718 Vhalar 56...
When he had returned home, less than a break before dawn, the house had been dark and vacant. Graciana had left him a neatly scrawled note, detailing that she would not be returning until the sixty-first but offered no more than that. She had sent him on the excursion that had led to his discovery of the Creepborne doppelganger, and she had been the only person he had thought to notify. With no one around, Mathias had bathed and settled into bed like any other night.
The trial that followed was anything but.
His morning started in the afternoon; there was still the dull ache of weariness that plagued his bones and settled into his stiff muscles, but it was somewhat alleviated by the time he woke. Light filtered in through his half-opened door, a beam of sun, warm and bright, beckoned he open his eyes and finally start the trial.
Quacia was a dead city. Its people were ghosts and phantoms, lurking between the decaying piles of the once-grand flesh and bone that had been the true Quacia. For this reason, when they were loud, they were quiet, and when they were quiet, they were all but silent. So it was with genuine astonishment that he stared out at the scene outside his front door for a solid bit before he felt his wits gathered enough to set foot into the uncharacteristically frantic hubbub.
There were men and women armed with athame and buckets of varying sizes and quality, calling for blood. They were clearly not of the Theocratum, however, nearly everyone had filed out of their homes in the now cramped space of the small cul-de-sac to willingly volunteer.
“They bleed green, they do!” A fiery headed woman with dark brown eyes and an even darker stare shouted out above the chatter. “Saw it with my own eyes, I did! Vines and saps and all that shit. There’s nothing being done, not now, and I’ll be damned if I sit by and have you all question me and I question you.” There was a shout of general agreement to the claim. Though Mathias had seen, perhaps, two of the assorted faces gathered before, he had no doubt the rest of them knew each other quite well.
For a moment his thoughts lingered on the child’s face – the face before the creature’s nature had been revealed. He wondered if the boy had been a replacement or merely an imitation. If the Creep was able to recreate the faces of the familiar, to exterminate the old and install the new, the situation with the shapeshifters was far more dire than he had first suspected.
“You there, Sails!” A dark blade was pointed directly at him from across the way, the woman’s nebulous ire finding a true target. “I hear from Floro you didn’t get back till late last night. Care to explain?”
Like most of the “invitations” the Madam Graciana Moreno afforded him, the question was not one proffered under the assumption that it was his choice whether he answered or not. Those around him took a step back, and though smaller conversations persisted, there were far more eyes upon him then there were flies on a fetid corpse in Saun.
Running a hand through his hair, more so in an attempt to display some tick of common humanity than for any other reason, he offered them all an easy smile. “Where else might a young man be found when the moon rises over Quacia?” There was no reaction from the crowd. Tensions were high enough that, though he couldn’t empathize, Mathias at least was able to understand it was in his best interest to simply answer the question directly. Allowing his smile to fad to a more pleasant neutral curve of the lips, he gave the answer everyone wanted to hear. “I was out carousing; I lost track of the time, and, before I knew it, dawn was almost upon me.”
As he spoke, he continued through the throng of bodies, all the neighbours he’d never known he’d had, to stop before the red-headed woman, sleeve rolled up and pale arm extended towards her. “You speak well, boy.” She wiped the knife off on the front of her already well-stained apron as her fingers wrapped about his wrist in a vice. “Sure you’re in the right place, huh?”
He winced as the blade cut into his forearm, a trill later than most, but expression seemed enough to satisfy her – the crimson trickle of his blood even more so. “I hope- Thank you.” He accepted a small strip of cloth from a young boy beside her with hair the same colour but eyes soft and rounded like a doe. “I hope this assuages any doubts?” Though he addressed the woman directly, he allowed his voice to rise enough that those nearest him among the spectators would have no issue rising to his calm challenge should they see fit.
Which they did not.
Wrapping the bandage about his new cut, he stepped aside to allow those behind him to undergo the same examination, the same scrutiny, repeated several times down the street wherever a bucket and athame might be found.
“Can you believe it?” A young man or an elder child – he seemed somewhere between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five – sighed, audibly, catching Mathias’ attention with a raise of his hand – and subsequent display of his own bandage, a makeshift badge of humanity. “I mean, I’ve seven Creep in the city before, usually burnin’ but…” He whistled, shaking his head and staring off into the distance. “Anita here says it looked just like one of us. Any of us, even.”
“I had a… wild night.” The man nodded at Mathias’ words, eyes twinkling with a mischievous understanding. “Could you maybe explain what exactly is going on?” He had a very good idea what everything was all about, but he didn’t have a clue as to why. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one judging by the snippets and clips of conversations he picked up on around them. Most people sounded curious rather than panicked. He assumed insight into the situation would assist in opening up their eyes to see – and fear – the trials ahead.
“Oh yeah. It was real bad, I guess. Anita says there was a robbery only… when the Goon cut ‘im up for leggin’ it, he spilt out bits of green ‘stead of red.” The man shook his head, sucking on his teeth. “Sent everyone into a fit. Anita says she left real quick-like; came right here to give us the news first. A stand-up lady, that one.”
Mathias nodded in what he supposed was a display of agreement. Not that he really cared one way or another when it came to Anita’s character. “Do you know what the creature- what the thief was attempting to steal?”
“Huh? You mean like the loot and that?” The man pursed his lips then frown. “Nah… I don’t think Anita said anything about that. I’ve just got back from my shift down in Plenty; haven’t seen any of this with my own eyes, you know?”
Perhaps that was part of the general calm of the people around him for the time being. Anita and those she’d, presumably, gathered to assist her were steadfast in their presence. Accusatory, yes, but in the way that made those who had already passed their inspection feel at ease. People like that man in front of him wanted to be told everything was fine, that, at least within their own small community, he was safe. It seemed he’d taken to the idea well enough, by his easy smile and lack of concern.
In fairness to Quacian’s general sense of danger and misfortune, the man was most definitely an outlier. The crowd had already begun thin; people shut themselves up in their houses. Just because they knew who wasn’t a Creepborne creature didn’t mean they were much closer to discovering who was. Most didn’t seem too keen on taking the chance.
“Oh, of course. I understand.” He offered the man a hand which was received with a warm grip as they shook. “Thank you for the information, I appreciate it.”
“What’re neighbours for, right?” The man chuckled out, his smile bright against the dark contrast of his stubble and shaggy head of hair. “Anita might remember though if you can get a word in edge-wise.” He waved a hand in farewell to which Mathias offered a polite nod of acknowledgement.
He opted to wait some distance behind and to the side of the woman, patiently biding his time until he might have a chance to speak with her and mulling over what it was he’d discovered thus far, however little.
The boy the night before had been passing through Lair – he still had no idea why, and nothing he’d learned thus far made any more sense of it. As far as he knew, Edite hadn’t known either, not that he could ask her now. He’d assumed there hadn’t been any other Creepborne in the area when he’d slain the first, as none had answered the call, but if the Creep had some sort of goal in mind, one where it didn’t particularly care whether or not some of its agents were discovered, that was far more concerning than the vague sense of relief the thought had been in the moment.
The thief, too, was curious. If there had been intent to simply infiltrate and bide its time until it could claim each and every single citizen for its own, there would have surely been no need to risk its own exposure with petty theft. Whatever it was the shapeshifter had been after, Mathias knew the Dragoons, at least, were most likely investigating it. He more so wanted to know to sate his own curiosity. After all, even if the city fell, he was more than capable enough to survive it.
Or so he assumed.
When he had returned home, less than a break before dawn, the house had been dark and vacant. Graciana had left him a neatly scrawled note, detailing that she would not be returning until the sixty-first but offered no more than that. She had sent him on the excursion that had led to his discovery of the Creepborne doppelganger, and she had been the only person he had thought to notify. With no one around, Mathias had bathed and settled into bed like any other night.
The trial that followed was anything but.
His morning started in the afternoon; there was still the dull ache of weariness that plagued his bones and settled into his stiff muscles, but it was somewhat alleviated by the time he woke. Light filtered in through his half-opened door, a beam of sun, warm and bright, beckoned he open his eyes and finally start the trial.
Quacia was a dead city. Its people were ghosts and phantoms, lurking between the decaying piles of the once-grand flesh and bone that had been the true Quacia. For this reason, when they were loud, they were quiet, and when they were quiet, they were all but silent. So it was with genuine astonishment that he stared out at the scene outside his front door for a solid bit before he felt his wits gathered enough to set foot into the uncharacteristically frantic hubbub.
There were men and women armed with athame and buckets of varying sizes and quality, calling for blood. They were clearly not of the Theocratum, however, nearly everyone had filed out of their homes in the now cramped space of the small cul-de-sac to willingly volunteer.
“They bleed green, they do!” A fiery headed woman with dark brown eyes and an even darker stare shouted out above the chatter. “Saw it with my own eyes, I did! Vines and saps and all that shit. There’s nothing being done, not now, and I’ll be damned if I sit by and have you all question me and I question you.” There was a shout of general agreement to the claim. Though Mathias had seen, perhaps, two of the assorted faces gathered before, he had no doubt the rest of them knew each other quite well.
For a moment his thoughts lingered on the child’s face – the face before the creature’s nature had been revealed. He wondered if the boy had been a replacement or merely an imitation. If the Creep was able to recreate the faces of the familiar, to exterminate the old and install the new, the situation with the shapeshifters was far more dire than he had first suspected.
“You there, Sails!” A dark blade was pointed directly at him from across the way, the woman’s nebulous ire finding a true target. “I hear from Floro you didn’t get back till late last night. Care to explain?”
Like most of the “invitations” the Madam Graciana Moreno afforded him, the question was not one proffered under the assumption that it was his choice whether he answered or not. Those around him took a step back, and though smaller conversations persisted, there were far more eyes upon him then there were flies on a fetid corpse in Saun.
Running a hand through his hair, more so in an attempt to display some tick of common humanity than for any other reason, he offered them all an easy smile. “Where else might a young man be found when the moon rises over Quacia?” There was no reaction from the crowd. Tensions were high enough that, though he couldn’t empathize, Mathias at least was able to understand it was in his best interest to simply answer the question directly. Allowing his smile to fad to a more pleasant neutral curve of the lips, he gave the answer everyone wanted to hear. “I was out carousing; I lost track of the time, and, before I knew it, dawn was almost upon me.”
As he spoke, he continued through the throng of bodies, all the neighbours he’d never known he’d had, to stop before the red-headed woman, sleeve rolled up and pale arm extended towards her. “You speak well, boy.” She wiped the knife off on the front of her already well-stained apron as her fingers wrapped about his wrist in a vice. “Sure you’re in the right place, huh?”
He winced as the blade cut into his forearm, a trill later than most, but expression seemed enough to satisfy her – the crimson trickle of his blood even more so. “I hope- Thank you.” He accepted a small strip of cloth from a young boy beside her with hair the same colour but eyes soft and rounded like a doe. “I hope this assuages any doubts?” Though he addressed the woman directly, he allowed his voice to rise enough that those nearest him among the spectators would have no issue rising to his calm challenge should they see fit.
Which they did not.
Wrapping the bandage about his new cut, he stepped aside to allow those behind him to undergo the same examination, the same scrutiny, repeated several times down the street wherever a bucket and athame might be found.
“Can you believe it?” A young man or an elder child – he seemed somewhere between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five – sighed, audibly, catching Mathias’ attention with a raise of his hand – and subsequent display of his own bandage, a makeshift badge of humanity. “I mean, I’ve seven Creep in the city before, usually burnin’ but…” He whistled, shaking his head and staring off into the distance. “Anita here says it looked just like one of us. Any of us, even.”
“I had a… wild night.” The man nodded at Mathias’ words, eyes twinkling with a mischievous understanding. “Could you maybe explain what exactly is going on?” He had a very good idea what everything was all about, but he didn’t have a clue as to why. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one judging by the snippets and clips of conversations he picked up on around them. Most people sounded curious rather than panicked. He assumed insight into the situation would assist in opening up their eyes to see – and fear – the trials ahead.
“Oh yeah. It was real bad, I guess. Anita says there was a robbery only… when the Goon cut ‘im up for leggin’ it, he spilt out bits of green ‘stead of red.” The man shook his head, sucking on his teeth. “Sent everyone into a fit. Anita says she left real quick-like; came right here to give us the news first. A stand-up lady, that one.”
Mathias nodded in what he supposed was a display of agreement. Not that he really cared one way or another when it came to Anita’s character. “Do you know what the creature- what the thief was attempting to steal?”
“Huh? You mean like the loot and that?” The man pursed his lips then frown. “Nah… I don’t think Anita said anything about that. I’ve just got back from my shift down in Plenty; haven’t seen any of this with my own eyes, you know?”
Perhaps that was part of the general calm of the people around him for the time being. Anita and those she’d, presumably, gathered to assist her were steadfast in their presence. Accusatory, yes, but in the way that made those who had already passed their inspection feel at ease. People like that man in front of him wanted to be told everything was fine, that, at least within their own small community, he was safe. It seemed he’d taken to the idea well enough, by his easy smile and lack of concern.
In fairness to Quacian’s general sense of danger and misfortune, the man was most definitely an outlier. The crowd had already begun thin; people shut themselves up in their houses. Just because they knew who wasn’t a Creepborne creature didn’t mean they were much closer to discovering who was. Most didn’t seem too keen on taking the chance.
“Oh, of course. I understand.” He offered the man a hand which was received with a warm grip as they shook. “Thank you for the information, I appreciate it.”
“What’re neighbours for, right?” The man chuckled out, his smile bright against the dark contrast of his stubble and shaggy head of hair. “Anita might remember though if you can get a word in edge-wise.” He waved a hand in farewell to which Mathias offered a polite nod of acknowledgement.
He opted to wait some distance behind and to the side of the woman, patiently biding his time until he might have a chance to speak with her and mulling over what it was he’d discovered thus far, however little.
The boy the night before had been passing through Lair – he still had no idea why, and nothing he’d learned thus far made any more sense of it. As far as he knew, Edite hadn’t known either, not that he could ask her now. He’d assumed there hadn’t been any other Creepborne in the area when he’d slain the first, as none had answered the call, but if the Creep had some sort of goal in mind, one where it didn’t particularly care whether or not some of its agents were discovered, that was far more concerning than the vague sense of relief the thought had been in the moment.
The thief, too, was curious. If there had been intent to simply infiltrate and bide its time until it could claim each and every single citizen for its own, there would have surely been no need to risk its own exposure with petty theft. Whatever it was the shapeshifter had been after, Mathias knew the Dragoons, at least, were most likely investigating it. He more so wanted to know to sate his own curiosity. After all, even if the city fell, he was more than capable enough to survive it.
Or so he assumed.
