[b]Oslo, Valeal[/b] 
“What was that?!?” The man’s enraged roar drew the attention of his comrades in the barracks, but he was too strung up to notice. Instead he continued holding his glare, whipping his head around franticly. The other new recruits to the Paladin of the Roses narrowed their eyes as they too scanned the area, but seeing nothing they just shook their heads in disgust and turned to mind their own business. Whatever Fredrick’s problem was, it was starting to get annoying. For the whole damn week he’d been jumping at shadows, getting worked up over whispers nobody else even caught, and rumor was that he’d gone looney. The fact that he had supposedly reported a monstrosity roaming the streets of Oslo to the higher ups was not forgotten by his peers either. A creature clad in ruinous armor, shrouded in a cloak of shadows. As if something that obvious would have gone missed by the others in their Order, or unreported by the City Guard.

Adune chuckled to himself as he watched the entire scene play out from the barrack’s stone walls. Having abandoned his metal shell for the duration of the recruit’s torment, it had been startling easy to chip away at the man’s mind. As a Shade, there wasn’t anywhere in the Paladin’s compound he couldn’t reach. Oh, he couldn’t follow the man everywhere all the time, but he didn’t need to. Under the cover of night, he was all but invisible to tail his target during patrols. The barracks were no place of reprieve and rest either, he was the monster hiding under the bed and in the walls. With a smirk of satisfaction, he finally turned away from the scene and left the new recruit alone for good. The man was on the verge of snapping, and though Adune wasn’t above petty revenge, he did not wish to break anyone. Oh, it certainly didn’t help that he walked around in that imposing and weathered shell, but people like Fredrick needed to learn to stop sticking their heads where it didn’t belong. Even the City Guard had ignored his presence after a generous bribe was distributed to its members; a Shade like him didn’t need money for anything really. But no, the bastard had to report it to the higher ups and force Adune to abandon his inconspicuous shell lest more sightings and reports pushed the order into action. 

Armed with the knowledge that that particular recruit likely wouldn’t be bothering him for his duration in Oslo, Adune took his leave. Another host of Paladins was supposed to be arriving in the city today, if the recruits talk had been correct, and the Shade figured he might as well check it out. There wasn’t much else to do in the compound either way. While he would have tried to spy on the higher ups of the organization, he wasn’t ready to push his luck that far yet. While he knew brute force and numbers could overwhelm mages, he didn’t want to find out if there was more to the Paladins than just that. So for the most part, he had stuck around the new meat whom he figured wouldn’t be privy to such secrets or be able to detect his presence.

The mid-day sun hung right overhead much to Adune’s annoyance. To anyone watching he’d be a great shadowy mist rushing out from one wall to seep into another; more than enough to raise an alarm. Nevertheless, after taking a moment to try his best and make sure nobody was around, he made his move. Dark tendrils flowed out from the spaces in between the stones before coalescing into a single, larger form. Yet before Adune fully gathered himself, he was already on the move again, surging forward towards the massive wall that separated the wealthy citizens from those that ruled over Oslo. Splattering upon impact, the shadowy wisps quickly seeped into the cracks and just like that, any trace of Adune was gone. Surging through the cracks in the wall, he made his way towards the gates within the wall, hoping he hadn’t missed the Paladin’s arrival.