Private Tales Presentiment

[Diaz]

A laugh, bitter and sharp. "Is that where we were?" he said, the cold turned his voice hoarse. "Inside your fucked up head?" His teeth showed sharp, as wisps of breath curled about his mouth.

Why had he seen his brother then?

A howl of the wind pulled him out of his head. He flexed his fingers, and felt the sting of setting numbness there in. Bloodless digits. His wrists bound in a way in which his hands could not clap. He grumbled.

"You should have just given up names," he grunt. "Viego," Smirked.

He shift, his muscle flexed and tried, and the chains rattled cold and iron against the stone. He shut his eyes. Let his mind fall into itself.

The shadow beneath him pooled thicker. Swirled, like molasses stirred by an unseen hand. Fingertips pushed through the sticky pitch. Punched through the membrane that separated the darkness gathered from the room filled with diffused light.

An arm sprout out behind the fingers. Bent so that flat palm could slap against stone, and formless strength willed out more of the being there in.

Viego

 

[Viego]

His upper lip curled, voice hoarse, "I think so." He wasn't quite sure. Giving it a name or destination quelled his fear of the place. He watched as Diaz conjured his shade. The same one he fought but moments ago. Or so he thought. A lump of trepidation settled in his throat. Its presence added an encumbering weight. Fear had become an estranged emotion, until recently. He couldn't fight him again, not in this state. Maybe if I just - He weakly jostled the chains. Fuck. Do I die here? Seems fitting. Cold. Alone. By the hand of another who shares fealty to the craft of killing. He could feel incipient tears begin their descent - "What a pathetic thing you've become." Whisper seeped through the mental cracks of his enfeebled mind. "Suppressing me has spelled out your demise, young assassin. I am the the force behind the dagger. I am the fight when you are weak. I am the one who keeps us alive." His eyes rolled back into his head. "Would you see us dead?" The voice hissed. "Over what? To keep your tenuous grasp on humanity? No. We're no warriors of virtue. We're not human. We cull the meek, slay the bountied, take what we can, and give nothing back." His body tightened, as if rigor mortis set in. "We're divinities hand! Assassins! Murderers! GRIEFMAKERS!" His eyes shot open. A crystal blue glow emanated from them. His extremities warmed as he pulled vitality from his counterpart. "Allow me, little Viego." The intensity he felt washed over him in mere moments. He could breathe again. See again. Blood rushed to his hands, his feet. Clarity. Strength.

A pair of voices could be heard ascending to their holding cell. He looked to Diaz with a melancholic expression, "This is going to cost us, well, me." His countenance slowly donned a sinister smile. "Now lets get the fuck - out of here."

Diaz

 

[Diaz]

Out came his shadow. His twin. Two swords in hand. With quick cuts, the magicked blades sliced through the old iron chains.

Diego fell to the cold stone, and looked wearily to the other assassin before him. Rubbed the hurt out of his wrists, where blood turned to dark sticky scab, and he drew in breath, fresh stings where tortures and punishments had been tolled out. Long lines of whip's lash. Red run of blade's work. Purple blooms of blunt beatings.

Shallow breaths. Controlled as the voices neared, closer.

"You aren't the same anymore," Diaz said to his strange partner in this twisted venture. "You've... changed, haven't you?" A sharp laugh. Almost disgusted.

His shadow offered him a weapon. A blade made of darkness. Its form withered and wavered, like pitch-black flame. Diaz took it, and meld into the darkness on the walls just before the door came open.

The two men came in, and saw Viego, alone. Their eyes widened as the ink-black darkness that was Diaz slipped around them. His eyes opened there, behind the shade of the opened door, protected against the torch's light.

A lone hand came out of the shadow, a finger raised to lips that were not there beneath the blue and black eyes. Shhh.

Viego

 

[Viego]

The shades presence made him uneasy, but he held to his calculated exterior. "We've changed." His voice devoid of inflection. Diaz's freedom inspired him to wrestle the constricting chains. A grimace birthed from pain surfaced as he struggled with the chains locked around his wrists. A shadowy limb reached up from the ground where he hung and offered the shadowmancer a weapon, the very same from the dreamscape. A peculiar thing.

The men reached the top step; the shade, their doom, their end, slipped past and cut them off from escape. The fear in their eyes palpable. His grimace turned to snarl. Adrenaline shot through his core, before spider webbing to his extremities. Chains broken. The frozen links scattered to the floor and crashed against the wall as he fell to the ground. He stood up straight, hand to chin, cracked his neck left, then right. The crepitus echoed through the chamber. "Feed your blade, Diaz" he growled, then lunged towards the cell door.

Diaz

 

[Diaz]

One cut. One life.

The magic shadow ripped through bone and flesh with practiced ease. The umbral blade flickered and snapped, as if a thing made of abyssal flame. The two parts of the man that had stood before him, fell away. torso smacked to the ground, clumsy, legs fell forward. Both halves spasmed in disunited dance as the man's fingers tried to grasp at the ground beneath him.

A turn. With two hands, the dark blade plunged down and severed nerves between columns of spine.

Stillness. From one man.

Diaz began to turn towards the door. His blade turning in hand as the blood from his kill smothered the fire of the torch.

The cell began to grow full of darkness.

Viego

 

[Viego]

The bars to the cell door waned in pain as he pulled them apart. His eyes fixated on the men being masterfully carved by Diaz's blades. With each of Diaz's strikes his thirst for killing heightened. Like an excited war-hound, he gnashed through spittle with elation as blood splattered the ground. He took two celeritous steps towards the guards as they fell to the floor, catching their blades before the bodies clamored against stone.

With a quick flourish he donned the shadow as cloak and swiftly charged down the staircase towards the next set of unsuspecting souls. Three men. Two guarding each side of the staircase, backs turned, the third chatting them up. Two swift cuts to the jugular turned words to babble. The third guard, hands at ease now gripped blade hilt, face stricken with horror, back peddling from his companions choking on their own blood. Blades tauntingly danced in the darkness of the staircase; and before he could squeak out word for help, both blades were thrown into the mans chest.

Mocking coughs were the last thing this man would hear before his eyes closed eternally.

Diaz

 

[Diaz]

Like a cloak drawn around him, Diaz enveloped himself in shadows. Form, without bounds, the edges of his self merged with every thread of darkness that wove about the room. Grew darker still as the fire died out, and the blood continued to spill.

But a pair of eyes, adrift in the lightless mantle. A smile, there in their mismatched gaze.

It was through the shadows that Diaz walked. Across the absence of light that painted the stones, and hung high enough away from the greasy fire of the oil lamps that clung to the walls. And it was above his fellow killer that he would come to rest. Amorphous, save for the hint of a body there, within the inky pitch.

"Not too shabby," he grumbled with delight. Teeth, white against the black as he grinned.

The sound of a choked breath. A young face peered up at the pair, eyes wide and mouth agape. Some strides away from the murderous pair.

"Holy fuck," the youth cursed beneath his breath. Brain still turning the wheels of his thoughts.

Viego

 

[Viego]

Shing, the pair of swords removed. The body in which they skewered, lifeless in a half bridge pose, eyes paralyzed with shock. A feral look shared with Diaz. "We're killers, no?" His eyes darted around the room. Cold, windowless, with no discernible exit. Two columns held the ceiling, 15 feet apart. The room totaling 35 feet in width and length. He looked back to the stairs, and through gritted teeth he seethed, "Diiiaaazzzzz. Find me something to kiiiillll." Whispers impatient and bloodlust expression fell onto his counterpart, sword raised in warning. "I don't do puzzles."

Diaz

 

[Diaz]

The eyes that peered out from the shadows narrowed. Though no words came from the shade as it inked across the stone walls, round the flames' glow.

The young man, still just out of sight, crept some steps back down the stairs. Away from the two killers. Away from the escaped prisoners. Right, right. He reminded himself. They were the prisoners, and Leonard would want to hear about this.

He just. He just had to make it to Leonard.

Steady steps. Easy. He backed away. Turned his back to the room and rushed down.

Diaz caught just the last few echoes of hurried steps come back up the stairwell's walls.


He laughed. "Come over here," he instructed his fellow killer. "They'll be plenty to kill, just down there," the shade jerked down toward the spiraling way. "Think one of them got away," he sounded almost excited. "Probably going to warn the others," the mouth came shut, and only the mismatched eyes remained there in the gathered pool of darkness. They looked to Viego.

Something of the man's bloodlust felt familiar. The Hunger. He had seen it in others of the Church. Had felt it himself. A drive that had brought him this far. But he could not let it take him now. This man was more use to him alive. If only llong enough to get him out of this shithole.

Viego

 

[Viego]

It was all too nauseating watching his actions performed without his cognitive guidance. Whisper was in full control, and all he could do was sit helpless behind his own eyes, bearing witness to the onslaught that ensued. He'd thrown himself against the unseen fabric that kept them apart in attempts to absorb his malicious counterpart, but to no avail. He was weakened, exhausted, helpless....

With each step of Whisper, shadowy limbs gathered the blanket of darkness behind them to follow. They hadn't noticed the opening to a spiraling staircase below. That's because it wasn't there before...

"One can always trust the nose of a hound." Whisper snarled with delight. "Speaking of hounds, where's our good boy hiding? Did we tire the pup out?" A playful smirk warned of more ill-intent. Whisper shoulder checked Diaz as they descended with cloak-and-dagger.

Diaz

 

[Diaz]

The shadow form which Diaz wreathed himself in plumed and billowed like a mantle of smoke, set to stir as the entity in Viego's skin walked through him. A grin cut across the assassin's lips, and his mismatched eyes watched the thing walk down into the shadows.

"Somewhere below," Diaz spat. "Somewhere full of others, no doubt," excitement crept into his voice. "Go on then, killer," the assassin goaded. "I'll be right behind you,"

He drew his blade from its sheath.

Below, the enemy made ready. A couple of crossbows aimed at the entryway. Short-swords and clubs fast behind a few good spears.

Viego