Wegrel flew. The land and world flashed by him as his ghostly form sped over it. He was a bolt of dim spectral shadow, barely visible at that speed except in the brightest light. It should have been enjoyable, flying over the world at those speeds. But despite his best efforts Wegrel felt nothing. Even when he ignored the fact that he was bound to serve the Scar-Faced Man for the rest of his existence. Even when he ignored the many lives he’d claimed and horrific acts he’d performed and would be commanded to perform again. Even forgetting all of that there was still something that stopped him from feeling joy at his new abilities. Something was missing. Life was missing.

He’d been dead for years now, trailing along after the Scar-Faced Man with the other shadows. Hunting, searching, for something that could be given to the Scar-Faced Man to protect him further. To ensure that no more sorcerers dropped out of the sky and nearly killed him again. Of course he had the sword now, the sword that could kill the shadows for good which he’d taken from the sorcerer. But there was something else far more powerful than the sword. Something that had decimated the Fisher Plain and then decimated the Hallowed Realm itself. The Stone of Falling Stars.

Of course, it had been easy to track at first. Wegrel and the other shadows had simply gone to the giant crater in the center of the realm and looked for it there. They knew that shortly after broken to call the meteors the stone would reform in the crater. So they’d assumed that they’d be able to find whoever had picked it up nearby and take it from them. Unfortunately this had not proven so simple. They’d spent years searching the new city as it had been built as well as the bags and pockets of everyone who entered or left. They had found many things but the stone was not one of them.

It soon became apparent to Wegrel that someone wise or powerful had taken the stone and hidden it where even shadows couldn’t find it. What’s more they noticed that word of the Scar-Faced Man had begun to spread amongst the city. Somewhere rumors had started up and worst of all, many of them were true. The tales told of the battle between the Scar-Faced Man and the Beastmaster Sorcerer at the ruins of Nargathrum became local legends and many of them were surprisingly accurate, right down to the abilities and magicks used by both participants. This meant that whoever did have the stone would likely take precautions against shadows. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that the shadows had one readily available weakness, water, and tales of that weakness were spreading as well.

Wegrel returned to the meeting place of the shadows, a dark grove nigh inaccessible to humans but all too easy for them to reach. There he waited for the other three to arrive. There were only four of them now after the sorcerer had destroyed the rest. The Scar-Faced Man had made more but those he kept by his side as protection while the original four were sent out to find his ultimate weapon.

The next to arrive was Faros, a thug and a criminal from one of the worst gangs in Nargathrum. While there had still been a Nargathrum.

“Find anything new?” Wegrel asked and Faros grunted.

“Nothing in the east. I searched for days out there, all the farmlands surrounding the crater and beyond. I found nothing in the least bit magical save for the Rainbringer and her clouds.”

Wegrel nodded ready to give his own report but Faros continued.

“I’m sick of this searching, day by day, week by week, all the same thing. Hiding, cowering out of sight so no one knows the Scar-Faced Man is looking for anything. We are not sniveling thieves. We are warriors. Nightmares of death and darkness. Invulnerable warriors who could slay everyone in these lands!”

Wegrel waited calmly for him to finish. Faros was violent and arrogant and seemed to have become much worse since dying but he lacked the attention span to maintain one of his rants for very long without outside input.

“Careful what you say about invulnerability. There were thousands of us once before the Beastmaster cut us down to only four. There could easily be another weapon out there that can do the same as his sword.”

Faros grunted. “Bah, if such a weapon existed we’d have found it by now. The Scar-Faced Man has the sword and with that we are truly unstoppable. I detest all this hiding and fear.”

Wegrel didn’t bother replying this time. In truth he was worried that Faros could be right. What if the Scar-Faced Man truly was unstoppable now? What if he repeated what he did to Nargathrum except on an even greater scale? What if there was no one who could stop him now that he had the sword? Wegrel feared what might happen if the Scar-Faced Man was unstoppable.

The next to arrive was Keya. Once a healthy young woman from some small village the Scar-Faced Man had torn through. Now she was a sickly fading shadow. She was not a monster like Faros who wished for nothing but violence. She, like Wegrel, would prefer the Scar-Faced Man die and this could all be over. It was good to have a kindred soul in her. Wegrel definitely needed it in these challenging times.

Still, they were under the control of the Scar-Faced Man and Wegrel still had to locate their quarry as quickly as possible. “Greetings Keya, what have you found?”

“Greetings Wegrel, Faros,” she replied. “I searched the west all along the great road and the many villages and towns nearby. I found nothing. Only many many people living happy lives free of the ruin of shadow magic and war. New and old families claiming new and old land. The Hallowed Realm is healing and I could find nothing to tear it apart.”

Wegrel knew she wasn’t lying. They were compelled by the magic that built their very beings to follow the instructions of the Bearer of the Amulet and the Scar-Faced Man had told them to find the Stone of Falling Stars. So they would work together and tell each other everything they knew.

Faros snorted at Keya’s words but Wegrel welcomed them. They may be forced to do horrific things but they were still people at the end of that and some of them weren’t monsters like Faros, or like the Scar-Faced Man.

“I searched the city itself and I too found nothing although there is a lot of water. The entire castle is surrounded by it. A moat almost although covered in bridges. People seem to believe that just having water on the ground keeps us out. That we cannot fly over it at all. It seems the rumours about how we cannot enter water have become distorted. People believe any amount of water will keep away the evil spirits. Some merely have jars of it at their doors. I looked into all such jars and scanned the moat but there was nothing in any of them. Nor was there anything in the city itself. It may be time we reported to the Scar-Faced Man the news of our failure.”

Keya and Faros nodded. “Yes,” Faros replied. “Are we even sure this relic exists?”

Wegrel shrugged. He believed it did exist and he dreaded what would happen if the Scar-Faced Man found it. But it was possible that it wasn’t real. There were a lot of magical powers and relics floating around these days. It could have been any number of things that caused the stars to fall on Castle Elkring.

They waited in their grove for the last member of their party to return and eventually he did. He had never given them his name and Wegrel knew him only as the Warlord. He spoke as little as possible to them and never spoke to the Scar-Faced Man but he didn’t seem to mind. The Scar-Faced Man had no reason to fear his shadows but he feared the Warlord anyway and instead received all his reports through Wegrel. The Warlord had been sent to scout the far and distant lands out from the city. They didn’t expect he would find anything given such a huge area to search but he had looked anyway, and now he returned, as grim and silent as ever.

“Warlord,” Wegrel said as he arrived. “The three of us have found nothing and we have been discussing ending our search here. We must eventually report to the Scar-Faced Man that we cannot find anything or we will be searching forever. So unless you have found something we-”

“I have found something,” the Warlord replied in his grim voice. The three others froze. Wegrel and Keya out of fear of what might happen and Faros out of joy. Wegrel spoke first before Faros could interject with his terrible ideas.

“What did you find?”

“I found the stone itself. In an abandoned hut high up in the mountains. Unfortunately it is in a water jar in a chest in a vault and so I had no hope of retrieving it. The Minstrel might be able to though.”

Wegrel felt faint glimmers of cold and horror spread throughout his body and he knew he should be more horrified. But even hearing such horrible news the worst his dead form could manage was apathetic worry.

“We will tell the Scar-Faced Man this,” Wegrel replied, using the term their master preferred. The Warlord called him whatever he liked and since the two never spoke it never came up but Wegrel was in constant conversation with him and so needed to keep his names in order.

The four of them flew from the grove back to their master’s hiding place far to the north. It was night and no one noticed the four quick shadows in the darkness.

The Witch Queen Nath awoke in the darkness and looked about her room. There was nothing there except darkness but something had woken her. She looked harder and saw nothing more than an empty room. Her wardrobe closed as she’d left it. Her thick curtains shut to block out what little moonlight tried to peek in through the window. Her desk immaculately tidy and- No. There was a note on her desk in the middle of it where she worked. A space she was sure she had left clean when she’d gone to bed.

She picked up the note and took it to the window where she opened the curtains to read it by moonlight. Before she read any of the note itself her eyes darted to the signature at the bottom. A signature she knew well from seeing it signed upon many papers. It had been signed on her wedding papers.

But her husband was dead. Killed long ago, by a minstrel.