Role

Chapter 1

The Empress is long gone and nobody heard about her for a while. The Great
Empire is headless again. The purifying war is not going well and the imperial
forces face defeat after defeat. Gzurweeg was sitting in his cell reviewing
the latest reports. Not many of them brought good news. "I need to find a way
to reinforce the Black Sect", Gzurweeg thought. "Wait, here is a report from
a recruiter", Gzurweeg took a short list of new bloodoaths from papers stacked
on his table and studied it carefully. One of bloodoaths had shown good promise.
Her first task, to clean the carpet in the Black Sect, she completed very well
as if she already knew the dirtiest places in the Sect Hall. "I must memorize
her name, hmm, Ah-tie-li... or Ah-ti-eli, whatever.", Gzurweeg closed his eyes
and repeated the name several times. "Wait! Isn't it?! It can't be!", a sudden
thought came to his mind once he discovered that she has the same name as the
long gone Empress had. For Gzurweeg all undead looked alike, so he couldn't
confirm his guess, but it was definitely something he should pay attention to
in future. Gzurweeg drew the next paper from the stack, an ultimatum to the
council from therans. It read:

"Greetings your majesty Gzurweeg, the Dread Lord of the Great Empire!
We, therans, demand you to anathema that ugly undead being Ahtieli!
She is a threat to all of us and every living creature in the world.
Signed by: The leaders of Fortress, Battle, Refuge and Nexus"

There was some empty space after "Gzurweeg" as if a scribe wanted to put his
last name there but didn't know it. "At least this is still a mystery", Gzurweeg
smiled contentedly as he wanted to be known only by his name and not for his
heritage. Gzurweeg finished to read the ultimatum and scratched his head
curiously "Ahtieli again and the ultimatum looks quite demanding and rude".
A wide grin came across Gzurweeg's face. If the enemies of Empire demand from
him to anathema a worthy bloodoath then, perhaps, he should do exactly opposite.
After all, he needed a better reason other than "our enemies want it". However,
it would be unwise to discard the warning, so Gzurweeg decided to keep Ahtieli
as a servant for a while and watch.