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As dawn crept upon the kingdoms a man lay dying in a cell deep within the castle's dungeon. This was no ordinary man, though you wouldn't know it by just looking upon his face or person. This was a man who was directly responsible for countless heinous acts. His life of sin caught up to him at last, his death rattle audible only to him, he passed on. His body was discovered sometime later, for the guards do not come down to that level very often. Food once a day is all the company these prisoners get. As the guards stripped his body and prepared it for burial a note fell out of a hidden inside pocket of his ragged attire. Dirty yellow parchment, folded precisely into a square, it lay unnoticed for many a minute. At last a guard noticed this indiscriminate little scrap of paper, and bent over to retrieve it. As he unfolded it and read it silently to himself the look on his face was one of disbelief. "If ye be reading this then I be dead. It is a sure thing for I would not let anyone pilfer this note, for in it is my confession. Confession to crimes other than what got me put in this dreaded dungeon. I doubt you have not heard of the most famous assassin of all time, the black rose, but in case you haven't I shall fill you in on a few details." "When the head of state was found dead in his bed chambers the news was that he had stopped breathing in his sleep. The reason he had stopped breathing was because the black rose slipped him a strong dose of poison at the banquet the night before. " "I am the black rose. I shall share with you who hired me, and how I escaped the dungeons on the nights I was to assassinate someone." "It was not long after I was admitted to this layer of the dungeon for my crimes of the past when I was approached by a cloaked stranger. He discussed with me the things he wanted me to do. He explained to me that he knew of secret passages in these cells that lead outside. My reward would be my freedom outside whenever I wanted as long as I was in my cell at feeding time so that I would be counted as present for the day." "At this I licked my lips in careful deliberation. I could become an assassin for hire with the perfect alibi, my freedom for all but a few hours a day. Or I could rot in my cell until I died a lonely old man. The choice, as you can no doubt tell, was easy for me to make. So thus I started my illustrious career as a professional killer. I got my jobs with my daily meal usually on a small piece of parchment with a name and a location on it. It was up to me to find this person and know what he looked like. It mattered not to my proprietor how many days it took for me to do my job, as long as it was done. " "When I had completed a small number of jobs the man came to visit me again, to tell me of other passageways inside the castle. I recognized the man's voice and his mannerisms this time. I had heard the prince of this very country speaking earlier that week. There could be no mistake about it. The man that had put me to this job was none other than the prince of this kingdom! I did nothing about it though. I continued on, killing for him for 20+ more years, until I became too old and feeble to even make it out my passageways any longer. And so I wrote this letter, hoping that someone will find it and make it public. -The Black Rose" After long deliberation with his fellow guard they decided to burn the letter. This assassin's alibi and confession would never be read by another man. To save the country they had to conceal how it was formed and strengthened. And so it shall be that the body that was buried later that day was just the body of another old prisoner, and not the body of the most notorious assassin to ever have lived. -Beldar | |