A Pain in the Neck

[Alain the Carnedge]

Darkshire was even less pleasant than he originally imagined; the buildings looked like they'd collapse if he so much as kicked the walls. Nevertheless, he followed the guard down the street, the villagers following behind with nervous looks on their faces until they stopped in the middle of Darkshire. "So, what's your plan, Prime?" the guardsman asked, with a fleeting look of hope for a mere second. Alain had no intent of getting involved in the conflict, however, so he replied honestly. "Don't expect me to help you. Your problems are your own, I've fulfilled my end of our-" He pointed his thumb at the villagers over his shoulder. "-bargain, so I have no other business here. I'll likely stay a while, nothing better to do, but that's no reason to get your hopes up. Capiche?" Alain did a mocking salute at the soldier as they opened their mouth, then walking away into the alleys before they had a chance to speak.

Word likely spread about the Prime in the red cloak, as the guards decided not to speak to him after that. Glares were given but no assaults were made, probably because he would resurrect and they wouldn't. Or they just weren't that petty. Either way, he continued walking around Darkshire in the hopes of gaining more information about the Moors. Knowledge is power, blah blah blah. Of course, the citizens denied him any information that he didn't already know, such as pointing out it's a wasteland outside Darkshire, so he was forced to turn to the guards anyway. "Don't suppose there's any work to do? There was silence for a second as the guard tried to remember who he was. "I recall one of the fella's said you didn't want-" Alain waved his hand in their face. "Nah, shut up. I mean bounty work, I'm not a charity." The guard hesitated before speaking. "There's an old prison to the north used to trap some of the worst monsters in the Moors. Some vampires took residence there a while ago, and now some of those monsters are under their command." "Don't suppose that's where the Tarrasque was before it started wrecking people's houses?" The guard looked confused. "What gave you that idea? I doubt the entire prison made into one cell would've held that thing for very long. Though I guess it would be possible if the walls were made of something really strong. Doesn't matter, you going to-" Alain waved at him and turned around. "Yeah, make sure someone's waiting with my money when I get back."

He was about to walk outside when a guard stepped in his way. "Hold u-" Alain rolled his eyes and moved around him, using some Omnilium to summon a horse when Darkshire was barely in his vision anymore. He rode onwards whilst dragging his blade across the ground so he could find his way back, and sure enough: the prison was in sight. It was a crooked tower on the edge of collapse, enveloped by the mist; surrounded by nothing save a forest and the ever-present stench of death. He stopped outside of the forest and got off his horse, the sigils covering his cloak once more as he moved on foot. The forest was about as welcoming as he expected; meaning that there were an obnoxious amount of skeletons. Fortunately the Undead Legion didn't have any means of sensing him through his invisibility, so there was nothing to be worried about there, and he reached the door to the jail, which creaked as he opened it. The Legion's hearing clearly wasn't in the best shape, as they merely tilted their head in his general direction before continuing to stagger around the forest. So he continued on into the tower, not bothering to shut the door as he did so, since it decided to be nice and shut itself as he walked in. Great. Just great.

The darkness made it difficult for him to see where he was going, though not nearly as bad once his eyes had adjusted to it. Not that his lack of clear vision stopped him; he continued walking anyway. What was strange is that there were a significant amount of lights around the area that weren't lit not to mention there were no guards in the Prison itself. All was fine and well until he found the stairs-only they went down, not up. Intrigued, he continued down the stairs into a perfectly lit, and gigantic cell. There was nothing but the sound of chewing as the creatures devoured the corpses of the dead, reanimating them as skeletons when there was no flesh, only bones. Only they weren't Vampires; they were Lycanthropes. The guard had his ínformation all wrong, and they did have a way to see where he was: Their sense of smell.