Checking the Villa

You take a pit stop at the Sunrider Villa, hoping to see if Lexie is in her room. You know this is on the way so you figured you would quickly take a look, pray to all gods that she is in there and safe and then make your way to the castle. You'd love to look around the entire Syndicate, going down into the mountain, checking your chambers, asking civilians, doing everything you can to find her, but you know they won't give you that opportunity so you'll take what you can get for the time being. "Give me just one minute, I will be right back."

The lone guard nods, allowing you to enter the Villa, the other four, still staying far back, obviously nervous, even frightened of you.

You immediately look towards Lexie's door, seeing it cracked opened "Not good..." you grumble out as you walk towards it.

Standing outside the door, you take a deep breath "Please be safe..." you pray to yourself as you lift your hand up and push the door open. With a loud, long creaking sound the door slowly opens up, allowing more Sun light to pour into the otherwise dark room.

You step inside "Lexie?" you ask, your eyes darting around the room.

Nothing.

The room itself was a disaster. The table and chairs were thrown around the room, the bed sheets torn in pieces and on the ground. Random vases and mugs were scattered across the room. "Oh god...Lexie, what did you do..." you step deeper into the room, continually looking around, looking for any sign of your Sunrider.

As you move from the bed to the side wall, you see something across the floor. "What is..." you step closer and drop to one knee "Oh god..." you grumble out "Blood..." you clench your eyes down tight for a brief second before opening them back up. You see blood splatter going from the floor, to the wall and even up the side of the wall a little bit. It looks like somebody got slashed fairly hard here and the wound splashed back into the floor and wall. You swallow hard, hoping this wasn't Lexie fighting back, hoping this blood wasn't hers.

"Si...si...sir...sir, tiger man..." a nervous voice comes from the front door "W..we...we need to get going." he says again.

As you turn your head back, you notice the same guard that was standing by your side, he's still as scared as can be. "Do you know what happened here?" you ask.

"I don't...I don't know. Some warriors fought back and they were either..." he gulps "Killed...or kept as prisoners. We had strict orders not to harm any civilians. Only warriors that attacked us."

Another look at the blood splatter you push yourself up from your knee, standing up straight, giving one final deep breath before turning back towards the guard and walking out of Lexie's room. "Let's go." you say

"ye...yes...yes sir." The guard replies, walking by your side out of the Sunrider Villa.

As the six of you continued your march towards the Castle, you noticed it got more and more defensive. Many more Rathkin soldiers were staying deeper in the city, many were scattered across the streets and probably took over houses, just like you did in Murnic. You also saw many elite Rathkin warriors, the ones dressed up in stronger, heavier golden armor that somewhat resembled a certain foe of yours.

The closer and closer you got to the castle, the more confident the guard who was walking by your side got. You noticed him smirking at all his comrades, winking at them, getting thumbs up and cheers, thinking it was all him who captured the Syndicate warrior. You let him have his glory, you didn't want to bring him any harm as he's been more then grateful with you for the time being.

The two of you finally reach the castle and at the entrance, the guard finally leaves you be and you are then escorted by two Elite Guards. These two guards are about your size, just around six foot tall and are decked out in their golden armor, not as any flairs or spikes in them, but still a shade of gold. Both wielding long full body shields and swords. They stood at each of your sides and walked you through the castle.

If you thought there was a lot of warriors outside the castle, you were actually blown away by the amount inside. You swear at least half the entire Rathkin army was in this castle and the scariest part is most of them were decked out in their golden heavy armor, which means most of these warriors were well trained and could put up a good fight if needed.

As you get to the throne room door, the two elite guards next to you request your weapons. You are hesitant to give them up but you eventually do "Do not lose these." you say in a low voice, trying to sound in charge "Or I will kill you."

You hear one let out a puff of air "Whatever you say..." he mumbles back as he grabs a hold of your short sword. At the same time, the other one is grabbing your dagger. "Edmin and the others are right beyond here...let's go."

The two elite guards step forward, each of them pushing a door open allowing you to step inside the giant square throne room.

With your hood still up, your eyes start to move up from the ground, looking up into the room, in the middle of the room, next to the throne you see what you imagine is Lord Edmin. You remember him just briefly from meeting him at Lady Karisi's party. You see his wife, Lady Bree standing next to him, talking into his ear. You step forward, your eyes glance to the side and you see Elite warriors lining the edges of the Throne room, probably twenty or so on each side of this room, way too many to fight off if something were to go wrong.

With another few steps forward, making your way to finally talk with Lord Edmin, a figure appears from behind one of the larger pillars in the room, a figure you didn't see when you first entered, a figure of somebody you would never forget...