"Have you heard the rumors?"
A gruff old man grumbled out, hunched over a mug of ale.
His white-capped eye flashed in the light filtering through the tavern window, haggard face cast in shadow from the hood of the hunting cloak he wore.
Four men sat around the table beside him, aged and battle-scarred.
"Another wives tale, Gilligan?"
A man with ragged short-cropped silver hair and dark amber-brown eyes spoke up, taking a large mouthful of alcohol and slamming the mug down on the table.
"And where did you come across this one, you old goat?"
Gilligan's face seemed to disappear completely into the hood of his cloak, and his voice sounded weary yet urgent all the same.
"I wouldn't disregard my words so easily, Roscoe. This came to me directly from Saisgar-Tor."
The other four immediately stiffened, including the amber-eyed man that had spoken up.
"... Saisgar?"
Another one chipped in with more interest, a man with long silver hair tied back and a single pale green eye, suited in iron armor with an eye patch over his right eye.
"What did he say?"
Gilligan's lips, obscured with shadows, pressed into a thin line.
"He said the prophecy of the Harbinger is nearing. The long-forgotten legend of the Red Knight is rising from the ashes, and the Great War will finally come to an end... But at what cost?"
A long, tense silence ensued the cloaked old warrior's words, broken by a short, stout man with an impressive accent and an even more impressive red beard lined with grey streaks.
"Tell meh tha's not true!"
The half-dwarf rumbled, stroking his braided beard with a hand, watching with a sinking feeling while the one-eyed man's expression darkened.
"Oh but it is, Harribol..."
His single pale green eye flashed to the only one at the table who hadn't spoken yet.
"... I understand that there will be a heavy price for ending the Great War, and it leaves me wondering why the legend is coming back to life now of all times. Raegar, the Grandfather of your Grandfather was in service during rise of the Undead King. What do you know of this?"
Roscoe took a long gulp of ale, amber eyes following the one eyed man's stare towards their thus far silent companion, and the other two weren't far behind.
What was- quite a few generations ago- a large brute of a man clad in obsidian armor, stared back at the group with clouded blue-white eyes.
He was without gauntlets, revealing pale, wrinkled, skeletal old hands.
Roscoe noticed with a twinge of unease how the elder's bony knuckles seemed like fragile twigs wrapped around the grip of his massive sword, but he has experienced first hand just how deceiving the old man appeared.
What was left of the elder's hair and long beard was pure white and thin, his face worn with wrinkles developed well over a century.
"It was not a time of peace when the Red Knight first came,"
He began, voice cracked and weakened with age.
"His return could very well sign the contract of fate... And with it... The coming of much death and pain."
CZYTASZ
The Tainted King
Fantasy500 years ago the land of Achridis burned with the fires of a war, a struggle against the God of Death and a mysterious new plague known only as the Taint, a sickness that infected the dead and turned them against the living. Under the lead of the R...
