Cyrus covered his face with the black cowl as soon as he scaled the wall to the keep. The three patrols were quickly dispatched and he was on the move. His bandaged feet barely making a sound against the cold, hard cobblestone walkways. The mission was simple. Get in. Get the mysterious blank book. Kill the official. Get out without being seen. Or at least without leaving anyone that saw him alive.

Dawn started to break the darkness that Cyrus clung to for both comfort and ease of access. The rising sun painting the cloudless sky a collage of colours. Reds and oranges lit his face up for only a moment before he slinked further into the keep to find his prize. Torches decorated the walls and gave off the slightest amount of heat. Just enough for him to get a feel for the environment. As he rounded the first corner three guards walked abreast chatting idly. Not even slowing down, Cyrus called for his magic. In three practiced moves that almost resembled dancing the three soldiers fell on the ground boiled alive inside their armor in just an instant. He hopped over their corpses and continued down the hallway till he came to a pair of gilded doors that just screamed 'Dukes room.' 

Cyrus never did understand why dukes and kings always chose the most magnificent room. At least Generals could usually defend themselves such as Cyrus could. Kings tended to be soft. With a sigh he pushed the door open and slipped inside Seeing the Duke hunched over a reading table with a small reading candle perched on top. He was peering at the odd metal book with a fascination that couldn't be described. Shrugging the easiness of it all He put a dagger into the Dukes throat and took a look at the book. The first page held a girls name in the most immaculate writing he ever saw. "I thought this book was blank..." With renewed interest he pushed the dukes corpse to the floor reveling for just a second at how the body bled out before taking a seat and picking through the pages and seeing several words he never heard before. " The duke never had this nice of hand writing. There must be a reason why he betrayed my king..." He talked to himself as he picked up the dukes quill, noted that it did not have fresh ink on it, and dipped it in the inkwell. He wrote the first thing that came to his mind on the page at the end of what could be called a list of foreign words. "*The duke lay dead at my feet with odd writing in the supposed blank metal book. The mystery only serves to be deepened by his betrayal of my liege. Just what secrets does this thing hold*"

Looking down at the corpse he regretted for just a minute for killing him before getting an answer. Sighing he put the book in the folds of his cloak along with the quill and inkwell. " Whatever it is. I need some time before handing it over." He slipped out of the Keep and rather then return to his camp he moved into the nearby forest hoping to gain a deeper insight into it.