Private Tales Things In the Night

[Ivar]

Liva

A hard slam echoed against the door Ivar leaned against, the entire weight of his body pressing against the bare wood.

His fingers were clenched, his face covered in a brackish blood. His ax was slid through the handle of the door, providing for a makeshift lock as the sounds of shambling ghouls echoed out from beyond. He could feel his heart racing, his head spinning as he slowly took deeper and deeper breaths.

Another thunderous slam echoed as one of the creatures tried to force it's way through the door.

The Barbarian let out a quiet curse as he wondered how he had landed himself here, how he had managed to dig himself so far into this hole. Liva had been a quiet town, a little trade port set along the river. It had been a place meant for rest, winding down after his latest bout with the Southron Mercenary companies. He had come here because it was a place no one talked about, no one cared for.

Yet when he had awoken at dusk everything had gone to shit.

Corpses wandered the streets. Shambling monstrosities the likes of which he had never seen before.

Their moans of agony filled the air as he had descended the stairs, Ivar spotting the first of them within the Tavern as it rushed towards the innkeeper and her children. The Barbarian had cleaved the creature in twine, cutting it through the torso only for it to still bite at it's prey.

In a panic he had smashed it's face to bits, fear and violence coaxing him along until the beast stopped moving.

A second after that he had rushed to the door, slamming it closed and pressing himself against it in a desperate attempt to keep more of the creatures out. Now? Now he was here.

His heart thundered, and he had no idea what to do.

 

[Ariadne]

The Pariah Templar had been tracking this particular group of risen from destroyed village, to destroyed village, and a quiet huff escaped her lips as she finally found them in the middle of rampaging through a third. She rode to the edge of the town square where the market stalls sat like a cluster of old wives in the centre, and her amber hues scanned over the chaos, her nose wrinkling with a hint of a sneer at the familiar stench that lingered in the air wherever the creatures were found. Ariadne slipped a dagger from her thigh and leaned to one side to tear a slit in a large sack which instantly started to leak.

With another kick of her heels, she road the horse around the edge of the square, her polearm cutting down any beast that ran at her. Then, she screamed, an ear splitting sound that tore itself like a tortured lament from her lungs. The sound of terror always seemed to attract them, and as so many dead faces turned to her, she backed her horse up, eyeing each one as they grew nearer..

"Easy..." she whispered to the steed as he nickered uneasily as they rushed toward her. She would wait, until the very last moment, when the creatures had swarmed the square before she pulled the horse about and cut down a lantern. A wall of fire blazed around the square, following the path of her spilled oil, and the creatures shrieked a sound that never ceased to cause her skin to crawl and her blood to run cold.

She quickly picked off the few that hadn't been penned in by flames, the blade of her weapon severing heads and spearing rotting torsos. Ariadne drew her bow, lighting the tar dipped head of it before throwing another bottle of oil as high as she could above the square and quickly letting the arrow fly at it. Fire exploded in the air and showered down over the risen again and again until the screeching had stopped and the smell of dead and burning flesh filled the streets.

Ariadne slipped from her horse's back and moved cautiously, her polearm switched for twin blades as she walked down the middle of the Main Street, watching and listening for any that had not come to her call. It was quiet, and she could see human faces peeking through upstairs windows.

"Stay in your homes!" she called out as another two ran at her, her blades flourishing before the corpses' heads hit the road with two sickening splats. The particularly large barbarian who'd been attempting to barge his way into the tavern turned toward her, taking only a single step before Ariadne's blade flew end over end and skewered him to the door.

 

[Ivar]

A sword skewered through the door just an inch away from his rib.

Eyes popped open as he heard the steel splinter through the wood, blade protruding to his side. Lips thinned, and he reached to his ribs to make sure that no blood was pouring from his skin. The woman and her children seemed to shiver, though their faces matched his.

Ivar shook his head, letting out a breath for a second before he turned around and slipped his ax free from the door handles. There was a loud creak as he pulled open the door, an odd strangled sound echoing out as the Ghoul now pinned to the door gagged in an attempt to bite at him.

The Barbarian slammed his ax into the creatures head, cracking it's skull and letting it fall limp on the blade.

His head whirled around for a moment, eyes catching on a woman who was stalking towards him. Brows lifted, expression a mixture of shock, fear, and perhaps arousal.

"What in the fuck is going on?" Ivar called out to the woman, standing in the doorway holding his ax as if she were another foe readying to kill him.

Paranoia flickered through his gaze as he searched for more of the ghouls.

 

[Ariadne]

The woman didn't pause as the door opened, but she lifted her second blade, ready to throw it should whatever emerged have intent to attack her. It didn't, and the blade lowered as she watched the man bury his axe in the creature's skull. Ariadne stepped up onto the porch, ignoring his question and reaching instead for her sword and wrenching it free of the meaty corpse, and she sneered at the smell as it crumpled to a rotting heap.

Amber eyes shifted to Ivar, wandering from his face to the axe that he held before she met his gaze again, a slender brow arching at him. "Done hiding?.." she asked him bluntly. There was no amusement in her stoic expression, nor her tone. A man of his stature cowering away in a tavern was clearly something to shake her head at as she moved back out onto the road without another word.

 

[Ivar]

Ivar stared after the woman with no small amount of bewilderment, his lips thinning as he glanced back towards the Inn.

Inside he could see the woman and her children cowering. They were hiding behind one of the tables now, clearly expecting bandits along with the ghouls. He could see the terror within their eyes, the fear that lingered there. "Stay here."

The Barbarian told them as he pulled the door closed and pulled out one of his knives.

A loud thunk echoed as he stabbed the blade through the wood and wedged it into the lock, jamming it shut in case any of the creatures attempted to force their way inside. A second later he went after Ariadne.

"Hang on." Ivar called to her. "Who are you, what the fuck are these things?"

One did not see many ghouls in the north, not in the frozen tundra where their bloodless corpses found themselves as ice.

 

[Ariadne]

She didn't bother to turn back as he called for her, and her horse followed after her as she continued along the smoky street. A plume of black smoke rose in a pillar from the town square, but it would die out as soon as it had devoured everything contained within it.

"I call them Risen.." she obliged in a tone of boredom. "They're a result of necromancy. And I'm the person who's hunting said necromancer." she informed him, turning to face another one of the screeching creatures as it ran at them. There was little effort required, and with a last second slash of her blade, it's head came tumbling from it's shoulders and it fell.

"They're not clever, but when there are too many at once it can be.. bothersome. Just aim for the head." she shrugged with a glance over him, and she continued on.

 

[Ivar]

Ivar gave a weary sidestep to the head that was currently chomping at his leg, the limp body cascading onto the floor with a thump. A look of disgust crossed his features, ax coming down to split the still moving head in two.

"Necromancer?" The word wasn't unfamiliar to him.

The Witch back home told stories of the risen dead. Shamans of the Nordwiir were apparently bring those who had tasted the Abyss back to life, but Ivar himself had never given credence to such things. They were stories, little tales told to frighten children.

Putting such things in reality was...he glanced back towards one of the corpses, frowning. "What kind of a fucking nightmare have I walked into?"

Ivar asked himself as one of the creatures suddenly charged forward from within and alleyway.

Out of sudden reaction his massive Half-moon ax swung towards the side, bisecting the creature in one quick swoop and sending it tumbling to the floor with a thud. A second later his foot came down on the ghoul's skull, crushing it.

He stood there for a second, then quickly scurried after the woman.

Best to stick with her.

 

[Ariadne]

Ari's huff tailed off with a growl as she stopped again and turned to him. His questions were bothering her, clearly. This was why she worked alone...

"Yes. Necromancer. Dark mages known for communicating with and raising the dead?.." she shook her head and blinked at him as she stated what to her was 'the obvious'.

She was on the verge of telling him to fuck off as he followed after her, but he was handy enough with that axe and she wasn't entirely sure how many more of these things there were, she'd taken out about a hundred of them already and they seemed to have dwindled..

She paused on the road as two more up ahead noticed them, halting their efforts to claw their way into a home and turning instead to run at them. Ari sheathed her blades and drew her bow, nocking an arrow and sending it through the first creature's skull, taking it off of it's feet. The other grew closer still as she quickly nocked the second arrow.

"Behind you." she told him calmly as she aimed, having heard the familiar shuffle and scurry before it started screeching when it was almost upon him.

 

[Ivar]

Ivar whirled around on his back foot with all the grace of a ballerina.

The massive bulk of a Barbarian swung his axe, and with one smooth cleave cut the creatures skull entirely in twine. The Ghoul seemed to stumble for a second, as if it's body could not quite comprehend what had just happened, then it tumbled onto the floor.

"So what you're a..." He frowned. "Hunter? Of these things?"

Ivar had of course never heard of the Templar. The Order, even in it's prime, had never made it to the Tundra. The expansive frozen waists were difficult for the undead, and had never quite been a priority for anyone but those who already lived there.

"Why would anyone want to su-" Ivar found his words suddenly cut off as he spotted something behind Ariadne.

It took him a second to recognize.

Within the dark they almost seemed to blend in, the small spaces of the alleyway, the cut of it. There was something...off.

Then he saw the smilarities. The small motions, the shambling stumbles. It was a sea of them, a mass the likes of which he couldn't have imagined. A whole town...no...city slowly stumbling forward out from between the building. They were countless, or at least seemingly so, slowly swarming towards the Templar and the Northman.