Arias’ face was lit with the flickering oranges, yellows and reds of the campfire, but rather than contentedly embracing its warmth, his brow was furrowed in a scowl. His right hand absently rubbed at the soreness of his left shoulder, but that was a pain that was not going away. In truth, he barely felt it; moreso it was the cold fingers of age stabbing into his joints that occupied his attention – a chill that left him too aware that his time in this world was drawing to a close in Dark age of Camelot game.

Many times in the past of DAOC Platinum he had been sent on missions for his king, youth gracing each step, strength and powerful assuredness in his demeanor. But those years were gone. The king had aged, he had aged and once-strong shoulders began to stoop with the passage of time. The days of golden peace for Aquilonia, the kingdom ruled by his liege, had also passed. The Hyborian jewel was besieged on many fronts. Court mages had spoken in riddles about the undead called to action but Arias did not trust the gibberish, preferring something more tangible than words.

When King DAOC Platinum asked, he merely nodded and set out to run a blockade, to meet a ship and gather key information. But even as he now sat in the glow of a campfire, he felt the task might be beyond him. Already, twice since he had been in the Barachan isles, he had needed the help of others to survive, and he knew that before this was over, he would need more help.

He pulled his right hand from his shoulder and examined it in the light cast from the fire. There were old scars intertwined with new wounds that would later add to the miscolored textures of his flesh. The knuckles were battered, bruised, and barely scabbed over – the result of his last encounter. That was the one that bothered him the most as it underscored how far he had fallen from the days when he was a feared fighter.

The hand curled into a fist, the knuckles screaming in protest, but the old warrior cast aside the tormentors and looked beyond them, staring deep into the fire pit. The brightness burned at his eyes, but he neither saw it nor felt it; instead he turned over in his mind what he had uncovered since this disastrous trip had begun.

In DAOC Platinum ,he thought of writing out and sending a hasty report on what he had discovered so far, giving the king and his advisors the information he had but then quickly dismissed the notion. He was known for complete reports, valued for them in fact, and what he had now were but fragments – albeit the very portends of a greater evil amassing against Aquilonia. What exactly did he know? Well, to start, Mithrelle was here, the powerful witch who served Stygia’s deadliest god-mage, Thoth-Amon. That, in itself, was cause for alarm, but she was not the sole source of the evil that festered in the port. Tortage City harbored a deeper malevolence, that much was certain, and it seemed to flow from the madness of Strom, the tyrant who ruled the city. It was a tangible thing, an entity coalesced in a hazy mist that seeped up from the Underhalls and hung above the streets of the town at dusk, clinging to everything it touched.