Monster Blood

[Ürei]

***
A fence.
Chain-link, red; dripping blood.
Running forever on in each direction.
Not an obstacle,
An attraction.
Behind the fence, a field.
Flowers, white, endless,
Tranquility, serenity, calm.
Before the fence, darkness,
Fire, death, souls, uncountable atrocity,
Morbidity, fear, horror, pandemonium.

Reaching forth, Aneb tried to touch the fence. To reach across would be to enter Paradise.

Paradise…

Was Paradise truly possible? Where is it? No. When.

A scream shattered the air, echoing forever inside his empty mind. Bodiless, without form, he could not touch the fence. There was no gate. Then it hit him.

It was his scream.

***

Waking with a scream, Aneb was sweating profusely as he looked around the room quickly. Everything was normal again, nothing out of place. He lay in an uncomfortable bed with his sword set to the side. Though it had been Grimoir that had rented this horrible room at the inn, it was Aneb that woke to occupy it. He hated Grimoir for what the cruel man did to his soul. All for the pursuit of science, his assistant had told him. Temporary, the bald old man had said. Painless, the fool had muttered; all lies, all deceit!

I hate you, Grimoir Dirgeon. I hate you with my heart, my soul, and my eternal essence.

Beset with an unusual serenity, the normally blood-lusting swordsman stood an grasped the sheath of his sword. Careful not to touch the hilt because of the curse, he lashed it to his back and reached for the raven-feathered coat. It was a sign of Grimoir’s control that he kept the coat with him when he was in control. Aneb hated the thing, but the scientist had an ounce of influence on his actions and stayed his hand every time he attempted to rid of it. Instead of picking it up, however, he tossed it on the bed and cursed at himself. Reaching for his sword, his hand become paralyzed just before touching it; word of that wicked creature that called himself a man echoed though his head, Dare not!

“Damn…I hate you…”

Leaving the room Aneb turned and locked the door, ensuring that the coat wouldn’t be stolen and that he could return to it when he came back to this tavern. Staring at the door, the swordsman delved into his own mind, feeling the ghost of the line that Grimoir loved controlling. From his side, the weaker soul, he could not cross the line and force a change. He was stuck for the entirety of the day, and possibly longer. Leaving the door and continuing down the stairs he unbuttoned the vest and left it open, showing Grim’s muscular and rather handsome chest. He was a rebel, a swordsman, and destroyer. Neatness was not part of him.

With a fling of his hair he pushed out of the lobby of the tavern and into the open streets of Taure`Onya, a lumber town near the edge of the Red Forest. It was in the east of Raiaera, bordering on the eastern mountain range. From this town caravans often traveled through a well-worn path through the Red Forest to avoid the mountainous terrain and then head north to Anebrilith. Grimoir had come here because he had received rumors of a strange and previously unseen monster roaming the forest and ambushing every caravan that tried to use the path. Even escorted caravans never returned. None of them even reached the checkpoint tower on the other side of the path. Grim had intended to research the monster, but Aneb had other plans.

Heading to a building being used as a headquarters for mercenary recruitment, Aneb entered and signed up. They were hiring people to escort a fake caravan into the forest and hunt down the monster. The Raiaerans had become so desperate that they were willing to hire outside help, which is amazing. Then again, they say it is a new age in Raiaera after the crisis with the necromancer has ended.

Since they were still looking for mercenaries, Aneb left the building and visited the nearest apothecary. He bought five cork-able bottles, matching corks, and a tool belt so that he can carry them without notice. Aneb had other plans indeed, but did intend to kill this beast. Putting on the belt and positioning it that the bottles were under his unbuttoned vest in the back, the swordsman left the shop and re-entered the mercenary headquarters just in time to hear a review of the plan.


I hope this works...

[Dead]

”The force” does not have any correlation to Star Wars. I simply don’t know what to call the magic or power behind it, so it’s the “force” for now.

Vir walked. From nothing, to nothing, without purpose to his stride. He was enjoying the things of the world, his new world, of which he knew not. His mind wandered, but in the back was his hopes. To bring back the golden age of the magic, once honored and revered in Feisarn, only now to be feared and hated, that his family practiced. Of this he knew little, and what he did know was totally useless in his way of thinking. He had heard the stories of past glories, long ago in the time of s’Ishuush, when things were done with his force that were indeed only stories now.

Long has his mind spent thinking of such lately. He wanted to bring it all back, to learn how to do it all, to teach others, to dominate the other practitioners of the arcane arts, of which he knew equally little as his own. The more he thought, the more he envisioned wondrous works, and the more he decided that much of where his fantasies led him were indeed just that.

…there is neither bound nor orthodoxy to our art. Any and all can be accomplished, with time…

How he would like to have it. He wanted it. Now, without time. Why should things be so difficult? Why must he increase his ability to hold the force? He should be able to use it all he liked. Thinking of boundaries on a boundless thing made him sick.

…that boy will kill himself one of these days, thinking and Using as he does…

Already things were coming into place; not exactly so, as he was yet to accomplish anything that he wanted, but he was slowly grasping how he must learn to do new things.

He could see the air move around him, feel it’s caress on his hair; if nature could accomplish esotericism as moving the air to and fro, a mindless insentient thing, then he could. Vir reached out, sought the source, could feel it pull over him like the wind, though now he could feel naught but it, thickening, materializing around him. It’s force became greater the more he allowed to come, changing from a mingling flow to a brisk breeze. He knew that he mustn’t draw more, but he wanted it so bad, all of it, every last ounce. One day. I will draw it all in and use it, then release it again as one does wield a stallion His momentary lapse of control and thought on the force, his momentary desire for it all was all that it took; such a whimsical force was it that it went with his wishes. It poured in upon him, from all directions flooding to him, and thus was it that he was lifted from the ground, paralyzed in the bliss of containing so much, yet teetering on consciousness. Only the conscious mind could summon much less control the force, and this he was loosing quickly; he was thrown, back the way he came with the force of a wave and none the kindness. He landed upon the dirt, face up and head spinning as the blackness cleared itself from his vision.

He traveled south once more, moving with the force in and through him, walking as though intoxicated, as he was indeed with the feeling of having It’s embrace; his strides lengthened to a noticeable queerness, slow and fluid yet unsure. Vir tried to move the air, and nothing happened. He knew how the air moved, he could sense it, but it was not his doing; somehow this knowledge was his. The force traipsed over him as he too stumbled upon an office of sorts; he let the force go, and it did not leave him immediately, rather thinned and poured away as it had came, so that he could use full concentration.

…the whims of a day turn to the life of your time…be careful such takes do not loosen your time in life…

Overhearing only slightly, he read the sign. A monster, a creature of the unknown, and a party to find it. Such an excursion that was of interest to him, and seeing no reason against joining, as he had no place to go nor be, nor any special time to get there, he bound himself to the missioners.