>>6105202Your name is Anders Teufel, and you've known bloodshed. You were there when the Lliogor washed ashore and started massacring all that they could find. Though you were little more than a boy, you were there at the Siege of Portsmaw, when the Lliogor launched firebombs into the city in an attempt to break the bloody stalemate. Then, when the war was over, you drifted south to wallow in bloodshed once more.
But what you saw there, what you did there, was different. It sent you fleeing back to your homeland, plunged into a frenzy of strong drink and laudanum as you sought the merciful embrace of oblivion. Somehow, the details of which remain elusive, you arrived at the Ivory Shoulder – a strange little settlement far to the north of Agoria, so close to the Great Sea of Dust that the wind sometimes carries a mist of fine white debris. Here, men with unspoken pasts live out a quiet life of solitude. Here, perhaps, you found peace.
Until the blood started flowing once more.
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Shortly after dawn, the screams wake you from a deep ocean of slumber. You wake in agony, head crushed in the vice of a terrible ache. As you've done many times before, you lie to yourself and pledge to dismantle the crude, home-made still that produces the dark, secret liquor which you so often savour. The scream rings out again as you roll out of bed, stumbling out into the merciless light of day.
Out in the communal garden, you see a loose group of your fellow hermits caught in the grips of hysteria. Stumbling over and pushing them aside, you realise what they had seen. Ennis lies in the long grass and weeds, the soil beneath him dark and sodden with blood. His throat has been cut, the wound so deep that you can see the flash of white bone gleaming through. Just a few feet away from the body, a bloodied sickle lies discarded.
“Impossible!” someone stammers, “I was... I was just with Ennis yesterday!”
“Who could have done this?” another voice sounds out.
With a dull ringing in your ears, you can't tell who is speaking and who is silent. Suddenly, a lurch in your stomach sends you fleeing from the garden to retch into a ditch. No matter how much you try, however, the vomit just doesn't come. With the acid still boiling in the pit of your stomach, you collapse backwards and sit slumped in the dirt for a long while.
Eventually, you hear footsteps behind you and a heavy hand falls on your shoulder. “Come, Anders,” the voice murmurs, “We need to talk. We all need to talk.”
Nodding numbly, you look up at the man only to squint – with the glare of the sun behind him, his features are dark and indistinct. It's as if the man has no face.
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