[color=#6ecff6][center][sub][h1][b]Siegfried Aschwin[/b][/h1][/sub][img]https://i.imgur.com/bYbIH9t.png[/img]
Location: The Wilds[/center][/color][hr]Siegfried held Soren's gaze for another long, heavy moment, ensuring the physician understood the exact shape of the threat hanging in the freezing air. Satisfied that the boundary was clearly drawn, he turned his back on the man in a gesture of utter dismissal. He wiped the worst of the gore from his axe into the snow, then slid the weapon into the iron ring at his belt. 

He crunched through the snow, stepping over the scattered debris of the skirmish, and made his way toward Brigitte. She was nursing a skin of whisky, the sharp smell of the alcohol mixing with the metallic tang of fresh blood. Siegfried looked down at the ruined face of the southern man, noting the sunken eyes, the hollowed mouth, and that foul, pulsing violet stitchwork around the neck. Aslan was right; it was a perversion of the highest order, the kind of magic that treated souls like cheap fuel.

[color=#6ecff6]"No idea,"[/color] Siegfried rumbled, finally answering Brig's earlier question as he came to a halt beside her and Nika. [color=#6ecff6]"Mages have been popping up more often up here."[/color]

He let out a dry, humorless breath that plumed white in the cold air. [color=#6ecff6]"It is a bitter irony. The North is practically crawling with these robed bastards and their metal clad lapdogs these days, yet my coin purse has remained irritatingly light. You would think a man in my line of work would be eating roast pheasant every night with this kind of infestation, but most towns would rather hide than pay to have the rot cut out."[/color]

He hooked his thumbs into his wide leather belt, those pale draconic eyes scanning the distant treeline before settling back on the eclectic group of strangers that had suddenly become their allies.

[color=#6ecff6]"I have been noticing a steady uptick in Luxun activity for a while now. It's not just random border skirmishes or scouts getting lost in the storms."[/color] Siegfried shifted his weight, his armor creaking softly. [color=#6ecff6]"Three years back, I stumbled onto a fully entrenched Luxun camp a few valleys over."[/color]

He shrugged a broad shoulder, treating the memory as an offhand inconvenience, a mundane chore he had been forced to attend to. [color=#6ecff6]"They weren't even looking for northerners or old dwarven caches. They were hunting for fae, trying to snatch them up for whatever twisted plans they cook up in their towers."[/color]

His jaw tightened, the muscles ticking beneath his skin as he looked back down at the corpse at their feet. The thought of those labs, the smell of death and deacy, and burning and opened flesh, clawed at the edges of his mind. He forced the memories down, burying them under a familiar, cold layer of indifference.

He turned his attention fully to Aslan, seeing the shared disgust in the other man's eyes. The southerner clearly recognized the absolute horror of what had been done to his countryman, the indignity of being turned into a meat puppet for western mages.

[color=#6ecff6]"Help me bury the others?"[/color] Siegfried asked, his voice losing its conversational cadence and dropping back to a rough, gravelly grate. He cast a dark, sideways glare back toward where Soren stood with his crossbow. [color=#6ecff6]"Before the local scavengers get them, or worse, our new physician decides to start his research. Someone carving up another for science..."[/color]

Siegfried turned his eyes to the corpses, his upper lip curling into a snarl of pure, unfiltered revulsion.

[color=#6ecff6]"...makes me sick. Let us get them in the dirt where they belong."[/color]