Deep in the frigid, biting expanse of the Varangian Frostwilds, amidst aged destroyer cabins shrouded in layers of relentless snow and looming, shadowy evergreens, a hardened figure stood out stark against the winter's pallor. Gill, a soldier now turned assassin, his stature chiseled and battered by the harsh elements, thrust his frost-covered dagger with precision into the heart of a standing boulder sculpted by time and cold into a solitary pillar.
'It's so damn cold!'
Exposed to the elements, clothed merely in the most minimal of garments to cover his privates, each breath Gill took sent clouds of vapor dissipating into the biting air. His every motion was a study in lethality, weaving dance-like around the hard stone, striking critical blows that would have felled lesser foes. Underlying his physical exertion was an almost palpable sense of urgency, a melancholic pondering over the whereabouts of the enigmatic Zabriel—a figure as mysterious as the veil of snow steadily blanketing the landscape.
'Always disappearing like a weirdo. I won't tell him that to his face. Even though he hides under that mask, I can still feel what his expression is.'
As the icy wind clung to every exposed inch of Gill's scarred skin, his thoughts circled endlessly around Zabriel; the missing man's tendency to disappear when most needed gnawed at the fringes of Gill's focus.
'I've been trying to impress him. He made me an assassin, made me join that brotherhood of his. And I'm glad. He knows where I come from, but I haven't been doing too well impressing him. I always mess up with training, I'm just afraid of him just abandoning me, running off somewhere. I don't want to be a burden!'
Meanwhile, beneath the surface world, shrouded in dusk-like shadows, Zabriel wandered through the forgotten corridors of a subterranean archive, a remnant of the Crow Assassins' once expansive influence. The walls bore the insignia of the Crow—a mark known and feared across many lands. The scattering of scrolls and old texts, layered thick with the dust of abandonment, crunched softly under his steps as he moved through this buried sanctuary.
'As I thought…nothing. They evacuated, but it seems they were in a hurry. Where could they have gone? We traveled two months to get here…only to find everyone gone?'
Approaching a rough-hewn cubby filled with scrolls, Zabriel's fingers, covered in grime and scars of many battles, delicately seized upon the curled parchments.
'Scrolls! Letters!'
The first, sealed with the black wax emblem of the Crow, addressed a scheme spun deep within the ranks of the Ebon Syndicate. The graceful but sharp script divulged:
"To the Master of Shadows,
We, envoiced from the depths of our Darkwater Haven, have executed the flood-gate collapse upon the citadel at Lir's Break. Our marks drowned in their gilded chambers, none the wiser of our whispers."
Zabriel's keen eyes then flitted to another letter, the hand cruder, urgent in its bearing:
"By the crooked crowns of the Dark Pines Redoubt, our kin have silenced the heirs of Vaulted Spires. No scion now remains to claim their venomous throne. We drift like specters through their halls of stone and betrayal."
Each scroll unfurled a piece of the sprawling web of mystery and death that had shaped countless realms, whispering secrets of alliances, betrayals, and blood debts paid in shadows.
'Just letters of the assassins out in the world doing what the leaders wanted them to do. Just relaying the message.'
Further into the underground hall, Zabriel descended a set of worn stone steps leading to a dimly lit balcony overlooking an ancient room, designed for meditation but now echoing only silence and the ghost of violence past. Leaping down, he entered what once might have been considered sacred ground.
No sooner had his boots touched the ground than the air turned sharp with the tang of old magic. From the very floor, wisps of inky darkness gathered, coalescing into a shadowy figure—a spectral doppelgänger of Zabriel himself, draped in a shadow cape, his face a void behind a dark mask, gripping a scythe that seemed to thirst for immaterial blood.
Surrounded by a halo of malignant red aura, the shadow clone of Zabriel shifted, its stance mirroring that of its flesh and blood counterpart. All the pent-up silence of the abandoned sanctum seemed to focus down into this one moment, the impending clash between the man and his darkest essence.
Their eyes, reflections of each other yet abyss and flame, locked. A beat of utter stillness passed, then the first move was made, shattering the still air like glass. The battle began.
'A remnant, a guardian. They appear when someone arrives unannounced. The only way to not encounter the doppelgänger is to be escorted through here by one of the heads of the brotherhood. If anyone tried to come through here by themselves they have to fight for their lives.'
Lightning cracked the air of the subterranean sanctum as the scythe-wielding figures of Zabriel and his shadowy doppelgänger sparred with ferocious speed and deadly intent. Their blades carved arcs of lethal precision, gliding and clashing with the ringing sound of metal biting air. Zabriel, his movements honed to instinctual prophecy, danced through the flurry of strikes, parrying with the spine of his scythe, his other hand frantically grabbing at scrolls that held knowledge perhaps even deeper than the cavernous abyss around him.
With each intense evasion and calculated block, Zabriel's understanding of his phantom adversary deepened. He ducked a vicious horizontal swipe, twisted mid-air with feline agility, and, in a seamless, fluid motion, wrapped his blade around the spectral clone's neck. A heart-stopping 360-degree twist to the left, then ducking under, he slid out from the confrontation. With a final, resolute jerk, the clone's head separated in a burst of shadowy blood that evaporated like mist under the sun. The remnants of once potent magical malice dissipated, leaving only the echo of their clashing wills.
As the quiet settled, a thought emerged in Zabriel's mind, an answer to why the Crow Assassins left these spectral guardians—clones molded from dark magic and shadows—to protect the ancient secrets of their sanctuaries. They were not just mere guards but tests, proving a visitor's worth and feeding the sanctuary with the energy of combats past. Intruders unannounced and unworthy would find not fortune, but fatal reckonings.
"Someone's here…" Zabriel whispered to himself.
The reprieve was short-lived as footsteps, subtle yet discernible, vibrated through the cold stone corridor. Without hesitation, cloaked in the darkness he so masterfully commanded, Zabriel vanished at astonishing speed, his presence nearly a blur. Through the labyrinth of the undercroft, he pursued the unknown trespasser, bursting through crumbling walls with brute force, the sanctuary's secrets just out of reach from desecration.
'Who is it?! I won't say anything, not yet. If it's an enemy, I'll gauge their strength first. But those movements, they look awfully familiar.'
The chase led them into another vast chamber, where yet another guardian awaited—a towering eight-foot assassin spirit, its silhouette a darker blot against the dimly lit room, a karambit glittering dangerously in a ghostly hand. With a stance that balanced deadly delicacy and impending violence, the spirit moved with eerie grace, its attacks a whirlwind of backward spins and slashing arcs.
Zabriel, along with the shadowy figure he pursued, danced a deadly ballet around the spectral assassin, dodging with nimble ease. Their blades found marks repeatedly, cutting through the guardian with stylish devastating sweeps. Each move Zabriel made was an art form of combat, a silent music written in the swing of arms and the step of boots, concluding with a decisive strike that sent the guardian dissipating into a cloud of dark mist.
Breathing heavily, the Chamber of Echoes quiet once again, Zabriel stood firm, the air around him cooling from the burst of spectral energy. However, as he turned to confront the figure he had chased, there was nothing—no trace of the intruder, only the lingering whispers of old Crow secrets and the silent gaze of the sanctuary walls.
'They'll show up again. It's like they led me here. And I know exactly what this place is.'
Amidst the remnants of power and shadows that once thrived within the Crow Assassins' underground sanctuary, Zabriel continued his vigilant journey. He delved deeper, navigating through shadowed passages trodden by countless assassins before him. The air grew thick with ancient magic, faintly pulsating with the dark energies that still lingered in forgotten corners.
As he ventured forward, Zabriel encountered spaces both majestic and malignant in their abandonment. Chambers that once buzzed with whispered plotting now stood silent, their secrets sealed by dust and decay. Finally, he came upon a grand cavern, its vastness enveloped in a palpable gloom. At its center, on an elevated stone platform surrounded by a moat of inky black water, stood a towering statue of a crow, its wings spread wide and its beak open as if caught mid-caw.
Zabriel clenched his scythe.
Approaching the statue with reverence, Zabriel kneeled at its base. His fingers brushed the cold, rough surface of the stone, feeling the residual energies of the myriad rites and oaths once sworn here. He closed his eyes, summoning the words of the ancient assassin's oath—a recitation deep, binding, and shadowed:
"Under the cloak of dusk and feathered mantle grim,
I pledge my blade to silence, my heart to the twilight's whim.
As the crow flies at night, so too shall my purpose be,
A harbinger of endings, from earthly tethers free.
Through sable woods and veiled mists, stealth shall be my guide,
My allegiance sworn in darkness, where shadows stretch and bide.
Each life taken, a secret kept; each breath stolen, a vow,
With ink-black wings and silent beak, to the night, I bow.
May the crunch of my steps mimic the raven's call,
Across the realms, through the halls of power, I shall crawl.
Like the midnight plume upon the crow's own crest,
In obscurity found, in obscurity rest.
Let my deeds be as fleeting as the moon's shy gaze,
And swift as the crow's flight through the nighttime haze.
By the murk of old legends, by the ink of new pain,
Bound by blood's covenant, in shadows, I remain."
As the final syllable hung heavy in the still air, the statue began to tremble violently. The stone surface cracked, revealing seething red flames beneath. With a deafening screech that echoed through the cavern, the crow statue shook off its petrified guise, standing on grotesque hind legs, its wings morphing into blood-drenched, muscular arms. In its newly formed hands, it conjured a massive shadow ax/hammer, wreathed in flickering dark fire.
Zabriel got in his stance, getting ready for a fight.
'Red flames….Father has been through here already?! How was he able to corrupt the Crow? Father can corrupt those in red flames of Perfect Order even when they're inside?! This is bad…'
A black halo, pulsing with unspeakable power, formed above its now-horrifying head, transforming the once-still crow into a towering avatar of vengeance and nightmarish fury. Zabriel, his astonishment swiftly overtaken by instinct, leaped back, scythe poised defensively as he confronted this new, formidable foe.
In the shadowy recesses of the cavern, hidden from immediate sight, the figure Zabriel had previously chased observed quietly, their presence unnoticed but intensely focused on the unfolding battle.
The air crackled with dark energy, the black waters rippled ominously, and a battle of epic proportions loomed.