First A Trickle...

[SinVraal]

Myrken Wood, Vraal considered as he picked his way down one of the town's labyrinthine roads, was an enigmatic, puzzling place. He noted the casual dash of children in the midst of the raw summer heat that drew a gentle sheen to a pale forehead, the skin boldly interrupted by an intricate black brand, all severe twists and knot work. The little ones, ignorant of concern for heat and summer fury, and blissfully uncaring of the rampaging Fiend or the Zayken madman.

It existed in some backwater provincial region and yet it was home to the strangest collection of wizards, warriors, monsters and simple craftspeople all interacting with one another as if it were the most normal thing in the world. How did such a stagnant, out-of-the-way place as Myrken Wood draw such a diverse and, individually, potent population?

The thought drew a lazy smirk over thin lips as he crossed the avenue and slipped into the dilapidated house whose only faded, weather-beaten sign spoke of the tenant's surname" Whitfield. The man's full name, Vraal had learned, was Oliver Whitfield. And as luck would have it the would-be barrister had traveled to Myrken Wood in order to make a name and coin for himself. The poor fool, judging by the leaves collecting in the corner of his entrance corridor, and the slow leak in his roof, had evidently found neither.

Yet he would, Vraal thought as he extended a gloved hand towards the shocked paper-pusher. Oliver Whitfield would soon become quite an important man in Myrken Wood.

[SinVraal]

"I know what it is you came here for," Vraal began in a thoughtful, measured purr. His obsidian gaze raked across the slender, disheveled man who sat across an aged, weather-beaten desk. Beneath the ragged mouse-brown curls peered spectacled blue eyes, wide and delicate, a lamb unsure if it faces a sheepdog or a wolf.

In Vraal's mind, the lawyer faced both.

Raising a hand sheathed in black leather, his palm forestalling several queries that marched clearly along the length of Whitfield's countenance, Vraal crossed his arms. The gesture displayed the two silver serpent bangles coiled about each elbow, regarding the man with their hooded, ruby eyes.

"I know that you came here seeking your name, your future, your very nature... unsure of who you were, and still unsure." Vraal's dark gaze relented, flickering about the sparsely decorated office that made use of empty kegs for desks and old mugs for candle-holders.

"Yet you have found none of these," he continued. "Only more questions. And as the years threaten to take their toll, carrying you unloved and unmissed into the dawn of your middling years, you begin to wonder.. and question.. your earlier impulses. Threatened with poverty, with the silence of the world to your struggles, you wonder if anything you hoped for will ever come to pass."

"You are afraid, Oliver Whitfield," Vraal intoned, his voice waxing imperious as he took an easy step closer towards the seated, silent barrister. "You are afraid of the future, of despair, of amounting to absolutely nothing... and being, in your core, the same."

His voice purred on as he swept past Whitfield, sheathed fingertips delicately pressing against the windowsill as he peered out into the Myrkentown streets. A small handful of knights or armored constables marched by below, patrolling for the nightmares that haunted Myrken Wood in recent nights.

"You are a captive of the world, and of your fear. And who can blame you? I know you tried your hardest, studied your hardest, and threw every ounce of energy and willpower into this adventurous undertaking... only to be forgotten by a cold, uncaring world. You deserve better," he added at length. "You deserve freedom."

A slow turn of pale features allowed Sin'Vraal to regard Oliver over a cloaked shoulder. "And it is this freedom I offer you. Freedom from poverty and loneliness. Freedom from a meaningless life and an uncaring world. But most importantly, freedom from anxiety and fear, freedom from meaninglessness... freedom from yourself. And in your new freedom, Oliver, you might command Zayken, or the Ashfiend, to do your bidding, as you will fear nothing. You will fear no one." Except me, Vraal privately thought, and offered Oliver a cruel, slithering smile.

"You will no longer even fear yourself."

Oliver stared on in silence as Vraal's words tore through him like a miasmic cloud of hungry crows, leaving him bare, his soul naked, before the strange, pale man with the branded brow and offer of dreams-come-true.

"What must I do?" He whispered, tears blossoming beneath the dirty lenses of old spectacles.

"I will show you the way," Vraal started forward, his smile twisting sharper. "I will show you the beautiful new day of the Violet Dawn."

[SinVraal]

"The Violet Dawn?"

"Yes," Vraal purred gently, offering the nerve-wracked man a palsy, unctuous smile. "The new dawn that is to rise in your heart, in the very core of your being, that will remake you into a truly free man."

"Free to do what?" Oliver queried, wonder and fear warring over his sunken, pallid features.

It was a good thing, Vraal thought, that the man had since forsaken hope for it was not a pleasant expression to see upon the poverty-besotted barrister. "Free to be the man you were always meant to be. To not be held in check by fear, by others... by anything. And we begin now." He moved to stand behind the stooped lawyer, gloved hands delicately anointing his shoulders with a steady, if featherlight, touch.

"Now," he breathed against the back of Oliver's neck. "There is the matter of the orphanage. I wish to sell it, at a paltry sum, to one Nhilos Ahad."

Hesitating at first, though quickened by the thrum of true excitement in his veins that Vraal called to in his blood, despite the man's wolf-like predatory sense, Oliver took quill to ink and then parchment. His excited scratching filled the chamber, dry and dusty like the creak of ancient bones in a forgotten tomb.

"Very well," Whitfield noted. "I will need this Mr. Ahad's address, proof of citizenship in one of the provinces, all titles pertaining to himself and his estate..."

A single, sudden, predatory squeeze on the man's shoulder gaze him pause. "You will receive none of those things. For you see... Mr. Ahad does not exist. But I wish the world to think that he does."

"But that is illegal!"

"Yes, laws bind us, keep us from being truly free as well," Vraal purred, leaning closer as his words tickled the lawyer's ear. "But as you work with the law so closely in your profession, it will serve as an adequate first step. Do not fear the law, not with the Violet Dawn to protect and guide you towards the path of your true, great self... whom you merely need enough time to become."

Emboldened by Vraal's words, and with a brow that threatened to glisten with sweat, Oliver began to jot down what Vraal told him of this Nhilos Ahad. He was a native of Trae Kelsa, a man of great means from old money, who was something of an investor and philanthropist. All queries pertaining to the orphanage and the neighboring purchases which were soon to be enacted would be left with Oliver Whitfield.

"You have done well," Vraal hissed pleasantly, his fingers coiling about Oliver's shoulders. "The first rays of the Violet Dawn have arisen upon your horizon. Follow them, and they shall never steer you wrong."

Oliver nodded. He felt the beginnings of the change in him as he willingly took place in illegal activity. For the hefty sum that Vraal was willing to reward him with, as well as the possibility of becoming a new self in the future, it all seemed worth it. The law had never done anything for him anyway, he reasoned, save make his becoming a lawyer difficult with all their rules and regulations.

Vraal sensed the growing change in the lawyer as well, having seen it so many times before. Soon the last vestiges of his insecurity and restraint would crumble. And then, Vraal knew, he would own Whitfield forever.