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Fooser sat, leaning up against the stiff stone walls of the Grey Rose castle, looking outward towards the south, watching the darkness and the smoke rising from the earlier destruction within the town. What happened here? How did things go downward so quick? Why wait to figure it out, there were more important things to do...yes.

He looked down at the bottle of ale he had set next to his side, and picks it up slowly. He takes another, much smaller bottle out from within his cape, a bottle filled with a yellow and stenchy substance. He slowly poured the substance into his ale, and watched the color change slightly from the added liquid. Would the undead be coming again soon? More death will surely arrise.

Enough of this. No more need to watch death around me.

He slowly put the small bottle back into the cover of his cape, and looked down at the ale in though. Where had everyone gone? Friends and acquaintances of old. Very few remained. Where had everyone gone? He was the only one outside of the castle. Images of the past resurfaced in great number.

Darlok war...
Movement...
The first coming of Drahken
His bad period..
Talaena being beheaded by another lizard as he could only stand and watch
Getting news of the death of many friends, Val, too many others
So many executions
The cold unwelcoming walls of the prison
All the fallen warriors of the past few days

Why wont these images go away?! ....My entire body hurts like a bastard. No more. Am I really a coward?

The first of the polluted ale went into his mouth after a very slight hesitation, and he chugged a decent amount of it.

See, you're not a coward, I have done it. One more sip should be enough. I have said my prayer. One more sip to end it.

His hands were shaking heavily, but he began to lift the bottle back up to finish off the rest of it.

Was that a footstep I heard?

Who would be here?

Gah, I'll finish it when they pass by....what was that noise?

He peers his head upwards from against the wall, glaring at the gate of the castle, two green eyes looked back.

Sylveria.

Awakening to a silent stone castle, a youthful elfess sits up from the bed, having spent the night in the Castle of the Gray Rose. Vanima had been too long a trek to take with heathen undead abroad, and the Castle was all too close to be missed for refuge.

After a quick and loose rebraiding of the dark locks around her temples, Sylveria slid from the bed, returned the bedsheets to a neat order, and walked with soundless step across the chilly marble floors. The unfamiliar stone walls channeled and limited her directions, so she finally made her way to the castle entrance in relatively brisk time, eager to escape the motionless walls.

Silent as Sylveria's absence of voice, the castle rooms were bereft of life or movement as she approached the great doors. Her line of sight fell easily down the straight stone hall through the doors, to the town across the river shrouded in a foreboding darkness. Sylveria awkwardly bowed her head to direct her eyes at the line of red carpet leading to the door as she made her way towards the outside.

Stepping through the gaping wooden doorway, the elfess glanced right and left. In the latter, her forest green eyes finally fell to a familiar sight, and one that she unalterably welcomed in any time and place. She approached the lizard sitting against the cold stone wall, and looked down with her silent greeting in the form of a cheerful smile.

Sylveria sat down opposite the lizard as Fooser looked up with a bottle clutched between shaking hands.