The King's Game - Blackbarrow Arc (Part 1)

Chapter 13: The Advisor's New Mission & The Cloaked Man Appears in Blackbarrow

Royland sat back and calmly said, "And how can I help you Giselle?"

Giselle shifted slightly in the seat, she was clearly nervous and had no idea Royland would just listen to her the way he had. She begun to question herself and wondered if there wasn't perhaps another option for her to take; an option that would guarantee the safety of her children. The silence only grew, morphed and stretched with time. Royland clearly was in no rush, his mission had gone according to plan up to this point. Giselle reached forward and took another sip of the magical water that soothed and calmed her earlier.

"I'm in need of a place to stay.", Giselle said as she placed the glass of water back down on the table, "I am, no I was a slave of Baron Garnet of Blackbarrow. Luck seemed to be on my side one vrot and I was able to escape, the problem is that the Baron does terrible things to slaves who try to escape. Things that make death look like a luxury, something you can only dream of but never obtain."

Royland sat quietly and listened to everything Giselle had to say. She spoke of the evil in Blackbarrow and the man that people feared even more than the devil himself. It was only when Giselle had finished the water that Royland spoke, "You seem to be exhausted my dear Giselle. I have heard your story and it would shame my father's name if I turned you away. I will have Dahk escort you to a room where you may rest. You have nothing to worry about; Blackbarrow will fall before you know it."

Giselle could just barely make out the last part of what Royland had said before her heavy eyelids closed and she drifted off into a deep sleep.

Deep underground, beneath the castle in the capital, a dim purplish glow could be seen. A shadow danced in this dim glow, the owner of the shadow however remained perfectly still.

"The king was very pleased with your demonstration; with this he trusts you without a doubt. Now what will your next move be? It will still be a long time before the Demon King makes his move against Royland." The bat said to the scrawny man.

The scrawny man walked over to the bat, ripped off one of the bat's wings and threw it into a cauldron. A puff of smoke emerged from the cauldron and the scrawny man quickly filled vials with the liquid contents of the cauldron. During all this the bat screeched and fell to the ground, the scrawny man ignored the bat until he had finished filling the vials.

"You bastard! You could have just said you needed a bat's wing, but you always do this to me. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to have my wing grown back? If I still had my old body, I would chop you to pieces and make a stew out of you!"

The scrawny man held up a hand to silence the bat, he ran his finger over several different vials on a shelf before he grabbed one and made his way to the bat. A single drop of liquid was used from the vial on the bat, the bat's entire body melted into a blob on the floor. The scrawny man scooped the blob up and placed it into a stone mould, where he then lit a match and set the mould on fire. After a brief few seconds, light screams could be heard coming from the mould. Eventually, when the flames had died, a blob in the shape of a bat emerged from the mould.

"Dammit! Is there really no other way to bring me back?", The bat asked the scrawny man, while knowing all too well he would get no reply, "Well we should probably get ready to see the mortal king again, I heard rumours that he plans to send us to Midharbor. I'm sure you know what he expects you to do once we get there."

The scrawny man walked to the centre of the room, a smile crept across his face; and the room went dark.

A few vrots had gone by and Garnet waited patiently for the return of Giselle with the news of his missing men. It was in this time that a cloaked man nobody had seen before appeared in Blackbarrow.