"What in the hell is that?" asks none other than Miranda Tigris as off in the distance, a sudden wind forces a small storm of dust to kick up and scatter further into the horizon. From behind the dustcloud comes a group of three people; two women and one man. She sighs, falling back inside the abandoned building that her, Mikael Carron, and her personal entourage of guards had set up shop at. Silently, she motions with her finger for Jacob, the largest of the hired muscle to take her place on the outside, which he does with some hesitance. The hesitance subsided however, when she began to reach for the handle of the still slightly blood stained machete that protruded from her bag.

"That's what I thought," she mutters under her breath, her hand falling back to her side in a lackadaisical fashion. Deeper into the dilapidated building, paces Mikael Carron. His only slightly panicked face faced downward, toward the dusty ground as he treaded across the dirt in the same straight line pattern; leaving a consistent cloud of dust to float around his feet perpetually. Shaking her head, she splits her attention between the two other guards who stand with one hand on their weapons, and the other hand atop the first.

"I really don't think this is a good idea, Miss Tigris," stammers Mikael, running his hands through his hair. Rolling her eyes, Miranda contemplates pulling out the machete and placing it to his throat, but somewhat cooler heads tend to have a slightly higher percentage of success as opposed to angrily chopping your intern's esophagus like a deranged lumberjack.

"And why's that?" she fires back behind a tight lipped smile.

"Do you even know what these people are capable of? What they would do if they so much as thought that they could be ripped off in this deal?"

"Leave that to me, and the guys with guns Mikael."

"Leave what to your security team?" says Derrick, standing in the doorway. Jacob the guard grabs his wrist and tries pulling him back but fails to budge him while Arellia and Itaria come up behind him. Spinning around on her heel, her smirk intensifies.

"Ah, Mister Montenegro! How great to finally meet you!" she says behind the same tight lipped smile, placing one hand on her hip and extending the other, which Derrick accepts and shakes.

"Please, call me Derrick."

"No thank you, Mister Montenegro. My father always told me to address persons of interest formally."

"Right."

"Shall we get down to business, Mister Montenegro?" she asks with a less outright angry disposition; a plastic smile masking this hollow formality with a subtle bow of deception. A smirk dots Derrick's face as he slides his hands into his pockets, with the notable exception of his thumbs; which he keeps outside, running them across the fabric of his pants.

"I thought we'd never get there," he says while stepping through the doorway, closely followed by his colleagues. Jacob sighs and lowers his gun, leaning against the side of the raggedy building.

"Mikael!" she yells across the empty space to her pacing employee whose eyes shoot up from the dirt at the first utterance of his name.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Bring it over here."

He does. Trudging his feet all the way, he makes it to where the group had congregated and reaches into his back pocket before pulling out - an envelope.

"This is it?" asks Derrick, pulling his hands out of his pocket.

"You think I'd risk everything dragging it here with me?" she shoots back, stroking the side of the Chieftain's cheek once before pulling her hand away. "You may be handsome, but you must not have all your wits about you when it comes to business."

"Think whatever you wanna think, hon."

Mikael hands the envelope over to Derrick, who snatches it without question and slides it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

"Don't open it until you're far, far from here," Miranda interjects.

"Don't worry." Derrick, Itaria and Arellia turn to leave, but before they do he whips his head back and says in a low pitched whisper:

"I'll be keeping my eye on you, hon."

And with that, the group walks out of the raggedy building; off into the horizon where their lack of traditional transportation awaited. Meanwhile, Miranda allows the fake smile to melt completely off her face as she reaches into her bag for the machete.

"No, you fucking won't," she assures nobody while twirling the blade in her hands. "Mikael: call the authorities."



The crimson sky beat down on the snow capped mountain tops for the sixth consecutive day, the subtle increases in temperature becoming more and more pronounced and beginning to melt off some of the snow, sending it barreling down the mountainside.

An action that would prove to spell out the beginning of the end for the supporters of the Divine Council. However, let's dart back from the end and return to where this tale had left off: the beginning. Oh, only the beginning.

As the portal closed up and the ground returned to its normal, stone construction, the soldiers sent to ward off the pitch covered abominations finally strike a decisive blow: killing one. The rest of the horde scattered off, wailing against the wind the slightly slowed their escape.

Meanwhile, in the void that Empress Arin Borrellia had fallen into, the world around her spins and spins at breakneck speeds as she continues to fall deeper into an abyss of which no visible end appeared. All a part of the plan, she assured herself. Then, a flash of white, blinding light penetrates the entirety of this eternal void and she is long gone. Long, long gone.

"Wha? Where am I?" she sluggishly stammers, pulling herself off the cold stone floor that she awoke on, her eyes still adjusting to the change of light in this new, unexplored chamber. On wobbly feet she stands, a semi circle of faces ranging from vaguely familiar to completely abstract and unrecognizable greets her with silence and smiles; aside from one on the far right, which greeted her instead with an ear to ear grin and a light cackle.

"You're home, Arellia," says the woman in the middle of the pack.

"Yes! Home!" exclaims the cackling man, throwing his hands in the air and exploding his cackle in sheer maniacal laughter. The large man on his left places one of his massive hands on the frantic man's shoulder to keep him in place.

"Calm it, Freshtinshe."

"Never!" he screams, pulling himself away from the pack. "When are we going to be heading back into the field?"

"Soon," the woman in the middle of pack said. "We just have to make sure Arellia is ready before we enter."

"Ready for what?" the new Chieftain asks.

"War," the large man says in a loud, booming voice.

"Precisely," assures the woman.

"I think she's ready now, Gonnerah," says another man, towards the back of the ground.

"I'll be judge of that Kinwrathi. Thanks for your input." The lady at the middle of the pack, Gonnerah, turns back to look at Arellia who by now is on her feet. "Are you ready?"

"I suddenly feel the surging desire to rip someone's skull out and beat them to death with it."

"See, what did I tell you?"

"So be it, Arellia."