Echo sat in a bar somewhere out in the Forsaken Region. The bar was a small and quiet place not too far from Hage, however it was the only building for at least a good couple of miles so the place also doubled as an inn. Echo found himself staying here for the night as he was making a trip out to the Fringe so that he could train. However he would not be getting to go straight on his training trip on this day. Instead he would be approached by a man that he had never seen before, with a proposal unlike any he had heard yet.

A tall and rather bulky figure clad in all black had approached the young hunter as he sat at the bar. Echo was taking a sip from his drink when the man came from behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Of course Echo sensed him the moment he walked in the bar, and without question long before he would tap his shoulder. Echo would put his drink down on the bar counter as he would turn to look the man in the eye. The man would let off a simple wave as the teen turned around.

“Hello sir, I was sent to you by a mutual friend of ours.” The large and bulky man would take down the hood of his cloak showing his face to the hunter. The man was a middle age man with a bald head and no facial hair to speak of, strangely enough the man had no eyebrows either. This would make Echo wonder if the man had any hair on his body at all, but that was not important at the time. “So what did they tell you when they sent you to me? I don’t think you just came here to stand there and look like a dumb ass, did you?”

The man would laugh before taking the seat next to Echo and saying “No they.. I mean our mutual friend sent me to give you a job. They said you were one of their best operatives in the kingdom.” Echo let off a grin before taking another sip of his drink. Of course Shadow Broker had sent someone to give him a job, more grunt work that the higher ups wanted no part of. Echo however did not mind it this time as he knew that since the person was coming directly to him, the Shadow Broker didn’t take any cut off the job.

Looking at the man Echo would then say “What do you need me to do?”. The man would smile with glee happy that the red head decided to take his job. The man would grab Echo’s hand and begin to sob saying “Thank you, thank you sir. But the job is for you to burn down a small settlement about 2 miles north of here. If the job goes well you will be rewarded handsomely for your service.” Echo would remove his hand from the man’s grasp before saying “Yeah sure whatever pal, I’ll go burn the village or whatever. Never touch me again though or you will be the next person to burn.” Echo would then make his way up from the bar, taking the last sip of his drink before sitting the cup down and leaving the building.

After leaving the bar the hunter would begin to head due west so that he could make his way to the settlement he was hired to burn to the ground. The time was now about 9 p.m. and so with a 2 mile walk ahead of him he would get there not long before 10, maybe 9:30 if he put some pep in his step.As he made his way to his destination he would think about how he would even burn a whole settlement to the ground. Sure he was smart, yet he didn’t have the tools he would need for such an operation. But once he would arrive at the settlement he would see a sudden change in his luck. As when he arrived he would see that the houses in the settlement were made out of wood and wooden logs.

Having the homes made out of wood was no odd sight for a place in this area, but this also worked very well to Echo’s plans as wood was a highly flammable material. One part of the obstacle had been planned around, now Echo needed to find out how he would light the 10 or so buildings in the settlement on fire. He would search around the area of the settlement and the nature around it and look for pieces of flint, so that it could be used to make improvised flaming arrow heads. Echo had managed to find a nice size stone.

The young hunter would take a little bit of time to craft the small flint arrow heads, only having enough flint to make 3 so he would have to be sure to make his shots count. As the clock would strike 11 p.m. echo would be positioned and ready to burn down the town. The young hunter would take the first of the flint arrows he had crafted, and using a small pice of steel from one of his regular arrows he would set the arrow ablaze.

The first arrow had struck its target, which appeared to be the largest building in the settlement. It was located at the center of the settlement, and probably was used as some type of community center or gathering space. Whatever the building was did not matter now however as the building had now caught fire and had to burn. The fire from the building would begin to spread rapidly from one end of the building to another. As the building burned and smoke rose into the sky, people would begin to run out of the burning building. They were coughing and wheezing as they ran out, some even on fire themselves trying to run outside so they could roll on the ground.

Echo stood and counted about 4 people who had died from the first fire he started. He sighed before he would light another flint arrow and loading it into his bow. Echo would fir the arrow at a building towards the right of the first building. Then he would light the final arrow and shoot it at a building towards the left of the first building. All the buildings were now burning and the small flames would have their fill of oxygen before growing to uncontrollable sizes. The flames would grow and grow more and more with each passing second.

Echo would watch from a tree on the outskirts of the settlement, which is where he had fired the arrows from. Echo would watch as the flames spread from just those 3 small buildings to every building in the small settlement, and even some people too were lit ablaze caught by the flames spreading from homes. Echo would then make his way down from the tree, making his way back towards the flames, as he had one final thing he wanted to do.

He would take a small remaining pice of flint and light it on fire, before dropping the small flaming substance right in front of him. The rock would hit the ground and set the very ground on fire, however the flame would instantly begin to spread in a circle seemingly wrapping all the way around the settlement. The flames would spread in such a way as Echo secretly treated the ground with oil, that he found laying about the town. The small settlement and its people all trapped within a ring of fire, that Echo had created. The sounds of their screams rang loudly in Echo’s ears. Men, women, and children all screaming for their life however in Echo’s mind it was almost as if he heard nothing. To him all he heard was the sounds of what he thought was his new hunt. Echo would look at the town burning one last time, before he would turn his back and begin to walk back to the inn where he had met the man.

When Echo would walk back to the inn, once he arrived outside he was met by the man who had hired him for the job. The man had gone back to wearing his hood, most likely because he was back outside. When he saw Echo he would smile under his hood before saying “Judging from the smoke I see up in the sky I assume the job is done. I thank you for your service kind sir! Please take these coins as payment and thanks.” The man would then place a sack of coins in the hands of Echo before scurrying off. However before he would walk off completely he would turn around and speak to Echo saying “I would also suggest you make haste in leaving… that smoke from the fire will have the magic knights and other officials here soon.” So Echo would nod taking the man’s recommendation, choosing to leave and make his way to the Fringe as he originally planned.

WC: 1541