Province of Dragonscape - Beginning of third era
As the night falls and the city become dark, guards start lighting up lamps with candles inside all over the place, they hang the lamps in the trees and houses wood give this dim but beautiful illumination to the city, as most of people start to slowly go to their houses to sleep. The Ahujas, scattered around the city's plaza, where they had a huge lake in the middle of the city with a tall tree in the middle of it holding tons of lamps and full of small geckos living there.
The Ahujas started to notice something, new "guards" started roam the city, these guards were different, they helmets that completely covered their entire face, and they had several scattered holes for their vision. Besides that, they barely use any armor or clothes at all, only a split long skirt with some kind of cloth as their under wears, they were eerily tall and skinny, and instead of weapons, they used staffs. Their skin was a darkish green, weird to explain, each of them walked far from each other, but each one were also accompanied by at least two other normal guards.
The normal guards used a kind of long hat that made difficult to know to where direction they were looking at.
But as the streets started to become empty, and even most of the normal guards either went to their dorms or guarded just specific places, these new "guards", continued roaming the streets even when all the lights went out.
In the temple's city, which was just 20 meters from the plaza, there was still some light lamps and normal guards guarding there, these guards were in the wall that covered the temple, in small tower guards, and most of them were looking to one of the eerie "guards" patrolling the streets just ahead of them, one of the still light up streets. Even the cities guards and people found them to be weird and mysterious, but of course, respected them deeply.
But suddenly, they saw a smoke appear out of nowhere and the lamps get snuffed out. They found it very odd, so they send one man to investigate, he goes to the pitch black streets to try light up the candles, but before he does, he steps on something, the special guard, dead on their head completely turned back, but then, a quiet scream of pain, and they didn't ever see that guard come back again.
But before the guard in the towers could decide anything, from behind them, two Ahujas appeared almost at the same time in both the towers and broke their necks.
Now the Ahujas assembled at the Temple's yard, cleared out of guards, they tried to look for windows at the temple and found none, also, the door was completely closed, not only locked, but it looks like... it was a false door? And just part of the wall? Very puzzling for them, they figured there must be another ways in the temple, and Zamir's apprentice suggest the well. The other Ahujas thought he was joking, why the well was going to have a way inside the temple, but Zamir knew about how insightful his apprentice would be, and then suggested him to go first into the wall while they covered for him, and they all did it very quietly.
You must be asking yourself, how they knew something was up in the temple from the beginning? well, the followers of Kulhur were too confident and open about their faith, their city never attacked before, and stealth attacks never been a issue, so it was very easy to hear about the Egg of Paradise who produces the wealth of the city, besides that, the temple being being one of the only lit and guarded places at night, even though temples in the middle of the city normally didn't need to be heavily guarded unless someone very important was there.
Sinjid used the very rope for the bucket to go all the way down the well, there, he saw only the water cave, but nothing more than that, but... perhaps...
Sinjid jumped in the water, and using a little small flask with some light bugs there, he investigate inside the water, and found a whole from where the water came, the swan down the hole, even knowing that would most likely lead to certain death, but suddenly, as he 'hits' the bottom, he gets up back again, and suddenly, he's on another cave.
There were two caves, one just beside the other, and a tunnel of water connecting the two. Now, in the newfound cave, he saw a much larger cave, completely full of... big tree roots?
Investigating further, he reaches where was supposed to be right below the temple, and surely enough, from up the cave's ceiling, there were coming out several big tree roots that almost formed a little house underneath it... "There was a tree inside the temple? Is this something to do with the Egg of paradise?", he then remembered old stories about forest monks who were able to know everything was happening in a forest by connecting with the trees, the stories told about their roots actually connecting and communicating with the other roots of the other trees, and in their own language, "talk" about potential threats and weather variations.
Sinjid also gave some thought into old legends and techniques, he was one of the only Ahujas who actually studied more deep, and then he thought "If this is the Egg of Paradise, which gives this whole place energy through these roots, but it's not quite a tree but a egg... Can it be... A "Egg of creation"?
Nokhian folklore from the time they were still slaves to the Demiurges and the dragons talked about the Demiurges creating the natural world from a Egg which connected the spiritual world to the physical world, and from there they could bring forth life itself. But later Nokhian stories talked about these Eggs being absurdly dangerous, as it also brought forth things of the world of the dead that should never go back to the world of the living.
"No matter", Sinjid thought to himself, "if this is it like a tree, I already know a way to burn it down".
After getting back to his allies, they quickly formed a plan, and using a kind of power, they put in a very closed up bag and were able to get across the well, mixture the power into the tree roots and set it on fire.
After they got off the well and into the city back, even though there was no way nobody of the city could know about the fire yet. The 'eerie' guards started to go crazy, and sound the alarms, one even appeared out of nowhere chanting some kind of witchery to the Ahujas around the well.
One of the Ahujas just quickly kicked his throat in and then killing him with a dagger, but as they heard the alarm bells and the sound of guards start to scream and get to the cities, they knew it was time to leave, and before they could organize themselves, they left by climbing the walls back, after all the entrance wouldn't be a good place to escape now.
The Ahujas escaped and made their way deep into the swamps to set camp and they investigate to see if their job was done.
But although they were through with this night and could rest, the night wasn't done with them yet.