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Shadowplay

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  • Shadowplay

    She’d never really known justice.

    She’d been born into a farming family near Sestra, one of eight brothers and sisters. Her life was simple, though fraught with the normal stresses and strains of farming life. A ninth sibling, another brother, was born into the family, but the birth had been long and difficult, within the hour there were only eight again.

    She had her first proper kiss just shy of her sixteenth birthday, with a boy she thought she’d love forever. She'd changed her mind within a week. Seven months later she fell in love for the first and only time.

    At the harvest dance, when her parents were full of wine and deeply asleep, she stole from her bed and out of the house, taking with her all of the family’s savings. She met her lover, and together they fled to make themselves a better life away from the monotony of farming.

    In Sundren City, her heart was broken. The man she loved beat the money from her, telling her the Legion would see her hang for theft if she reported him. He took all but two stags, and left her bloodied on the floor. She swore she would never love again.

    Alone, penniless and terrified, she earned money as best she could. As the weeks and months passed she learned to turn the tears and sobs into moans that her customers might take for pleasure. Every night she planned to save enough to replace the money she had stolen, but every night she drank away the coin and prayed to forget.

    She was almost unrecognisable when she learned she could never go home. Her eyes had lost all their life, hemmed in as they were by dark and weary bags, her cheeks were sunken and her body thin. She could barely summon tears as she heard that Sestra had fallen to the lizards and that her home had burned. She drank herself unconscious every morning for a week.

    Stories of the Wart penetrated her drunken state, stories of those who’d made it away from the lizard invasion. For the first time since the harvest festival she let herself have hope. She planned to visit Mirakus, and from there onto the port and away from the land that seemed to curse her.

    She never made it to the gates. The city was awash with refugees. Tired and desperate people full of concern for nothing but their own survival, the city was too engrossed in its own problems to hear her screams.

    When the gang was done, they smashed in her skull with a rock.

    She was buried in a mass grave, a dusting of quicklime served as her shroud. She left nothing behind but some bawdy tales of a pitiful whore, and an alley touched by her hate and fear.
    Eira Skald - Icy bitch.
    Karsten Mannerheim - Idealist and murderer.
    Vincent Hopkins - Witch Hunter and man of faith.
    Aedan Gilter - Dreamer of broken dreams.
    Henry L. Jones - Oh god, I can see forever.

  • #2
    Sundren City seemed to huddle up against the pale half-moon's light. The streets had long since emptied of refugees, the Yuan Ti were defeated and Sestra reclaimed. Time had rolled onwards, the worry now lay not with living creatures, but with the dead. The loss of two great champions for good, Baragorn D’Locke and the Triumvirate's one time leader Balthazar, and the mass vampire assaults that preceded their demise still nagged at the city. Each fresh rumour of another undead monster stalking the lands ensured that the populace stayed worried.

    Most sensible people were safely at home behind their shutters, those that did venture out onto the streets did so out of necessity. The Legion still patrol led the city just as regularly as always. A scattering of Triumvirate soldiers and priests walked the city, reassuring the populace, carrying bright lanterns to show the people that even in the darkest night, their church brought hope.

    It hadn’t just been Averganon that had brought dark shadows and horror to the city. An alley in the entertainment district long been littered with dead rats, cats and vermin, those that entered to clean the place soon hurried away leaving their tasks half done. Those who walked through in daylight quickened their pace . At night the place was always deserted.

    At the entrance to the alley, a footprint splashed into a puddle, seemingly from no-where.

    Ah, gods damn it! Rookie mistake.”

    The figure let the enchantments around him falter and fail, his invisibility evaporating. He glanced around, the light catching on his pale skin and broad grin.

    Oh no! A scary alley! Whatever can lurk in there? Nice, I like the dead animals. Gives it that homely look, not conspicuous at all.”

    The man stopped halfway down the alley, tugging something free from under his blackened breastplate.

    Y’know what would really upset me? I’ll tell you. If I’d had such a pathetic, miserable, worthless life. If I’d manage to get my head staved in, in what judging by the smell is a public toilet, if I’d managed to channel all that angst, anger and frustration into not shuffling off our mortal plane. If I’d done all that, but could only get revenge on the odd kitten and rat. THAT would piss me off.”

    He leant against one wall, glancing up and down the narrow alley.

    Nothing? Dammit. Not another empty lead.” He pushed off of the wall and started back towards the entrance. “It’s a damn shame you know. Hoar is mighty keen on revenge, and if I was reduced to preying on cats then I’d sure as hells want some of that. Which is handy, seeing as I know who did this to you.”

    The change in atmosphere was almost tangible, darkness boiled up from the animal bones and poured from the ground, forming a smoking mockery of human shape.

    So you were listening. That’s sweet. Hope you looked better than that in life though, wouldn’t spend two coppers on something as insubstantial as you.”

    The thing struck almost too fast to see, catching the man squarely above the heart, its dark fingers plunging through his armour as if it didn’t exist. His skin whitened, his eyes opening in pain and fear. With a grunt, he brought his hand up, showing the token he’d pulled from under his armour.

    "देव"

    The force of the word almost snuffed the creature from existence. Instead, it reeled backwards, partially dissipating and stunned. The man dropped to his knees, vomiting noisily.

    Hells, learn to take a joke.” He pushed himself to his knees and paced around the creature . “In a moment, that’s going to wear off. Now, you have a choice to make. You can serve me, and we’ll hunt down each of those that wronged you, and you can have their souls and earn your proper afterlife. Or, you can try that again and I’ll burn every speck of shadow out of this alley.”

    He waggled the token for emphasis, his broad grin catching the moonlight momentarily.

    Revenge, or annihilation. Your choice.”

    Eira Skald - Icy bitch.
    Karsten Mannerheim - Idealist and murderer.
    Vincent Hopkins - Witch Hunter and man of faith.
    Aedan Gilter - Dreamer of broken dreams.
    Henry L. Jones - Oh god, I can see forever.

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