Sergeant Thomas Flint.

According to the roster, Thomas would still get the honor, and responsibility, of that rank. His proposal had gone through and approved by Colonel Anubis, perhaps his last official act before the tragedy that occured days ago.

Though he only had five confirmed, some final orders from the Colonel had assigned two more to the Nighthawks.

Thankfully, Ryker was one of them. His eating habits aside, Thomas had a great deal of respect for a warrior who was brave enough to challenge a serpentine dragon, and skillful enough to not be called an idiot for doing so.

The other name though gave the Sergeant of the Nighthawks some pause. Appended to the orders for Lance Corporal Lillith Stynovich’s were these simple words from the Colonel.

“She was Storm Guard, and as trusted as her kind come.”

“Her kind…,” Thomas mumbled aloud absently to himself. The name sounded familiar, he just couldn’t place where he remembered it from. He shrugged, resolved to give the Lance Corporal a chance. Everyone deserved at least that much.

It was an interesting collection of personalities, to say the least, but these were interesting times in the Society. The General was occupied with… well, whatever he’s normally occupied with. Shadowspawn was back from an extended absence, but his own time was limited.

And now, with what happened to Colonel Garret, the Society was more or less in the hands of the two Lieutenants. Thomas wondered if Command would ever come to a final decision on the empty Captain slot.

Still, every other second of Thomas’ thoughts dwelled on the missing, and possibly dead Colonel Garret. A trip into the dark, bloody halls of Terort Skitas had proven disastrous, with the Colonel’s last sound on the comm being that of an inhuman scream as he met toe to toe with the balron that guarded the path to the mountaintop.

Moreso frustrating, was the revelation that the expedition could have been far shorter and free of casualties had they bothered to attempt Teleporting to the mountain ledge in the first place. The young mute recruit Ben Gregory’s simple but important experimentation with the ring he had on him helped save the others from having to travel back through the gauntlet of blood elementals and daemonic hords. Should the lad make it through training, Thomas aimed to get Gregory in the Nighthawks.

No body or remains of Garret were found during the few brief and frantic searches for him. Thomas hoped beyond hope that somehow he managed an escape, but that screeching cry echoed again in his memory, and his heart sank as he became even more certain that the Colonel was no more.

The loss of the Colonel was not without a gain, though it was bittersweet. The Tome of Sorcerous Lore had been found within the arcane halls of the mountaintop library. Too heavy to carry back, and seemingly held to the floor by some unknown force, Thomas had to settle with spending hours at the altar, skimming through the pages and copying down whatever information he felt relevant to their task at hand.

The Ilshenari factions were bound to invade Felucca at any time now. A note from Thorne indicated that they may try to build the summoning shrines he mentioned of before in locations where their armies already held ground.

Thomas sat down at the Fall, preparing a general outline of the task to be fulfilled over the next day or two. According to the Tome, there might very well be a way to prevent the Ilshenari armies from invading the already war-torn facet of Felucca.

All it would take were some dragon scales, a healthy ammount of blackmoor, a skilled mage, and a hell of a lot of luck.