Five figures sit in total darkness, crammed into a tunnel that disappeared long ago from any maps obtained by righteous means. Twelve meters above them, the sun shines bright on the gardens of the palace city, reflecting magnificent colours on the prismatic flowers that grow there in abundance. It is a fine summers day for the occupants of the palace city, and many of them are walking through the wondrous shroud created by these mystical plants. Beneath the flower beds a light flares into life, highlighting the grim features of one of the figures. "You are afraid" he says, "do not shake your heads, I can see it in your eyes. This is good, it betrays a love of life that will resist any danger." The red light of the open flame is just enough to illuminate the features of his companions, all of them focused on his grim eyes. "I can't help you with your fear, but I can give you something much stronger to mask it with. We were all at the temple, listening to the dry speeches of grand purpose regurgitated by the underlings sent to brief us. If you're still in the business after tonight, you will be hearing many more of such tirades, and not one of them will be more inspiring, or less vapid. I hardly imagine that you imbibed any of the illusions of grandeur they tried to feed us. Purpose, however, is a powerful tincture, and as such I would like to tell you a story about what we are doing here stuck in this drain tunnel far from the warmth of the sun."

"One of the stranger events in my life surrounds the death of a certain man who lived on the west side of the Fios river. Theodore Smith was his name, and he was a toy maker by trade. He lived in one of the many villages of the Cornucia region, though perhaps it would be more accurate to say he lived near one, for his farm house was well away from the center of town. Unlike many of his fellows however, who regularly travelled into town to exchange wares or celebrate one of the many holy days of the area, he preferred to stay at home, alone with only his house pets and livestock for company. When he did make the journey into the village, it was always with the intent of showing off some new contraption he had constructed. Down the hill he would come in his two horse cart, inevitably with a flock of delighted children driven before him. When he arrived in the center of the village, he would leap to the earth, his bushy beard trailing behind him like the flame of a candle, and circle to the back of his cart, waving to the throngs of youngsters that surrounded him. First he would take out the old faithfuls, the toys that the older kids had seen time and time before, and hand them out at random to the hungry graspers mobbing him. Up the years he would work, passing out newer and newer toys, until he came to his newest invention. Instead of simply tossing this one to the remaining few, he would beckon them in closer to explain to them the secret workings of his newest creation. It was in these moments, as he explained the motion of an arm or the action of a spring, that he seemed most delighted, and his features most bright. Eventually when the most curious amongst them were satisfied with his lesson, he would pass his new creation into their waiting hands, and sit back to watch the chaos of spinning tops, dolls and carts surrounding him, a great smile stretching beneath his bulbous nose. Gradually as the day wore on, more children would be called in by their parents, or lose interest in their plaything, and eventually only he would remain. Quickly collecting all his discarded works, he would leave back the way he came, and the town would not hear from him until he had finished working on yet another wonder.

While these visits were greatly anticipated by the children of the town, the grown population saw them at best as a passing amusement, and at worst as a distraction from the days chores. As well as his infrequent trips to the village, he was occasionally visited by old patrons of his parents who had come to depend on the peach trees growing in his orchards, which he still kept in good condition. Although such trading meetings were pleasant, always he seemed distant, and most often they failed to pass beyond pleasantries. Usually his visitor would begin by asking how progress on the cart went, for he kept a great covered wagon he had been repairing for many a year in which he intended to travel the Cornucia region displaying his wonders. And so he lived his life, and if he ever grew weary of his loneliness we will never know, for those who could have known never would have noticed.

My entry into this story begins with a sequence of unusual events that landed me in the temporary service of a local lord. It so happened that this lord had chosen the village of our elusive toy maker as his base camp for a hunt, and I was called along to serve as an extra sword arm to ward off ruffians. When we arrived, I was left in the town with the rest of the guards to do what I willed with the few days they planned to spend on the hunt. I found little joy in the company of my fellow arms-men, being as they were common mercenaries, and by the second day my patience was drawn to its limit. Luckily for me, it was on that day that a terrified maid came crying into the village, yelling about the death of some old man on the outskirts of town. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity for some change, and volunteered myself for the party that set out to retrieve the body. To pass time on the journey, I inquired into the owner of the corpse we were visiting, and became quite curious about this eccentric toy maker. When we arrived, I first noticed his wagon standing tall outside his door, just as I had been warned I would, half painted but otherwise complete. The many cats that had kept him company were lounging about in the days sun, seemingly unaware of the departure of their master, and for all the undisturbed calmness of the place it was difficult to believe that he had. From the picture the townsfolk had painted for me, I expected the decaying refuge of a sloth, yet the dwelling I saw was surprisingly clean and tidy, I suspect far more so than that of many of the men who accompanied me. The signs of his eccentricity became apparent when we entered the house though, for the shelves were adorned with toys, and taking some of these down I immediately realised the truth in the rumours of his skill. One of the toys on that shelf, a little doll wearing a red dress, functioned in such incredible ways that I could not even begin to imagine the exquisite mechanisms that must have been contained within.

After some time spent at this snooping, a cry came from outside the house. One of the younger men had discovered the workshop of our target in a shed near the fields, and just as we were promised, there lay our quarry face down on the oaken planks. The culprit of the murder it seems had been the tall ladder standing over him at the scene of the crime. His back was twisted at a fatal angle, and it was clear that he must have died almost immediately on impact. Being the first corpse the discoverer had seen, he was of course shaken, and many of the others with me were likewise frightened. Eccentric as he had been in life, his body was disappointingly standard in death, barely differentiable with its rough features from the living peasants surrounding it. Offsetting this normalcy however was a swarm of toys, all brightly coloured and with cheerful childlike expressions, scattered all over the floor along with the tools that had fallen with his collapse. The older villagers were quick to hoist the body onto their shoulders, and before long we were heading back to town. When we arrived back in the village, there was a great congregation of townsfolk there to greet us, however they seemed far more concerned with comforting the woman who had discovered his body, than they were sad for the passing of the man we bore on our shoulders. The burial was short and swift, and by the time we left, the village had returned to its standard routine, the toy makers name mentioned only when the question of his unclaimed estate was brought up.

Such tragedies are commonplace enough as we all know well enough, and I'm sure many of us have even instigated some just as bad, if not worse, but it was fated to have a much more profound effect on me than I ever could have anticipated. A decade later, I was sitting in the parlour of some rich lord discussing a contract for a particularly resilient competitor. As we were concluding the negotiations, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a doll in a red dress resting on the mantelpiece. On further examination it proved itself to be that same doll that I had held 10 years ago. I turned to my host, who was clearly embarrassed about the child's toy lying out in the open, and asked him where he had obtained it. He explained that he'd purchased it off a merchant many years ago as a gift for his daughter. Since then she had always treasured it as her favourite toy, and even though they had purchased her many more since, she had always seemed to have a particular attraction to it.

Out of everyone in that house, likely even in that country, only I knew the warmth reflected in the glass eyes of that doll was Theodore Smith's, and yet the warmth was there regardless. That girl will never know the name of the artist who filled her days with joy, yet the joy was real, and a thing to be cherished. You might think it amusing, that a man such as I would be moved by such a thing, but it spoke to me on a level far greater than the mere entertainment of a child. After I am gone, no one will remember my name, yet the actions I have taken on this mortal plane are weaved inextricably with the fate of our world. When the chaos breaks out tonight, you may think, as you thrust the knife deep in to our targets flesh, that you are but collecting a pay check. Remember though that every strike and parry is a hammer blow upon history, and even if your name will not be remembered behind the hand that plunges that knife, the hand will go down forever into the annals of eternity."

As the teller came to the end of his tale, his companions sat in silent attention, their staring eyes appearing bug like in the dwindling flame. They nodded in near perfect synchronisation, and leaned back onto the filthy brickwork of the tunnel. The flame, dwindling as it was, was snuffed in between damp glove tips, casting them once more into darkness.