Where it all fades to Black (and Blue Eyes)

[Tobias Stalt]

Blood pooled on the marble floor beneath blue flames. A sinister shadow cast across the room sent a crawling sensation down Tobias' spine, but he ignored the chill. He had been sent here ahead of the others to scout, mostly for his skill with a blade and the uncanny ability to soak up punishment. Sometimes he felt that gift was far more of a curse.

"Gods damn it," he cursed, barely above a hissed whisper. He could smell the acrid, metallic stench more than he could see the fluid, but he knew everything he needed to in spite of the dim lighting. "Schal Terrin was murdered, just like the Oracle predicted..." His voice trailed into oblivion as he glanced up, and his lips set in a stony frown. "...but there's something evil here."

The bluish light exploded in a loud pop, and the world was lit bright orange. He saw the deranged, mangled display of corpses and limbs, and he tasted their blood on his tongue. Slowly he turned toward he Schal's throne, or where it should have been.

In the austere seat, the body of Terrin stared at him through emptied eye sockets. Blood streamed from her gaping maw, and Tobias saw vines wrapped around her body, probed beneath her clothes and plunged into her flesh. They seemed to be growing steadily.

"Fuck," Tobias grunted. His hand moved for Blackheart. "Fuck. Where is that coming from?"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

"Do you like my latest little toy?" The boy whipped around to face me as I emerged from the shadows in the corpse-riddled, marble-floored throne room. A vicious smile split my face from ear to ear. "I'm told the process would hurt tremendously."

The heels of my leather boots clicked softly against the polished floor as I reached behind me and retrieved my twin delyn daggers. Two lengths of thick, knotted vines sprouted from my wrists and wrapped themselves around the spidersilk hilts.

"What happens is that I inject the victim--no, not victim; subject, rather, because they're freshly dead by the time I do this--I inject them with a little bit of fungus. Usually in a very forceful manner, mind you. That's why her eyes are gone. It starts out small, of course, but then it grows within them." I extend the length of the two vines. The daggers drop to the ground with a light clang. "Within minutes, they explode out of the corpse of my subject and assume control of its physical form. Of course, application of the fungus needs to occur before rigor mortis sets in, but I'm working on that.

"Once the process is complete, the body of the victim--subject, sorry--quickly becomes a thrall under my full command." A final thundering cracking of flesh, muscle, and bone echoed throughout the room as the woman's bloody corpse was overtaken by thorny vines. The young man whipped back to face her as the deceased woman was given life once more; she stood, and for a brief moment, looked like it wanted to take a step forward. It let out an inhuman howl as it spasmed a couple times and then fell over with a sickening thud, having undergone death for the second time in a manner of minutes.

I winced, witnessing the umpteenth failure of my latest tests. "It's not a perfect process yet, of course. But that's why we experiment. Eventually, we'll get everything figured out, yes?"

Wasting not a single second, I twirled around in a swift circle. My momentum brought the daggers off their resting place on the floor. Guided by the vines, the dual implements of quick and painful death traveled in an lightning-quick arc towards the brown-haired kid. They were given extra room to fly by a second quick extension of the vines that grew from my wrists.

"Luckily, I can begin my experiments anew with your death!"

[Tobias Stalt]

As she began to speak, Tobias silently reached for his hip. He looked at the corpse of the poor woman who he had never met, and he gave a pained sigh. The black book he produced flipped open with an expert flick of his wrist, and he pulled the quill from one of the pages deftly. His hand scrawled furiously as she prattled on about her psychotic experiment, and Tobias only half listened. The name "Terrin" etched into the pages in dark ink and bled as though he had stabbed the journal. He continued with a short epitaph, more than anyone else would have offered the afflicted corpse before him. In the last moments of her life, Tobias wondered if the woman had deserved such a fate; few often did.

The journal slammed shut with a gentle coaxing from his fingers, and he placed the implement back in its resting place. When had he started this grim tradition? Tobias often wondered how he had been so affected by the losses of those he came to know, even in passing. Those who he had met, and those he knew only for a few seconds, and some he did not even know at all. This world was an unfair place, just as Jak Roth Rute had told him so long ago. Just as he had known all along.

Somewhere in the speech, possibly during the bit about rigor mortis, Tobias glanced at the vines as they slithered like serpents along the floor. He barely acknowledged the corpse's momentary reanimation, disgusted as he was with the vile prospect of disturbing the peaceful rest of the fallen. Before him stood a madwoman in truth, but more, a woman with no respect for the sanctity of life. As painful as his life was, Tobias had learned a profound enjoyment and love for the very act of living. Though his own existence was a hollow and cold thing, the fire in his heart burned when he saw the suffering of others. It raged when he heard their anguished calls, and it swelled when he saw the evils of men violate the sacred right of all things.

He tamed the beast within, so close to the edge and ready to throw itself at Madison with reckless abandon. He knew that a direct assault would avail him nothing here. "Are you finished?" He asked dryly, and a quick flick of his right wrist revealed an iron dagger that glittered beneath the intoxicating orange light.

It was then that she tilted her hand. The vines exploded forward, daggers danced their deadly and elegant waltz, and Freebird screamed her intentions to the gods. Tobias threw himself to the left with a grunt, over the bodies and blood that impeded his path. He covered several feet in the span of a few seconds, rolled to his feet, and brandished his weapon with narrowed eyes.

He knew that wouldn't be the end of it. "They're never finished," he lamented, and a powerful jerk of his arm sent the dagger flying for the demented woman's center of mass. Better target than the head, he'd been told by Jak. More likelihood of hitting the target. The soldier refused to wait for her to regroup; instead, as the dagger sped along, Tobias ripped Blackheart free of its tomb at his back. The black blade fell into step, and Tobias followed into a balanced stance. "Not until they're dead."

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Bunny approved.

The brat in the foreign-looking dregs rushed off to the right in a tight roll, allowing my arcing daggers to pass him overhead. The twin delyn blades hit one of the chamber's cracked and crumbling support pillars. With a snarl, I withdrew my vines. Faint blue sparks burst into the air as the sharpened edges of the daggers slashed across the stone.

No sooner were the vine-wrapped knives back in my hands that the boy corrected himself, produced a throwing dagger, and hurled it in my direction. It was a trick that I employed often myself, usually as a diversionary tactic. Effortlessly, I leaped to the left, careful not to trip over the litany of corpses that littered the royal chamber. His attack whizzed by me, passing through the air where my body had been a split second prior. It traveled into the darkened shadows beyond the reach of the bright orange torchlight. The dagger hit a decorative suit of armor behind me, and fell to the ground with a clang.

I stood back up to my full height, a wry smile forming on my face as the boy brandished a sword as black as night, his eyes focused and face as hard as stone. "Cute trick. But you're gonna' have to do better than that."

A vile, purple cloud began welling up in my lungs as I drew a deep breath.

I was ready to end this scrap early by unleashing the same disease that I had spread throughout the war-torn country of Eiskalt. One concentrated dose, whether inhaled or delivered through more violent means, would cripple this poor, unfortunate soul in short order.

I tightened my briar-knit grip on my twin daggers, and dropped my right leg behind me. I coiled, and then rushed forward with an incredible burst of speed. The heels of my boots clicked loudly against the polished floor of the chamber with each running step. The boy narrowed his gaze slightly, tightened his grip on his weapon, and began to raise his blackened blade in the air to attempt to parry me...

...A move that would prove utterly useless. I came to a sudden stop just outside of range of his weapon, a good seven or eight feet away from him. My eyes lit up with the rush of his imminent death as I exhaled a thick, dark jet of plague aimed straight at the boy's face. Let's see him dodge this!