"Hey, do you realize lately something shady's going on in the forest?" one of the guards asked, shifting uneasily as he stood beside the village gate.
His partner, leaning casually against the wooden post, raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, don't you know about the rumors going around here?"
"What rumors?" the first guard pressed, his curiosity piqued.
"They're saying there's an artifact hidden somewhere nearby," his partner replied, lowering his voice slightly as if the words carried weight.
"Been the talk of adventurers for about a week now. How come you haven't heard about it?"
The first guard scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish.
"Oh, really? I didn't know. Maybe I'm too focused on my job to listen to gossip." He puffed out his chest slightly, clearly proud of his supposed dedication.
His partner snorted, giving him a skeptical glance. "Focused on your job? Yeah, say someone who fell asleep in the post last week."
"Hey, that was one time!" the first guard shot back defensively, his face turning red.
"Right, right," his partner teased, grinning.
"Last time," the partner continued, his tone more serious now,
"there was a group of adventurers passing through. Though honestly, I doubted they were adventurers at all. They looked more like bandits to me."
The first guard immediately straightened, his expression sharpening.
"Bandits? Are you sure? Did you report this to the captain?"
His partner shrugged, leaning casually against the gatepost.
"They didn't cause any trouble while they were here. Just restocked supplies and left. They were gone the same day they came. Figured they weren't worth raising an alarm over."
The first guard frowned, clearly not convinced.
"Still, if they were bandits, that's dangerous. What if they come back? What if they were scouting the village?"
"Relax," his partner replied, waving him off.
"Even if they were, we're not exactly a prime target for bandits. There's not much to steal here except some chickens and potatoes. They'd probably have better luck hitting a caravan or something."
As the guards continued their conversation, a male adventurer strolled up to the gate, his confident strides catching their attention.
The adventurer radiated a natural charisma. His charming smile seemed almost disarming, and his well-defined features, combined with a rugged yet polished look, gave him a masculine allure that turned heads without effort.
The guard closest to the gate gave the adventurer a quick glance, his wary expression softening at the sight of the man's easy-going demeanor.
The adventurer nodded politely as he approached, his smile widening just enough to seem friendly but not overly familiar.
"Good evening," the adventurer greeted casually, his tone smooth and warm.
The guards exchanged a brief look, then stepped aside without a word, allowing him to pass. Neither of them felt the need to question him; his confident aura and lack of visible threat seemed to put them at ease.
But as the adventurer disappeared down the cobbled road into the heart of the village, the first guard's face twisted into a thoughtful frown.
His brows furrowed deeply, and his jaw tightened as if wrestling with a nagging thought.
'Why do I think I know his face from somewhere? Where have I seen him before?'
The unease nagged at him, and the memory danced just out of reach, like a fragment of a dream he couldn't quite grasp.
That charismatic adventurer, with his disarming smile and confident gait, was far from ordinary. Beneath the surface of his charming exterior lay a man honed by years of relentless training and harrowing battles.
He was Lorcan Ashveil, a spy of the Silver Dawn Inquisition, an elite faction dedicated to purging dark magic and those who wielded it.
Lorcan Ashveil wasn't just a spy, he was a relentless force. His oath to the Silver Dawn Inquisition was not merely a duty. It was a vendetta.
He hated necromancers with a fervor that went beyond duty. It was personal.
The memories haunted him, vivid and unforgiving.
His village, once a place of laughter and warmth. Reduced to smoldering ruins, the air heavy with the acrid stench of death.
The night was seared into his soul.
Lorcan had been a boy of ten, hot-headed and resentful. He had run off into the woods that day, sulking because his parents had once again favored his younger sister over him.
She had always been the golden child. He had been jealous, bitter even, but nothing could have prepared him for what his petty anger would cost him.
When he returned, hours later, expecting his mother to scold him for his tantrum, he found only death. And a mocking laughter of the necromancers who had orchestrated the massacre.
His parents, his annoying sister. They were dead. But that wasn't even the worst of it.
After the massacre, Lorcan watched in horror as the group of necromancers performed their vile ritual, raising the entire village, including his family, as a lowly undead.
He could see it. The lifeless bodies of his parents and sister twitching unnaturally as they were forced to their feet, their hollow, vacant eyes filled with something beyond death.
Agony. Misery.
The sheer torment of being dragged back into existence, their souls ripped from the peace they deserved and shackled to a puppet-like existence.
Even as a boy, Lorcan could feel it. It wasn't just the physical horror of seeing his loved ones reduced to mindless tools of dark magic.
It was the weight of their suffering.
The necromancers didn't just desecrate the bodies. They twisted the souls. Every stilted movement, every groan from the undead was filled with an unbearable pain, a misery so deep that Lorcan could feel it echoing in his own soul.
After twenty-five years of relentless preparation and unwavering resolve, Lorcan Ashveil had finally avenged his family.
The group of necromancers responsible for the massacre of his village had been eradicated. It wasn't an easy feat. It had taken years of honing his skills, gathering allies, and executing his plans with precision.
Yet, as he stood amidst the ruins of their lair, the stench of their foul rituals still lingering in the air.
Lorcan realized something. The faces of his his parents, his sister, remained etched in his mind, not as the people they once were, but as the tormented undead puppets they had been turned into.
The scars left by that day were deeper than the wounds revenge could heal.
So, Lorcan made a vow, stronger than any he had sworn before. If hunting down those necromancers brought him any solace, it was in knowing that he could prevent the same tragedy from befalling another innocent.
He dedicated his life to the cause. Bringing justice and peace to the world.
From that moment on, Lorcan became one of Silver Dawn Inquisition's fiercest operatives, feared by necromancers and dark magic practitioners alike.
He hunted them relentlessly, tracking their movements, infiltrating their circles, and eradicating them without mercy.
And now, as he entered the small village of Willowdale, he felt the familiar pull of duty once again.
The rumors of an artifact tied to necromantic power had drawn him here. He thought it might be a good bait to lure necromancer out of hiding.
And, as if the goddess of luck herself had smiled upon him, Lorcan realized he wouldn't need to wait long to uncover his target.
The signs were already there. The whispers of undead attacks, the lone boy with the undead, and the village guards' boastful tales. It all painted a picture that was far too convenient to be mere coincidence.
"How corrupt has this world become?" Lorcan thought.
His fists clenching as his anger simmered just beneath the surface.
"Even a mere boy… practicing necromancy?" The thought sent a chill of revulsion through him. A child, so young, already steeped in the darkest of magics.