Role

Chapter 2

"Be strong boy, the healers will make the pain stop." Anfiloc jogged
down the dusty track, showing no signs of labor despite carrying his
nephew who must have weighed nearly two hundred pounds, even at his
young age of 14. His nephew was a bloody, ripped mess, he did not
know if the boy could be saved or not, but still he ran on. Three hours it
took him to reach the village, and when he did, he burst into the healing
houses with reckless abandon, yelling for the healers.

"Mension, Falioc, quickly, it is my nephew!!" The two old men
scrambled into the infirmary, and came upon a ghastly sight, Anfilocs
nephew lie there, clinging to his final thread of life. His face looked as if it
had been nearly bitten in half, his chest and stomach were shredded, as if
by a dragon claw both of them decided. They had seen no man or beast
survive wounds of this kind, never in their ninety years of healing. They
immediately set to work, calling upon their servants and dashing about,
one would never guess they were over one hundred and thirty years old.
Anfiloc left his nephew in the care of the gods and left the hut, someone,
or something, had some explaining to do.

Without the extra weight, Anfiloc could run full out, and arrived at the
large cave his nephew and brother-in-law called home in just under an
hour. He approached the spot outside the cave to where his nephew had
drug himself, before Anfiloc rescued his struggling body. From there he
simply followed the blood, an amazing amount of blood by the looks of
it, there was no way Aelisoc had enough blood to survive, no possible
way. The hulking warrior now followed the trail of blood and gore into
the cave, he passed their entrance hall, their shrine to the Paradigm of
Order, which he had always mocked, both because of the fact that all
knew the Lord Nepenthe had long ago disappeared into the abyss, and
the fact that he was a patron of the greatest blight upon Thera that had
ever been known, the Masters of the Five Magics. In his rage he kicked
over the shrine, scattering religious artifacts and actually breaking the
statue of Nepenthe. He could deal with his brother-in-laws scoldings
later. He followed the trail of blood into their main living quarters, and
around a bend into his brother-in-laws study, and there he found it. The
study was destroyed, his tables were splintered, chairs and stools were in
pieces across the floor. Books, pieces of glass, and parchment were
shredded and scattered. Off to one side, there was the head of a great
bear, a fresh kill.

Anfilocs spear came up to the ready in his right hand, and his hand axe
came off his belt in his left. He slowly moved through the wreckage,
coming near the back of the high-ceilinged cavern. There was a huge
wooden table, knocked onto its side, and Anfiloc could see a pool of
black blood, definitely not his nephews, spilling from behind it. He
rounded the wreckage and gasped in surprise. There lay a hulking beast,
the largest wolf he had ever seen. Its hide was gray and white, matted
with blood. There was a dagger in its neck, a sword through its belly
and out its back, and a spear driven through its jaws and out the back of
its head. Anfiloc poked the beast with a grunt, and turned from the