Qeynos rested. The sun had dipped below the horizon hours earlier after its long lazy trek across the gray blue sky. A few of her more loyal subjects marched the streets in clanking groups of twos. Now and then they would stop to chat and warm near a fire before going on about their patrol of the Queens city. A few clucking chickens resting on their protective fences and the occasional squawk of a night bird were the only other things that disrupted Qeynos slumber on the night of darkest moon. Luclin and her sister moon Drinul were no where to be seen this night and when the sun would rise the next morning the life of Guard Lt. Adolin Percin would be forever changed. Adolin Percin was not an ambitious man as many in the guard at the Temple of Life were. While most of them did their duty to advance to the next rank as quick as possible in the hope of getting their own command one day, Percin was perfectly content and happy with just getting by. He enjoyed his work at the Temple of Life, as it was, and had no real want or ingrown need to better himself and move beyond what he did on a day to day basis. The work wasn't what most would call rewarding in of itself. In fact, a busy day usually consisted of saluting his superiors, most of whom where little more than snot nosed upstarts that kissed the most @ss in his personal view. Aside from the saluting a really busy day would be running off curious kids or keeping the occasional beggar from bothering the priest and more importantly, the paladins. Adolin Percin knew he was little more than a glorified doors man. Like those men in fancy clothes and white gloves at the castle that would announce dignitaries names at the fancy balls the Queen held now and then. Guardsman Lt. Adolin Percin, doorman to the temple of life. It suited him just fine. The job brought home money to the misses and the kids, gave them a comfortable home inside the city walls, at the discounted guardsman price of course, food, clothing and just enough for a few drinks a week with the guys at the Lions Head in the southern part of town. Life was good, or rather, comfortable and consistent. Because of all these things, Adolin Percin never saw what was about to happen coming. He had a decent enough imagination. Hell, he'd even saved Queen Antonia Bayle in a few and was greatfuly thanked for his effort until a mewling cat awoke him from her bed and into the hard wooden chair he had fallen asleep in. Tonight he was assigned to guard the entrance portal to the Temple of Life. The Temple itself floating with only windows above a serene pool of water was only accessable by one portal on the ground. Oh, he knew about the secret portal inside the palace and one other some where else in the city but those where private use. Besides all that the Temple was open to the public most of the time, only closing as the sun set and opening again before morning. Though usually only the sick came and even then most where told to come by healers in other area's of the city when the injuries where to great to be healed with poultice and potion. Adolin Percin leaned heavily on his lance with both hands and a cheek to the cold wood. His mouth opened wide to yawn, looking not unlike a bass being pulled free from the water, when he froze. Before him, in just the few seconds his eyes were closed in the yawn, was a man. The man was lean and lithe, dressed mat black clothing. Not a sound was made. So quite and quick was the appearance that he wasn't entirely sure at first he actually did see a man. That was until he saw the eyes. Two violet eyes with slitted pupils stared coldly at him, almost seeming to glow with reflected light like a cats eyes would. Adolin Percin had just enough time to remember those eyes and think to himself, "Its like something out of those old stories of Luclin, snake people! It's eyes like snake people!" Before a massive hand knocked him in the nape of the neck from behind. His legs went limp and he collapsed his own weight, the lance slipping from now numb hands and bonking him on the head before rolling onto his stomach. The blow that should have knocked the man out maybe even have killed him, hadn't. Percin laid there, eyes up at the lithe figure and the seemingly endless bulk of a man impossibly large for anything less than a giant, stood over him. Their speech was low and it carried that unmistakable accent of one who had lived in Freeport for their whole of life. "Thanks boss," the lithe figure said in a low rasping whisper. Percin was so stunned and in such shock as he lay there with his eyes open he couldn't even remember to blink, it was if the build in bodily function had been shut down like some gnomish whoosy whatsit. His heart skipped a beat as the two men looked down. Down and right into those open eyes. "You hit him so hard the guys eyes didn't even shut before he died." The big man shrugged with a hand and made a fist, "We got business to deal with, let's get it over with," his voice was like quiet iron. Nodding the lithe figure said, "The hypocrisy in the air is making me sick anyway, we'll go in, make a mess and be off." With a flash of bluish white light as they stepped into the portal, Adolin Percin finally remember to blink and let out a breath. One he had not even realized he was holding. He had only one thought, "Freeport. Freeport is attacking." On the heels of this there was, "No alarm! We need to raise the alarm!" Woozy he got to his feet, casting his eyes around quickly for the other guards. Nothing... where the... no, there they were, on the ground in a heap just like he was supposed to be! He cursed and bolted for the nearest alarm bell. A heart pounding run of only fifty feet but what felt to him in his panic no less than a fifty miles. Coming upon the bell so quick the first gong of warning that went up was done with his own armor as he slammed chest first into the bell. Fumbling fingers picked up the wooden stick from the limp hand of Lt. Colonel Cid, "Dear gods, not Cid he just had a kid, Marr preserve him he's just a kid himself!" Then the ringing of hard steel split the night air and after a few short rings, other bells began to ring in the distance. The city new there was trouble this night. It is a funny thing though, how lack of ambition can be mistaken for cowardice or one being to "slow" to advance. Where that but true, Andolin Percin would not have done what he did next on instinct over thought. Bell stick still in hand, the ringing of warning all around him now, he dashed head long for the portal. His fingers scraped open on the stone as he picked up his lance and lept through the portal in to blinding blueish white light. Momentum continued, even as he was taken apart and put together again by magics so complicated he never once thought to question how it worked, just knowing that it did, and found a scene of utter chaos. The two figure in black battling it out with two paladins. Grace against might as the light figure practically danced around one paladin holding a giant two handed sword, and the other larger giant man going might for might against another with a shield and sword. Lights and flame blinded him as the power of Marr was unleashed and slamming against. Well, he didn't really know what it slammed against but the spell, it had to be a spell, what else could do such terrible damage as it was deflected into a shelf of books that burst into flame? He was not sure. When it came to the things of magic, Andolin Percins knew only two things. One, he didn't have the touch to use magic and two, it was better left to be thought about by people that got paid better than he. He was still moving though and had to pick a target. When in doubt go for what is closest. The lithe man. Committed now he ran, lept, and stabbed with his lance. Training had taken over and the calm panic of battle had covered his mind. It was impossible though, when he would tell the story later it would always be "impossible" even though what comes next will be just as he tells it, the man with the horrible snake eyes ducked. Percin was stabbing from behind and as if the man had eyes in the back of his head, he ducked! He dodged and weaved, ducked and jumped, fighting a paladin in front of him and himself behind him as if he was able to see them both at once! "It was like watching a snake and mongoose fight!" he would say at the bar weeks later after he recovered and his medals for heroism and actions above and beyond the call of duty where given. Along with a new promotion and rank. "The guys eyes were like a snakes, only he was the mongoose and we were the snakes! Stabbing and cutting at him. I must have stabbed 3 dozen times and i only manage to scratch his side once! If this is what Freeport has against us... thank all the gods above we're not at full out war!" He would of course, have no way to know that the attack was staged to look as if two sabotage artists from Freeport where sent. Or that the fact he was awake to hear those accents of Freeport were part of a greater plan. Nor would he know that his paralysis had worn off far faster than it should have and the alarm bell he ran wasn't meant to be raised at all. Nor that him joining the fight at all was as much of a surprise to the lithe man and the giant man that it was to Andolin Percin after the fighting had ended and he had suffered a broken arm and saved the life of a paladin by applying pressure to the artery in his wrist that had been sliced. None of this he knew as he fought on at the Temple of Life and the lithe man eventually took his own lance and slammed his upper arm, breaking it instantly but cleanly once the lithe man had disabled the paladin with a blow to the temple and a cut to the wrist. As Percin held the mans wrist in a vice like clamp for minutes after the two intruders had made off with a files worth of papers and the guards and paladins came to help and clean up the mess. Andolin Percin, Lt. Colonel of the Temple of Life, doorman to healers, pusher on of beggars and nosey children, husband and father, was never again looked down upon for lacking ambition.
