They say, "A good deed rarely goes unpunished."
"It's a simple arrangement, my unseen Legion," King Ikthos of Chios said resolutely, feeling young no longer. "You would risk anything to get your hands on my grandfather's chronicle, and I would risk anything to deliver my people."
Legion, the man of many faces knew that nothing was ever simple, especially when the conflict was far advanced, and the end game all but lost. It was well known in all quarters that the nation of Chios was outmaneuvered, its forces beaten and now licking their wounds behind walls of stone.
Against all odds, the assassin Legion had delivered Chios once already, by inventing the inescapable doom known only as the Black Hand. And now this - an even more impossible mission - was his just reward. Yet in the end, what could one blade do against invaders drawn up on every side?
"You will multiply yourself," King Ikthos said undaunted. "You will teach us your ways of secrecy and terror and untraceable sabotage. You will train us in deception and infiltration and all that we will need to beat our enemies at their own game."
However, long before he could do that, Legion would have to win over his colleagues. The sisters clearly despised him, the old Colonel certainly doubted him, while Durban, the court wizard, considered him to be a cancer within. So much for first impressions.
Last time, Chios needed something greater than a hero. Now they needed something that Legion knew he could never become - the hope of a nation.
