The Black Mare Company Head Quarters

Talos Arraine was a busy man. He was an older man, just past fifty years. He liked his daily regime and did not take kindly to it being changed. He woke up at daybreak every day. Had breakfast at the same time every day and went to sleep at the same time every night. Which is why, when he was told that his entire northern trade system had been destroyed in little under a week he flew into such a rage that it took several days for the blood and broken bodies to be removed and his luxury home to be cleaned. Once the red rage had finally dissipated and he had finished smashing his priceless furniture to tinder he changed his entire daily routine into finding and destroying who ever had dared disrupt his smoothly run business. For his business was that of trade, of items of incredible scarcity and questionable morals. He dealt with it all. Stolen jewels, forbidden texts, pouched animals and his most lucrative trade, slaves. For that valley was the lynchpin of his entire trade network, one of the few places that was not patrolled or enforced that still had access to reliable river travel.

He sent spies and mercenaries north from his temperate abode to find as much information as possible. In his line of work, failure was not an option, and neither was tardiness. For his employees and for himself. His clientele did not accept such disruptions more so then Talos did. It took several days for information to begin to filter back. A long-abandoned fort somewhere in the nearby mountains had been garrisoned by some knight and a small militia. How could such a fort even exist? It took him two days to even find reference to its location. Even then it wasn’t given a name, only referenced in some text as the “Exiled darkness.” He had no idea what that meant, nor did he care. This knight and his little lackeys had ruined his quarterly gains. For that they will all pay dearly for it, them and everyone of that twice cursed valley. He had been merciful, allowed them to stay, to eke out their miserable lives. He had even allowed them to purchase their grain through him, with a nice mark up of course. Not anymore he decided, they had ruined his daily regime, for that they will all die.

“I want you to send out a call to the mercenary brigades.” He said from his study, his hand steepled behind a beautiful mahogany desk to a nearby slave boy. “A price of five gold will be given to each mercenary that comes in aid of the Black Mare trading company. With ten thousand gold given to the man who brings down the gates of Fort Silence.”

This was going to cost him a pretty penny, but sometimes a message has to be sent. No one disrupts Talos Arraine’s schedule.