blairWitcher
Resident Soultaker
I renamed its title and placed the corrections and refined some points suggested by Mr. Chrispenycate and Mr. Aspheron. A million thanks to you guys for your criticisms.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Night silently approaches. Slowly, a full moon rises like a silvery, haunting orb amidst a swirling mass of dark clouds, projecting on the horizon like the strange, penetrating eye of an unknown prowling animal – cold, calculating...sinister – as it glows radiantly across the starless skies. Below, a soft, slow-moving breeze begins to blow silently into a thick mossy forest lying near the fringes of the slopes of a steep and rugged mountain along the border lands of Crow,disturbing the stillness of the night air as it gently rustles the leaves and branches of wild shrubs and trees on its path. At the topmost branch of a coniferous tree, a large barn owl stretches and flaps its brown wings, staring on the vast dimness of the forest with its amber eyes. With the patience and instinct of a natural born hunter, It scans the dark outlines of the terrain while listening for the slightest scuffles of a small, unsuspecting prey. Suddenly, It lets out a loud hoot which echoed across the sleeping land; Its voice joining the eerie croaks and wild, guttural sounds of other nocturnal creatures. Together, It resembles a strange, musical mater piece with a hidden unfathomable mystery – a dark symphony played by an invisible, ghostly orchestra.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]But the ambient sounds of the forest are disturbed, all of a sudden, by a timely, mournful tolling of a rusty herald bell perching atop a tall, ruined tower at the center of a small, abandoned village nearby. According to folks and gossip tellers, this reputed “ghost town” is, by far, a real mystery among most bizarre places abounding the realm for not only is its location “erased”, ten years ago, on the maps and charts of traders and travelers, but its name and reputation is popular among the strange tales and haunted legends inspired by many of Crow's talented bards and artistic tale singers of the present – the cursed village of Hunter's Cove.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]According to one legend, this ill-fated place was once a small, yet lively and boisterous, settlement of forest trappers and hunters whose livelihood depended on hunting and trapping small and big game, especially bears and badgers, at the forest of Fern near the northeast borders of Crow. It was told that one fine evening, as the simple and frugal, not to mention drunk, villagers were dancing round bonfires and feasting on good ale and venison in celebration of the start of bear hunting season, an evil spirit, represented on most bardic versions as a “cloaked figure wearing an evil looking, demon mask”, appeared like mist from the darkness and entered the open gates of the merry, unsuspecting village. Dawn came the next day and the village woke up for the day's hunt as the tired, happy men picked up their snares, bolts and crossbows and kissed their sated wives and damsels goodbye as they ventured forth, with their dogs and hawks,into the depths of the dense forest. The day ended with nothing strange or unusual happening inside or outside the settlement. Everything was normal and no one reported having seen or heard of anything peculiar or mysterious. At sunset, the men returned to the village in a jubilant mood after a bountiful hunt, swapping jokes and exchanging compliments as they carried their spoils and dead trophies on large meat sacks. Outside, the sun began to sink beyond the fading contours of the western plains, bathing the western skies with crimson streaks and orange flashes into its evening sanctuary. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Then it began. As the full moon ascended to the darkening heavens, the sleeping village was suddenly awakened by the echoing tolls of the herald bell. Never, in the history of the village, had an event like this ever happened before and so the amazed and unsuspecting inhabitants took their oil lamps, left their beds and the doorsteps of their cabins and made their way towards the bell's direction to investigate the matter. On and on the bell rang, puzzling the people who soon found out, moments later, that nobody was swinging it. It was as if an invisible hand was pulling on its ropes and shaking it to and fro. Just as it has finished its thirteenth toll, the possessed bell suddenly stopped on its own and was followed by an uncanny silence far louder than the sounds it made, smothering the evening in a complete and uneasy stillness that not even a small puff of wind blew. The people, witnessing the strange event, held their breaths in anticipation, waiting for another strange event to happen.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Suddenly, a thick, dense fog appeared into the air, enveloping the whole town and its people with its suffocating and condensed vapors.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It was then that the horror struck. Out of the thick blankets of the deathly fog came a horrible creature that cried an ear-splitting, tormented shriek no animal known in beast lore was capable of doing. Without warning, it attacked the defenseless village, killing and ripping anyone and anything it seized in a matter of seconds. On that terrifying night, Hunter's Cove was reduced to a sea of decapitated bodies and dismembered human limbs bathed in blood, along with the dying shouts and pitiful screams of its doomed inhabitants. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As daylight approached the following day, The village was no longer a living settlement – it was now a silent graveyard near the edge of a forest. Death and destruction was lying in every corner of its bloody streets and battered walls. No trace of a fog or a monster was ever recorded.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Two days later, a fatally wounded straggler in tattered robes was found lying helplessly on a riverbank a few leagues away from the damned settlement by a traveling merchant. According to him, the man died a few minutes later after he was found. He lived long enough to give the terrified merchant an incomplete recount of the events that happened, shouting the words "The Beast " and "The Bells took them" before he died. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]News of the sudden unexplainable fate of Hunter's Cove spread across the neighboring cities and towns.A serious deliberation followed, a week after the incident of Hunter's Cove,and the High Council of Crow decided that nobody should set foot anywhere near the village or hunt in the forest surrounding it. Many disobeyed the Council's orders and treated the shocking news mildly. Dozens of raiders, merchants and treasure seekers poured into the abandoned village by day, searching its ruined cabins and halls for gold and other valuables. None of those who entered the walls ever made it out alive the next morning and the rumors of the creature residing on Hunter's Cove were proven to be true.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]t was then that the council imposed another decree: The Village of Hunter's Cove shall be excluded from all current maps and charts of Crow and all forms of travel towards that place is banned upon penalty of a 3 year imprisonment. All map makers around the country followed the decree and none dared to venture forth into the abandoned village – ever. Since then, the deserted village of Hunter's Cove existed only in tales and stories sang by minstrels and bards on town squares and taverns...[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It has been ten years... but the Herald Bell of Hunter's Cove is still tolling,at night, as a full moon rises on the evening sky... followed by a deathly fog and the horrible, tormented wails of the creature that comes with it... searching for another living prey to satisfy its craving for death and blood... [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]But tonight is an exception. On the shattered dwellings and ghostly halls of this place, Another story shall begin...[/FONT]
ASHES, as the institution was called, is an Elite school, specializing in the use of special soul weapons and advanced “spiritual arts”, built for the sole purpose of training people that possess the unique capability of releasing and manipulating “spiritual energy” into the arts of demonic and soul eradication, turning them into a unique fighting force capable of countering and destroying these corrupted beings – giving birth to the so called Soul takers.
Meanwhile, as he is a few feet away from the front doors of the herald's tower, Albert Stine stops from his tracks and gazes momentarily at the edge of the roof of a large, old, crumbling building opposite the bell that was once used by the dead inhabitants as a storehouse for grain and other supplies for the winter. Sighing, he takes a silver watch from an inside pocket of his coat and looks at its working hands and gleaming numbers with a sign of irritation. It is nearly time.
“He's late again - as usual.” Albert grumbles to himself as he replaces the watch back on the pocket of his coat and squints his eyes to the night skies, searching and looking for something – or someone – that should have been sitting at the edge of that storehouse's roof by now.
Suddenly, a black raven with a yellow streak running at the front of its head, lands at the roof of the storehouse and caws noisily at him as it flexes its wings like a triumphant marathon runner winning his first, hard fought race.
“Your noisy and late as usual.” Albert calls out to the bird, taking a cigarette and a lighter from another coat pocket. He lights the cigarette with the lighter and placed the filter end to his lips. “The school would do me a big favor if they team me up with someone quieter for a change.” he adds smugly as he blows a puff of smoke from his lips and replaces the lighter on his pocket.
But the bird is gone. Sitting in its place is another young man wearing a yellow bandanna on his forehead and a nasty grin on his face. Unlike Albert Stine, this man is shorter with black tattoos spreading across his well – muscled arms. He is wearing an assassin's sleeveless, leather jacket and lying on the scabbard at his back is a long thin blade with a raven's head carved at the end of the handle.
“You know with that attitude of yours, it never puzzles me why you never had a girlfriend.” The man on the roof said as he rolls his eyes at his colleague below, smirking.
In an instant,Stine disappears from the ground and,in a blink of an eye, is standing at the back of his companion, a smile forming on his lips as he blew another puff of smoke.
"And with an attitude like yours, it never surprises me why your dear old father calls you “Cawie” in front of everybody. I can't blame him, can I? Felix Cross,” Albert said coolly as the man named Felix Cross scratches the back of his head thickly.
Meanwhile the bell strikes its thirteenth toll. The right moment finally arrives.
SOULTAKERS
and
the Prisms of Madness
and
the Prisms of Madness
CHAPTER ONE:TOLLING BELLS AND GHOST LEGENDS
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Night silently approaches. Slowly, a full moon rises like a silvery, haunting orb amidst a swirling mass of dark clouds, projecting on the horizon like the strange, penetrating eye of an unknown prowling animal – cold, calculating...sinister – as it glows radiantly across the starless skies. Below, a soft, slow-moving breeze begins to blow silently into a thick mossy forest lying near the fringes of the slopes of a steep and rugged mountain along the border lands of Crow,disturbing the stillness of the night air as it gently rustles the leaves and branches of wild shrubs and trees on its path. At the topmost branch of a coniferous tree, a large barn owl stretches and flaps its brown wings, staring on the vast dimness of the forest with its amber eyes. With the patience and instinct of a natural born hunter, It scans the dark outlines of the terrain while listening for the slightest scuffles of a small, unsuspecting prey. Suddenly, It lets out a loud hoot which echoed across the sleeping land; Its voice joining the eerie croaks and wild, guttural sounds of other nocturnal creatures. Together, It resembles a strange, musical mater piece with a hidden unfathomable mystery – a dark symphony played by an invisible, ghostly orchestra.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]But the ambient sounds of the forest are disturbed, all of a sudden, by a timely, mournful tolling of a rusty herald bell perching atop a tall, ruined tower at the center of a small, abandoned village nearby. According to folks and gossip tellers, this reputed “ghost town” is, by far, a real mystery among most bizarre places abounding the realm for not only is its location “erased”, ten years ago, on the maps and charts of traders and travelers, but its name and reputation is popular among the strange tales and haunted legends inspired by many of Crow's talented bards and artistic tale singers of the present – the cursed village of Hunter's Cove.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]According to one legend, this ill-fated place was once a small, yet lively and boisterous, settlement of forest trappers and hunters whose livelihood depended on hunting and trapping small and big game, especially bears and badgers, at the forest of Fern near the northeast borders of Crow. It was told that one fine evening, as the simple and frugal, not to mention drunk, villagers were dancing round bonfires and feasting on good ale and venison in celebration of the start of bear hunting season, an evil spirit, represented on most bardic versions as a “cloaked figure wearing an evil looking, demon mask”, appeared like mist from the darkness and entered the open gates of the merry, unsuspecting village. Dawn came the next day and the village woke up for the day's hunt as the tired, happy men picked up their snares, bolts and crossbows and kissed their sated wives and damsels goodbye as they ventured forth, with their dogs and hawks,into the depths of the dense forest. The day ended with nothing strange or unusual happening inside or outside the settlement. Everything was normal and no one reported having seen or heard of anything peculiar or mysterious. At sunset, the men returned to the village in a jubilant mood after a bountiful hunt, swapping jokes and exchanging compliments as they carried their spoils and dead trophies on large meat sacks. Outside, the sun began to sink beyond the fading contours of the western plains, bathing the western skies with crimson streaks and orange flashes into its evening sanctuary. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Then it began. As the full moon ascended to the darkening heavens, the sleeping village was suddenly awakened by the echoing tolls of the herald bell. Never, in the history of the village, had an event like this ever happened before and so the amazed and unsuspecting inhabitants took their oil lamps, left their beds and the doorsteps of their cabins and made their way towards the bell's direction to investigate the matter. On and on the bell rang, puzzling the people who soon found out, moments later, that nobody was swinging it. It was as if an invisible hand was pulling on its ropes and shaking it to and fro. Just as it has finished its thirteenth toll, the possessed bell suddenly stopped on its own and was followed by an uncanny silence far louder than the sounds it made, smothering the evening in a complete and uneasy stillness that not even a small puff of wind blew. The people, witnessing the strange event, held their breaths in anticipation, waiting for another strange event to happen.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Suddenly, a thick, dense fog appeared into the air, enveloping the whole town and its people with its suffocating and condensed vapors.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It was then that the horror struck. Out of the thick blankets of the deathly fog came a horrible creature that cried an ear-splitting, tormented shriek no animal known in beast lore was capable of doing. Without warning, it attacked the defenseless village, killing and ripping anyone and anything it seized in a matter of seconds. On that terrifying night, Hunter's Cove was reduced to a sea of decapitated bodies and dismembered human limbs bathed in blood, along with the dying shouts and pitiful screams of its doomed inhabitants. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As daylight approached the following day, The village was no longer a living settlement – it was now a silent graveyard near the edge of a forest. Death and destruction was lying in every corner of its bloody streets and battered walls. No trace of a fog or a monster was ever recorded.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Two days later, a fatally wounded straggler in tattered robes was found lying helplessly on a riverbank a few leagues away from the damned settlement by a traveling merchant. According to him, the man died a few minutes later after he was found. He lived long enough to give the terrified merchant an incomplete recount of the events that happened, shouting the words "The Beast " and "The Bells took them" before he died. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]News of the sudden unexplainable fate of Hunter's Cove spread across the neighboring cities and towns.A serious deliberation followed, a week after the incident of Hunter's Cove,and the High Council of Crow decided that nobody should set foot anywhere near the village or hunt in the forest surrounding it. Many disobeyed the Council's orders and treated the shocking news mildly. Dozens of raiders, merchants and treasure seekers poured into the abandoned village by day, searching its ruined cabins and halls for gold and other valuables. None of those who entered the walls ever made it out alive the next morning and the rumors of the creature residing on Hunter's Cove were proven to be true.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]t was then that the council imposed another decree: The Village of Hunter's Cove shall be excluded from all current maps and charts of Crow and all forms of travel towards that place is banned upon penalty of a 3 year imprisonment. All map makers around the country followed the decree and none dared to venture forth into the abandoned village – ever. Since then, the deserted village of Hunter's Cove existed only in tales and stories sang by minstrels and bards on town squares and taverns...[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It has been ten years... but the Herald Bell of Hunter's Cove is still tolling,at night, as a full moon rises on the evening sky... followed by a deathly fog and the horrible, tormented wails of the creature that comes with it... searching for another living prey to satisfy its craving for death and blood... [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]But tonight is an exception. On the shattered dwellings and ghostly halls of this place, Another story shall begin...[/FONT]
As the echoes of the herald bell resound across the torn village, a lone figure,silhouetted by the shadows of the clouds hovering slowly in front of the glowing moon, slowly walks across the dusty cobbled streets towards the direction of the tower. As a soft gust of cold, unnerving wind blows a cloud of dust from the ground, the clouds covering the moon begin to glide away, causing a beam of moonlight to escape and illuminate the shadowy figure to be that of a tall, young man, probably in his twenties, wearing a long, black coat made from fine wolf's fur and a pair of travel worn, black boots. Despite the youthfulness in age and appearance, He has a serious, calculating look in his face like a seasoned soldier preparing to face a raging battlefield. He had an eye patch covering his left eye and a long thin scar runs along his left cheek. He wears a pair of brown hunting gloves and dangling on his waist are two gun holsters holding a pair of sleek, silver revolvers. Seeing this man walking silently into the moonlight makes an impression of an assassin surveying a target and is waiting for the right opportunity to strike it with a single, fatal blow. His name is Albert Stine – and he is a third level Soul Taker working on a strike-to -kill mission from the Academy for Soul Hunting and Erasing Studies based in Crow's capital, FORGE CITY. His objective is simple: destroy the horrible creature of Hunter's Cove by all means.
ASHES, as the institution was called, is an Elite school, specializing in the use of special soul weapons and advanced “spiritual arts”, built for the sole purpose of training people that possess the unique capability of releasing and manipulating “spiritual energy” into the arts of demonic and soul eradication, turning them into a unique fighting force capable of countering and destroying these corrupted beings – giving birth to the so called Soul takers.
Meanwhile, as he is a few feet away from the front doors of the herald's tower, Albert Stine stops from his tracks and gazes momentarily at the edge of the roof of a large, old, crumbling building opposite the bell that was once used by the dead inhabitants as a storehouse for grain and other supplies for the winter. Sighing, he takes a silver watch from an inside pocket of his coat and looks at its working hands and gleaming numbers with a sign of irritation. It is nearly time.
“He's late again - as usual.” Albert grumbles to himself as he replaces the watch back on the pocket of his coat and squints his eyes to the night skies, searching and looking for something – or someone – that should have been sitting at the edge of that storehouse's roof by now.
Suddenly, a black raven with a yellow streak running at the front of its head, lands at the roof of the storehouse and caws noisily at him as it flexes its wings like a triumphant marathon runner winning his first, hard fought race.
“Your noisy and late as usual.” Albert calls out to the bird, taking a cigarette and a lighter from another coat pocket. He lights the cigarette with the lighter and placed the filter end to his lips. “The school would do me a big favor if they team me up with someone quieter for a change.” he adds smugly as he blows a puff of smoke from his lips and replaces the lighter on his pocket.
But the bird is gone. Sitting in its place is another young man wearing a yellow bandanna on his forehead and a nasty grin on his face. Unlike Albert Stine, this man is shorter with black tattoos spreading across his well – muscled arms. He is wearing an assassin's sleeveless, leather jacket and lying on the scabbard at his back is a long thin blade with a raven's head carved at the end of the handle.
“You know with that attitude of yours, it never puzzles me why you never had a girlfriend.” The man on the roof said as he rolls his eyes at his colleague below, smirking.
In an instant,Stine disappears from the ground and,in a blink of an eye, is standing at the back of his companion, a smile forming on his lips as he blew another puff of smoke.
"And with an attitude like yours, it never surprises me why your dear old father calls you “Cawie” in front of everybody. I can't blame him, can I? Felix Cross,” Albert said coolly as the man named Felix Cross scratches the back of his head thickly.
Meanwhile the bell strikes its thirteenth toll. The right moment finally arrives.
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