Aluric looked up at the four adventurers that entered his office, he slowly removed Jinny’s hand from his cheek, holding it ever so gently, they both stood up, Aluric’s height dwarfing, Jinny’s half elven body,

“well I’ll excuse myself, and let you guys talk in private”, jinny said,she bowed to Aluric and turned to walk out the door, the four pillars parted on each side of it and each bowed their heads slightly to Jinny as she walked through the door, Aluric made his way to his worn and wary seat behind the large wooden desk filled with large stacks of papers, scattered coins and a pen and wooden ink well that had seen better days, Aluric sat on the old throne of the guild, beginning his paper work as usual, while the four pillars stood in silence,

pix was the first one to break the silence,“so why are all of us here together ?”, he asked aluric, his face filled with curiousity, he took a step forward his scanning through a few of the papers to the top of a stack,

“that is a good question”, kiara chimed in saying, walking up to the small round table in the center of the room, she pulled a chair and took a seat, “though anything he does will always have purpose”, she continued,

“pfftt… like you would know what a real sense of purpose is”, one of the other pillars slyly remarked, with a wicked but tempting grin on his face, it was the kind of look that screamed ‘if you don’t like it then fight me’,

“Grahm shut up, I know you’re still upset that I stole that mission from you, but be honest with yourself you’re way to weak to handle it”, Kiara said, flicking her hair behind her shoulder, Grahm grit his teeth, slamming his hands onto the table,

“I am not weak”, Grahm said, a feint golden glow began to radiate off of him, growing in intensity the longer he stared at kiara,

“oh, someone’s feeling incompetent” Kiara continued to poke and prod at Grahm, only further adding to his frustrations, Kiara propped her hands on the table leaning forward as she sat locking her eyes with Grahm’s, the look in her eyes and demenor shifted, as she to began to radiate with divine energy, Grahm drew one of his swords pointing it directly at kiara,

“do I need to put you in your place”, she said, with a very serious look in her eyes, she leaned in just a bit until the tip of Grahm’s sword imprinted on her forehead, however grahm did not back down, placing his other hand on the other sword he had,

“what is it you said to that guy earlier, move and I will stop you from breathing permanently”, Grahm said, a smile growing across his face, Pix stood there rather amused by the whole situation, while Aux sat on the couch looking through the window at the street below,

“THAT’S ENOUGH”, his voice echoed loudly, and with just his presence alone they both withdrew their hostility towards each other,

“and this is why we are hardly ever seen together”, Pix said, continuing to read the document he had in his hand,

“don’t play this off as a joke Pix, I told you to make sure that those two resolved their issues, it’s been months and they are still at each other’s throat”, Aluric said, staring at pix out of the corner of his eye, Aluric sat back in his chair letting out a deep sigh,

“the battle against my brother is less than a week away, I’m not entertaining this from any of you”, he continued,

“especially you kiara, I know I don’t have to tell you that just by unleashing the power in those chains wrapped around your arm is enough to take out the guild hall”, he sternly scolded kiara,

she let out a very depressed sigh ”fine”, she replied,

“now what I’ve called you here for today is, I want to know what you four truly think about the war that we’ve been waging against the other kingdoms on this continent and against my brother”, Aluric announced,

“all of your can freely express your thoughts”, he finished,

……..for a moment there was complete silence, then grahm was the first one to speak,

“well I for one a, not enjoying it one bit, that sick prince put me to over see Argon, and while I’m happy to see the corrupt noblemen burn, i don’t like hurting the innocent civilians that are getting caught up in the fighting, honestly it really shouldn’t matter to me, I defected, betrayed them all, but I guess some part of me still cares about my old country, so honestly I just want this war to be over and done with”, Grahm said, his faced pained with emotions. Grahm couldn’t help to think back on the good times he had growing up in Argon, he still remembered the day he picked to be the protégé of the head of the royal guards, it was during this time that he and the prince of argon became best friends, they would spar on a regular basis, and would hang out and party even more than that, they were the known trouble makers in the capital,

“makes sense why he is always such a downer”, kiara said,

“kiara”, aluric said sternly, shooting a cold gaze in her direction,

“Grahm I understand, if I could I would reassign you, but the prince put you there as a tst of sorts, he wanted to see if you could go through with attacking you old home”, Aluric said,

“I’m not surprised after all im the only one out of the four of us that wasn’t born in Dracht, but it’s not like I can go home, not after what I did”, Grahm said,

“I’m sorry grahm”, Aluric said, After that surprisingly Aux spoke next,

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“this entire war is stupid and a complete waste of resources and people, not to mention it’s putting a serious strain on my business, not to many people are putting in assassination request because everyone is focused on war, plus it makes it that much harder to move around quietly because the entire continent is brimming with activity”, Aux said

“damn Aux sounds like you’ve got it rough”, pix said, lightly making fun at Aux, who he could tell was very annoyed,

“and what about you kiara ?”, Aluric asked,

“what about me, I’m satisfied and content, with the war I’ve gained lots of new girls, so my regiment is stronger than ever, especially this one girl who I recruited recently and get this she’s from the same island as those boys from earlier, she even dated one of them, good thing she tagged along with me earlier, I’m gonna have fun playing with them”, she said with a wickedly seductive grin running across her face,

Aluric let out a sigh, ”what am I going to do with you”, he said holding his hand to his head,

“and lastly Pix, hurry up and tell me what you think”. Aluric said,

“well….where do I begin...”, Pix said, signing off on the papers he had in his hand, before picking up another set, and reading through them,

“ahh I know….Aluric why the hell did you go along with this idea in the first place…. You seem to forget that I was there for the start of all of this and I voiced my opinions then and I’m telling you again now, this time in front of these three, this mission is suicide, yes we might win these wars… but if you go through with it and succeed in drawing them out, this isn’t going to end well for anybody”, Pix said, his tone shifting from happy to deadly serious,

“aluric what is he talking about”, Grahm asked, his face filled with concern,

“He’s talking about the mission me and Prince Ea, came up with, he was a part of this guild a while ago, and if he were still with us I can say for sure that I wouldn’t have been guild master today”, Aluric beckoned,

“so why come up with this ‘stupidly dangerous’ idea of yours then”, Aux asked,

“if you want to know I’ll tell you” Aluric said,

“ A few years ago, when me and Ea were tasked with a mission to secure and retrieve some Relics from a small dungeon, that were said to be dated to the beginning of the dracht Kingdom, we met Pix, the relics were located on the outskirts of his village”, Aluric said,

“wait I thought Pix came from a village of reapers”, Aux said,

“I do” Pix answered,

“from what I learned, the reapers originate from outside of this continent though”, Aux said,

“we do, but ancestors lost their homeland and so one of them settled here, I was told the story as a kid, the story of Kainon the Dread, was really used to scare us into acting like good little boys and girls, unless we wanted the same thing to happen to us, Hence the Name Kainon village”, Pix explained,

“anyways, as I said, there we met pix, and he led us to the dungeon, but I guess, some treasure hunting adventurers also heard about it and we were attacked which led us into and unknown part of the dungeon while we still had the relics, there we found an altar, we could tell it was old, even older than the relics we had in hand, on the altar we found a scroll, Ea figured that it was important, but I thought that the place might be booby trapped so I told him I would take it instead, luckily it wasn’t booby trapped, on the scroll read a prophecy, about the coming of four kings, who would be known as conquerors, and saviors, and that they would appear when the gods chose the next champions who would become kings, and how they would go on to defeat a great evil, and that this great evil would start a great calamity from the land covered in shadows, , but unfortunately the rerst of the scroll wasn’t there it was ripped away, my guess by the person who originally put it there”,

“ okay but what does that have to do with us waging war” Aux asked,

“the land covered in shadows, and the scroll was found on the shadow continent, it can’t be a coincidence, so me and Prince Ea did some digging, and we found documentation of an ancient ritual, between the gods, carried out by man, to determine those who would become kings, known as the banquet of kings, so the plan me and Prince ea came up with was to conquer the other kingdoms and use the prince’s natural blessing to ensure that the other kingdoms fell under us so that the continent would be united as one, giving us a better chance at survival"

‘thus setting up the Prince as a Conqueror and savior, but his father is still the king”, Grahm said taking a seat in the chair next to him,

“okay this all seems fine and dandy, but I don’t get why Pix said it was stupid, it seems like the plan is working so far, and two out of the three titles isn’t bad”, Kiara said,

“Kiara, I’m not worried about this part of the plan, it’s the next part that is dangerous, reckless and could get us all killed”, Pix said, handing off another set of papers to aluric to sign,

“so there’s more to this plan, now I’m intrigued”, Aux said, turning his attention to inside the office,

“yes, there is another part to our plan, after we successfully gain control of the continent, we would spend a few years rebuilding our military might”, Aluric said,

“okay seems standard so far”, Aux said,

“and then we we go into an all out war with the Church of Exxion, Ea and I believe that once we rebuild our strength we would be strong enough to take them down”, Aluric said, the three pillars were in complete shock, due to the fact that this really was a suicide plan as Pix had stated,

“A...Al..aluric thats madness and that’s coming from me”, kiara shouted,

“have you completely lost your mind”, she continued,

“NO I am perfectly sane” Aluric answered,

“okay but even if you do take over the continent how are you so sure that the people from the other kingdoms will follow you”, Kiara asked,

“Due to Prince Ea they won’t have a choice, it is a calculated risk, and one me and the prince are willing to take”, Aluric said,

“Aluric, the Church of Exxion is the strongest Military power in this world right now, they have the hall of heroes, people so powerful it’s said that one of them can topple a kingdom by themselves, not to mention the rumors that they have spies in every single country”, Kiara said,

“not to mention you are gambling with the lives of millions of people, have you even considered that what you’re doing might be the reason that the so called ‘prophecy’ comes true”, Pix said, dropping the papers he had in his hand on the desk,

“and have you thought that what we are doing is actually preventing it from happening, look the church isn’t the only one with spies, my inside source has told me that the church isn't as clean as everyone thinks they are, and I don’t know what this great evil is but the church is definitely on my list of guesses, not to mention from the time we started this war the church has had their sights locked on us, if we win they will march on us in order to keep us in check, luckily it will take them a while to amass an army the same size as ours, which is why I need to wrap things up with my brother and afterwards we need to finish this war”, Aluric said,

“inside source ?” pix asked,

“what else aren’t you telling us Aluric ?”, Pix asked, taking a step forward towards him,

“look, I didn’t know it would start so soon, in our research it stated that those selected to be the champions of the gods will bare a divine mark, and a few weeks ago, this appeared on me”, Aluric said, pulling aside his trench coat to reveal a mark on his chest,

“not even the prince knows about it, so whatever happens we have to get things settled on this continent as soon as possible”, Aluric said,