Karas

Karas is a mercenary warrior and the closest companion of the assassin Raphael in the Raphael Efsanesi ("The Legend of Raphael") campaign. He first appears as the powerful bodyguard of Lord Yasis, the man Raphael was hired to kill, and went over to Raphael's side when he was offered more money. He kept a small troll, which he fed, at the entrance of the lord's house.¹

After the lord's death, the employer's go-between tried to kill Raphael and Karas rather than pay them. The two killed him instead, Karas took two thousand gold coins as his share, and he rode with Raphael and Omar to White City.²

Partner in the inn

In White City Karas agreed to keep the peace of Raphael's planned inn, find new fighters and guard him, in return for food, drink, lodging and a share of the profits. He did not adopt Raphael's refusal to kill children: when a young pickpocket tried to rob Raphael, it was Raphael who stopped him from drawing his sword.³⁴

When an envoy of the assassins of Kalel proposed making his companion Asnu the scapegoat for a killing, Karas, told to hold the man, broke his neck instead. Karas later went with the envoy to explain the deed, and an hour afterwards his cut-off hair was thrown down before Raphael.⁵⁶

He had not been killed: he and Omar were prisoners of Kalel, and its master Naros threatened to kill Karas within forty-eight hours if Raphael failed him.⁷⁸

Spoiler: How Karas was freedRevealSpoils: Raphael Efsanesi #2 · Say what you have read

During the raid on Kalel's hideout, Raphael found Karas and Omar bound by magic and being lowered towards spears. Only one could be saved without a mage; Raphael killed Omar with a thrown knife, and Karas was freed.⁹¹⁰

At the Night Wolf, as the inn was renamed, Karas took a room on the lower floor beside Raphael, stayed with him at meetings and called himself the inn's security chief. He asked for a share of the takings, but no fixed share or wage was ever agreed.¹¹¹²

At Raphael's side

Karas went with Raphael to the tower of time, walking past the burning sign at its door without touching it. In the fight inside, the whites of his eyes and his hair began to whiten with age, though the room reset after the battle. Later he slapped Raphael awake from a vision of the dead Naros.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

He went with Raphael to the Three Rocks, but could not see the portal that appeared there. He helped with the night visit to the cemetery of the temple of Amarath, where the two agreed that they did not deny the gods but had little to do with them or their worship.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

Disappearance and return

One morning Karas vanished from the inn, although the way down to the sewers had been walled up and Ros, who ran the house, had been awake. Neither Fazon of the Followers of Zolan nor Picolo knew where he had gone.¹⁹²⁰

He reappeared among the soldiers of Derek Sunshield when they met Raphael at the edge of a forest, and said that it was he who had recommended Raphael to the knight. He was not one of the knights. Raphael later found him tied up in the villa Derek had lent him, an apple in his mouth, and scolded him for acting without asking; Karas said he had only told the knights where Raphael could be found.²¹²²²³

The silver saddle

For the first of Derek's tests, Karas suggested Wolf, a man he knew who worked for the city's chief groom and owed money at the inn. When Wolf seemed likely to talk, Karas proposed kidnapping his beloved cat to keep him quiet. Wearing a borrowed soldier's uniform that was too tight for him, he stood beside Raphael as the saddle was handed over on the high road, carried it into the forest, and fetched a shovel to bury it, reminding Raphael that he owed him the five silver coins it cost.^24252627

The last days

Derek allowed Raphael to take Karas on the secret mission for the chain, though he doubted he would be of use; Raphael went alone, and Karas looked after the inn. The leader of the mercenaries who escorted Raphael said he had met Karas about eight years earlier in Pupa, on opposite sides of a fight between two gangs over protection money, and that Karas had beaten him badly.²⁸²⁹³⁰

When Raphael returned, he left his bag of payment with Karas and asked him to share the guarding of the inn with the four new hands. Karas walked beside him when he went unarmed to hear the decree in the square.³¹³²

Spoiler: Six months laterRevealSpoils: Raphael Efsanesi #8 · Say what you have read

Six months later Raphael's people had all been questioned and released.³³