Part III: Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Enemies…

"Well well, what do we have here?" a voice came from across the room. Wuten looked over, and his jaw almost dropped when he saw who it was. Across the room sat a human with onyx eyes and black, shagged hair down to his neck, along with dark brown robes and a hood draped down behind his head. "It's been what, thirteen years? You've grown up, Wuten."

"…Sargerre? What the hell, what are you doing here?" Wuten exclaimed. "I thought you were dead?"

Sargerre simply grinned at him. "It'll take more than two sword wounds to kill me, Wuten. You should know that by now." He pulled down his robe, revealing two large scars running down his abdomen and torso. "These marks are harmless to me."

Wuten was astonished at what was before him. Sargerre Shadowbane was a warlock and an old friend of Wuten's. After he left to Ravenholdt without so much as a goodbye, Sargerre started dabbling in the shadow arts. From this, a spell backfired upon him, giving him un-natural amounts of Fel energy and changing him forever. He went after Wuten in a fit of demonic rage, for he felt that he left everyone behind to die while he went on to become stronger. Wuten only barely managed to escape with his life, after having to cut his friend open and let the Fel energies bleed out of his body. He fled into the shadows of the forest for three days after that battle, trying to get as far away from the body as possible. He looked at the scars that were left from his swords. "Sargerre… how did you survive?"

Sargerre kept staring at him with that devilish grin of his. "Well, let's just say I pulled a few strings and ended up not dying from it."

Wuten, though astonished, was not surprised. He never did understand what the warlocks did to themselves, nor did he want to know. All he cared about was that if Sargerre was going to be on the team, he'd have to watch his guard. He looked around, and sitting at a table was another human clad in robes, carrying a large staff and a straw hat. Wuten walked up to him, and he smiled. "A pleasure to meet you, I'm Thordrity Weaver, a mage and explorer. I've traveled both continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, so I've heard of you, Wuten. It's an honor."

Wuten stretched his hand out and shook hands with the mage. "The pleasure is all mine, it seems my fame precedes me." Thordrity smiled at him. He was shorter than the other two, and had dark brown hair draping past his shoulders, combed backwards, with the bangs hanging down to the sides of his face. He returned the handshake, and stood up. "I'll be the one providing the bang in this mission." Wuten grinned, he liked this mage already.

"And my name is Kaigen Lightsword," a voice came from against the wall behind Thordrity. It was a massive-sized human, towering over the three of them, with dark brown eyes and blonde hair pulled back into spikes. He wore large plate armor that seemed similar to simply placing shields on the paladin, and he carried a large hammer on his back that had a light glow around it. "I'll be smashing anything that manages to get in our way. I'll also heal your injuries if and when it happens." Wuten nodded, and clapped his hand against the paladin's.

"Alright, looks like we've got quite a rounded party here. I'm truly impressed with what I'm seeing." He looked over towards Sargerre, who still had the same grin as before. "As much as I hate having to deal with Sargerre, I'm confident we'll be able to do this easily."

"You forgot about one more, Wuten," Sargerre said with a smirk on his face as he stood up. He pointed to Wuten, and before he knew it, a dagger was at his neck.

The one holding the dagger had their legs around his waist, and a hand on Wuten's head, pulling it back as the blade was held to his neck. "Long time, no see, 'Master'."

Wuten's eyes widened, he recognized that voice. From years ago, during his years in Ravenholdt.

It was the apprentice that had run away.

Kassaris.

He rolled his eyes back to look at her, though her face was obscured by a dark mask covering it. He grinned at her. "Long time, no see, Kassaris. How much you've grown in the past years." She pulled back on his hair more, bringing the dagger against his neck, creating a small cut on it. Crimson-red blood dripped down the dagger, and to the floor. He suddenly vanished from sight, dropping her to the floor and disappearing into the shadows of the room. She looked around, trying to track movement in the corners of the room.

"Just as I thought, your reflexes are as quick as they were the day you left, Kassaris." She was pinned before she had time to react, and the leather of her tunic along her arms were pierced through and stabbed through the ground by his swords, and he was standing on her legs, holding her down. "However you must always keep an eye on your back, otherwise you will be an easy target." She struggled against the swords, but it was no use, she was trapped and couldn't escape. He grinned, stepped off her legs and pulled the swords from the ground, releasing her. She stumbled to her feet and pulled out a smaller dagger, but Wuten quickly reacted, knocking her on the shoulders and rendering her arms limp. He sighed, and pulled her wrists behind her, tilting her face up to look him in the eyes with his open hand. "After all, I haven't even seen your face after all this time."

She slipped a hand out of his grip, and pulled down her own mask. She had light brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her head, and light green eyes with a fierce expression on her face. She wore no jewelry, save for two earrings that her mother had given her as a gift before leaving for Ravenholdt, and used very little amounts of makeup on her face, though her natural look complimented her well enough to not require nearly as much. "This good enough for you, 'Master'?"

He eyed her facial features up and down, she was obviously not happy to see him, and even less happy to have been stopped by him so easily. He smiled at her. "Yes, that's good enough for me."

Thordrity looked up with a cough. "If you two are done…" He reached into his bag and pulled out a rough parchment. "We have work to be done."