A chance meeting between Aiden and Moira near Eliador

Aiden brought his warhammer around in a lazy arc and idly swung it into and through a nearby piece of wall, as he watched the small chunks of brick fly through the air he sighed to himself. He'd been on the road for weeks and had seen near constant signs of Undead; recently dug ditches, plundered graves and abandoned structures scattered the countryside to be occasionally interrupted by a small gathering of the living around a crossroads or lake. But that was all he had seen; signs. Aiden could tell the dead all throughout the region were restless, he could feel the evil tainting the air but no matter how hard he searched he could not find anything.

Musing to himself that perhaps the dead were fleeing from him in fear of their unlife, Aiden moved methodically through the latest batch of ruined buildings. A farm perhaps? He couldn't tell; it had ovbiously been well over a year since any men lived here and nature had leapt at the chance to reclaim some of her domain. Not that it mattered, none of the buildings contained anything of use; they were all long looted and long abandoned. Aiden sighed again; it had all seemed so simple when he had left all those days ago, all he had to do was roam the land and obliterate all the living dead he encountered. He had thought it would be easy; that the countryside would be swarming with death and destruction and that soon he would become a beacon of holy vengeance leading a wave of righteous fury across the land to cleanse every speck of undeath from every shadow.

In hindsight he realised he had been an idiot.

Aiden's self reflection was unexpectedly cut short at the sound of hoofsteps approaching from the country, turning in surprise Aiden found himself watching a somewhat raggedy woman atop a horse walking slowly down the road towards the city. At first glance neither seemed remarkable in the slightest, but Aiden frowned to himself when it became apparent she was travelling alone; that was strange. With a shrug Aiden readjusted his mantle so as to let the white cloth fall forward and mask the heavy scale armour he wore beneath as he changed course towards the woman; no doubt the ovbious warhammer and heavy shield he was carrying would put her on edge as it was and he saw no need to add to her concerns, after all while he was ovbiously garbed in the cloth of a priest of Belenos such priests tended not to walk around armed to the teeth and armoured to match.

Then again, the dead tended not to walk around at all. Aiden stopped himself from shrugging again and instead called out a greeting to the woman as she came within earshot.

Aiden cocked an eyebrow; the Kael? She must mean the dead, he'd heard that word in reference to the living dead before. Inwardly Aiden grimaced to himself; perhaps if he had paid more attention to his history studies he'd know some details rather than what he'd picked up along the way. Too late now anyway.

Clearing his throat, Aiden shook his head as he answered the woman's question. "I have seen little of anything much these past five days, be it living or dead. But if your children were lost to the dead then I would not hold out too much hope; the dead have little need for the living to stay alive."

Aiden shifted his weight slightly as he considered his response; it would not do to simply parade his story about for the world to see but neither was there any reason to lie, as such he decided to settle for limited truths rather than the whole truth.
"I am summoned yes, but not by mortal hands. True devotees of the sun seek to spread light to the darkest corners of the world, and if the rumours that have been emerging from Eliador are even half true then this place is well on its way to becoming one of those dark corners. I have come to prevent that from happening."

"There is little to find." Aiden responded, again skirting the boundaries of truth and fabrication. "But what there is tells a vague yet grim story of the dead violently pulled back into a world they do not belong to and enslaved by masters they do not know for purposes beyond their comprehension."

Aiden straightened up to stare towards the west and for a brief moment it seemed as if the sun itself was alive within his eyes even as the tattooed emblem on his forehead appeared to bathe in flames. "There is darkness here, in this land. It creeps through the night and hides between cracks and shadows as it builds its strength to commence the latest in a long line of unholy atrocities. I know not who, or how, but Eliador is besieged by evil even if the people have yet to realise it for themselves."
Aiden paused as he looked back towards the woman and the moment of radience ended as abruptly as it had begun. "The best decision you could make this moment would be to leave this place and flee, for when the light comes to purge the darkness it would not do to be caught unwillingly within the crossfire. No matter how holy, fire still burns."

Believing that to be the end of the conversation and fully expecting the woman to flee for her life, Aiden shouldered his warhammer and began to walk down the road towards Eliador. He was getting close now and he could feel the sickness in the air; someone, somewhere had done something very, very wrong in these lands and Aiden was going to end it, no matter the cost.

Aiden frowned, but his brain yanked back his mouth before it could make a fool of itself. He had been blinded by his own purpose and had failed to note the way the woman held herself and more importantly the steel in her gaze; she would listen to no-one. Aiden had seen that fanaticism before; rarely a particularly devout priest would go into a kind of trance where they were said to channel the very will of Belenos himself. Such men were almost insane in their own terrifyingly sane way; though they seemed normal at first and could appear to be no different from any other their single-minded dedication towards a single goal was utterly inhuman. He had read tales of these fanatics dueling Archdaemons, toppeling empires and even challenging dark gods; they knew no fear and no hesitation.

There was a name for these unstoppable zealots; Aiden couldn't recall it at first which seemed a little strange since it felt a lot like a rather important piece of information, but perhaps the shock of noting the woman's will had distracted his mind. He wondered what exactly she was; the fanatics literally flooded the world around them with the aura of their holy (or unholy) purpose making them impossible to miss but the woman had none of that. Perhaps because she was not actually touched by a god? He had never heard of any human willingly achieving that implacable state of mind but then again the world was large and as Aiden was beginning to understand, he was very small.

Aiden spoke as he continued walking though his gaze never left the road ahead. "There is little more to search here beyond Eliador itself; a very odd little man told me an interesting tale about a graveyard that was looking very strange indeed around the hours of the night. I have not the faintest clue if it is accurate or not, but I plan to snoop around and see if any of the locals know of such a place." And if you find your children there you will soon wish you had not he very carefully refrained from saying, seeing no reason to antagonise her further with reality.

A moment later as he walked down the road Aiden smiled to himself. Ah yes, that's what they were called. Paladins.