The Nightwarden's words came out heavy and uneasy, like he hadn't spoken with real stakes for so long. He admitted that he came from the opposite side of the walls and fortresses that had kept the folk here in their remote isolation for decades, yet he insisted that he is not entirely defined by his bonds of duty to that side of the world. He explained his first ventures in the forest of the barrier, the awe and curiosity they inspired for what lies beyond the threshold, but most importantly, the unbearable feeling of a knowledge that is hidden deeply and unspoken, that lingered like shadows in the dimmest corners of the society that he belongs. Of their own existence, and every other half-forgotten humans within The Shroud.

By now, the folk of the hamlet had all came out from their humble wooden lodgings around the small harbor that is the center of their community and looked at him with the intensity of a people unexposed to novelties of any kind for long. An old woman who the Nightwarden immediately presumed to be the leader made a gesture, but to his surprise, another man begun to talk, then a woman, then an adolescent boy. They all introduced themselves with their names, some bade him welcome to their village, others not so warmly. Then the questions came, one after another: What was the world like beyond their shores? What had brought him to their village? And when, at length, he answered and spoke of his desire to help, the elder at last broke her silence.

With a voice like old wood, the old woman spoke of their simple but contented life, of its pleasures and its trials. The older among them were all once outcasts, vagabonds or destitutes, who remained when the shadow of the Shroud fell upon their lands, or even escaped out of the city to live there by choice, and found in solidarity among them what that did not exist in the so-called civilized world. Their harmony however had been recently broken by disease, a sickness that the elder believed to have come from a dark presence out of the sea—an evil that haunted the tides in silence, watching them closely yet not revealing itself. This felt presence offered rotten gifts from the sea that some innocent folk tasted and fell ill. If he was to truly help them, she exclaimed, he should take the sick people to the opposite side with him to be healed by the city's powerful mage-doctors. But first, to should prove himself trustable and worthy, he should battle and drive away the entity of the waters.

And so the Nightwarden lied down on the harbor, watchful, but unsure of what to look for. Eventually he discerned some ripples on the surface, way too big to be created by a small fish. He run across the shore following them. They led to a steep opening inside the rock which would go otherwise unnoticed and vanished. He fell into the water and swam until he entered the gap, which revealed a sea cave that rose in great height. The water was flowing inside the cave like an enraged river, but soon was low enough for him to be able to walk. After a while, an alternate passageway emerged, which was leading to an upper part of the cave, where the water could not reach. It looked carved inside the rock by intelligent beings, and he was not sure if his mind was playing tricks on him, or he was seeing hieroglyphics of some ancient unknown civilization in the rugged texture of the cave walls.

He entered the darkness, sword in hand and with a quickly beating heart, aware of the truth that he had never slayed any great beast of monster by his own. But what he finally came upon in the cave's end was none of these two; it was the figures of three people hiding from him in the shadows. He moved towards them ready to utter a greeting, when suddenly his tongue froze inside his mouth. While the outlines of their figures were human, the few characteristics he was able to make out were quite unnervingly different. Automatically he unsheathed his sword, which prompted the figures to jump out frantically. One creature grabbed a rock and threw it it at him, stepping ahead in a protective position towards the other two while they fled, leaving them behind. The Nightwarden avoided the rock and extended his sword, more truly in defense. It cut the human-like creature that threw the rock on his foot and it screamed frantically, as it was fleeing too now with an erratic limping.

As he run after them out into the sea again, he saw the ripples moving away, slipping back toward the depths from whence they had come. He returned victorious, to great cheer by the people of the hamlet, but with a strange feeling he could not put to words, his mind creating more and more questions that he could not possibly answer right now. His bloodied sword was however enough display to put trust into the hearts of the folk. As the light of day was extinguished, he had just enough time to get back for his watch. Only this time, he would bring with him the "intruders", tainted by the darkness of the Shroud, that he was supposed to guard the city from. As he devised a plan to get them through unnoticed, in the back of his mind, he tackled greater thoughts. He pondered about a concept that up to now was elusive to him; of not just a vision of a different world, but of the necessity to achieve it.