As we go through life, we are defined by our actions. We make choices, but it's the consequences, not our intentions, that make us what we are. However, every now and then, the world presents us with an opportunity to become so much more.

The Story:  Centuries have past and mankind has dared to forget. The dead rise again. Nightblade, the Dreadlord of the Fades moves unseen, his passing marked only by silent corpses. Time for vengeance has come, and no one among the living or damned will escape his wrath. Meanwhile half a continent away, an exiled healer is roused from a drunken stupor. The miners lead him into a disheveled shack; the air is thick with blood. Inside lies a secret which will call forth the ghosts of his shattered past and could very well open the door to the end of all things.

Prologue: The Unseen

The night sweltered. Humidity gripped the rainforest, blanketing the sodden undergrowth and thick foliage with a sinister silence. The animals had retreated. Nothing stirred. Nothing breathed. Overhead, wisps of clouds stole away the stars, and from every corner, shadows loomed like predators. Feeble light from the crescent moon was all that broke the gloom.

Suddenly, four men charged heedlessly through the murk and jumble. They had been running for miles, leaping and twisting through the reaching boughs and tripping roots. Their eyes had gone feral, instinct driving them like quarry before the hounds. Horror pulsed through their veins until only the primal need to survive remained.

Sempur Jaas jumped a small gully, landing soundly on the other side. Mud splashed across his leather boots and woolen trousers. Sweat soaked his green jerkin, and streaks of blood stained his hardened countenance and silvered hair. He held his sword out before him, as if warding away the very night. His mouth had gone dry; the bitter taste of copper coated his tongue. Fever festered in his lungs and throat; he breathed in deeply, forcing back the bile.

Within moments he heard two pairs of feet landing on either side of him. For the briefest of moments, he hesitated, waiting for his last companion. Instead, a guttural scream broke the night not ten paces off his flank. One of his men was crying out with pain so abject that the sound pierced to the bone. Within a heartbeat, he and the last of his squad bolted forward; the hot fetid breath of death right at their backs.

Sempur Jaas, captain in the Rangorian army, had survived scores of battles, but nothing in all his years of service had ever terrified him so utterly. This night, there were no thoughts of strategy or combat, only flight. Branches and deadfalls broke his trail; years of hardened service in the borderlands were all that spared him from breaking his neck.

He could not hear or see what pursued him, but Sempur could feel the distance closing. I have to warn them! the thought seared through the red haze of his vision. Even if I die, they must be told.

The conspiracy he had uncovered mere hours ago, now drove his pounding heart and churning legs. War was imminent. Assassins were stealing across the border. Worst of all, the Dreadlords had returned, rising from the foulest of legends. I have to reach the encampment, before it is to late. Before we lose our Arcanum. Before everything goes to hell. “Before they kill him,” the words burst unbidden from his lips.

Suddenly, a gargled explosion of gore ruptured the night. He could smell blood on the wind. Another of his men was down. It was death devoid of reason, without mercy. Sempur could only run.

His lungs were strained beyond all endurance, and his pace wavered on that razor’s edge between urgency and utter exhaustion. Minutes flew past and the ground finally began its gradual slope towards the river. Just beyond the trees, Sempur could make out a clearing. The faint flickering of campfires touched his vision. Hope stirred.

The captain glanced behind to his old friend Nedd Thull. Sempur’s eyes shot a wordless message – almost there. A slight softening of the other’s countenance acknowledged the thought. Then within a heartbeat, the very shadows seemed to fall across Nedd like a great shark breaching the surface. He was pulled backwards into the brush and shadows so suddenly it was as if he had never been there at all. A fountain of crimson exploded from the trees. Sempur, beyond all terror and grief, had nothing left for his friend; the need to break free from the primeval woods consumed him utterly. He sprinted for the forest’s edge; only a few trees stood in his way.

Ahead, a sprawling meadow nestled against a meandering river. Thick grasses and smooth currents bespoke a calmness in stark contrast to the stifling rainforest. Well-ordered tents, weapons racks, and cook-fires revealed a small military encampment. Above, the emerald-green banner of the kingdom stirred restlessly. Relief brushed Sempur’s consciousness. He struggled, mustering the breath to raise the alarm - to warn them all of the evil at his heels.

Entering the clearing, his steps faltered. Sempur’s instincts registered it even before his eyes could. Everywhere across the meadow, dark figures lay hapless against the cold earth. Torn and blood-soaked corpses were cast amid rent armor, broken swords, and sundered shields. His stomach rebelled. Nearly two dozen men and women had been butchered were they stood.

Sempur dropped to his knees. This one night had finally shattered him as four decades of war had not. Silent tears fell from his eyes, and his head bowed under the weight of own failure and of all that was about to be lost.

There, in that moment of utter despair, something unseen approached. Sempur raised his eyes to the dark, knowing that his hunter was upon him. He dully scanned the shadows around him, but could see nothing. Then, the slightest shimmering of the air drew his attention – naught but a sliver of midnight against the raven darkness. Sempur squinted, trying to see more clearly, but his gaze slid right past his foe.

In a stillness lost between breaths, a pair of jagged blades slid forth from the shadows like an adder baring its fangs. He watched helplessly as the twin lengths of razor-sharp steel hovered hypnotically above him.

Sempur Jaas, veteran warrior of the High Kingdom of Rangoria, closed his eyes for the final time. Forgive me, he sent a silent plea, for I have failed. In those finite seconds left to him, he struggled to envision his wife, groping for the memory of her auburn hair and winsome smile. The scent of her. The touch of her.

He got no further. The twin blades plunged downward, slicing deep across his torso. Sempur spent his last moments drowning in his own screams.

The shadow remained, invisible except for the blooded swords. Four words scraped the darkness like steel on stone. “Yes, you have failed.”