To acquire a soul in these times would be a difficult task; he only knew of three ways and only one would actually be available. The first was the method his master used; a secret one that even Artholath never knew. The second was to convince one of the Fae Folk to help him; they were not stupid and would immediately notice his dark nature. That left a manual method; phasing to demon form to convince a soul to join him right after said person died. Also difficult, but perhaps not impossible.

His musings were interrupted by a man barging in carrying a struggling female into the room. What is it with sacks of children and kidnappings these days? He decided to pay attention to this new conversation before taking up the offer of having an assistant in his travels.

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The castle was fairly quiet, a little more so than usual as nothing was happening. The king was down with a cold, and the guards were overly bored and not in a helpful mood. Thus, when a traveller claiming a massacre had happened came by the gate, the guard on duty was only half attentive to his words.

“...a what happened?” it was obvious that the guard had been sleeping on the job and only half-heartedly corrected his position.