The welcoming darkness felt comforting in the freezing damp of the cobblestone alleyway. Somewhere distant, a horn sounded. Three long blasts. Each unique combination of horn blasts meant something different. In the history of Casmir, only once before had this one been sounded. It meant that the King had been murdered.

Of course, the horns sounding didn’t alert Zephyr to that news. He already knew. The still-warm blood dripping from his dagger told him as much. He crouched in the alley, letting the shadows become part of him. There was a lot of magic in the world, though the coastal cities seemed more magically sparse. Individuals had powers, random and sometimes uncontrollable. Zephyr had the power to bend shadows. It was that which had allowed him to get close to the King, and it was that which hid him now.

He had taken no pleasure in the act; he was merely doing his duty. The King had grown corrupt. Using the crown to funnel funds away from the people and into his own pocket. If Zephyr hadn’t done what he did, there would have been a revolt. He wiped the dagger clean on the back of a rag before secreting it away inside of his cloak. He waited a few moments before pushing against a seemingly random brick in the wall. The brick slid back, and a passage opened.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. Smoke singed his nostrils as the metallic aroma of blood danced into the alleyway. Zephyr drew his dagger, pulling his cloak up over his nose to stop himself retching. As he entered the den, the scale of the devastation hit him. Dozens of bodies lay dead among the tables. The entire floor was coated with slick, red blood. The complete cohort of his guild had been slain.

Zephyr stood motionless, trying to comprehend how this was possible. The guild had been a well-guarded secret, it surely must have been a betrayal. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the dagger harder. He turned from the massacre, determined to find answers.

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Hey! Thank you for reading if you got this far. My name is Thomas and I'm hoping to find a partner to write another POV character in the above setting. Beyond the prompt, I don't really have any details set in stone and would be happy to work those out. As for your character, I'm open to all. You could play someone responsible for the massacre, a survivor of it, a royalist, an old friend, an enemy or anything in between. If this sounds like something you'd like to do, please drop me a DM. Thank you!