A shard of [i]Angroron[/i]?!

Fanilly's eyes widened in shock. She had no idea shards of Angroron were even still in existence, let alone that one had been in Thaln. How was this even possible?

"You... you can't be..." she stumbled over herself for a moment, before shaking her head to try and clear her thoughts, "A real shard of Angroron? Here? I can't believe it, who would possibly want it?!"

The abominable black blade wielded by Orodrunn, the Lord of Domination. A hole in reality itself in the form of a sword, into which was sucked light, life, and all else. Never to be seen again. An unnatural thing that had been broken to pieces by Saint Lilianna with the power of the Sun and Moon at her side. But even the fragments of the blade, it was said, were so utterly corrosive to anything alive, so opposed to the very concept of life itself, that it could shatter the heart and soul. Killing anyone who touched it, or worse driving them beyond madness. It had been called the Absent Blade, once, because its very existence was as an 'absence' of anything else.

"Tch, I knew it had to be bad news when they said not to touch it but that's beyond bad news," commented Alette as she rested her spear on her shoulder, "Hmph, no way I'm telling you who hired me, but I guess I can see your point. No reason not to cooperate when it's something like [i]that[/i]."

The fact that Alette refused to divulge her employer's name even now did have at least one implication: She didn't believe her employer had treated them as disposable tools.

"If you won't tell us the name of your employer, can you tell us what they were planning on doing? Do you know?" Fanilly asked, after taking a moment to clear her thoughts.

"No idea," Alette responded with a shrug, "Just they wanted to put it somewhere safe, who knows what they planned to do after that. I don't exactly ask about that kinda thing, you know?"

"... If it's still here, it's likely inside," Fanilly concluded, "So... we must search the fort. Don't touch anything suspicious!"

Inside, Abigail tilted her head slighty.

"We'd only just begun our search, really... finished cleaning up all the ugly piggies~" she replied, giggling to herself lightly as she did, "The captain's quarters must be upstairs, right...?"

Indeed, upstairs lay the quarters of the fort's captain. They were a grim sight as well. While they were mostly undisturbed, the captain's desk unmarked, the bookshelves undamaged, in the bed lay the captain himself, a strong-looking man with a short black beard and mustache.

His throat had been slit while he was asleep.

[@HereComesTheSnow][@TheFake][@Crimson Paladin][@PaulHaynek][@FlappyTheSpybot][@Raineh Daze][@ghastlyinc][@Krayzikk]