The inside of the tavern was dimly lit; filled with the oily smoke of lanterns and the smell of roasting meat. Business appeared to be good, and the main hall was filled with nearly a hundred people. Many soldiers returning home to Carellia were mixed in with local merchants and scoundrels. A half dozen serving wenches tended to the patrons, while the tavern’s whores plied their trade in the rooms upstairs. A minstrel played in one corner, filling the room with raucous drinking songs.

Arius had come out this night for a break from his newfound responsibilities as Lord of Exodus, and he had instructed his companions to join him in dressing inconspicuously. Regardless, the lot of them were battle hardened officers and went nowhere without their blades. Half a dozen men followed Arius to an open table in the back of the tavern, where they ordered a round of bitter-but-potent Saragan ale.

Arius was uncertain his spirits could possibly be lifted, and sat quiet as his companions laughed and told stories. He had gone in a flash from the reckless heir to the lord himself, and his heart was black with the death of his father.  A part of him wouldn't stop thinking that there should have been something he could have done to prevent it.

The deposed King Duras of Saragas had called upon his father, Lord Garold, for aid. Garold had been quick to respond by marching all the armies of his province to support his lifelong friend. They had succeeded in quashing the usurper and returning Duras to power, but the cost had been great. In one last act of defiance, the king’s traitorous nephew had contracted the murder of Lord Garold in retaliation.

Both the Lord of Exodus and his Kelinar guardian had been struck by darts in the middle of a busy plaza, tipped with a poison so deadly its manufacture was punishable by death. Garold, Twelfth Provincial Lord of Exodus, was gone before he fell.

Arius, his father dead less than a fortnight, found himself with the mantle of leadership squarely on his shoulders; a decade or two ahead of when he’d expected. Lord Garold had always advised him to embrace youth, and to see whatever he wanted of the world while he still had some left. Arius had been happy to spend his time chasing after blood and lust across the Six Kingdoms of Aeodar, but all that had come to a swift end that day in the Saragan capitol.

Garold had not only restored his friend to the throne, but had sealed peace between the kingdoms of Carellia and Saragas for generations to come. While King Tirol of Carellia was not thrilled by his lords marching armies onto foreign soil without his consent, he was certainly pleased with the political result. Duras swore an oath of blood to the House of Exodus, and had Garold’s body preserved and laid in state as a Hero of Saragas.

Arius now presided over the long voyage home, stopping in every major Saragan port so that the people could pay their respects to his father. They came out in throngs, and while the comfort was cold it was good to know that his father’s sacrifice was not in vain. Alla’na was to be their last stop before sailing for home. Arius was feeling the weight of leadership already, and steeling himself to take up the banner of his family’s legacy. Exodus was the most powerful province in the Kingdom of Carellia, widely seen as the birthplace of modern civilization, and ruled by his family since the forging of the kingdom.

It now came to Arius to protect and advance that legacy, and the scope of it was immense. His twenty eight years had not quite prepared him for the task, but his father had often said that nothing really could. Terell, his closest friend and sworn guardian, had insisted they get off the ship for some drinking and wenching while in port. A short way from the docks there were several taverns well known by the Carellian soldiers, and with an army heading home they were busy. Thus Arius and a handful of his officers found their way into the Laughing Dog that night.