League A (Interdivision): Forbidden v. Enigmatic Immortal [Archive]

Forbidden

11-13-13, 11:19 PM

Night sky stretched over Radasanth like a moth eaten blanket, poorly mended patch-holes displaying stars and moon. The wind chased dust and crackling leaves along winding cobblestone streets. The cobbles ground and clacked beneath steady footsteps, like the world's own movements so far beneath the surface. This was not the celebrated square outside the Assembly's Great Hall, nor the district between manor houses and Bazaar where the roads received regular service to suit the rich. Here the buildings slumped more than the stoop shouldered workers slogging from one pub to the next. Cloaked shadows discreet and swift of foot flickered between the few establishments where the doors were held up by more than gravity and a firm shove.

The Haidian Vampyre had a name for such groupings of men: Weyblat. Loosely translated to the simple Coronian language it meant home above the crust.

A slender form swathed in cloak, boots, and hood glided from the snaggle-toothed mouth of a rubbish strewn alley. The Vampyre felt the crinkle of broken glass beneath her shodden feet and appreciated the heavy footwear for the first time. She detested the constraining nature of human garments, would have preferred to exalt in the night's chill kiss. Such liberties were for the forest above the tunnels her tribe would soon ascend like raging floodwaters. She swooned at the thought of retaking the continent by force, but pushed the desires behind a Njalian web of patience. Her Goddess, in all her infinite grace, had provided a plan. It demanded great feats of the Liberi Nocturn clan's leader, but she had succeeded with style thus far. She had tasted the blood of those Njal set before her and grown stronger with each meal. Soon she would be prepared for the climb back down to her brethren, where they waited in the Mother's embrace.

The dark wool rasped along leather-laced ankles as she stopped outside a large redwood door. The lock and hinges appeared to hold higher value than the rest of the establishment combined. A drunk shivered around an empty clay cup, stubbing a dying cigarette on the barrel that made his seat.

"Is this the Touch of Haide??" She asked evenly, dark eyes blazing from beneath the hood. The drunk grinned at what he saw - a young woman alone - and drew a deep breath to respond. Whatever he'd intended to say, it melted and oozed out his mouth with eighty proof spittle. He had snuffed a greedy lungful of the Vampyre's potent pheromones.

"It is iffen' ye' gives us a kiss, little lady." The drunk hissed around a crescent smile, eyes lidded near shut. He rubbed moisture-marked trousers as if to direct her affection. She smiled and leaned in, both hands reaching to aid his self adulation. The man's groan of pleasure became a shrill squeak when he felt the caltrop clenched between pale fingers penetrate his pants.

"The buildings bear no signs in this neighborhood," she whispered as she would to a naughty child, "a woman alone may lose her way. Are you the type of man to come between a maiden and her manor?" She tightened her grip with each stressed syllable. The clay cup shattered on cracked cobbles as the man seized his thinning hair, unable to touch her hands for fear of castrating himself.

"It is, it is, it is, it is the Touch of Haide!" He hissed through clenched jaws, "Y'edda's eggs in a basket, let go of my grapes!"

The Vampyre swept past as if she had never stopped, caltrop slipping back down a deep pocket. She lifted the heavy lever on the redwood door and pushed into the tavern. Smoke hazed the ramshackle space strewn with tables and chairs. Men and women of all sorts enjoyed cheap ale and wine or indulged in each other, so openly the Haidian felt wont to join in. But she had a task this night, if a far simpler one than she'd endured those past few weeks. Njal had instructed her to choose a new servant, and change them.

Ellenora Sekuerba Pope settled on a stool that wobbled on mismatched legs. She took down her hood, displaying a slight pale visage and voluminous midnight hair. She scraped long fingernails along the rough oaken counter until an attendant appeared, swiping at a stain on his shirt with a dirty old rag.

"I prefer a vintage just shy of the twenty year mark," she told the sunken-eyed bartender. He produced a nearly clean glass and swilled some amber liquid into it from an open bottle.

"Finest scotch in the barony," he muttered, "don't try to toddle off without payin' up!" The sour man stepped away and resumed his conversation with a pair of dwarves covered in stone dust from the mines.

Whiskey, Nora sighed, not blood. She could not have gotten so lucky. Lifting the glass to her lips and taking a cautious sip, she turned to choose a prize from the bowels of Radasanth.