Regardless, each of you has been given your tasks. Make certain they are completed diligently. Each of you understands what is to happen should I be unable to return. In that event, make certain that it is completed. You know the consequences of failure.

The young artist looked at his copy of the text for the thousandth time, a mischievous edge tainting his ever-present smile. Looking out the window, he glanced across the clearing. From here, through this window pane, was the most entertaining work of art that he had ever witnessed. Few were in a position to appreciate it as he was, though. Few could have seen it in all it's masterful complexity.

It had been quite some time since the young artist had heard any word from the enigmatic "~T~" whose initial flourished the bottom of the page. And yet, somehow, he found some measure of reassuring glee with the increasing number of dark elves that passed frantically through the area surrounding the crypts, hoping ? perhaps even knowing ? that things were going well for his patron.

He stared past the towering Yew just outside. He stared at the stonework of that building entrusted to his care. And the smile grew slightly. The elf-maiden had wandered in again ? how he wished to bring out her true beauty ? and sat down, cross-legged on the floor and withdrew the scrying lens from the iron chest. Staring into it, his eyes lost their focus of the surrounding room and instead stared at the walls of a familiar study. And inside those walls, as if awakened from a deep sleep, a set of borrowed eyes observed intently.

From the safety of his scrying glass, the artist watched the elf-maiden and her "protector." It was a long, tedious conversation, but the artist recorded what he could with a calligraphic flourish onto the parchment in front of him. His interest was piqued, however, as the conversation changed direction...

She leaned forward on the table, her patience wearing thin with life and her spirit feeling worn and broken, "But what is it you are protecting me from?"

"The dark forces, my dear. Tell me Sunveil...." The protector ran a hand over the lich statue ? and the gesture sparked familiar in the artist. He remembered the dark control of that "Protector" once. It had forcefully commandeered the artist when Mandirake had come to the tower. For a brief moment, the smile disappeared from the artist's face, and his thumb traced the blade of his surgeon's scapel, drawing a fount of blood.

The protector continued. "Do you remember the strife Mord'sythe put you through...?" The elf-maiden nodded. Thoughts of hatred flowed as freely as the blood from his hand as the protector stared at her and spoke. "Do you truly believe Trenton to be dead?"

The elf-maiden shook her head slowly, and the artist could not help but notice the strange emotion flickering in her eyes. Slowly, the smile returned to his lips as he watched her through the scrying glass, knowing that his patron still held some unseen grip on her.

"He will not touch you as long as you remain my ears, my mouth, my eyes. I am taking everything from him in his absence... his very tower, this very foundation, I claim as my own."

She replied to him, in a tone that the artist readily understood. "He will not be weak when he returns."

"I will erase him from the slate of your memories, and your future... He will not return." The protector seemed so confident, so powerful in his own mind ? the smile on the young artist's grew tenfold, and he struggled to contain a laugh.

In his right hand was another slip of parchment, now soaked in the blood flowing from his thumb. And yet the blood stayed far away from the letters on the page, as if they had been written in some immutable and profane ink. So, even drenched in red, it still bore its message: Your missive was received. All continues as planned. Continue in your tasks and observe the interloper.

The artist held the crimson-stained parchment up, watching with facination as the last corners drank the color of his life-blood. His eyes became transfixed on the "~T~" at the bottom of the page, and he could contain himself no longer. And, inside the familiar walls of the study, a small figure housing watchful eyes let out a deep-throated laugh...