Vlad's face grew grim and somber in a way that only a man who had seen all his years can manage. With but a motion of a hand he dismissed Natalia and the Dovizio sisters from the room. With slow and somber strides he walked to the Large fireplace and kicked at the coals that had jumped onto the hearthstones.
A few moments of silence dragged by while Ciro remained standing where he had been opposite the desk from a man that had been a mentor to his family for years. Eventually the ancient addressed his young protege.
"Do you know what lies in the heart of man?" He asked staring into the flames.
"I do not claim to," The youth replied in a low and calm tone. One of his hands brushed the place in his side where the sorceror had claimed his prize. The wound could not be seen beyond clothing and bandage and yet it felt bare to the world.
"Gluttony," Came Vlad's answer to his own question, "a neverending gluttony that drives them to consume and destroy until their lives flicker out like a candle at the end of its wick."
"I do not claim right to judge my kind nor to speak for them, but are there not stalwart sentinels here numbered in the hundreds who have pledged of themselves to rebuild the lost world?"
This reprisal seems to please the older man as a trace of a smile shades his lips before it is gone again in the stark reality of their situation.
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So this snippet is a little short this week. Oh well I can't spew fields of mana onto the page every time or else I shall have nothing that is not secret.
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