Shadow Chaps

The Shadow Knights, or Black Knights, as they would come to be known, were mostly melee and ranged fighters. When magic was needed, they would enlist Alric's magi, but that secondment was always short. The melee knights were mostly posted in the grounds, but the ranged knights had a different role: they were stationed around the demon gate.

Lord Rasmodel's greatest challenge came from within. It did not carry a sword or crossbow.

The Shadow Knight numbers were dropping. It was impossible to resign from the order - that was written in the charter - but more and more of the knights were falling into madness. If it were physical wounds, Lord Rasmodel could have done something about the epidemic. He could amputate the problem with a single swing of his sword. But his enemy was intangible.

He decided to visit those on the precipice of madness. Most were unintelligible, but some talked of food not satisfying them anymore. Others called out to the Dreaming Stone, like it was their mother, as if it would save them. In many cases, it sounded like the afflicted were arguing with themselves: two enemies unleashing an enmity.

One of the mindless disquieted Lord Rasmodel more than the others. She was an afflicted soldier that he knew from long ago. She rambled in a voice that mimicked the droning of a bored aristocrat. Lord Rasmodel knew that voice well. He stumbled from the bedside of the soldier and took no other visitors that day.