I sat on a hill overlooking the city.

A smile was in my eyes as I thought about the feast I had been able to have these last few days. The way that the death scent called to me, been seducing me, my fight had gotten more and more powerful every night.

For I was a killer of epic proportions now. I had been sent here to cause panic, and I had done it well, within my own understanding and guidelines. I had satiated my hunger for death, at the same time as sticking to my own morals of separating being from beast. I had acted sporadically and led up to this point over the last three weeks, accelerating my killing until they needed to bring in outside supplies. Over that time I had killed every last chicken and almost all ducks.

Now I watched their caravans of trade, seeing them head down few pathways and merging into one. I could not see precisely where they headed but I could watch and let myself be satisfied that I had fulfilled my orders to create panic.

In that light I was determined to let this be my last night of killing. Tonight I would wage war and slaughter a hundred pregnant horses and cows whom I had already marked out. With that I would receive double the satisfaction of death as both mother and child bled to the sound of my blades.

Sighing with the thought I lay back, and considered Friar Tomas. He had found me during one of my days outside of the city and offered a unique perspective on life. A halfling hermit who served an elvish god, a man who had gifts akin to my own. He had offered me kindness and I had escaped when he came too close to telling me what I did not want to hear.

But his heart had been in the right place.

My life was strange and confusing. I did not know what to think of what I had done, of it was termed right or wrong in the general morality of the world. For I was right in the fact I had obeyed the orders of those I had dedicated my service to. Those who I was certain now knew the way of things and how they should be. Because they had to be right. They had to be. I would not have been brought back in such a manner if they were wrong.

They had to be.

The sun was setting. Slowly the sky went from pale blue into inky darkness and I found myself sighing, wishing for a moment I had another choice. Another way to live my undead existence … maybe Friar Tomas could give me another chance.

But the world was as it was. I was Avin, the white kenku, death incarnate, servant of Vindrexis Quansaldo and Sabazios.

I was a dark shadow, destined to end lives.

Created to end lives.

My only path was death.