The Library Under Siege

The Library Under Siege

Postby Teron_Ashfiend » Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:23 am

Ashfiend regarded the squat library from across the street. The tall, darkly armored figure stood in the shadow of a seamstress' roof as the sun angled itself across the town. The dawning light spread about him, the roof protecting the sun's sight from his blasphemous form for a few moments at least.

The toymaker-turned-councilor's directions had proven quite precise despite the late hour of their discussion. His burning gaze swept over the avenues before him, spying the occasional figure making it's way on some paltry errand or another. He callously noted the sparse content of several grocers' wagons before his attention returned to the library.

It was then that he noted the slender, middle-aged woman. She bore herself with a quiet dignity despite her simple, homespun cotton skirt and dark blouse. He spied a single, stemmed rose that she occasionally smelled to draw a dreamy smile across her lips. It was an expression that softened her entire countenance and spoke of something with which he was, indeed, familiar.

It spoke of a suitor. It spoke of a lover.

As she slipped inside, presumably to open the library for public service, he silently stalked across the breadth of the deserted avenue. A tattered black cloak fluttered behind him as, reaching out, he tore the door open and stepped inside.

The woman did not hear his footsteps. But the door's closing drew her attention as she turned, brows knit in confusion, before soft brown eyes widened at the ruin and horror that towered an arm's length away. Her entire frame shuddered beneath the weight of his looming shadow, illuminated by the unholy fire that composed an unblinking gaze nestled beneath the depths of his hood.

"Wh..." she began, her lips trembling as she ventured an unsteady step back. "What do you want?" The words left her in a sharp, breathless whisper as the color drained from her countenance and the hope from her eyes.

Spying a spare length of wood used to repair shelves with, the hefted it with both gloved hands as his hidden lips parted with a chilling murmur, "Your undivided attention."

He barred the door with the makeshift shelf to ensure just that.
Hate
Never
Dies
User avatar
Teron_Ashfiend
Member
 
Posts: 234
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:11 pm

Postby Teron_Ashfiend » Tue Jun 05, 2007 4:49 pm

Books had been left strewn over the floor of the library. They left a chronological trail of the poor librarian's imprisonment in the heart of Myrkentown. The first several were quickly knocked to the floor by a stern fist. A nearby overturned chair related how she had attempted to make her first getaway but, instead, had been hurled into the solid wood.

Other books, some with pages torn out, had proven to hold something of interest. The torn pages were quickly read, possibly memorized if her tormenter even possessed such a mundane capacity as memory, and then quickly destroyed.

Four books, all laying open and face down beneath the chandalier, were the result of the chill that hovered perpetually about the darkly armored nightmare finally sinking beneath her skin to hampen her joints and muscles with a perpetual, icy throb. Not far lay the rose, its petals marked with brown fingerprints where the lush crimson life had wilted beneath the blackened knight's unholy grasp. It marked where she had lost all hope.

Now, however, hope had begun to loom once more as a knock came upon the door. She looked upon Ashfiend with questioning, tear-filled eyes. His own quiet, hateful glare offered a silent promise that no hope was forthcoming. As he quickly skimmed the last three passages she had found for him, he tore out the pages and similarly destroyed them as well.

His hand came upon her forearm then as he dragged her towards the door. The knocking came again and his fierce grasp had already begun to raise blue welts upon her skin as he fairly dragged her towards a beshadowed corner near the door. After being shoved into it, the librarian waited, shivering, thankful that Teron had let go as her captor threw the bar aside, freeing the door, which he promptly tore open.

In order to bring his mace down upon the offender in a single, solid blow.

Wasting no words, as the librarian stared at the fallen man, Teron grasped her once again and worked his sorcery. The shadows engulfed them in an even greater chill, swallowing her strangled whimper. He had what he needed - his lead for the sword brought and hid here nearly a decade ago.

The lead, and the shadows, brought him to a shadowy field in a small copse of trees overlooking the town of Foggy Bottom.
Hate
Never
Dies
User avatar
Teron_Ashfiend
Member
 
Posts: 234
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:11 pm

Postby Cinnabar » Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:11 pm

It is very little time at all after the ill-fated gentleman calls upon the library that the authorities are alerted. The man himself is apparently a regular visitor, middle-aged and dressed more for comfort than fashion; his fondness of quaint folklore and fanciful legends evidenced by the armful of books that lie strewn about his body, scattered pages now darkened by the blood that pools from his ruined skull, now covered by a linen sheet that grows similarly stained. Indeed, the incident had in fact been witnessed by a cabinet-maker's apprentice across the street, who had been lazing on his broom when he should have been sweeping out his master's shop; his distraught shouting had brought his master out to the doorstep, and it was not long after that that the Constabulary had been summoned.

Now the library steps are cordoned off, a handful of Street Constables keeping the growing crowd of onlookers at bay while a harried Detective Constable Lars Hendrick looks over the scene; harried in part because he is the first of his branch to get to the scene, and also because the High Constable Calomel himself is recently arrived, glaring at the shattered body on the library's doorstep as if it is a personal affront to him. A moment of that, and Calomel is carefully stepping around the pool of drying blood to enter the library itself.

The first thing he notes is the chill inside, the air significantly cooler than the building's high ceiling and stone walls can account for; almost bitter, in fact, for all that the morning promises to be mild and pleasant outside. This has him scowling as he makes his way further into the library, observing the scattered and eviscerated books with pages crudely torn from their spines; the wanton destruction reinforces his suspicions, the heavy-handed brutality of it deepening his scowl as he paces the room, until at last one detail catches his eye, and he crouches to observe it more closely.

As the detective enters the library and crosses the room towards him he finally reaches to pick up the thing, carefully, turning it this way and that between slender fingers.

It is a flower, a rose, cast aside upon the floor. It would appear fresh and lush save for those patches upon it, blots marring those delicate petals like some sort of blight, or perhaps as if withered by frost; the High Constable shifts his grasp to hold the rose just so, and the marks line up almost perfectly beneath his fingertips. He sets the rose down where he found it, straightening and looking to the detective expectantly.

"What do we know so far?"

The detective clears his throat, glancing down to a notebook whose pages are lined with charcoal-pencil scribblings, then makes his report.

"The lad claims he saw the victim attacked by a uh, demon, sir." He coughs at the High Constable's raised brow, and hurriedly continues. "Struck the victim down with a large mace. One blow, apparently. Described as seven feet tall, clad in black armour, black cloak, and with eyes that blazed like the fires of... uh, Hell itself." He grows less confident as Calomel's expression darkens further, clearly not pleased at all with this news. "...Sir."

Cinnabar remains lost in thought for a moment, then his gaze regains focus and he looks back to the man, smoothing his features from their near-snarl of anger to something more calm and collected. "Teron Ashfiend is the perpetrator's name, or what he calls himself at least. I have... encountered him recently." A glint of vexation flickers in his eyes, but is carefully controlled. "He is extremely dangerous, and not to be approached without considerable support. I will be issuing a briefing to all Constables presently. In the meanwhile, any sign of the librarian?"

"No sir. The library door was unlocked, while indicates that she was present at some time this morning, but no one's seen her today. Certainly not since then, uh, the murder."

"Mm. I see. I'll return to the Yard now and have some men sent to assist you; I'd recommend paying particular attention to the defaced books - it would appear that our murderer was looking for something, and they should give you an indication as to what, and possibly where." A nod, and a pat on the man's shoulder as the High Constable turns to depart.

"Be careful, Hendrick. This is a dark business, and not without danger. If he returns, get any civilians clear and then get yourself clear. I want no more deaths."

With hurried strides the High Constable departs, brow furrowed with concern as he puzzles over how to go about putting an end to this murderous creature's rampage through Myrken.
Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
User avatar
Cinnabar
Member
 
Posts: 1157
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 4:00 am
Location: UK

Postby Teron_Ashfiend » Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:44 am

The pages had been torn out quickly, still leaving the general context of the missing passages. Several were children's books concerned with legendary knights and their magic swords, each one's deeds greater than the last: driving off giants, tricking dragons, and slaying demons. Most of these were left unharmed or, rather, undamaged save for being tossed about. One, however, had suffered beneath the alleged criminal's hands. It was a collection of stories, like the others, but one of the shorter ones had been rent from the spine and summarily torn into pieces - a story about a knight named Penroll.

Many of the books, if not most, pertained to the history of Myrken Wood. Among these, a small book in particular that had lost only three pages, detailed the work of various weapon smiths and fletchers of Myrken Wood and the surrounding area. The book followed significant weapons' journies, wielders, and ultimate fates. What was missing was a reference to a single weapon evidently forged within Myrken Wood, or at least the area, ages ago. It was a weapon lost to myth, legend and the shrouded fog of time.

A score or so of tomes held accounts of legendary beasts, monsters and nightmares that, some speculated, had taken flesh and stalked the entire province to slake their dark thirsts.

One book rested by itself. It was a brief, aged account on yellowed paper that attempted to detail the rumored history of an ancient iron mine near the base of the Paisiann Falls. That it had ever existed was almost pure speculation, as it's history might easily, and severely, predate the existence of Myrken Wood as such. The deposits found at the base of the falls, however, had led at least this author to speculate that such was a likely location for a small mine.
Hate
Never
Dies
User avatar
Teron_Ashfiend
Member
 
Posts: 234
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:11 pm

Postby Teron_Ashfiend » Fri Jun 08, 2007 4:02 pm

Ashfiend watched as the librarian lay upon the ground beneath the shade of a pine tree. A brisk, spring breeze scattered a handful of green needles across her rapidly paling flesh and cascaded over his seared plate armor in an olve-colored, slow shower. Though he had muttered the incantation, had brought his will to bear upon it, the attempt had failed.

The librarian had not been enough. His wound had been a simple, effective thing to let her bleed to death. Her crimson life spilled out upon the earth that hungrily drank it in. She would, he considered, certainly not be the last person to perished beneath the weight of his brooding shadow. Not now that he was so close.

Teron turned his seething crimson gaze over the township once again and spied the distant people, miniature specks, proceeding about their lives - remaining utterly ignorant of the threat that stood so near. His gaze drifted further still, in the direction of the falls near which the town stood. That his servant had thought to bring the weapon here spoke of the creature's subtlety. His enemies, scattered though they may be, would gather in droves to merely stand on the simple road that would bring him towards the sword's resting place if they simply knew.

But they didn't. They likely considered him destroyed, and with good reason.

He spared the librarian a final glance before he took up her cooling body and smothered what little warmth remained in the dark depths of his chilling shadow. With a few strides he stepped into the dark patch the tree shed upon the ground, in the sun's wake, and crossed the expanse of shadows to emerge within the Priory of Snowstill.

At least, he considered as he placed her corpse upon the burned alter, his first attempt had not been a complete waste. More was, however, quite necessary.

More would soon be forthcoming.
Hate
Never
Dies
User avatar
Teron_Ashfiend
Member
 
Posts: 234
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:11 pm


Return to Downtown Myrkentown



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests

cron