I Serve the Darkness 2

Previous

CANIS
"C'mon!  Get moving, man!"

The screaming voice startled me.  I looked up and turned red.  I hurried to the other side of the crosswalk.  I felt blush from my distraction.

I had stopped in the middle of the road.  I just stood there, in my imagination, going over the last night's session.  Over and over.  Every single moment of awesome.

"You need to pay attention," I admonished myself.  "Someone will run you over if you just get stuck in your head all the time.  Besides it wasn't that good."

That was a lie.  My head still strode in the table RPG session, my domain as Game Master.  Storyteller.

I had woven a complex game. A harrowing urban adventure.  The players took on the role of occult investigators in a fictional version of Portland.  I'd sprung the big twist on the players.  It took us until midnight to unravel it.

"But every moment mattered,"  I told myself as I reached my bus stop.

I looked up.  Music rumbled in my earbuds as I said down to wait.  No bus.  Heavy metal rumbled in my ears.  Then it slid sharply to Johnny Cash, then some random pop songs I'd gotten hooked onto at work.

A figure approached the bench I sat on.  My automatic, introvert sense kicked in.  I moved away, giving the stranger space to sit down.  He didn't.

He moved in front of me again.  I looked up, a bit of anxiety sinking in.  A one-armed figure towered over me.  His white beard looked stained by tobacco.  He wore a dark grey baseball cap.  It looked like it seen better days.  His army jacket hung on him, it didn't fit.  It fit with his greasy t-shirt, which had something in German on it I couldn't recognize.

I could smell him too.  I winced.  He kept talking and gesturing at me.  With apprehension, I took out my earbuds.

"Can't you hear me?"  He sputtered at me.  "I ask you to forgive me.  I know who you are!  I know what you are!  Please forgive me and listen!"

"Uh..."  Eloquence and quick language skills.  What everyone can expect from every introvert.  Especially when confronted with a crazy person on the street.

He grabbed me by the shoulder.

"You are of the blood!  You need to find it.  Let me help you!"

As if by a miracle, the bus appeared.  I hurried to it.  The old man stared at me, his eyes desperate.  Like they were trying to make me realize something.  That same look trolls online must get from people who try to out argue them.

"Look, I... I got to go."  I pulled out a five dollar bill.  "Here, just take this.  I'm sorry I don't have anything more for you.  Get to a hospital or whoever can get you this blood you're looking for."

As the bus drove off, I could see the old man's head fall.  He murmured something to himself.  He looked back up.  Surety in his face made my skin crawl.

Then he was gone.

Rain started to splatter the windows as the last bus of the day took me closer to home.  Or home here in the city.  The home I made.

"Tired,"  I told myself as I put my earbuds back on.  Music drowned out the rain.

I felt tired.

I Serve The Darkness 1

REDSTAR
Marie found the girl in the ruins of a wagon.  She had expected a demon on this hunt.  Not this.

She and her mule had crested the prairie hill.  Marie had smelled the smoke.  Her hand rested on her satchel.

"I'm not using you yet."

The item inside the satchel seemed to ache at her.  Irritated she ignored those whispers.  She guided the mule down the hill toward the smoking wagon.  It must've been on fire earlier in the day.  Marie didn't hurry.

Her hunt for demons had taught her to be careful.  She didn't hurry.  Her mother's people knew to keep an eye on the shadows, to not give demons the chance sneak up upon her with them.  Her father's ways, though, knew the names of the White Demons and how to turn their cunning against them.

Something had struck the wagon down.  The wood had been shattered in places.  Marie could see marks where something had charged into the wagon, breaking the wheels.  Charred bones remained yoked, the rot of meat making Marie's nostril twinge.

She checked for good meat in the oxen's corpses anyway.  Marie couldn't find much between the char and the rot.  But she did find something feasting.  A little gray and white pup chewed on a hoof left by destroyed wagon.

"Hello, wee thing."  Marie knelt down.

Sensing her, the pup wagged its tail.  It seemed happy to interrupt its feast to yap up at her.

"I see.  Where?"

The pup ran toward the wagon.  Marie nodded, getting the canine's meaning.  She followed.

Something shivered in the wagon's remains.  It tried to not move.  Marie sighed, pulling the child in the red dress out of the debris.  The girl, Marie surmised, had not expected Marie's strength, yelping in fear as Marie pulled her out in one go.

"Hey!  Let go!"

The cream color of the child's skin clashed with Marie's ruddy, sun burnt hands.  Marie tightened her grip on the squirming child.  She studied it.  Looking for any sign.

"That hurts!"

"Quiet,"  Marie said.  She closed eyes, trying to let her senses search for any dark magick.  For any demon scents.  For anything...

"No,"  Marie told herself.  "This isn't possible."

"Can you let go of me now?"  The child cried, trying to free itself.  Marie absentmindedly let them go.

The child fell flat to the ground.  That was when Marie saw the swollen left ankle.  The pup came over and licked the child's face.  Red freckles and brown eyebrows furrowed in pain.

"I thought I was..."  Marie's hand had returned to the satchel.  She felt its tug.  Answers came with that power.  That call.

Marie could use it, find the trail of the demons that had done this.  Power.  Her magicks would be powerful enough to find all of this child's secrets.  It would let her prove whether or not this child was of the blood or not.

"Who are you lady?  And why do you talk so funny?  If you are going to take me away to eat me with your chief or what-"

"Shut up."  Marie snapped.  Stupid whites and their bullshit.  They never seemed to see the veil, yet the world always seemed to favor them.

After a moment, Marie looked at the child with her blue-green eyes.

"Redstar."

"Redstar?"

"You will call me Redstar and obey me if you want to eat tonight."  Marie grabbed the child, hoisting them onto the mule's saddle.  "If you prove your worth girl, I'll treat you well."

"You aren't going to eat me?"

Marie sighed.

"You are of the blood and you don't know it at all?"

The child looked at Marie like she'd said something strange.  Marie pinched the bridge of her nose.  Time to move.  Marie had a guess that staying near the wagons might attract whatever had taken it down.

So Redstar moved on, irritated and with a child in tow.

"C'mon.  Let's get moving."

City of Curses: Vault, the Floating Frontier

The eerie continent of Vault appeared after the Night of Fire.  Its sudden appearance is just one of its mysteries.  That the Vault floats in midair, roughly eighty handspans from the surface of the Ocean is another mystery.  For millennia, the Prince had cloaked it from all vision.  Prior to 1786 AO, most of the world had been unawares of the Floating Frontier.

The Old Prince had restricted access to Vault so tightly that no one had suspicions of it.  The adamantine and other mysterious ores the Prince smuggled into Crux were thought to be just another part of the greater mysteries that surrounded him.  His successor has taken no interest in Vault.   He gave up most claims to it, save for the massive Castle on Vault that over looks the Secret Sound.  The new Tinkerer has announced plans to construct a bridge linking Vault to the mainland of Crux.  Once completed, Crux will no longer connect just two continents, but three.
Vault is unique.

The mechanism that causes it to float is unknown.  Some speculate it could be the result of some ancient artifact the Old Prince had hidden.  Others surmise a mineral or substance within Vault causes the floating effect.

The fauna and flora of Vault differ greatly from Necruxa and Ainesia as well.  The megafauna of Vault seem related to animals found throughout the rest of the world, but are bigger, or are vastly different in how they appear.  More that are discovered remain unique and different from those found elsewhere.  The megafauna are matched by the Vault Giants, an introspective folk who seem to find other intelligent folk intimidating, despite any size advantage they might have.

Ruins from the Aetheric Empire are scattered throughout Vault.  Metallic, giant structures that vibrate with energies that aren't just magic but somewhere between science and magic.   They bear sigils that still need translating.  The recent discovery of the First City underneath the Skullmount has drawn comparisons.  Some of the ruins match writing found in the First City.  It remains a great mystery, however.  This attracts delvers and treasure hunters from all over the world to Crux to enter the Floating Frontier.

The Android who has taken on the title of Tinkerer has begun to construct a bridge between Crux and the lowest ledges of Vault, creating an easier means for the City of Curses to expand onto the once hidden continent.

Heart in a Box (flash fiction)

There once was a girl who kept her heart in a box.  A wooden box with glass inlaid in it.  It glowed along with her heart's beat.

That's where she kept it.  In a box. And never once did she want to put it back in her chest.

She would open the lid and listen to her heart sing its song.  The heart song would keep her dry in rain and cool in summer heat.

In dead of winter, her heart's song would make plants grow and move as if painted with brushstrokes.

She never wanted anything wicked to happen to her heart, so the box was always clean.

But she would never put it in her chest.  Never.  Ever.

Worse would be those who suggested she give it away.  How could she be without its song to keep her?

Without her heart, where would she be?

Besides, she would say, no one could keep her heart like she.

The girl who kept her heart in a box, kept it hidden from all others.  Sometimes handsome boys and wonderful girls would ask her if she would share her heart with them.  Some tried to steal it.

They failed.

The girl never shared her heart.  She kept it hidden in her box.  And she was happier for it.