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Cato Vergillianus

The trip to Midwinter was a rough one, and equally as expensive. A few months on that damned ship, going through all types of natural hazards was not my idea of fun, and to be frank, I was ready to die halfway through when we got attacked by some huge fucking sea serpent, which was successfully fended off by Gaius, a few Black Order soldiers and I, though only barely. It was this trip which reminded me why the Empire took so much pride in the Black Order, as well - Never had I seen such able fighters before, and these were low ranked ones. After one of them sliced the head of the serpent clean off its head, I made sure to write down as a reminder to never commit a crime anywhere under the protection of the Order.

Though, that didn't particularly matter now. The ship delivered us to a city in Midwinter, called something I couldn't pronounce (Something around the words of Stalkarda, which, while it is easier than old Fehrinian, the language we learn in the University, didn't quite roll off the tongue that well.) Apparently, it meant Stal's Port, or something around those lines. Who was Stal? I had no idea.

This entire continent remained uncontacted by the people of the Northernmost lands for eight whole ages, for the reason that they simply were so far from us, most didn't have any knowledge of its existence. We had no idea what they spoke, what their culture was like, anything, really. That only changed when one of the Kingdoms of this continent decided it'd be a good idea to assassinate the Emperor (or, at the time, Empress) as "revenge" for the Empire's refusal to trade with them due to their prices. This was not a good decision. The kingdom that had done this, Nilvens, was devastated in less than a year as the son of Empress Aelia, named Martinus, sent nearly the entire Black Order, together of allied troops, to rain fire upon the enemy.

Their palaces were all destroyed by the end of this war, and the head of the king that caused this placed on a pike. Martinus ordered that all civilian properties be indemnified and immediately repaired, which, while costly, only reduced some of the profit they'd gained from seizing the king's treasury. He sent over healers, stonemasons and woodworkers to repair any civilian stores, houses or farms that had been destroyed and heal those who had been wounded back to health. This move was seen as an unprecedented act of kindness in war, even if otherwise, the Order had been nothing but ruthless up to that. The people of Nilvens were also pleased from being freed from a king who was seen as a tyrant by them, and Martinus was declared a hero. To this day, his statue remains in the Nilvenian capital.

History is interesting! But this really was as far as I knew about the Far Kingdoms, as we called this area. I also knew that Nilvens was a rather temperate place, and the constant snowstorms, similar to Fehrin-Niv, pointed out that I was far from the only kingdom I actually knew something about.

Either way, Stalkarda was a fairly interesting city. The city, made out of a strange, deep red coloured wood, had a fancy, ornate architecture, and the city bustled with stores, a small fair, and all types of services being offered. The people, most of whom were Bears and Foxes, all had strange, bright colours covering their fur, and were, for the most part, covered in all sorts of interesting paintings on their bodies. That was rather odd! I'd never seen that, anywhere in the Empire, especially the colours! Some of them had colours like purple, for example, on their bodies, and in no place I'd ever been had I seen such a thing.

Gaius wasn't as interested in the people, though. He was a bit of a... distant man, always. While he treated me well, always, and he always seemed to smile at me, it seemed that nothing really pleased that man, otherwise. He always seemed to treat things with a certain disregard, a bit of a lack of interest, and I didn't understand why. He hardly showed excitement for our adventures!

But I knew that was just the way he was, and I was used to it. I was used to him, in general. He was pretty damn tall for a wolf, and had black fur, as dark as the night, covering his entire body, with some grey fur here and there, besides penetrating yellow eyes that felt like they probably went right through you soul. Besides, even if he didn't admit it, he looked very strong, having broad shoulders and, while not being athletic, he was a rather big guy. Type of guy I wouldn't like to see at night, out in the road, personally. Most people find he looks rather... scary, and I didn't really blame them. It did take some getting knowing before I saw that he was, genuinely, a very sweet guy. He was very caring and friendly once you knew him, just didn't bother too much with people he didn't know.

Either way, we both had went around town looking for... Well, we didn't know exactly what we were looking for. We went into a local mages guild, and asked about 'Darius's Vault' to them. They replied they didn't know about that, but they did know that there were some pieces of a map scattered around that could lead to the vault. 'Great,' I thought, when they said it, 'we are going on a note hunt.'

The thought didn't please me very much, but what else could I do? They told me that the first piece of the note was supposed to be really close by, buried in some abandoned temple. When I asked why nobody had actually taken the piece yet, they said something about creatures and shrugged off my question.

Isn't that great? More stuff to kill us.

Though I was not really looking forward to getting attacked by whatever monsters inhabited this random cave some mages told us about, it was basically our only lead so far, so off we went. To explore this temple.

The temple was right on the Eastern edge of the city, a bit off on the outskirts. It wasn't hard to find - its structure stood out amongst the frozen plains we travelled, and as soon as we were on the Eastern road, we could already see the stone building some metres ahead of us. It had large, stained glass windows on what we assumed was its second floor, judging by the height, and smaller, simpler windows on the first floor. We walked up to it, spells readied by both of us, and examined its front. The temple lied close, a large wooden gate with various drawings inscribed upon it keeping it shut tight.

Gaius examined the drawings, looking thoughtful as he did so. I kept good watch around us while he examined them, looking around the plains and the temple. The plains here were all barren, and white was all you could see for as far as you looked - just snow and ice, nothing more. The palace, with parts of it covered by thick coatings of ice, looked fairly barren as well. A single stained glass panel on top of the huge gates seemed to depict two people, but I couldn't identify much more about them, and looking through the small windows on this floor, it was completely dark inside, with the little daylight that seeped through the windows not providing much aid in terms of vision

"Hey, come check this out, Cato," the dark furred wolf called out to me from the gate he examined. I hopped off to his position, smiling, and he pointed out the lower four "panels" of drawings on the wooden gate, "The first three depict the ending to the sixth, seventh and eighth ages. I don't recognize what's on the last one, but look," he began, pointing his finger to the first panel of the set, "Those are the soldiers of the Northern Alliance withdrawing from here, which was the ending of the Sixth Age. The next one is Emperor Falk delivering the killing blow to a demon, which is the ending of the Seventh Age. The other one is that weapon found in the Depths being destroyed. And it seems this lower panel here is incomplete," he explains, pointing out the panel on the lower right. Indeed, it looked incomplete. An entire section of the wood hadn't been drawn on, and all that had been drawn looked like a wide altar with some type of block over it? I couldn't make out what it was, even with how intricate the drawing was.

But this was curious indeed. Was this temple abandoned recently? If so, that would explain why the panel where I suspect the ending to the Ninth Age would be drawn was only half empty - But then again, why is it only half drawn? Did they already have some idea of how this Age would end? And if it was abandoned long ago, how did they know the ending to the Eighth Age, but didn't properly know the ending to the Ninth?

This filled my head with far too many questions, and I felt frustrated about this just from looking at it. Still, it was clear this temple held some important information. Not about our predicament, properly, but about the current state of the world. Depending on how much they knew, we could use the information to stop something big and terrible from happening, and that was more important than that stupid book we were looking for, which could turn out being nothing. Of course, this could also turn out being nothing more than the drawn ramblings of cultists from just a century ago that thought they knew how the world would end. It could also not even be how they thought the world would end, I mean, we had no idea what these drawings were for.

"What do you think it means?", I asked Gaius, who shrugged as he looked at it, "I've absolutely no idea, if I've got to be honest with you. Seems like we'll have to go in to find out."

We were about to push the door open, when somebody whistled behind us, calling our attentions. We both turned to whoever was behind us, ready to attack, my hand immediately lighting itself on fire as I got startled and turned around. A snow leopard, of grey fur with black spots, stood behind us, wearing a brigandine, and a thin coat over it. He looked at us with a smirk, a sword in his hands as he watched us both. "What do you two think you're doing?", he asked with a voice, slightly high pitched voice, stepping closer and narrowing his eyes.

"Oh, we were just about to go brew scotch inside the Temple. We figured it was dark enough to ferment the mash," Gaius snarkily barked, his own hand lighting up with a magical sphere of energy,

"Now, if you want to put the hammer down and solve this gently, we can do so. I see that brigandine you're wearing. Lightning hurts more in metal."

"Oh, aren't you funny?", the figure calmly replied, beating on his brigandine with his left paw, "Magic resistance, buddy. Not much you're doing to me."

Gaius laughed, "Cute. That won't save y'a, if y'a attack us," he taunted, shaking his head, "Now what are you doing here, eh?"

"Making sure you two don't go meddling with others' businesses," he said, raising his hammer, "Walk away. Go back to the Empire. This your only chance."

Gaius whispered he'd beat that bastard with a dagger to his head, then lifted his hands to the air as if to surrender. "Alright lad, we'll go," he accepted, walking forward. I was puzzled, but I followed, hands in the air, and we slowly walked towards the man's position.

He laughed at us, and nodded, "Good. Go, and never return. We don't need your meddling," he growled, watching us walk up the road.

As Gaius walked past the man, a dagger materialized in his hand, however, and with one swift motion he stabbed down on the man, who was caught unprepared by the sudden attack. The man instinctively dodged to the side, and the magical dagger pierced his shoulder rather than his head.

The leopard let out a yelp of pain which quickly turned into an angry growl as he attempted to grapple Gaius, and lifted his hammer to strike down against him. I saw Gaius pulling something from his waist as the man lifted his hammer, and as soon as the man struck his chest, causing him to let out a loud gasp and a low cry of pain, I saw Gaius thrust his right hand at the man's stomach and kicked him away, pulling the dagger back. The dagger's shiny metal blade now covered in dark red blood, dripping onto the snow besides Gaius' foot.

The man looked down at the stab wound, his mouth open wide in shock, before recovering his footing and pushing onwards, in an adrenaline filled attack. He delivered a hard blow with his hammer to Gaius' right arm before he could react, and I finally gathered my courage to do something. As Gaius retreated, I pulled my very own dagger, which I'd never had to use before, and charged in, tackling the leopard to the floor, and causing him to drop his weapon.

Gaius, clutching his arm for a bit, walked up to us while we struggled in the floor, and picked up the enemy's hammer from beside him before he could use it. It all went by like a flash, and I faintly saw Gaius lifting the hammer up, and delivering a strong blow with his left hand to the man's, well, unprotected cranium. I looked away, disturbed, refusing to look at the result of this. The man twitched a few times underneath me, and I let go of him, rolling off to the side, still not looking at the certainly deformed corpse.

"Not so tough now, eh? Y'a bastard," I heard Gaius curse, and then heard him spit on the corpse of the leopard, "This is what y'a get for trying to threaten me."

"I think that was too much," I stuttered, dropping my dagger, feeling sick to my stomach that we'd just taken a life. We weren't killing monsters, we killed a man.

"What, did y'a want to head back to the Empire and leave behind all we'd worked for? He'd kill us if we hadn't killed him first," Gaius assured me, whilst I heard him going through the body of the man, "Besides, it was quick and painless, don't y'a think? Hammer to the head. Not like we tortured him or something."

"It's still a person!", I argued, walking farther from the body, "We could've just beat him, or something, not killed him!"

Gaius grunted loudly, "Okay, bring him well back to life and we'll solve this with a nice, friendly chatter," he sarcastically replied. I could feel him rolling his eyes, "Next time somebody threaten us, we can invite them out for tea, how about that?"

I growled, annoyed, and went up to the temple gates, sitting in front of it quietly while I watched him search through the body in the distance.

"Hey, I found something," I heard him call out, "Think it's important. This guy worked for something called the 'Order of The Darkseekers," he explained, "They sent him to kill us. This could lead us somewhere."

I raised my eyebrow and got up, looking at Gaius putting a note in his pocket and turning to me, "But we'll worry about that later," he added, "We've got a temple to explore."