Prologue
A crashing sound emanated through the forest, though there was no one to hear it. A tree fell, its trunk smashing through green foliage, but no one could see it. A shadow flickered..or was it a Shadow's shadow? Uncertain. A cloaked figure seemed to morph out of the shadow, but the shadow remained fixed. It rested upon the trunk of the tree, and as the cloaked figure looked about, he frowned. The cloak itself was black, but his hand, barely visible under it, was a strange sickly purple, as though infected with some ailment. But it did not seem like it would be changed. It seemed fixed. The cloaked figure's lips were barely visible under his hood, curved in a frown. "So...this is the next one?" He sighed. "I rather liked it." A shrug, and the hood went down, revealing short dark brown or black hair, dark skin, and a troubled face. Lines showed great age, and a furrowed brow showed a sense of restlessness. He wore elvish ranger garb, a simple tan shirt with a dark grey vest held together by leather cord. "Now what?"
A crack of a stick, and his face swerved to the left, as he drew a longbow from the shadow. "Back off." He commanded the approaching orc. It charged in rage, and was impaled by an arrow which soared from the bow without sound. Sighing yet again, the man faded back into the shadow...and was gone.
Chapter 1: After the War
The light of dawn over Orlan illuminated in the eastern balcony a lone figure. After a decade in the dungeons Killian Talmid had formed an appreciation for sunlight that he gladly watched rise now. Over nearly a hundred million miles did the rays of Militiregnum's star travel through space to warm and illuminate the planet.
He would see the star up close, Killian figured, out a porthole on a rocket in his return trip to Nimbus Station, if his sense of stellar geography were accurate.
The rocket that awaited him sat in the fields south of Orlan's village limits. Killian could see it by turning to his right and looking down over the balcony's edge, past the castle's portcullis, past ten acres of cornfields. NSS One Ring was his brother's ship, once upon a time. Now it was his nephew's, the son of that same brother.
Kilian closed his eyes and stretched. One Ring had come to take him from Militiregnum. Today was his day for departure from the planet and from his friends. So it was also the day to say goodbye to those friends. He could not name nearly everyone who had joined him on his mission that began fifteen years ago, to save a world from a devious threat he had sorely underestimated at the time. The war had taken fifteen years of his life, nary much considering it had taken from others, with inapt simplicity, just their lives.
And of those who like he survived, many were present in Orlan with him, and Killian Talmid returned to the chamber that adjoined the balcony, a bedchamber that was his and one of many in the castle's upper floors, to dress into a more appropriate going-out attire than his sleeping robe. Killian went to his closet, and proceeded to walk past it to a pile of garments consisting of equipment and clothes that either lay on the floor, were draped over a propped up suitcase, or were both draped over the suitcase and lying on the floor due to their length and unfoldedness.
Killian replcaed his robe with pants and a traveler's tunic adorned with a Morcian messenger vest, courtesy of the castle service staff only recently reemployed. The vest was dark green with red and gold thread embroidery and many pockets. While the rest of his clothes were laundered he had been gifted the vest, and it fit him well, at times a bit snugly now that he could eat well.
The last item Killian saw fit to attach was a shortsword in its scabbard that hung from his right hip.
To walk unarmed was not in Killian's practice, even now that the war was over... at least, mostly so.
Now dressed properly, Killian took his otherwise fully packed suitcase out from his bedchamber to undertake the ardous task of taking it down the castle's hardwood steps to the first level, where he left it in view of the castle guard before he exited the castle to begin his quest of goodbyes...
But he was interrupted by a dark green cloaked man's arm once he was barely three meters into the street. "Hello Talmid." A voice solemnly stated. "We need to talk."