Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Wagons were arriving by the dozens every day to a large fort on the edge of a vast plain. At the other end of the plains, the terrain began to turn into rocky hills painted in different shades of browns and grays.

The two biomes seemed to blend somewhat in the transition, though from far away, it simply appeared to be a hard cutoff from one place to the next, as if the gods cut out the land between and stitched these two together.

The fort on the edge of the grassland was called Watcher's Retreat. It was the main fort on the Union's border with Alorek and reporting to it were a series of lookout towers.

One such place, Urntote Tower, had been taken almost overnight a few weeks ago, and just over the rocky hills on the edge of the grasslands, the Five Kings Union have been holding back the Alorekan army from advancing, but things were not looking good.

Currently the forces outside of Watcher's Retreat were untrained soldiers with little to no cohesiveness. Though individually, a significant number of them were powerful, they had all been thrown together and simply told to fight.

Such was the way of things for ones like Laris. He was an old and grizzled commander of the human forces and specifically had been trying to keep a handle on the Marked One forces. Laris himself was a Marked One and had survived many battles and skirmishes.

The Five Kings Union equally gathered their Marked Ones into a singular group of forces and supplied little in the ways of equipment and training. Often, border forts like this would become pseudo cities for Marked Ones with different people specializing in weapons and goods to support each other.

Truth be told, he wanted to be out on the front lines, issuing orders and fighting alongside the men and women he has worked with for years as well as help whip the new comers into shape. However, that was not his place currently. Rather, his current job was to process the new arrivals and outfit them with what he could, for war.

Many that arrived were adventurers and already wore their own armor and had their own weapons, those individuals would be fine. Others who had spent their years in academies or other guilds were less equipped and had to be given anything that could be perceived as a weapon.

Laris made his way down from his position on the wall and approached the wagons that had entered the gate. There were twelve different wagons today and each one was filled to the brim with people. His personal task was to scan over the new faces and search for the ones with the most potential.

For a few minutes, Laris' eyes passed over the horde of people and saw nothing interesting. Before he gave up and turned around, he gave a second scan over the group. Something was eating at the back of his mind that he was missing something.

That was when a group of people caught his eye. It was a woman with dark armor, a mask over her face and a bow strapped to her back. Standing side by side with her were a warrior with a massive axe, a female mage, and then another woman wearing what looked like monk garb.

"Ahhh… I think I've heard of them before… The Marks I think they called themselves. Powerful adventurers led by someone that used to be a runner. Quite interesting. Let's go say hello." Laris mused while stroking his white mustache with one hand.

He quickly made his way down to the staging area where people were being separated into groups. They had rosters of who should be arriving and made sure that all those that were supposed to be in attendance, were present.

Laris hurried to where he saw the interesting group was so that he could intercept them and prevent them from simply being lumped into different companies. He wanted to keep groups together when at all possible and with these people, he might be able to create a strike force to hit the enemy hard and in specific places.

When he reached them he called out, "Hello. You must be The Marks. My name is Laris I am the commander of the Marked Ones at Watcher's Retreat."

The woman with the bow pulled down her hood and mask exposing elf-like ears, though much shorter than a full-blooded elf's would be. "My name is Mia. With me are Renton, Marie, and Lynn."

"Wonderful to meet you all. If you could be bothered for a moment of your time, I would like to discuss special arrangements for your group." Laris offered casually while trying not to wring his hands with excitement.

"Sure." Mia said with a shrug.

The group followed Laris through the crowds. It looked as though they were looking for someone, but he ignored their gazes. Everyone in such a situation would try to find any familiar face if they could. Luckily for them, they came together so they had everyone they truly needed to survive.

Laris showed them a handful of buildings on the way to his office, but they seemed uninterested. They also did not jump at his sly offer for special accommodations if they accepted his offer. That was unsurprising, though, since they were an adventuring party. Luxury accommodations were nice, but not a requirement.

"So what is it you want to offer us?" Mia finally said.

Laris coughed awkwardly, but stopped and turned around. He wanted to wait till they were at his office, but now was as good as anywhere. "I want you to be a special strike team. Hit the enemy hard, then get out before you're caught."

"Sure."

"It will be a helpful and useful job so I hope you…" Laris stopped. "You'll accept it?"

"Sure." Mia said. Her party nodded their heads in agreement. It was unanimous.

"Great then…"

"On one condition. There is a boy here, Lucius. We want him." Mia demanded.

Laris looked to the faces of the rest of the group. They were stonefaced and stern. It seemed they would not back down.

"How old is he…"

"I don't know. Thirteen, fourteen? Something like that."

Laris rubbed his forehead. "You want to bring a boy onto a special operations team? Are you insane?"

Mia cocked her head to the side. "Yeah? He's going to fight anyway, so why not have him fight with us?"

"Can he even fight? No offense… I don't want him to get you all killed."

"That won't happen. Trust me." Mia said with a grin.

"I'm going to test him first before I agree. If he doesn't pass you will refuse to take him and agree to my request…that's the best I can offer. It's risky, so I need to know he's up to the task." Laris relented.

For some reason he felt an intense sensation of unease wash over him as he saw Mia's grin turn dark and knowing as she said "Deal."