane shoved a scroll sealed with the royal seal of Dumane into the large hands of the mysterious figure. "Take it, now give me the drug, damn it!" Panic filled the voice of the royal. A large vial filled with a silvery liquid floated across the border from the mysterious figure. "Thank you," Dumane said, snatching the vial out of the air, "my wife will be very gracious for this, she's worsened i'm afraid." Dumane turned to leave when three bare chested figures, each of their chests marred with whorles of scars in the shape of a sun accosted Dumane. 

"Tsk, tsk Valn, I thought I knew you better. I knew you were snooping around for 'alternative cures' for Thim but I didn't know you were willing to practically share a bed with a moonie." The man drew two swords from his hip, each curved like a snake's tooth and as sharp as an executioner's blade.

"Please Ren, you know I wouldn't do it if i didn't have to!" Dumane turned to the shadow cloaked figure, "please, you have to help me! You owe me!" The giant guffawed. "I owe you nothing, this was a simple trade and nothing else. I am not your bodyguard, I have what I want." Ren's mouth split into a grin, "there's no one to help you now Valn." With a quick flick of the wrist and a lunge forward, Valn choked on his own blood that was spewing forward from his throat. With a pleading look towards the man who had given him the drug, Dumane slumped to the floor, never to rise again.

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"Now then! I believe boys we have some super secret information to get back to the King from this moonie here!" Ren sheathed his swords only to quickly draw two throwing knives from his boots and throw them into the figure's form. A solid clanging sound richocheted down the cavern. The figure let a growl escape from his throat. "You should not have done that boy." The giant took a step forward, revealing his shape. Standing almost 9 feet tall stood what appeared to be a half man half bear. His pectorals were easily the size of watermelons, his arms and legs were each corded with muscles tight enough to be played like guitar strings and large enough to feed a hearty family of eight. All of his features were covered in coarse brown fur. But was most unholy were the claws that tipped his massive hands as well as the head of a bear that sat atop his wide shoulders. The three men staggered backwards. "So the stories about them are true," breathed Ren. The bear man lunged forward, spittle flying from his maw as a thundering roar emitted from his throat. Too stunned to act, Ren was simply dashed to the ground as the creature tore into his other two men, blood and gore flying everywhere, staining the ground red. Neither men stood a chance against such a beast, let alone one so mythical. Ren wriggled backwards towards the wall as he watched the monster dig his mouth into his comerades as steam floated out of the fresh corpses. Ren had only heard distant, unbelievable stories about the people of the Nox Kingdom being monsterous humanoids, hell-bent on quenching their thirst for gore. Once every possible surface was coated in blood- including Ren- and the other two men were irrecognizable, the monster lifted its head towards Ren. On all fours, the monster lumbered forward, breath misting in front of him, eyes as beady and as focused as an archer. Stopping a mere inches from Ren's face, Ren got an upclose examination of the creature. His fur was throughly matted with blood all around his face, his breath stank of death, his eyes bore into Ren with an unholy anger. "I'm not going to kill you, but you'll wish in the end that I would have." The beast lunged forward again, teeth sinking into the scars that decorated Ren's chest, but instead of ripping, the beast simply removed his jaw. It hurt like a bitch but Ren had survived worse, what made it so concerning was he had no idea why that was all he had done. A rumbling laugh rolled through the bear-man's body. "I'm not done yet sunshine, I'm going to bring you as close to death while still being able to drag yourself back to your master. That bite I just gave you will just be the most lasting." The beast raked his claws into Ren's chest and calves, tearing away strips of flesh from his body. Ren let a moan of pain escape his lips. "That's it," purred the beast, "crawl back to your master and tell him what happens when you try to take down an agent of the Kingdom of Nox." The monster pushed himself up onto two feet and lumbered back to the darkness to the Nox Kingdom, scroll from Dumane still in hand. Ren, with one good arm left, began the long journey of draging himself through centuries of architecture and filth back to daylight and civilization of the Lux Kingdom....

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