Menoman

"Damn fools" the duke said calmly. Walking away from his precious power mind locked away under his castle. "Those guys had trouble with those gargoyles, merely my first pawn in this match."

The duke walked through his enormous castle, looking into a room now and again, one room had a huge room, all the walls lined up with shelves of dusty books. Another, a dining hall, had a 20 foot table with 10 chairs on each side with a large master chair on the end.

When he finally made it to his destination, a large door sealed with 3 steel shackles and a glowing glyph in the center of it. Uttering a few quiet words the glyph shined red and white, then faded away. Quickly unlatching the shackles he walked outside, there was he shapeshifter Aspin outside in the center of his castle in a small courtyard area.

When the door opened Aspin dropped to one knee and lowered his head to the Duke's calf level. "No need." spoke Sar. "There is no time. The gargoyles are dead. As are the orcs, as I expected from them."

"Sir, if I may, We have plenty of time they still have to cross the mountains, they will either have to summit the mountain, which is where the gargoyles live, or they will have to travel through the caves. Then after that, well then its your territory, you'll have no problem with them here. You may not even have to do anything, the damned heathens living here would slit their throats for a dime."

"Your probably right, friend." said Sar, "You keep your act straight and you'll be by my side in no time, I can see you becoming powerful." At this time the Duke was sitting on a rock, he stared at it for a few minutes saying nothing. "I'll be back, wait here, I have a task for you."

Standing up his armor clanked a bit on the rock he was sitting on. He headed into the castle and to the room across the hall. Inside were hundreds of vials and vats of bubbling liquids, it was foul smelling in here. Heading straight to a small table with a vat and behind it small vials laying on the table. He picked up three small vials and headed back out to find his companion.

"Turn into something less threatening this time and head out to the mountains, at the base I want you to pour these three vials onto three seperate rocks. Do it quickly and get out quickly. I have seen what happens to people who act slow."

Without asking what they were for the shapeshifter grabbed the vials and stuck them into a pouch he carried around his right shoulder down around his left hip. tucked the pack around his back and began to change, slowly as to not pain himself much. He changed into a large condor, quite a rare sight around the world but when seen its accounted to being lucky, not threatening. Spreading his wings out he began to take flight, almost nightfall he had a hard time to make it to the mounts before daybreak but he could do it.

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When the morning came he was just arriving at the base of the mountains, he had pondered all night what these vials were for. He was about to find out, swooping his wings out as he was about to land he quickly made a lot of dust, but he saw 4 rocks sitting near where he landed, slowly changing back into a human form he layed on his side. He thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye but his vision was heavily distorted from the transformation. When he regained his composure he saw there was nothing where he thought he was looking. Reaching into the bag he pulled out the vials, setting one on each of the rocks he was going to pour them on, so he could get it done quicker.

The first vial went smoothly, reaching for the second and pouring it over the second boulder, which was a bit larger then the first.

His hand went for the third but he smacked his hand off the rock and knocked the vial into the second boulder smashing it and the liquid oozed down the side of it. "Damnit!" angered by his own clumsiness he ran up the hill about 50 yard and transformed quickly, moaning at the pain of it all. After he was back in the shape of the condor he watched the rocks. The liquid had seemingly multiplied itself and had enveloped the entire rock in the color red. They started to move a bit, and crack the crackes were in the same exact spots on the two rocks, as they split and moved the condor at the top watched them without blinking. After a minute they came to rest...

What the.. thought Aspin. Taking to the air, should I go back? Yes, I can't disappoint the master. Swooping past the rocks one of them busted apart and stood up, senseing the vibrations off of the birds large wings, standing 7 feet tall and completely faceless one of the animated bodies took one step, the other rock felt the vibrating earth near him and stood up also, this one with two vials splashed on it was slower even. The bird noticed what had happened because of his mistake, this one had two complete arms on the side the vial smashed and the other side had one arm that was the size of two arms grown together. Sighing, he could do nothing but head back to the castle.

Both creatures standing beside each other not moving whatsoever. A minute later they returned to large boulders on the ground, but still they had the crackes in them. They were also blood red not like the brownish tan ones around them.

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