scarloc
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2003
- Messages
- 567
About a year ago actually. To avoid confusion, I'll just state now that Banshee in this world is the god of undead slaying, and I only wrote one chapter.
Chapter 1
The smell of blood was still thick in the air, and Raphael could taste it. Looking down at his chest, he tried to pull the stitches closer, but the wound would not close. Grappling with the thread, he gave it an almighty yank. The thread that was holding his chest together snapped, leaving him holding the needle in his right hand as the thread drifted uselessly to the floor, wisped around by the draft coming in from the open window. Three stories up, the draft seemed more like a gale.
Glancing once more at his chest, he saw the skin beginning to peel away. This didn't usually happen. Something was very wrong here. Moving over to his antique mahogany writing desk, he grasped the copper handrail and urged the casters along the floor until the desk rolled up next to his bed turned makeshift operating table. On the writing desk, atop the piles of scripts and ledgers, was a single crossbow bolt, pure white in colour. Banshee.
Almost delirious now, he lurched over to a medicine cabinet on the far wall, threw the doors open, sending one side flying off its hinges, and grabbed three potion bottles from inside. Taking all three in one hand, he almost had to throw himself back towards the table. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor. He was close to the table now, but knew he couldn't pull himself up in time. Instead, he did the only thing he could do in the circumstances – punched one of the legs of the table clean off, sending a flurry of paper up into the air. Buffeted by the winds from the still open window, the papers swirled around the Count like a hurricane. It wasn't the papers he was interested in, however. The crossbow bolt had landed but a few inches from his left hand. Using the now detached table leg, he ushered the bolt towards him, and brought himself to a half-sit, half-slouch against the wall.
Time was running out. Quickly the Count dropped each mixture in turn onto the bolt. Silver? No, said the first liquid. Holy, thought Raphael, it must be holy. Holy? No. So what then?
With a grin, Raphael opened the third bottle and drank its contents. He was covered in blood, his chest almost totally stripped of flesh. Darkness, not for the first time in his life, enveloped the Count of Valencia.
He woke in a daze. The room was a mess. Glancing up at the ceiling, he remembered. The bolt had come sailing through the window, hitting him high in the chest. He tried to rip it out, but it burnt his hand. Throwing it on the table, he started to become delirious. Quickly looking down at his chest, Raphael saw no evidence of the bolt ever hitting him. The wound was healed, the poison that had begun to destroy his flesh neutralized, his own regenerative capabilities handling the rest. Still, he was weak. Weak and getting weaker. More troublesome was the fact that someone knew what he was. Blood. Time to hunt.
Out in the night now, the wind whipping around his cloak, Raphael wondered who would have the tenacity to attempt an assassination in his own home. Not one of the average townsfolk, he hoped. The sheep should be too scared to be active. Maybe he had been too easy on them. He certainly hadn't killed any of them. Not that it mattered, but it was more out of self-preservation than good intentions. If they died, he couldn't feed from them again. Plus the townsfolk kept their lives, every party satisfied.
In the distance he could see the shifting lights of the town. They had apparently recently acquired a new set of oil lamps, to aid the town guard in their oh-so-vigilant defence of the town from an unknown entity that was claimed was responsible for a number of disappearances over the past years. Fools, he thought. Utter fools.
Even as he approached the gate, the drifting shadows from the swaying oil lamps seemed to gather around him, coiling up and making him near invisible. He walked through the gate unchallenged. A few minutes later he was striding down the middle class area of town, one target in his sight: the Hammer and Stake. Originally the Lords Head, the establishment was renamed in good humour after several townsfolk reported strange activities from the old Vaskez mansion. Mockingly, the tavern owner, Jake, had changed the name to play off the fears of the obviously misguided townsfolk. Vampires, they said. Fifty years Jake had worked the tavern, and no vampire had ever made themself apparent to him.
Walking through the single door into the tavern, Raphael removed his cloak and hung it up on the coat stand so generously provided.
"The usual, Jake".
"As you wish sir".
Unbeknownst to Jake, Raphael had also been frequenting the tavern, but the tavern owner and regulars were so totally under his thrall that they didnt see it as strange that, despite being a regular for a number of years, Raphael never seemed to age.
Raphael sat down, taking a window seat. The glass wasn't an exact fit, and a chilling, yet somehow homely breeze wisped about Raphaels face, refreshing him. Home, sweet home.
"There you are, good sir".
It was Jake, bringing his usual, a pretty doe-eyed twenty-something by the name of Janette. Janette moaned, Raphael liked that. He wasted no time, taking her to the room he had practically made his own and throwing her on the bed. Before she began to undress, Raphael took her neck in his hands, caressing the soft, supple flesh. He could feel the blood, almost see it now. A hunger he could not restrain from. Not that he wanted to, of course. There was no scream, no cry of pain. There never was from Janette. One more time Raphael slaked his thirst, his fangs sinking deep, deep into her neck. Janette moaned. Raphael drank.
Feeling refreshed, he left his thrall on the bed to recover, healing her wounds as he always did. Repayment, he thought. For a great service, a little repayment should not go amiss.
He walked out of the door, wrapping his cloak about him as he left. Exiting the town the same way as he came in, Raphael now had time to think. Someone knew what he was. And they didn't like it one bit. Banshee was involved, or so it seemed, but this assassin was using highly lethal poisons. Despite a great natural resistance to almost everything, Raphael could not take something like a magical poison lightly. As he followed the path up, he wondered: who would know? Who told them? When would they strike once more? Would the Count be prepared? These questions were all about to be answered.
As he rounded the chicane that brought him up to the driveway of the Vaskez estate, he saw something was very, very wrong. Three chariots, pulled by white steeds, were stood at ease outside his front door. Guests were not expected. Banshee symbols on the chariots were definately not expected. Typical, thought Raphael. One on one would have been an exciting excursion. This time, his assailant had brought friends. Typical Banshee peons.
He could see that already some rooms in the mansion were aflame, thick black trails of smoke coming from the windows that smelt a lot like antique furniture would, if it were to suddenly spontaneously combust. Those bastards had certainly crossed the line this time.
Reaching back into the recesses of his cloak, he pulled forth a grey leather-bound tome, his spellbook.
Entering through the frontdoor, the scene inside was disgraceful. His family heirlooms scattered on the floor, books burning, furniture destroyed. In the middle of the chaos Raphael saw something that made him smile. A priest. Raphael shouted an obscenity at him, then ran down the right hand corridor. As he headed through the door, he span on his heel and began invoking a spell. He heard the priest barking orders, and could hear multiple footsteps heading to the door he'd just run through. Raphael concentrated.
Violet swirls appeared from nowhere, forming a sphere around the mage. Just as the door opened, Raphael released the spell. Time froze, seven Banshee followers and the priest had made it through the door. All colour drained from the scene, leaving an imprint of black and white. Slowly, the characters began to lose all their definition, turning them into purest black Conversely, the scene around them became saturated with colour, a blinding white light turning the scene into some kind of heavenly vision. From all around, black spheres made their way, spiralling out of nothingness to gather around the now-silhoutte of the priest. Suddenly, the shadow flared up, consuming the entire scene with darkness.
Raphael looked around the scene. The mansion looked more devastated than it had before, but at least some of his anger had been alleviated. Of the eight bodies, five were disappeared into dust. Two more were dead. Raphael slit the throats of the remainder.
There had, Raphael summarized, been three coaches outside, each containing more or less fifteen men. He hadn't just killed forty-five of them, and he was still weak from the crossbow bolt. The game was up anyway, and his time had run out. They knew where he was, even if he killed them all, more and more would arrive. Eventually they would beat him down, drag him outside, and kill him.
It was with a great regret that Raphael left the house. After carving a note to Banshee in the priests chest, Raphael turned his back on his family home and walked, homeless and penniless, down the road.
He walked away from town, luckily an expert tracker, and headed due North. To the deadlands. To Lichenvier. No more hiding from these fools, the people he tried so hard to preserve because he felt it only civilised to do so. If Banshee wanted a war, he could bloody well have one. Smiling inwardly at his own pun, he decided to rest for the night in a shrouded enclave some three miles from his house. Somewhat poetically, he heard what appeared to be a wolf baying at the moon.
When he awoke not five minutes later, he thought he must be dreaming. The howling was still there, but all around him the forest was on fire. Smoke loomed heavy on the horizon, and the heat was becoming intolerable. What the hell was this?
Shouts were coming from all directions, and he could see the hazy silhouttes of man carrying torches. How did they know he was here? How did they move so quickly? Then he found the answer to his questions. Staring in bewilderment, Raphael watched as a seven foot ball of teeth, fur and claws destroyed four men in the same number of seconds. That explained the howling, at least.
So, a werewolf. Excellent. Rapael grasped the opportunity to escape, melding himself into the flickering shadows created by the roaring fires and rushing past the torch-wielding commoners. He glanced back to the wolf. Slowly but surely, they were beating him down. A creature that had as much right to the plane as the next. A creature that, for some strange reason, reminded Raphael of his own current predicament. He turned around...
The wolf was surrounded by several dead or dying bodies. Unlike the werewolves he had seen in books, this one seemed to be somewhat hunched over. Still, that took nothing away from the beasts awesome strength. Currently, it was pinned up against a tree, torches all around it. Baying, snarling and snapping at its tormentors, Raphael felt his rage boiling up inside him once more.
The scene went black, the torches barely making an impression on the overpowering darkness. Raphael cast a simple Light spell and, via careful manipulation, encouraged shadows to appear in the peripheral visions of his victims. Startled not only by the movement, but also by the sudden darkness, the commoners began thrashing around wildly with the torches, setting eachother on fire.
Raphael smiled, cast an Invisibility spell, and headed over to rescue the wolf. The commoners would no doubt run off to their priests and tell them what happened here. Fine, let them come, thought Raphael. I was peaceful, I respected the cattle. I tried to exist with the other life forms. But destroying his ancestral home was not something to take on the chin. They would pay. And that crossbowman would pay double.
Chapter 1
The smell of blood was still thick in the air, and Raphael could taste it. Looking down at his chest, he tried to pull the stitches closer, but the wound would not close. Grappling with the thread, he gave it an almighty yank. The thread that was holding his chest together snapped, leaving him holding the needle in his right hand as the thread drifted uselessly to the floor, wisped around by the draft coming in from the open window. Three stories up, the draft seemed more like a gale.
Glancing once more at his chest, he saw the skin beginning to peel away. This didn't usually happen. Something was very wrong here. Moving over to his antique mahogany writing desk, he grasped the copper handrail and urged the casters along the floor until the desk rolled up next to his bed turned makeshift operating table. On the writing desk, atop the piles of scripts and ledgers, was a single crossbow bolt, pure white in colour. Banshee.
Almost delirious now, he lurched over to a medicine cabinet on the far wall, threw the doors open, sending one side flying off its hinges, and grabbed three potion bottles from inside. Taking all three in one hand, he almost had to throw himself back towards the table. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor. He was close to the table now, but knew he couldn't pull himself up in time. Instead, he did the only thing he could do in the circumstances – punched one of the legs of the table clean off, sending a flurry of paper up into the air. Buffeted by the winds from the still open window, the papers swirled around the Count like a hurricane. It wasn't the papers he was interested in, however. The crossbow bolt had landed but a few inches from his left hand. Using the now detached table leg, he ushered the bolt towards him, and brought himself to a half-sit, half-slouch against the wall.
Time was running out. Quickly the Count dropped each mixture in turn onto the bolt. Silver? No, said the first liquid. Holy, thought Raphael, it must be holy. Holy? No. So what then?
With a grin, Raphael opened the third bottle and drank its contents. He was covered in blood, his chest almost totally stripped of flesh. Darkness, not for the first time in his life, enveloped the Count of Valencia.
He woke in a daze. The room was a mess. Glancing up at the ceiling, he remembered. The bolt had come sailing through the window, hitting him high in the chest. He tried to rip it out, but it burnt his hand. Throwing it on the table, he started to become delirious. Quickly looking down at his chest, Raphael saw no evidence of the bolt ever hitting him. The wound was healed, the poison that had begun to destroy his flesh neutralized, his own regenerative capabilities handling the rest. Still, he was weak. Weak and getting weaker. More troublesome was the fact that someone knew what he was. Blood. Time to hunt.
Out in the night now, the wind whipping around his cloak, Raphael wondered who would have the tenacity to attempt an assassination in his own home. Not one of the average townsfolk, he hoped. The sheep should be too scared to be active. Maybe he had been too easy on them. He certainly hadn't killed any of them. Not that it mattered, but it was more out of self-preservation than good intentions. If they died, he couldn't feed from them again. Plus the townsfolk kept their lives, every party satisfied.
In the distance he could see the shifting lights of the town. They had apparently recently acquired a new set of oil lamps, to aid the town guard in their oh-so-vigilant defence of the town from an unknown entity that was claimed was responsible for a number of disappearances over the past years. Fools, he thought. Utter fools.
Even as he approached the gate, the drifting shadows from the swaying oil lamps seemed to gather around him, coiling up and making him near invisible. He walked through the gate unchallenged. A few minutes later he was striding down the middle class area of town, one target in his sight: the Hammer and Stake. Originally the Lords Head, the establishment was renamed in good humour after several townsfolk reported strange activities from the old Vaskez mansion. Mockingly, the tavern owner, Jake, had changed the name to play off the fears of the obviously misguided townsfolk. Vampires, they said. Fifty years Jake had worked the tavern, and no vampire had ever made themself apparent to him.
Walking through the single door into the tavern, Raphael removed his cloak and hung it up on the coat stand so generously provided.
"The usual, Jake".
"As you wish sir".
Unbeknownst to Jake, Raphael had also been frequenting the tavern, but the tavern owner and regulars were so totally under his thrall that they didnt see it as strange that, despite being a regular for a number of years, Raphael never seemed to age.
Raphael sat down, taking a window seat. The glass wasn't an exact fit, and a chilling, yet somehow homely breeze wisped about Raphaels face, refreshing him. Home, sweet home.
"There you are, good sir".
It was Jake, bringing his usual, a pretty doe-eyed twenty-something by the name of Janette. Janette moaned, Raphael liked that. He wasted no time, taking her to the room he had practically made his own and throwing her on the bed. Before she began to undress, Raphael took her neck in his hands, caressing the soft, supple flesh. He could feel the blood, almost see it now. A hunger he could not restrain from. Not that he wanted to, of course. There was no scream, no cry of pain. There never was from Janette. One more time Raphael slaked his thirst, his fangs sinking deep, deep into her neck. Janette moaned. Raphael drank.
Feeling refreshed, he left his thrall on the bed to recover, healing her wounds as he always did. Repayment, he thought. For a great service, a little repayment should not go amiss.
He walked out of the door, wrapping his cloak about him as he left. Exiting the town the same way as he came in, Raphael now had time to think. Someone knew what he was. And they didn't like it one bit. Banshee was involved, or so it seemed, but this assassin was using highly lethal poisons. Despite a great natural resistance to almost everything, Raphael could not take something like a magical poison lightly. As he followed the path up, he wondered: who would know? Who told them? When would they strike once more? Would the Count be prepared? These questions were all about to be answered.
As he rounded the chicane that brought him up to the driveway of the Vaskez estate, he saw something was very, very wrong. Three chariots, pulled by white steeds, were stood at ease outside his front door. Guests were not expected. Banshee symbols on the chariots were definately not expected. Typical, thought Raphael. One on one would have been an exciting excursion. This time, his assailant had brought friends. Typical Banshee peons.
He could see that already some rooms in the mansion were aflame, thick black trails of smoke coming from the windows that smelt a lot like antique furniture would, if it were to suddenly spontaneously combust. Those bastards had certainly crossed the line this time.
Reaching back into the recesses of his cloak, he pulled forth a grey leather-bound tome, his spellbook.
Entering through the frontdoor, the scene inside was disgraceful. His family heirlooms scattered on the floor, books burning, furniture destroyed. In the middle of the chaos Raphael saw something that made him smile. A priest. Raphael shouted an obscenity at him, then ran down the right hand corridor. As he headed through the door, he span on his heel and began invoking a spell. He heard the priest barking orders, and could hear multiple footsteps heading to the door he'd just run through. Raphael concentrated.
Violet swirls appeared from nowhere, forming a sphere around the mage. Just as the door opened, Raphael released the spell. Time froze, seven Banshee followers and the priest had made it through the door. All colour drained from the scene, leaving an imprint of black and white. Slowly, the characters began to lose all their definition, turning them into purest black Conversely, the scene around them became saturated with colour, a blinding white light turning the scene into some kind of heavenly vision. From all around, black spheres made their way, spiralling out of nothingness to gather around the now-silhoutte of the priest. Suddenly, the shadow flared up, consuming the entire scene with darkness.
Raphael looked around the scene. The mansion looked more devastated than it had before, but at least some of his anger had been alleviated. Of the eight bodies, five were disappeared into dust. Two more were dead. Raphael slit the throats of the remainder.
There had, Raphael summarized, been three coaches outside, each containing more or less fifteen men. He hadn't just killed forty-five of them, and he was still weak from the crossbow bolt. The game was up anyway, and his time had run out. They knew where he was, even if he killed them all, more and more would arrive. Eventually they would beat him down, drag him outside, and kill him.
It was with a great regret that Raphael left the house. After carving a note to Banshee in the priests chest, Raphael turned his back on his family home and walked, homeless and penniless, down the road.
He walked away from town, luckily an expert tracker, and headed due North. To the deadlands. To Lichenvier. No more hiding from these fools, the people he tried so hard to preserve because he felt it only civilised to do so. If Banshee wanted a war, he could bloody well have one. Smiling inwardly at his own pun, he decided to rest for the night in a shrouded enclave some three miles from his house. Somewhat poetically, he heard what appeared to be a wolf baying at the moon.
When he awoke not five minutes later, he thought he must be dreaming. The howling was still there, but all around him the forest was on fire. Smoke loomed heavy on the horizon, and the heat was becoming intolerable. What the hell was this?
Shouts were coming from all directions, and he could see the hazy silhouttes of man carrying torches. How did they know he was here? How did they move so quickly? Then he found the answer to his questions. Staring in bewilderment, Raphael watched as a seven foot ball of teeth, fur and claws destroyed four men in the same number of seconds. That explained the howling, at least.
So, a werewolf. Excellent. Rapael grasped the opportunity to escape, melding himself into the flickering shadows created by the roaring fires and rushing past the torch-wielding commoners. He glanced back to the wolf. Slowly but surely, they were beating him down. A creature that had as much right to the plane as the next. A creature that, for some strange reason, reminded Raphael of his own current predicament. He turned around...
The wolf was surrounded by several dead or dying bodies. Unlike the werewolves he had seen in books, this one seemed to be somewhat hunched over. Still, that took nothing away from the beasts awesome strength. Currently, it was pinned up against a tree, torches all around it. Baying, snarling and snapping at its tormentors, Raphael felt his rage boiling up inside him once more.
The scene went black, the torches barely making an impression on the overpowering darkness. Raphael cast a simple Light spell and, via careful manipulation, encouraged shadows to appear in the peripheral visions of his victims. Startled not only by the movement, but also by the sudden darkness, the commoners began thrashing around wildly with the torches, setting eachother on fire.
Raphael smiled, cast an Invisibility spell, and headed over to rescue the wolf. The commoners would no doubt run off to their priests and tell them what happened here. Fine, let them come, thought Raphael. I was peaceful, I respected the cattle. I tried to exist with the other life forms. But destroying his ancestral home was not something to take on the chin. They would pay. And that crossbowman would pay double.
