Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Caranhall
- Thread starter Ronin
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as written by Ronin
Adam Matoi, chief inspector of the Caranhall Police Department, pulled his Flint up to the perimeter surrounding Arodring Orphanage. He gathered the edges of his trenchcoat in his small, waifish hands and stepped out into the rapidly-chilling evening air. Precinct hubs surrounded the daunting building in a haphazard circle, lights flashing red and blue against the setting autumn sun. Twenty-two officers stood nervously behind wood-chipped barriers, cradling rifles and scratching uncomfortably at the body armor strapped to their chests. Matoi suppressed a sigh. He had pushed the chief for years to integrate riot drills and paranormal suppression as part of basic training. He'd been denied every time. Unnecessary, his superior had huffed, a waste of time and money. Nothing like that happens in Caranhall. This is a good place - safer than Lutetia itself.
Guess again, chief.
"What are we looking at, Johns?" Matoi approached the line, thumbing his glasses off his nose and cleaning them with the fabric of his coat. "The dispatch was impressively nondescript."
One of the officers nodded at the approaching detective, a bit pale in the face. "We got the call from inside a couple hours ago - from the staff. Screaming and crying. Disconnect." He scratched at the stubble lining his throat. "Jenkins and Pauls were first responders - went in. Haven't heard from them since. We sent a five-man team in thirty minutes ago and lost connection as soon as they got through the lobby." He swallowed the dryness in his throat. "Chief put a call out to you after that. Sent a distress signal to the Monastic Order too."
"Hm," Matoi shook his head, "wouldn't count on them responding. Can't remember the last time we've had a paladin in here." He adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the orphanage. The sun was setting behind it, casting the ancient mansion's ugly shadow over the line of officers arrayed against its doors. "All attempts to reach our officers and the staff have failed?"
"The phone doesn't even ring," Johns replied, "our radios are static."
"Alright," Matoi straightened his coat, "we're going in. Ten man team. I'll lead. I want a launching-point set up inside the lobby and constant feedback from our comms - no more MIA shit. I need a map of the orphanage." He stepped around a barrier. "Once we clear the ground floor, we'll have a second team-"
The orphanage doors burst open. Every man turned, rifles clacking into position. A man stood at the threshold in the colors of his precinct, his right arm hanging from his shoulder by a strand of stringy muscle. His body armor had been clawed into at the stomach and his organs trailed behind him like tuberous streamers. He took one step outside the orphanage, vomited, and collapsed.
"Selene preserve us..." Johns gasped, "...that was Randal. He led the team inside."
"Get him," Matoi gestured at two cops standing near the doors. They hesitated, peering fearfully up at the windows of the building. Matoi's voice cracked like a whip. "Move, you cowards!"
They rushed forward, kneeling at the side of their fallen comrade. One of them put a hand to his neck. "He's dead!"
The inspector cursed beneath his breath. The situation had changed. Leading a team inside would be almost impossible; these were beat cops, town militia, not soldiers. Whatever evil was lurking inside that orphanage, Caranhall was not equipped to face it.
"Sir?" Johns brows were knit, his knuckles white around his rifle, "sir, what do we do?"
Matoi looked up. No words, no plan came to him. He opened to say something, anything, when his radio squawked on his belt.
"Inspector Matoi, this is dispatch, come in."
He drew a breath and snapped up his comm. "Matoi here. I need the chief. We need every available man sent to Arodring for-"
"You've got every man there with you now, inspector-"
"Then pull from the other towns," he growled, "we've got six men missing, one man dead. Looks like something ripped out his goddamn abdomen."
"Inspector-"
"We need men, you hear me? Men and firepower. We're not outfitted to deal with this-"
"Inspector!" the dispatch flared, "inspector, we've just heard back from the Monastic Order. They're sending support. Five minutes."
Silence. The words soaked into the detective's brain with unusual slowness.
Johns cleared his throat. "S-sir?"
Matio looked back.
"What do we do, sir?"
The inspector glanced up at the building. Randal's body had been moved and a stream of blood painted the steps leading into its maw. He gruffed. "We wait for a paladin."
Adam Matoi, chief inspector of the Caranhall Police Department, pulled his Flint up to the perimeter surrounding Arodring Orphanage. He gathered the edges of his trenchcoat in his small, waifish hands and stepped out into the rapidly-chilling evening air. Precinct hubs surrounded the daunting building in a haphazard circle, lights flashing red and blue against the setting autumn sun. Twenty-two officers stood nervously behind wood-chipped barriers, cradling rifles and scratching uncomfortably at the body armor strapped to their chests. Matoi suppressed a sigh. He had pushed the chief for years to integrate riot drills and paranormal suppression as part of basic training. He'd been denied every time. Unnecessary, his superior had huffed, a waste of time and money. Nothing like that happens in Caranhall. This is a good place - safer than Lutetia itself.
Guess again, chief.
"What are we looking at, Johns?" Matoi approached the line, thumbing his glasses off his nose and cleaning them with the fabric of his coat. "The dispatch was impressively nondescript."
One of the officers nodded at the approaching detective, a bit pale in the face. "We got the call from inside a couple hours ago - from the staff. Screaming and crying. Disconnect." He scratched at the stubble lining his throat. "Jenkins and Pauls were first responders - went in. Haven't heard from them since. We sent a five-man team in thirty minutes ago and lost connection as soon as they got through the lobby." He swallowed the dryness in his throat. "Chief put a call out to you after that. Sent a distress signal to the Monastic Order too."
"Hm," Matoi shook his head, "wouldn't count on them responding. Can't remember the last time we've had a paladin in here." He adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the orphanage. The sun was setting behind it, casting the ancient mansion's ugly shadow over the line of officers arrayed against its doors. "All attempts to reach our officers and the staff have failed?"
"The phone doesn't even ring," Johns replied, "our radios are static."
"Alright," Matoi straightened his coat, "we're going in. Ten man team. I'll lead. I want a launching-point set up inside the lobby and constant feedback from our comms - no more MIA shit. I need a map of the orphanage." He stepped around a barrier. "Once we clear the ground floor, we'll have a second team-"
The orphanage doors burst open. Every man turned, rifles clacking into position. A man stood at the threshold in the colors of his precinct, his right arm hanging from his shoulder by a strand of stringy muscle. His body armor had been clawed into at the stomach and his organs trailed behind him like tuberous streamers. He took one step outside the orphanage, vomited, and collapsed.
"Selene preserve us..." Johns gasped, "...that was Randal. He led the team inside."
"Get him," Matoi gestured at two cops standing near the doors. They hesitated, peering fearfully up at the windows of the building. Matoi's voice cracked like a whip. "Move, you cowards!"
They rushed forward, kneeling at the side of their fallen comrade. One of them put a hand to his neck. "He's dead!"
The inspector cursed beneath his breath. The situation had changed. Leading a team inside would be almost impossible; these were beat cops, town militia, not soldiers. Whatever evil was lurking inside that orphanage, Caranhall was not equipped to face it.
"Sir?" Johns brows were knit, his knuckles white around his rifle, "sir, what do we do?"
Matoi looked up. No words, no plan came to him. He opened to say something, anything, when his radio squawked on his belt.
"Inspector Matoi, this is dispatch, come in."
He drew a breath and snapped up his comm. "Matoi here. I need the chief. We need every available man sent to Arodring for-"
"You've got every man there with you now, inspector-"
"Then pull from the other towns," he growled, "we've got six men missing, one man dead. Looks like something ripped out his goddamn abdomen."
"Inspector-"
"We need men, you hear me? Men and firepower. We're not outfitted to deal with this-"
"Inspector!" the dispatch flared, "inspector, we've just heard back from the Monastic Order. They're sending support. Five minutes."
Silence. The words soaked into the detective's brain with unusual slowness.
Johns cleared his throat. "S-sir?"
Matio looked back.
"What do we do, sir?"
The inspector glanced up at the building. Randal's body had been moved and a stream of blood painted the steps leading into its maw. He gruffed. "We wait for a paladin."
as written by Ottoman
It was nothing less than duty in the Iverian's mind to match the instructions given to her, if not exceed them, and navigated the outlying roads and curves of the countryside's byways as well as her steed would allow. A swift reaction could mean the difference between a simple containment or another massacre, and after the Nuvellon Estate it seemed that her superiors didn't dare to risk another embarrassment.
But what was an embarrassment to more political sorts was a genuine travesty to one such as Aislin, having known and still knowing the people of the city as she did - certainly she was criticized, the subject of cruel prods and genuine scrutiny, for her leniency on the streets by her peers, but in a case like this... There was simply no room for mercy, and no room for delay.
The rumbling engine of her Destrier continued to thrum as she gradually nursed the brake, coming upon this now-miserable place, the haphazard blockade but a few feet away as the motorcycle crawled to a stop. Flitting eyes inspected the building, their owner still astride the vehicle, falling soon enough on the grisly crimson trail that led away from the front steps. With a reflexive motion the knight pushed the kickstand into place, sliding from her mount easily enough, the vehicle soon silent.
"... I was told to report to an inspector Matoi." She spoke, her voice somewhere between a genuine inquiry and a request, the paladin not quite certain which path to take. "There have been casualties?"
It was nothing less than duty in the Iverian's mind to match the instructions given to her, if not exceed them, and navigated the outlying roads and curves of the countryside's byways as well as her steed would allow. A swift reaction could mean the difference between a simple containment or another massacre, and after the Nuvellon Estate it seemed that her superiors didn't dare to risk another embarrassment.
But what was an embarrassment to more political sorts was a genuine travesty to one such as Aislin, having known and still knowing the people of the city as she did - certainly she was criticized, the subject of cruel prods and genuine scrutiny, for her leniency on the streets by her peers, but in a case like this... There was simply no room for mercy, and no room for delay.
The rumbling engine of her Destrier continued to thrum as she gradually nursed the brake, coming upon this now-miserable place, the haphazard blockade but a few feet away as the motorcycle crawled to a stop. Flitting eyes inspected the building, their owner still astride the vehicle, falling soon enough on the grisly crimson trail that led away from the front steps. With a reflexive motion the knight pushed the kickstand into place, sliding from her mount easily enough, the vehicle soon silent.
"... I was told to report to an inspector Matoi." She spoke, her voice somewhere between a genuine inquiry and a request, the paladin not quite certain which path to take. "There have been casualties?"
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
A pensive hush fell over the officers as Aislin's Destrier grumbled through the town and bore up to their perimeter. While a church knight was not as uncommon in a larger outlyer like Caranhall, the presence of the Monastic Order anywhere outside of Lutetia general was always a rarity. They watched as the armor-clad figure dismounted her bike, eyebrows raising at the alto of her voice. Not just a knight. A dame. Most of those presence watched Aislin with an almost religious focus, eyes flitting between the sword sheathed at her hip, the plates of interlocking steel covering her frame, the massive lawkeeper holstered to her side. What breed of lawman was this? What miracle would she provide to resolve this tragedy?
To his credit, Matoi kept his composure. "I'm Matoi." He offered his hand to the approaching woman. "It's good to have you. We weren't sure how to proceed." He looked to his fellow officer. "Johns, let down the police line for the paladin."
Johns gaped at Aislin.
Matoi snapped his fingers in his face. "Johns! Look alive, man."
The officer startled. He blinked at his superior. "Sir?"
The inspector growled. "Let the police line down for the paladin. Now."
"Yes. Right away." He cleared his throat, swiftly unclipping the rope barrier from one end of a support and moving out of the way so that Aislin could step through.
The inspector gestured for her to follow. They advanced towards the orphanage, entering into its daunting shadow. "I'm not sure how much you've been briefed. Yes, there have been casualties. One confirmed. Six more missing. There are over seventy kids in that building, along with nearly thirty staff. We haven't had contact with any of them since they called out for help some while back." He shook his head. "The only man that's made it out is dead. Mauled, by the looks of it." He waited to see if she had any questions.
As Matoi identified himself Aislin moved a gloved hand to the helm she wore, a finger hooking itself upon it and soon revealing her face to the man, figuring that it was only proper. Firm was her grip, the handshake genuine as she introduced herself, doing her best to keep it brief. "Paladin Lughadh." Without thought the hand fell to the hilt of her blade, her fingers wrapping about it as they brushed past the pommel, moving to accompany the the inspector once he had beckoned her to come along.
Already the woman felt a pit of sorts form in her breast, to hear that so many were missing under the circumstances. "The mauled man - was he part of the staff?" She asked, glancing to the blood that now stained the entrance of the manor, figuring that was his if he were the only one confirmed dead. None of it sat well with her, but such went without saying - to bear witness, even if only afterwards, to the carnage at the Nuvellon Estate and then to be confronted with this so soon...
But already it didn't seem to fit the same pattern. There didn't seem to be any overt demonstration of force her - if anything this creature, this monster, was playing defensively. It seemed inclined to stay where it had the advantage, and were it that it was the same thing that had ravaged the Nuvellon Manor then this paltry blockade of policemen wouldn't prove too much of a challenge.
"... was there anything peculiar about the call? Anying of note that they reported?"
"One of ours," Matoi replied grimly, "Eden Randal. A good man. Brave man." He gruffed quiet approval - the highest praise of the dead in five curt words. "The dispatch wasn't much, as I understand. I can let you listen to it-"
"Precinct car inbound!" A voice went up from the officers.
Matoi turned, brows furrowing. His shoulder slumped as he caught sight of the approaching vehicle - a large black Flint, almost a limo, with a police light shoehorned to its hood.
"It's the chief." He did not sound thrilled. "Probably here on your account, Dame Lughadh." He straightened his coat. "I apologize in advance. This will only delay things."
The car pulled up to the perimeter and stopped at the very edge of the line. From it emerged two officers who swiftly rounded to help out a large, bull-faced man with a broomswept mustache. A sheen of sweat glazed his puffy red cheeks, his loosened tie slumped against the outward hill of his gut. He charged down the crime scene in a swift, lumbering march, all troops quickly making way - save the two officers acting as his escort. One of them was a young woman. She was, curiously, weaponless.
"Is this the paladin?" he barked, seeming to address Matoi first. His hard grey eyes found Aislin's, caterpillar brows raising as he noticed the distinctly feminine curve of her cheeks.
"You..." his voice was a rough, demanding whipcrack. Even laced in the confusion of his question, it resonated with firm command. "...you're the knight the Order sent?"
So they had already sent men inside, and this was the result. The woman paid a glance to the building, the foreboding aura that seemed to slough off of it only furthering her mind in its venture. Whatever it was in there, it wasn't stupid. If anything it seemed to be capable enough, crafty enough to line itself up such a vulnerable target and a nasty redoubt in the case of retribution. It would not be an easy fight.
But Aislin was cut of a different bolt than most - show her a fortress, and she would show you a ruin. She chalked it up to her heritage.
The cry from nearby drew her gaze, swift and intense, her grip tightening on her weapon before her mind registered the words. Another car, then - but wasn't the blockade enough already? Matoi's words clarified the matter, the Paladin's grip loosening as it dawned on her that this might prove some sort of spectacle. This, she was convinced, was one of the reasons why they hardly ever came out here.
The people were far more concerned with seeing them instead of having them remedy the situation.
Lughadh remained where she stood, her stance firm but not proud, hands resting openly on her weapon as the local boss approached. Her green eyes looked him over, analyzing the man as much as she'd bother to, before she locked gazes with him. Boss was the appropriate term, she decided, considering his tone.
"Yes sir, I am the knight the Order sent." Came her reply, her words devoid of color this way or that. The sooner she was inside of this building the better. "Is there a problem?"
"Hm," the chief looked at her carefully. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He shook his head. "No. No, it's fine. This will do." His eyes flashed to Matoi. "Adam, have you debriefed her?"
"I was just-"
"I hope you understand how much is resting on your actions here," he turned back to Lughadh, eyes flashing, "this is Caranhall, goddammit. Do you know when the last time is that we had something like..." He fought for the right word, speechless for a few seconds, before finally throwing his arms in the general direction of the orphanage. "...something like this?" He nearly snarled through his teeth. "Never. Not once. Caranhall is a safe place. I intend to keep it that way. Which means we need to resolve this quickly and efficiently." He jammed a sausage finger towards the front door. "Whatever is inside there, whatever's causing this mess, needs to be killed. Destroyed. Wiped off the face of Eleue's good earth." He huffed. The redness in his cheeks had spread to the rest of his face, and he took a few curt breaths as he centered himself.
"Are we in agreement, paladin?" he eyed her almost suspiciously.
Aislin remained as she was for the length of his tirade, letting the man voice his opinions and concerns as he so desired. She supposed it was his prerogative, though she would rather he defer to the matter at hand than state the obvious. Regardless of how obvious it may have been, she was nothing if not in the same camp. "Given the chance, sir, I will make Caranhall a safe place once again." Quickly, if she could help it, and efficiently, if God was willing.
"But I must finish my debriefing before I can form any kind of plan. Mister Matoi was just mentioning the initial call." Something which might temper her reaction heavily, depending on what could have been reported. A brief glance was paid to the inspector before it returned to the chief, her own visage absent of the sort of bias that the other man wore - though it wasn't an effortless facade.
"If I may?"
"What, you haven't shown her the dispatch yet, Adam?" the chief glared at the inspector.
"We hadn't-"
"Bring up a radio, Miranda," he nodded to the woman at his side. She nodded once, looked at Aislin, then hurried back to the car. The chief folded his arms over his barrelled chest. "I listened to it myself on the way over. Nothing to steady the nerves, that's for sure. Hopefully you can get more out of it than we have."
Miranda returned with a large wireless police dispatch radio. She put it on a nearby barrier. "This was the call we got two hours ago from this location." She pushed a button, the speakers hazing.
---
"Hello? Hello?" the voice was masculine and hurried. Static soaked the call and warbled much of what was said. A young voice wept in the background, her sobs broken only by the fragments of prayers.
"Listen, we need police at the orphanage," the man breathed heavily, "I don't know what's happened. I've locked myself in the library with one of the children. We need help."
"...what harm shall come against me?" the little girl's voice just barely cut in through the static. "What you have made-"
The dispatcher squawked back. "Alright, stay calm. Units are en route. Can you tell me what's going on?"
"I don't know, goddamit. Things just started moving. Furniture. The clock. Everything is possessed. I've seen a child running around that doesn't even go here. We just need help. Please help us."
"...and we will walk in the light, and you shall-"
"Help is on the way. Are you in any sort of danger at this moment?"
"I." The man swallowed. "I don't think so. Nothing's attacked us so far, except for the... I don't know. It was black. It chased us. That's why we're here-"
"-and the Wyrm shall fester in the void-"
Three curt drumbeats.
The man shouted. "No, NO! Don't open the d-"
Then, static.
--
Miranda clicked the radio off. "After that, the transmission ends."
Even the chief was silent. All present officers thumbed uncomfortably at their weapons, shuffling their feet. The cold was setting in and puffs of breath fogged out of their mouths.
Matoi looked to Miranda. "You know about as much as we do now." He nodded. "How do we proceed?"
The static hung in the air as the last, harried words came forth from the speaker, leaving those gathered in some semblance of respectful silence. The heed that Aislin paid the dead was tinged with concern, her objective ears doing their best to pick details out from the call. Inanimate objects moving, a black form. Fragments, at best, to help guide her hand, to choose what to take with her into the nightmare that the orphanage had become.
"I would advise that you maintain this perimeter, Mr. Matoi." Lughadh spoke, looking up from the radio which her eyes had been boring into. "Do not let anything out of it without me. Whatever comes out of that place cannot be trusted." Already her mind was working on some way to prove, once she emerged from the building herself, that she was still the paladin that had entered. There was something dark here, and the facet of the call that perturbed her the most lingered in her mind.
'I've seen a child running around that doesn't even go here.'
"Am I understood?" She inquired, hoping to solidify that point with both the inspector and the chief. A brief glance shot to the building nearby, the paladin lingering on the sight as she pondered her course of action.
"May I see your casualty?"
Matoi nodded. The chief crossed his arms and gruffed - the closest he could come to affirmation.
"The body is this way," Miranda gestured towards a nearby ambulence. A gurney stood by its rear entrance, laden with a heavy lump of something covered with a black tarp.
"Paladin," the chief stepped into stride along Aislin, "you said not to let anything out without you. How are my men supposed to go in and out of the orphanage? You can't accompany them all."
The armored figure began to move to the ambulance, eyes fixed on the covered remains of the officer as the chief began to speak. It had crossed her mind as well, though the solution was something she had settled on easily enough. "Once I'm done, God willing, anyone will be free to go in and out of the place as they please." But until that time she, and as far as her authority was concerned, and she alone had the capability to trespass there.
If the Iverian could help it, no more innocents would perish today.
"... once I've cleared the matter, once the taint is removed, sir, your men can do what needs to be done." Her heart panged, faintly, at the thought of the bodies, of the children. That was, of course, if any bodies remained.
They arrived at the corpse. Matoi nodded to the paramedics who reached down to the bottom of the gurney and removed the tarp.
The body before her was mutilated and disfigured. He was dressed in the colors of his precinct, a vest strapped to his chest and torn open at the middle where his organs had been stuffed back inside the tear in his abdomen. His right arm rested on the gurney near his calf, attached to his arm by a gooey strand of flesh. His face was cut and bloodied, his nose broken, his eyes glazed. The pistol was gone from the holster at his side and the scent of gunpowder rose from his clothes and mingled with the reek of gore. The tears in his stomach were haphazard, but precise - ripped through as if from a sharp weapon.
Meanwhile, the gears in the chief's head were still turning. "Paladin are you... are you proposing that you go in there alone?"
The knight moved to the gurney and looked to the body with as much interest as something like that can draw, professionally. Before her were clues, hints, at what it was that she might be facing inside, and it was something that she had every intention of paying heed, at least when the chief wasn't speaking. What irritation that the man might have paid Aislin didn't show in the slightest, the woman having had years of practice in her field, having dealt with individuals far more unpleasant than the man near her before.
"With all due respect, sir, it isn't a proposal." It was her intention, as it had from the moment she heard all of those they had sent in were missing, or, in this poor sod's case, dead. "I won't have any more of your men die, especially not on my account." She was here to cleanse this place of evil, not spread it by proxy to the wives and mothers of Caranhall's policemen.
With that she turned her eyes back to the body, paying particular heed to the man's abdominal wounds, leaning over the corpse as she looked it over. Armored fingers reached in to examine his vest in particular, looking to the fabric at the cut, rubbing it between her fingers. The consistency was off, but the aim was true, and the cut was clean on his field gear - this looked to be the work of a weapon, not a claw, nail or tooth.
"That's..." the chief spat, cheeks glowing red, "...that's preposterous! I have over thirty men on this scene, armed! I expected you to lead the second recon group, not charge in on your own and face Eleue-knows-what by your goddamn self!"
Despite the chief's rage, the surrounding officers noticeably relaxed as Aislin announced her intentions to enter by herself. Whatever their superior thought, they were NOT equipped to handle the monsters lurking in the orphanage.
The corpse's dismembered arm, unlike his stomach, had no such precision. The wrist was severely bruised - dented, even, to the bone. A gruesome rend began at the lower deltoid and stretched down in a bloody rend to where it separated entirely. The bulb of the humerus shone white beneath the gore, completely detached from the socket.
Interrupted again, this time all the more violently, from her study of the casualty before her, Lughadh looked to the chief again, letting him finish before moving to reply on her own. Reaching back to stand at her full height away from the gurney, the paladin let his bluster fade into the air for a moment before she offered a calm retort. "Is this because I'm not a police officer, chief?" The alternative was left unspoken, the woman moving to close the distance between herself and the chief. "It's not an incorrect thought, I'm not, not truly. I'm a soldier. I'm not half as trained in police work as I am learned in the arts of war."
Her eyes narrowed, her brow arched. "And even a novice would know, especially after what happened earlier, that it has the distinct advantage here." It was simple urban combat, the foe had one of the best defensive positions it could ask for - a confined space, with corridors and bottlenecks aplenty, and nooks and crannies that it knew, and the officers wouldn't. It was a killbox, and it was such regardless of whether men or monsters held it.
"Instead doing this beast a favor, I would advise you pride yourself on sending over thirty men home to their families tonight." These sorts of men were half of the reason they were in the predicament they found themselves in, with well over half the city lost to dregs and demons. The air hung silent for a moment or two before the knight let out a sigh, visage softening as she inquired, professional once more.
"... now, if I may study the deceased, in peace? What I learn here may be the key to victory."
The chief listened to her explanation, a bit of the red leaving his face as Aislin not only retorted his plan, but did so with reasoned calm. Her words cut him to silence, and as she turned back towards the corpse, he searched desperately for some retort to assuage his wounded pride. His mouth opened to speak...
...but shut, slowly, as he suddenly became of the dozens of eyes that were glaring at him from every direction. The paladin had just promised that no one else need risk death besides her. The chief would never again have the respect of his department if he gambled the lives of his men against such a plan.
"Hrmm." He grumbled. "Fine. Do it your way, dame." He huffed off towards his car, followed by the two other officers.
Matoi cracked a grin. "Never seen him speechless before." He shook his head. "You speak well, paladin. I hope your blade is as sharp as your wit." The detective gestured to the body. Back to business. "What do you think did this? Any monster you know of?"
The woman was pleased with herself as the chief chose to withdraw instead of continue this otherwise pointless discourse. I will, the knight thought, thank you, sir. Eyes moved to the arm that had so narrowly eluded her observation earlier, furrowing her brow as she looked it over. It was a curious wound, one that caused her some pause as she considered just what it meant she could expect in her opponent, or opponents.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Matoi, though it was a pleasant sort of thing, far more so than the chief's bravado - one that hid behind ranks of officers. Aislin smiled, looking up to the inspector as she gently held the partially-dismembered arm in her hands. "I have that effect on some men, I'm told." She jested, allowing herself a moment of pride for trouncing the man. But back to business indeed, the paladin looking back to the arm, gesturing to the wound that the man had suffered at the join of arm and shoulder.
"Nothing tell-tale yet, I fear, though this is quite an indication of strength." Flesh, and likely bone too Aislin would wager, were crushed, if not entirely rended from the body. "Though, oddly, what this man bears on his chest looks more like a weapon." And that did make Aislin wonder - what use would a creature strong enough to practically rip a man's arm from its socket have with a weapon, what looked to be a blade of some sort?
Perhaps even more curious was that the wound on the man's arm seemed to come from underneath, from below, an odd angle for something with that degree of power. That was assuming it was humanoid, of course, and the size of a man.
"I see," Matoi winced at the wound, but nodded, eyes trailing the disfigurement. It looked as if it'd been ripped from the socket by brute force. "Light preserve us. Whatever did this is in there with the children..." He looked up at the orphanage doors, brows knitting fearfully. Were any of them even alive?
"Do you need any weapons, paladin?" he asked, "we can't offer you much, but we have ammunition. Pistols, slug rifles and shotguns." He drew a breath. "I hope they will be useful against a monster of this strength."
"Assume, inspector, that all of the children are dead." It was better not to let their fate, or the potential of such, cloud their minds when the moment of decision came. Were it that they were all dead, then there was no room for disappointment, and were it that any were alive, the situation was all the better than they had assumed. "It makes things easier." Simpler would have been a better choice of words.
At that she turned from the body, looking towards Matoi. "I do appreciate the offer, Inspector, I hope they will too, but they are your weapons, not mine." She was not trained with them as they were, and if she had done her duty and these men still had to engage this monster, then perhaps they might still vanquish it.
"If you will excuse me for a few moments, Inspector. I must see to my own arms." With that and a slight bow of her head, she turned and rounded off to the Destrier she had arrived on, making it there in good time. She ignored the Rosary she kept in her steed's holster - the confined space would not be kind to her trusted rifle - and instead her hands immediately reached for her Lawkeeper's ammunition, the bulky pistol soon handing from her hip.
What she had seen so far gave the woman little reason to believe that standard ball or silver ammunition would have much effect, trading both magazines to double up on consecrated jacket, the shock magazine also exchanged for a secondary stock of explosive slugs. The woman didn't want to demolish the place, though that might be a kinder fate for the future orphans of Caranhall than to live in a place haunted by such a past.
Always cautious, the Iverian Paladin reached for two spare magazines of the consecrated rounds, electing not to carry any more explosives in with her. Were it that this and her blade didn't fell whatever evil lurked in those halls, then it would take more than a single paladin here to cleanse it.
"Matoi," The woman called, loading and cycling her Lawkeeper, making sure the weapon was functioning properly before she entered the proverbial lion's den. "Come here, if you might." She had one last matter to discuss with the inspector.
The inspector hurried over. The sun had nearly set, the black-blue of the night slowly eating away at the receeding horizon.
"Paladin?"
"Come close," She spoke, voice lowering significantly once he was near enough, making sure her back was turned to the home as she conversed with the officer. "I have a hunch, of sorts, of what I might be facing inside." Aislin was practically whispering, not wanting her words to carry in the slightest. There was good reason for such caution, in the knight's mind.
"Whatever it is, I believe it may be a shapeshifter, something elusive and cowardly." Something that would use the powers of deceit to its advantage, were it that it had the chance. "Hence why you trust nothing that comes out of that manor without me, and why we have to establish some means of proving my nature." A sign, a code, or gesture. It didn't matter to her, as long as it was something they could decide on and pull off without doing now, in sight of the place.
"Suggestions?" She asked, glancing to him, eyes showing little worry. What worry she had, what small pang of fear she felt, was if she was confronted with a child, a legitimate child, and she couldn't tell. That was part of her oath, wasn't it? To sacrifice, perchance to sin, that another might not have to? "Don't do it, I don't want to risk prying eyes catching sight of such."
Matoi blinked, his fear of the unknown beast lurking in the orphanage briefly intensifying. A shapeshifter? Dear God. How had this happened in a place like Caranhall?
Pushing aside his fears, the inspector nodded. She was right. They needed to be smart about this. What signal could she give that would ensure the safety of the town?
"Your silver," he said at last, his voice, "the necklace paladins wear." Consecrated steel. Anyone - or anything - not attuned to the metal's frequency burned at its touch. "When you exit, remove it and hold it aloft for me to see." He nodded. "A monster could not hold it, or if it could, would not think to remove it after leaving the orphanage." He swallowed. "I will. Ah. Have my men hold the perimeter. We won't put our guns down unless you give that signal." His jaw grit. "If you don't, we'll open fire on it and whoever is with it."
The Paladin nodded as well, confirmed such a thought. It was a good one, and Matoi was more learned than most in the city assumed the outliers and countryfolk to be - that, or the legends and practices of her Order spread far and wide. "Excellent, Inspector. I would do no less in your position. Keep your men ready - if it comes to that, it's the only chance you'll have." The only one she would wager on, at least.
With that she smiled, the brief, curt sort of smile that one pays in the face of something unpleasant. "Now, to my duty." The Paladin turned, looking to the manor one final time before lowering the faceplate of her helm, returning herself to the faceless avatar of her Order.
With measured pace she crossed the distance in front of the manor, passing through the perimeter and coming to the steps, taking care to avoid the blood that had stained them and the doorway from the deceased officer, and without any pomp or ceremony, Aislin slipped inside the orphanage.
The men straightened up as she passed, perhaps surprised at the suddenness of her entrance. They watched silently as the armored knight strode the bloodstained steps of the orphanage, pushed against the large oakwood doors ... and disappeared into the darkness. Arodring had swallowed her whole.
Silence took them. The chief watched from the confines of his car with a low snarl. Matoi walked back to his post near the perimeter. He fished for a cigarette in his coat.
"What ah-..." Johns approached, thumb resting uncomfortably on the safety of his rifle. "...what is the plan then, sir?"
The inspector fitted the stick to his lips and brought his lighter up to the nub. His hands shook only slightly as the tobacco took flame. "We hold our position and wait for her to come back."
Johns drew a breath. "And... if she doesn't?"
Matoi took a deep drag, smoke steaming out of his nostrils. He didn't answer.
A pensive hush fell over the officers as Aislin's Destrier grumbled through the town and bore up to their perimeter. While a church knight was not as uncommon in a larger outlyer like Caranhall, the presence of the Monastic Order anywhere outside of Lutetia general was always a rarity. They watched as the armor-clad figure dismounted her bike, eyebrows raising at the alto of her voice. Not just a knight. A dame. Most of those presence watched Aislin with an almost religious focus, eyes flitting between the sword sheathed at her hip, the plates of interlocking steel covering her frame, the massive lawkeeper holstered to her side. What breed of lawman was this? What miracle would she provide to resolve this tragedy?
To his credit, Matoi kept his composure. "I'm Matoi." He offered his hand to the approaching woman. "It's good to have you. We weren't sure how to proceed." He looked to his fellow officer. "Johns, let down the police line for the paladin."
Johns gaped at Aislin.
Matoi snapped his fingers in his face. "Johns! Look alive, man."
The officer startled. He blinked at his superior. "Sir?"
The inspector growled. "Let the police line down for the paladin. Now."
"Yes. Right away." He cleared his throat, swiftly unclipping the rope barrier from one end of a support and moving out of the way so that Aislin could step through.
The inspector gestured for her to follow. They advanced towards the orphanage, entering into its daunting shadow. "I'm not sure how much you've been briefed. Yes, there have been casualties. One confirmed. Six more missing. There are over seventy kids in that building, along with nearly thirty staff. We haven't had contact with any of them since they called out for help some while back." He shook his head. "The only man that's made it out is dead. Mauled, by the looks of it." He waited to see if she had any questions.
As Matoi identified himself Aislin moved a gloved hand to the helm she wore, a finger hooking itself upon it and soon revealing her face to the man, figuring that it was only proper. Firm was her grip, the handshake genuine as she introduced herself, doing her best to keep it brief. "Paladin Lughadh." Without thought the hand fell to the hilt of her blade, her fingers wrapping about it as they brushed past the pommel, moving to accompany the the inspector once he had beckoned her to come along.
Already the woman felt a pit of sorts form in her breast, to hear that so many were missing under the circumstances. "The mauled man - was he part of the staff?" She asked, glancing to the blood that now stained the entrance of the manor, figuring that was his if he were the only one confirmed dead. None of it sat well with her, but such went without saying - to bear witness, even if only afterwards, to the carnage at the Nuvellon Estate and then to be confronted with this so soon...
But already it didn't seem to fit the same pattern. There didn't seem to be any overt demonstration of force her - if anything this creature, this monster, was playing defensively. It seemed inclined to stay where it had the advantage, and were it that it was the same thing that had ravaged the Nuvellon Manor then this paltry blockade of policemen wouldn't prove too much of a challenge.
"... was there anything peculiar about the call? Anying of note that they reported?"
"One of ours," Matoi replied grimly, "Eden Randal. A good man. Brave man." He gruffed quiet approval - the highest praise of the dead in five curt words. "The dispatch wasn't much, as I understand. I can let you listen to it-"
"Precinct car inbound!" A voice went up from the officers.
Matoi turned, brows furrowing. His shoulder slumped as he caught sight of the approaching vehicle - a large black Flint, almost a limo, with a police light shoehorned to its hood.
"It's the chief." He did not sound thrilled. "Probably here on your account, Dame Lughadh." He straightened his coat. "I apologize in advance. This will only delay things."
The car pulled up to the perimeter and stopped at the very edge of the line. From it emerged two officers who swiftly rounded to help out a large, bull-faced man with a broomswept mustache. A sheen of sweat glazed his puffy red cheeks, his loosened tie slumped against the outward hill of his gut. He charged down the crime scene in a swift, lumbering march, all troops quickly making way - save the two officers acting as his escort. One of them was a young woman. She was, curiously, weaponless.
"Is this the paladin?" he barked, seeming to address Matoi first. His hard grey eyes found Aislin's, caterpillar brows raising as he noticed the distinctly feminine curve of her cheeks.
"You..." his voice was a rough, demanding whipcrack. Even laced in the confusion of his question, it resonated with firm command. "...you're the knight the Order sent?"
So they had already sent men inside, and this was the result. The woman paid a glance to the building, the foreboding aura that seemed to slough off of it only furthering her mind in its venture. Whatever it was in there, it wasn't stupid. If anything it seemed to be capable enough, crafty enough to line itself up such a vulnerable target and a nasty redoubt in the case of retribution. It would not be an easy fight.
But Aislin was cut of a different bolt than most - show her a fortress, and she would show you a ruin. She chalked it up to her heritage.
The cry from nearby drew her gaze, swift and intense, her grip tightening on her weapon before her mind registered the words. Another car, then - but wasn't the blockade enough already? Matoi's words clarified the matter, the Paladin's grip loosening as it dawned on her that this might prove some sort of spectacle. This, she was convinced, was one of the reasons why they hardly ever came out here.
The people were far more concerned with seeing them instead of having them remedy the situation.
Lughadh remained where she stood, her stance firm but not proud, hands resting openly on her weapon as the local boss approached. Her green eyes looked him over, analyzing the man as much as she'd bother to, before she locked gazes with him. Boss was the appropriate term, she decided, considering his tone.
"Yes sir, I am the knight the Order sent." Came her reply, her words devoid of color this way or that. The sooner she was inside of this building the better. "Is there a problem?"
"Hm," the chief looked at her carefully. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He shook his head. "No. No, it's fine. This will do." His eyes flashed to Matoi. "Adam, have you debriefed her?"
"I was just-"
"I hope you understand how much is resting on your actions here," he turned back to Lughadh, eyes flashing, "this is Caranhall, goddammit. Do you know when the last time is that we had something like..." He fought for the right word, speechless for a few seconds, before finally throwing his arms in the general direction of the orphanage. "...something like this?" He nearly snarled through his teeth. "Never. Not once. Caranhall is a safe place. I intend to keep it that way. Which means we need to resolve this quickly and efficiently." He jammed a sausage finger towards the front door. "Whatever is inside there, whatever's causing this mess, needs to be killed. Destroyed. Wiped off the face of Eleue's good earth." He huffed. The redness in his cheeks had spread to the rest of his face, and he took a few curt breaths as he centered himself.
"Are we in agreement, paladin?" he eyed her almost suspiciously.
Aislin remained as she was for the length of his tirade, letting the man voice his opinions and concerns as he so desired. She supposed it was his prerogative, though she would rather he defer to the matter at hand than state the obvious. Regardless of how obvious it may have been, she was nothing if not in the same camp. "Given the chance, sir, I will make Caranhall a safe place once again." Quickly, if she could help it, and efficiently, if God was willing.
"But I must finish my debriefing before I can form any kind of plan. Mister Matoi was just mentioning the initial call." Something which might temper her reaction heavily, depending on what could have been reported. A brief glance was paid to the inspector before it returned to the chief, her own visage absent of the sort of bias that the other man wore - though it wasn't an effortless facade.
"If I may?"
"What, you haven't shown her the dispatch yet, Adam?" the chief glared at the inspector.
"We hadn't-"
"Bring up a radio, Miranda," he nodded to the woman at his side. She nodded once, looked at Aislin, then hurried back to the car. The chief folded his arms over his barrelled chest. "I listened to it myself on the way over. Nothing to steady the nerves, that's for sure. Hopefully you can get more out of it than we have."
Miranda returned with a large wireless police dispatch radio. She put it on a nearby barrier. "This was the call we got two hours ago from this location." She pushed a button, the speakers hazing.
---
"Hello? Hello?" the voice was masculine and hurried. Static soaked the call and warbled much of what was said. A young voice wept in the background, her sobs broken only by the fragments of prayers.
"Listen, we need police at the orphanage," the man breathed heavily, "I don't know what's happened. I've locked myself in the library with one of the children. We need help."
"...what harm shall come against me?" the little girl's voice just barely cut in through the static. "What you have made-"
The dispatcher squawked back. "Alright, stay calm. Units are en route. Can you tell me what's going on?"
"I don't know, goddamit. Things just started moving. Furniture. The clock. Everything is possessed. I've seen a child running around that doesn't even go here. We just need help. Please help us."
"...and we will walk in the light, and you shall-"
"Help is on the way. Are you in any sort of danger at this moment?"
"I." The man swallowed. "I don't think so. Nothing's attacked us so far, except for the... I don't know. It was black. It chased us. That's why we're here-"
"-and the Wyrm shall fester in the void-"
Three curt drumbeats.
The man shouted. "No, NO! Don't open the d-"
Then, static.
--
Miranda clicked the radio off. "After that, the transmission ends."
Even the chief was silent. All present officers thumbed uncomfortably at their weapons, shuffling their feet. The cold was setting in and puffs of breath fogged out of their mouths.
Matoi looked to Miranda. "You know about as much as we do now." He nodded. "How do we proceed?"
The static hung in the air as the last, harried words came forth from the speaker, leaving those gathered in some semblance of respectful silence. The heed that Aislin paid the dead was tinged with concern, her objective ears doing their best to pick details out from the call. Inanimate objects moving, a black form. Fragments, at best, to help guide her hand, to choose what to take with her into the nightmare that the orphanage had become.
"I would advise that you maintain this perimeter, Mr. Matoi." Lughadh spoke, looking up from the radio which her eyes had been boring into. "Do not let anything out of it without me. Whatever comes out of that place cannot be trusted." Already her mind was working on some way to prove, once she emerged from the building herself, that she was still the paladin that had entered. There was something dark here, and the facet of the call that perturbed her the most lingered in her mind.
'I've seen a child running around that doesn't even go here.'
"Am I understood?" She inquired, hoping to solidify that point with both the inspector and the chief. A brief glance shot to the building nearby, the paladin lingering on the sight as she pondered her course of action.
"May I see your casualty?"
Matoi nodded. The chief crossed his arms and gruffed - the closest he could come to affirmation.
"The body is this way," Miranda gestured towards a nearby ambulence. A gurney stood by its rear entrance, laden with a heavy lump of something covered with a black tarp.
"Paladin," the chief stepped into stride along Aislin, "you said not to let anything out without you. How are my men supposed to go in and out of the orphanage? You can't accompany them all."
The armored figure began to move to the ambulance, eyes fixed on the covered remains of the officer as the chief began to speak. It had crossed her mind as well, though the solution was something she had settled on easily enough. "Once I'm done, God willing, anyone will be free to go in and out of the place as they please." But until that time she, and as far as her authority was concerned, and she alone had the capability to trespass there.
If the Iverian could help it, no more innocents would perish today.
"... once I've cleared the matter, once the taint is removed, sir, your men can do what needs to be done." Her heart panged, faintly, at the thought of the bodies, of the children. That was, of course, if any bodies remained.
They arrived at the corpse. Matoi nodded to the paramedics who reached down to the bottom of the gurney and removed the tarp.
The body before her was mutilated and disfigured. He was dressed in the colors of his precinct, a vest strapped to his chest and torn open at the middle where his organs had been stuffed back inside the tear in his abdomen. His right arm rested on the gurney near his calf, attached to his arm by a gooey strand of flesh. His face was cut and bloodied, his nose broken, his eyes glazed. The pistol was gone from the holster at his side and the scent of gunpowder rose from his clothes and mingled with the reek of gore. The tears in his stomach were haphazard, but precise - ripped through as if from a sharp weapon.
Meanwhile, the gears in the chief's head were still turning. "Paladin are you... are you proposing that you go in there alone?"
The knight moved to the gurney and looked to the body with as much interest as something like that can draw, professionally. Before her were clues, hints, at what it was that she might be facing inside, and it was something that she had every intention of paying heed, at least when the chief wasn't speaking. What irritation that the man might have paid Aislin didn't show in the slightest, the woman having had years of practice in her field, having dealt with individuals far more unpleasant than the man near her before.
"With all due respect, sir, it isn't a proposal." It was her intention, as it had from the moment she heard all of those they had sent in were missing, or, in this poor sod's case, dead. "I won't have any more of your men die, especially not on my account." She was here to cleanse this place of evil, not spread it by proxy to the wives and mothers of Caranhall's policemen.
With that she turned her eyes back to the body, paying particular heed to the man's abdominal wounds, leaning over the corpse as she looked it over. Armored fingers reached in to examine his vest in particular, looking to the fabric at the cut, rubbing it between her fingers. The consistency was off, but the aim was true, and the cut was clean on his field gear - this looked to be the work of a weapon, not a claw, nail or tooth.
"That's..." the chief spat, cheeks glowing red, "...that's preposterous! I have over thirty men on this scene, armed! I expected you to lead the second recon group, not charge in on your own and face Eleue-knows-what by your goddamn self!"
Despite the chief's rage, the surrounding officers noticeably relaxed as Aislin announced her intentions to enter by herself. Whatever their superior thought, they were NOT equipped to handle the monsters lurking in the orphanage.
The corpse's dismembered arm, unlike his stomach, had no such precision. The wrist was severely bruised - dented, even, to the bone. A gruesome rend began at the lower deltoid and stretched down in a bloody rend to where it separated entirely. The bulb of the humerus shone white beneath the gore, completely detached from the socket.
Interrupted again, this time all the more violently, from her study of the casualty before her, Lughadh looked to the chief again, letting him finish before moving to reply on her own. Reaching back to stand at her full height away from the gurney, the paladin let his bluster fade into the air for a moment before she offered a calm retort. "Is this because I'm not a police officer, chief?" The alternative was left unspoken, the woman moving to close the distance between herself and the chief. "It's not an incorrect thought, I'm not, not truly. I'm a soldier. I'm not half as trained in police work as I am learned in the arts of war."
Her eyes narrowed, her brow arched. "And even a novice would know, especially after what happened earlier, that it has the distinct advantage here." It was simple urban combat, the foe had one of the best defensive positions it could ask for - a confined space, with corridors and bottlenecks aplenty, and nooks and crannies that it knew, and the officers wouldn't. It was a killbox, and it was such regardless of whether men or monsters held it.
"Instead doing this beast a favor, I would advise you pride yourself on sending over thirty men home to their families tonight." These sorts of men were half of the reason they were in the predicament they found themselves in, with well over half the city lost to dregs and demons. The air hung silent for a moment or two before the knight let out a sigh, visage softening as she inquired, professional once more.
"... now, if I may study the deceased, in peace? What I learn here may be the key to victory."
The chief listened to her explanation, a bit of the red leaving his face as Aislin not only retorted his plan, but did so with reasoned calm. Her words cut him to silence, and as she turned back towards the corpse, he searched desperately for some retort to assuage his wounded pride. His mouth opened to speak...
...but shut, slowly, as he suddenly became of the dozens of eyes that were glaring at him from every direction. The paladin had just promised that no one else need risk death besides her. The chief would never again have the respect of his department if he gambled the lives of his men against such a plan.
"Hrmm." He grumbled. "Fine. Do it your way, dame." He huffed off towards his car, followed by the two other officers.
Matoi cracked a grin. "Never seen him speechless before." He shook his head. "You speak well, paladin. I hope your blade is as sharp as your wit." The detective gestured to the body. Back to business. "What do you think did this? Any monster you know of?"
The woman was pleased with herself as the chief chose to withdraw instead of continue this otherwise pointless discourse. I will, the knight thought, thank you, sir. Eyes moved to the arm that had so narrowly eluded her observation earlier, furrowing her brow as she looked it over. It was a curious wound, one that caused her some pause as she considered just what it meant she could expect in her opponent, or opponents.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Matoi, though it was a pleasant sort of thing, far more so than the chief's bravado - one that hid behind ranks of officers. Aislin smiled, looking up to the inspector as she gently held the partially-dismembered arm in her hands. "I have that effect on some men, I'm told." She jested, allowing herself a moment of pride for trouncing the man. But back to business indeed, the paladin looking back to the arm, gesturing to the wound that the man had suffered at the join of arm and shoulder.
"Nothing tell-tale yet, I fear, though this is quite an indication of strength." Flesh, and likely bone too Aislin would wager, were crushed, if not entirely rended from the body. "Though, oddly, what this man bears on his chest looks more like a weapon." And that did make Aislin wonder - what use would a creature strong enough to practically rip a man's arm from its socket have with a weapon, what looked to be a blade of some sort?
Perhaps even more curious was that the wound on the man's arm seemed to come from underneath, from below, an odd angle for something with that degree of power. That was assuming it was humanoid, of course, and the size of a man.
"I see," Matoi winced at the wound, but nodded, eyes trailing the disfigurement. It looked as if it'd been ripped from the socket by brute force. "Light preserve us. Whatever did this is in there with the children..." He looked up at the orphanage doors, brows knitting fearfully. Were any of them even alive?
"Do you need any weapons, paladin?" he asked, "we can't offer you much, but we have ammunition. Pistols, slug rifles and shotguns." He drew a breath. "I hope they will be useful against a monster of this strength."
"Assume, inspector, that all of the children are dead." It was better not to let their fate, or the potential of such, cloud their minds when the moment of decision came. Were it that they were all dead, then there was no room for disappointment, and were it that any were alive, the situation was all the better than they had assumed. "It makes things easier." Simpler would have been a better choice of words.
At that she turned from the body, looking towards Matoi. "I do appreciate the offer, Inspector, I hope they will too, but they are your weapons, not mine." She was not trained with them as they were, and if she had done her duty and these men still had to engage this monster, then perhaps they might still vanquish it.
"If you will excuse me for a few moments, Inspector. I must see to my own arms." With that and a slight bow of her head, she turned and rounded off to the Destrier she had arrived on, making it there in good time. She ignored the Rosary she kept in her steed's holster - the confined space would not be kind to her trusted rifle - and instead her hands immediately reached for her Lawkeeper's ammunition, the bulky pistol soon handing from her hip.
What she had seen so far gave the woman little reason to believe that standard ball or silver ammunition would have much effect, trading both magazines to double up on consecrated jacket, the shock magazine also exchanged for a secondary stock of explosive slugs. The woman didn't want to demolish the place, though that might be a kinder fate for the future orphans of Caranhall than to live in a place haunted by such a past.
Always cautious, the Iverian Paladin reached for two spare magazines of the consecrated rounds, electing not to carry any more explosives in with her. Were it that this and her blade didn't fell whatever evil lurked in those halls, then it would take more than a single paladin here to cleanse it.
"Matoi," The woman called, loading and cycling her Lawkeeper, making sure the weapon was functioning properly before she entered the proverbial lion's den. "Come here, if you might." She had one last matter to discuss with the inspector.
The inspector hurried over. The sun had nearly set, the black-blue of the night slowly eating away at the receeding horizon.
"Paladin?"
"Come close," She spoke, voice lowering significantly once he was near enough, making sure her back was turned to the home as she conversed with the officer. "I have a hunch, of sorts, of what I might be facing inside." Aislin was practically whispering, not wanting her words to carry in the slightest. There was good reason for such caution, in the knight's mind.
"Whatever it is, I believe it may be a shapeshifter, something elusive and cowardly." Something that would use the powers of deceit to its advantage, were it that it had the chance. "Hence why you trust nothing that comes out of that manor without me, and why we have to establish some means of proving my nature." A sign, a code, or gesture. It didn't matter to her, as long as it was something they could decide on and pull off without doing now, in sight of the place.
"Suggestions?" She asked, glancing to him, eyes showing little worry. What worry she had, what small pang of fear she felt, was if she was confronted with a child, a legitimate child, and she couldn't tell. That was part of her oath, wasn't it? To sacrifice, perchance to sin, that another might not have to? "Don't do it, I don't want to risk prying eyes catching sight of such."
Matoi blinked, his fear of the unknown beast lurking in the orphanage briefly intensifying. A shapeshifter? Dear God. How had this happened in a place like Caranhall?
Pushing aside his fears, the inspector nodded. She was right. They needed to be smart about this. What signal could she give that would ensure the safety of the town?
"Your silver," he said at last, his voice, "the necklace paladins wear." Consecrated steel. Anyone - or anything - not attuned to the metal's frequency burned at its touch. "When you exit, remove it and hold it aloft for me to see." He nodded. "A monster could not hold it, or if it could, would not think to remove it after leaving the orphanage." He swallowed. "I will. Ah. Have my men hold the perimeter. We won't put our guns down unless you give that signal." His jaw grit. "If you don't, we'll open fire on it and whoever is with it."
The Paladin nodded as well, confirmed such a thought. It was a good one, and Matoi was more learned than most in the city assumed the outliers and countryfolk to be - that, or the legends and practices of her Order spread far and wide. "Excellent, Inspector. I would do no less in your position. Keep your men ready - if it comes to that, it's the only chance you'll have." The only one she would wager on, at least.
With that she smiled, the brief, curt sort of smile that one pays in the face of something unpleasant. "Now, to my duty." The Paladin turned, looking to the manor one final time before lowering the faceplate of her helm, returning herself to the faceless avatar of her Order.
With measured pace she crossed the distance in front of the manor, passing through the perimeter and coming to the steps, taking care to avoid the blood that had stained them and the doorway from the deceased officer, and without any pomp or ceremony, Aislin slipped inside the orphanage.
The men straightened up as she passed, perhaps surprised at the suddenness of her entrance. They watched silently as the armored knight strode the bloodstained steps of the orphanage, pushed against the large oakwood doors ... and disappeared into the darkness. Arodring had swallowed her whole.
Silence took them. The chief watched from the confines of his car with a low snarl. Matoi walked back to his post near the perimeter. He fished for a cigarette in his coat.
"What ah-..." Johns approached, thumb resting uncomfortably on the safety of his rifle. "...what is the plan then, sir?"
The inspector fitted the stick to his lips and brought his lighter up to the nub. His hands shook only slightly as the tobacco took flame. "We hold our position and wait for her to come back."
Johns drew a breath. "And... if she doesn't?"
Matoi took a deep drag, smoke steaming out of his nostrils. He didn't answer.
as written by Rōnin and Ottoman
It was dark when she came in. The floor was sanded wood and the echoes of her boots on the ground reverberated high into the empty black. By the rapidly fading light of the dusk filtering through the windows to her left and right, Aislin would see a glass chandelier just above her.
A hallway stretched down to her left and wound around a corner. To her right, a door. It was too black up ahead to see far, but the light of a single candle mounted on what looked like a coffee table offered a flickering glow in the all-dark.
There were noises. All great places have noises. The dusk wind filtered through the rafters and coaxed from the wood a low moan. Faint echoes tapped in from the far reaches of the manor, whispers of closing doors and padding feet, ghosts of whispers and prayers from the far-reaching wings.
Almost immediately she reached to draw her sidearm, holding it aloft as she reached for the roundlight on her belt, placing it on her pauldron and dialing the thing to provide a good ambient glow, lighting the way about her person. The place was much like any other manor of the country, though the Iverian didn't notice the chandelier at first thanks to the helmet that already restricted her sight.
Already her ears trained on the place, on the sounds that were here, paying more attention to their direction than their nature - though there were certain sounds that she did keep an eye, or rather an ear, out for. The air here was certainly heavier than it should have been, and already she was giving more credit to the thought that nothing yet lived in here, save her target.
She investigated the door first, reaching to feel if it was locked, and were it that it wasn't, push it open and check inside, electing to be thorough from the front door in.
The dome of light shone against the black and offered greater visibility - though was still unable to penetrate the deep shadows lingering in the far corridor. The ceiling was high ahead of her, and a great space expanded to her front, dotted with sofas, carpets and coffee tables. The sitting room, no doubt. The furniture looked to be clean - though old. The velvet was frayed and brushed so often that it almost resembled leather. The carpets were meshed so deep into the wood that they were practically a part of the floor.
As she looked into the door, she would find a long dining table. Nine chairs surrounded the table - four on the right, four on the left, two at the end. Silverware and plates were set for eight, save the last chair at the end, which was barren. There was no food on the table, though there were unlit candles. Pictures framed the wall - memories of past orphanage families. They were black and white photographs, a great horde of well-dressed children arranged on the steps of the orphanage.
Another door was at the back of the room. A faint late filtered in from beneath its edge, pale and unbroken.
Once she was inside, Aislin moved to close the door behind her, training her ears to listen for its opening, were it that what she sought decided to pursue her into here. Eyes darted to the table, looking over the settings that were laid out. The call had come in two hours ago, it seemed that it was late enough that it occurred after the table was set, but not before dinner was served.
The woman moved about the table, counting each of the spaces, finding it curious that the seat at the head had nothing laid out for it. Was the master, or mistress, of the orphanage ill - taking dinner in their room? Or perhaps they had already passed. The knight turned to the photographs that hung on the wall, looking for the staff, to see if any came or went in the vague chronicle that she had before her.
The door could wait for a moment, her ears listened for any disturbance, her hand still clutching her sidearm if it were needed.
There were four photographs, each retrograde black-and-whites, featuring 'families' of increasingly larger sizes. Lutetian perils were not kind to orphans, evidently. The children were well-dressed, their hair brushed, their collars straightened. At the front of each group a child held a plaque with the date. Each date was ten years apart - the last one bearing a date that had passed not four months ago.
The accompanying staff in each picture changed each decade, as did the children. The only constant was a tall, gaunt woman in the back left, narrow-chinned and pidgeon-eyed. Aside from the new wrinkles she sported in each progressive frame, she seemed the exact same in each picture.
No significant sounds disturbed her examination.
The Knight's eyes fell on the woman in the left, noticing her as the constant in all of the photographs. Was she the head of the orphanage, the mistress of the house? Judging by the time between each photograph, and how she looked from the beginning, either scenario she'd considered earlier seemed likely. She could be ill, or dead. Regardless, she moved on, keeping the thought and the detail of the woman in her mind, remembering the face.
Aislin moved to the doorway on the far end of the room, looking to the light which came from underneath. Her spare hand moved to train her roundlight into something of a beam, preparing herself to move into the room, before taking the knob and moving through, weapon ready.
Aislin entered a small kitchen. The floor beneath was white tile. Counters lined the wall to her left, interspersed with a stove. Food stuff were arrayed about it - opened bread bags, bags of nuts and trail mix, gummies, crackers. Snack stuff.
Immediately ahead of her was an open fridge. The light cut a neat knife through the black, a low hum reverberating from its back. Something that looked like scraps of meat lay at its base.
Again the woman closed the door behind her, waiting for the click of the latch to sound before she moved to clear the room, Lawkeeper ready if it was needed, before she bothered to investigate the fridge or the scraps that lay in front of it. The roundlight was dialed back, sent back into its ambient role as she moved to kneel in front of the fridge, her spare hand used to check the meat that was before the appliance.
They were scraps of sliced ham. They were still cold. The fridge itself looked ransacked, nearly empty save for a few condiment battles and a jug of milk shoved into the back. The chill seeped out from its interior, making the space Aislin occupied just a tad colder than the rest of the kitchen.
A hallway continued ahead of her, two pathways leading to the left or straight.
Ham? Whatever it was that left it here apparently wasn't interested, or was harried away from this would-be meal. Perhaps the one preparing dinner was hounded away mid-way through. The woman left the ham where it was, and decided to leave the fridge open, planning on using the light to her advantage.
Her eyes looked to the hallway, pondering on the hallway that she had seen when she had entered. She elected to go down this one, going straight when the choice was offered.
Straight ahead the hallway rounded to the left and right, with a door halfway between on her right.
Something shuddered in the room from behind the closed door.
The Lawkeeper was lowered into a steady aim, trained on the door as she backed towards a nearby wall, eyes trained on the door as she moved to speak. "Open the door and step out." She spoke plainly, spare hand dialing the roundlight into more of a beam once more.
"Make no sudden movements."
At her command, another brief shudder. Then, the sound of something hitting the floor. A low, whispered sob - human sounding. Silence.
"Open the door." She repeated, voice firm, finger still off of the trigger but ready at a moment's notice. The Lawkeeper was set to the consecrated rounds, the Paladin not wanting to deploy anything explosive until she had a definite target in sight. "Open the door by the order of Saint Selene's most holy order, and step outside."
At that next order, another hurried flush of whispers and sobs. A quiet urging, a low pleading, followed by the soft one-two patter of bare feet on wood. Silence, then...
"S... say her name again," the voice was young and trembled through the wood.
"In the name of Selene Evêquec and the Wick, open the door, or I will open it for you." And that was something that no one, innocent or monster, wanted to happen. "Come out with your hands on your head. Make no sudden movements." The last sentence was repeated, slowly and firmly.
Were it that they came out swiftly, she would have no choice but to fire.
A short silence. Whispers from the back room.
"No... no, they can't..." the same voice from before, "...they can't say her name. It can't be. Demons can't say her name. Come on. Get up."
More patters on the wood, a soft commotion, before the door's lock clacked off and it swung unward.
Three children were before her - aged four to twelve - two girls and one boy. All were dressed, all looked pale miserable, and the youngest's tears were still wet on her cheeks.
"On your head guys, you heard her," the tallest, a girl with ribbons on her blonde hair, blinked against Aislin's roundlight. "I told you. It's not a demon. They don't have light either."
The boy complied slowly. His face was expressionless, his lower lip trembling slightly. He brought his hands up to his head.
The youngest, still crying, did her best to bring her pudgy little arms up to the top of her head.
The sight did soothe her heart somewhat. Even if one of them was the target, then at least two of them weren't, and they were spared from the end of the nightmare that plagued this place. Her weapon was still trained on them, ready just in case. "Turn around, hands on the wall." Her voice remained authoritative, stern, but at least those that were innocent, if any of them weren't, knew that she was a servant of the light.
"You're safe now. Pray." She instructed, using the same thought they had in reverse. "Beseech Saint Selene, beseech the Wick. I want to hear their names." Rudimentary, but there was more to follow, and if these children passed, perhaps she might escort them from this dark place.
"Come on," the oldest ushered them towards the wall. Though she still hadn't made out exactly who or what Aislin was, she was already comforted. It wasn't a demon. That was most important.
Once against the wall, she orchestrated the other two through a traditional litany - the Prayer of Warding - a bedtime favorite among children.
"Saint Selene, daughter of God, watch over the sons and daughters of man all through this night..."
The older was the strongest, though all three recited the prayer and spoke the names of their savior and lord. Once done, a short silence. The smallest, still holding back the better part of her sobbing, turned with ruddy cheeks towards the shining light and squinted.
"Are you..." she sniffled, her little voice warbling through a wet throat. All she could see was light. "...are you an angel?"
The recital of prayers again soothed the Paladin's worry, though she was still taking no chances. Behind her faceplate the woman was stunned, momentarily, by the girl's question. "... an angel of fire and sword, if angel I be." She offered, gently, before turning her attention back to the brief investigation she would delve into here. "Eldest," She started, "What are your names? How long have each of you been at the orphanage?"
There were so few ways to properly tell, the Knight wasn't going to let them out of the place if there was the slightest chance of their nature being anything more than normal.
She turned towards the light. "I am Hannah. This is Toby and Mariam." She pointed to each in turn. "I'm twelve years old. I'll be thirteen in two months. Toby is eight, Mariam is four."
"I'm..." she sniffled, "...I'm five."
"No you're not, you're four-and-a-half."
An angrier look took the place of her fear, brows knitting together. "That's almost five."
"Well it's not," Hannah replied curtly. She tuned back to Aislin. "I've been here since I was three after my mom went to Vludharrow to find work. She comes back in the summer. Toby and Mariam were both born and raised here."
Of the trio, Toby did his best to look through the light at whoever might be behind it, squinting through its rays. He had held Mariam's hand through the ordeal. "You're not really an angel," he said, a suspicious look drawing his face together in a small grimace, "angels are the saints, and if you were a saint you'd have glowey eyes and you'd shoot fire out of your mouth."
"Toby, stop being an idiot. She's trying to help us."
"How do we know she's not the black thing?" he snapped at Hannah, "we weren't supposed to open the door for anyone, remember?"
"-if I was, I would already be tearing you apart." She spoke curtly, likely inclined to roll her eyes if the situation already wasn't so dire. "Toby. Is this true, what Hannah said?" She asked, immediately dismissing their little discourse, intent on keeping this as brief as possible. "You've been here your whole life, and have seen these two the whole while?"
"As long as I remember," Toby replied, still a bit defensive and suspicious ... though a bit more pale in the face at the mention of being torn apart, "this place is my home. Mariam and Hannah are my sisters."
"He's going to marry me," Mariam replied plainly, wiping the tear trails from her cheeks. She nodded definitively. "I gave him a ring for it. It's in his pocket."
Toby blushed a bit at that. "I'm not really going to..." He stopped, drawing a breath. Miriam smiled up at him. This was a conversation they'd had before.
"Good." Aislin murmured, spare hand dialing the roundlight back down again into its ambient glow, looking the three over once more. "I'm going to get you out of here. Walk in front of me. Again, no sudden movements, I'll show you the way." With that she gestured back down the hall from whence she came, hoping to see the three back out to the front door.
The children walked in front of her with Aislin presumably taking them back the way she came.
"The armor," Hannah gaped as they walked out of their room, "she's a paladin! That must be it! You're a paladin right?"
"I told you she wasn't a saint..." Toby mumbled.
"Well she mine as well be," Hannah retorted.
"Do paladins have wings like angels?" Mariam squinted at the knight, looking suspiciously at her pauldrons. "I'm not seeing any..." She sounded disappointed.
"Are you the one that put the food under the door for us too?" Hannah asked as they walked. "I bet you left it there because you had to go but then you came back to rescue us, right?"
The knight let the children have their musings on her nature, more focused on listening to the building about them, on checking corners and the hall behind them as they egressed the area back the way she came. It wasn't until the question about the food that Aislin bothered to speak, displeased with the information the girl shared.
"You would lose money on that wager, Hannah." Was all that she said, not wanting to alarm the children, especially Mariam, who might not understand what it was that she said. "When we get to the front door, put your hands on your head again, and move slowly out onto the porch and then get on your knees. Understood?"
"Huh," Hanna frowned, "someone did. When were locked in there. Someone slipped ham and cheese from the fridge under the door and told us not to open it for anyone. It was a girl's voice." She nodded vigorously. "Oh but yes ma'am! I understand. We all understand, right?"
The other children nodded their understanding.
The police had positioned a spotlight at the front entrance. As the children stepped outside and got on their knees, a dozen guns clacked into place.
"Hold!" Matoi's voice rang through the chilly night. He waited for Aislin.
The woman took up the rear, the tail-end charlie of this little group, and wondered to herself. This was far too easy in her mind, and part of her wondered if they were being watched, if she was being studied. Still, the chance to save lives was not something that she took lightly, and though some members of her Order would have prioritized the elimination of the target, the situation left little room for error.
She simply hoped she hadn't given the monster the ammunition it needed to start luring out the other survivors.
Holiness is in right action, she reminded herself, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.
Once the children were outside, she backed out the door, weapon still trained on the depths of the manor as she pulled the door closed behind her, holding it shut as she reached for the silver, only showing it to the police once she was hidden behind the door from whatever eyes might lurk in the orphanage.
"Children, move into the yard and get on your knees again." She spoke, braced against the door still.
The children nodded, walking down the steps and moving into the yard where they got on their knees. A small chorus of applause erupted from the watching officers. Three lives saved in fifteen minutes.
"Can we help them, paladin?" Matoi's voice rose from the perimeter. He was the only one who knew that their opponent might be a shifter, and he didn't want to alarm his men anymore than they already were.
"Aye," She spoke from the door, looking out to the perimeter, unable to make Matoi out from the silhouetted masses, thanks to the spotlight. "Though handcuff them, just to be safe." The children were safe, and she was confident that they were children, but she would take no chances. "Keep watch over them. I'm going back in."
The Paladin waited until the three were seen to by the police and returned to the perimeter before she moved back inside of the manor, returning to the closet where she had found them, cautious all the while.
Back in the dark of the manor, Aislin would find crumbs of cheese and small scraps of meat on the floor. It was a large closet. Jackets hung from racks and shoes of various size were laid out on the ground. Other than, nothing significant.
The brief once-over the Paladin paid the closet yielded little in the way of detail, but she figured it worth the effort anyway. Looking back to the hallway, she moved to the right, intent on clearing this place room by room.
Up ahead, the hallway separated into left and right corridors. Directly in front of her was a coffee table with a plant arrangement. To the right the hallway ended, a door on one of the walls. To the left, it continued into what was presumably the main atria.
Aislin turned to the right, looking to the door and listening for any movement inside of it, wondering if there would be a repeat of the earlier situation. So close to the other, she doubted it, but didn't know all the same. Were it that there was no noise, she would tightened her roundlight's beam once more, and proceed to open the door and clear the room on the other side, weapon at the ready.
Aislin entered a small study. A large, leather recliner was in the corner, flanked by two massive shelves filled to bursting with leatherbound books. A lamp hung by the chair, and a coffee table. A cup of something was on the table and it steamed. Beside it was an open book. In the chair was a knit blanket, bundled up in a funnel. It looked cozy.
The fact that anything looked cozy in this place, knowing what had happened - what was still happening - had the inverse effect on Aislin as it normally would. The woman was on edge, the steaming cup was a massive red-flag, and with her free hand she shut the door behind her.
Something had to put that here, had to make it recently, to keep it that warm, and it, whatever it was, had to be close, considering its temperature. Her eyes looked about the room for any other exit, and were it that there were none, she would search for hiding places - areas in which something small could conceal itself.
Gently she dialed back the roundlight into a far wider beam.
Aside from the chair, shelves, coffee table and lamp, the room was empty. It was small to begin with. Were Aislin to come near the coffee table, she would smell a dark sweetness from the steaming mug. Hot chocolate. Little marshmallows floated in the black. The book was jilted at an angle towards the chair, as if someone had been reading in it.
The little blanket was done up in a funnel, almost a cocoon. The kind that people wrap themselves in to get warm. It was quite large and took up most of the chair.
The knight moved to kneel, to shine her light below the table and the chair, looking to see if anything was below them. Clearing that she moved to the chair, looking to the funneled blanket, standing a good two armslengths away as she took it in. As gently as one could do such a thing, she drew her sword, firearm still in her other hand and trained on the blanket, as she moved to push the blanket to the side, testing it for weight.
The blanket moved easily and slumped over the armrest of the chair. Beneath the blanket was a small leather scrapbook, held together by a rubber band.
Once the blanket proved empty, the paladin sheathed her sword and moved to investigate the scrapbook, taking it and moving it to the table and opening it with her spare hand, looking it over while she still kept a firm hand on the grip of the Lawkeeper.
'COLTON'S' the name on the first page read.
Inside were drawings - sketches - rather good. They looked as if they'd been outlined in pencil first then finished in ink. There was no color, though the shading work was impressive. Here was a horse riding a grassy plain, mane tossed in the wind. On this page was a fine rendition of the Monastic Order's insignia - the Evequec Raven - the interlocking wings and body sketched with great detail.
The sketches went on - mostly animals and knights. Some epic poses from history, Saint Valentine fighting the demon of Barrows, Saint Absolon in a great suit of armor that he could never take off...
A picture of a thin man all in black. His shoulders were wide and his legs were thin and his head sat on his chest like an upright spoon. It was a small picture, barely took up a tenth of the page, compared to the other sketches would consumed most of the paper. It was dead in the center.
As Aislin ran her fingers over the sketch, ink smeered the page and sullied her gaunlet in black.
The image of this thin man in black already caught her eye, but as the fresh ink stained her gauntlet she took even greater heed of the picture. This was recent, very recent, and could very well be some depiction of her culprit. The paladin noted the image and let it burn into her mind, leaving the scrapbook behind and looking instead now to the other book that rested on the table, looking to see what it was before she searched the room at large for any sort of telephone.
The book was a text on classical Lutetian chivalry. It was opened to the biography of Saint Lemeux, the first paladin. This page delineated how he died in the last battle against Tenebre's hordes, fighting a demon.
There was no telephone. Aside from the very abnormal pleasantries, everything seemed completely at ease.
Without any signs of scuffle or struggle, and no telephone, this didn't seem to be the library in question from the call, but Aislin didn't write it off entirely yet. So much of the place was, as of yet, uncharted, and this room - despite the uneasiness it instilled in her, seemed to be clear, so she returned to the hallway, moving back down what was the left branch earlier.
Aislin entered the main atria. Far ahead, was the front door, the police spotlights shining through the windows. That same candle flickered on a coffee table. She was at the back now. A staircase went up to the second floor on her right. A door was beside it, leading deeper into the orphanage. Farther left, the hallway continued.
Faintly, very faintly, the sound of writhing cicadas.
So now she stood at the back of the room she had first seen, a brief glance was paid to the staircase, to the door beside her, and she wondered whether she should take this door now. Instead she moved to cross the distance towards the front door, passing the candle, turning her eyes to the walls of this room.
She was looking for a light switch, figuring that the breakers weren't thrown if the fridge was working. Were it that she could find one, she'd turn it on, hoping to shed some light, literally, on the main atria.
Aislin would find a lightswitch near a door to her far left. Several knobs and switches, in fact. None of them, however, seemed to do anything. The room remained as dark and dreary as before - it seemed as if not every part of the house was getting electricity.
Perhaps some of the breakers were thrown, or perhaps some of the systems in the house were purposefully sabotaged. Regardless of that, and though slightly disappointed with that shortcoming, she went back to the task at hand, moving to her starting point at the front door and moving down the leftward hallway, looking to clear the first floor from the outside in.
The left hallway lead into a what looked like a vast rectangular art room. Supplies were up in crates and shelves along the walls, while desks and table dotted the room without clear order or structure. Canvases and easels lay about, sketchpads on desks, sculptures and models in some of the empty spaces. Paper birds hung from wires at the ceiling. It was a large room with a lot of junk in it. At the far end of the room, another door lead out.
The cluttered room gave Aislin some pause, already counting a dozen and a half hiding spots that would make for a good ambush. The paladin moved to begin a serpentine sort of approach to the room, clearing each table and desk individually as she moved through its length, taking her time. This beast, whatever it was, hopefully wasn't going anywhere fast.
Despite all of this the woman kept her wits about her, untouched, for the most part, by fear. She was the hunter here, it was the quarry, and she would have her prize before the night was over.
It was dark when she came in. The floor was sanded wood and the echoes of her boots on the ground reverberated high into the empty black. By the rapidly fading light of the dusk filtering through the windows to her left and right, Aislin would see a glass chandelier just above her.
A hallway stretched down to her left and wound around a corner. To her right, a door. It was too black up ahead to see far, but the light of a single candle mounted on what looked like a coffee table offered a flickering glow in the all-dark.
There were noises. All great places have noises. The dusk wind filtered through the rafters and coaxed from the wood a low moan. Faint echoes tapped in from the far reaches of the manor, whispers of closing doors and padding feet, ghosts of whispers and prayers from the far-reaching wings.
Almost immediately she reached to draw her sidearm, holding it aloft as she reached for the roundlight on her belt, placing it on her pauldron and dialing the thing to provide a good ambient glow, lighting the way about her person. The place was much like any other manor of the country, though the Iverian didn't notice the chandelier at first thanks to the helmet that already restricted her sight.
Already her ears trained on the place, on the sounds that were here, paying more attention to their direction than their nature - though there were certain sounds that she did keep an eye, or rather an ear, out for. The air here was certainly heavier than it should have been, and already she was giving more credit to the thought that nothing yet lived in here, save her target.
She investigated the door first, reaching to feel if it was locked, and were it that it wasn't, push it open and check inside, electing to be thorough from the front door in.
The dome of light shone against the black and offered greater visibility - though was still unable to penetrate the deep shadows lingering in the far corridor. The ceiling was high ahead of her, and a great space expanded to her front, dotted with sofas, carpets and coffee tables. The sitting room, no doubt. The furniture looked to be clean - though old. The velvet was frayed and brushed so often that it almost resembled leather. The carpets were meshed so deep into the wood that they were practically a part of the floor.
As she looked into the door, she would find a long dining table. Nine chairs surrounded the table - four on the right, four on the left, two at the end. Silverware and plates were set for eight, save the last chair at the end, which was barren. There was no food on the table, though there were unlit candles. Pictures framed the wall - memories of past orphanage families. They were black and white photographs, a great horde of well-dressed children arranged on the steps of the orphanage.
Another door was at the back of the room. A faint late filtered in from beneath its edge, pale and unbroken.
Once she was inside, Aislin moved to close the door behind her, training her ears to listen for its opening, were it that what she sought decided to pursue her into here. Eyes darted to the table, looking over the settings that were laid out. The call had come in two hours ago, it seemed that it was late enough that it occurred after the table was set, but not before dinner was served.
The woman moved about the table, counting each of the spaces, finding it curious that the seat at the head had nothing laid out for it. Was the master, or mistress, of the orphanage ill - taking dinner in their room? Or perhaps they had already passed. The knight turned to the photographs that hung on the wall, looking for the staff, to see if any came or went in the vague chronicle that she had before her.
The door could wait for a moment, her ears listened for any disturbance, her hand still clutching her sidearm if it were needed.
There were four photographs, each retrograde black-and-whites, featuring 'families' of increasingly larger sizes. Lutetian perils were not kind to orphans, evidently. The children were well-dressed, their hair brushed, their collars straightened. At the front of each group a child held a plaque with the date. Each date was ten years apart - the last one bearing a date that had passed not four months ago.
The accompanying staff in each picture changed each decade, as did the children. The only constant was a tall, gaunt woman in the back left, narrow-chinned and pidgeon-eyed. Aside from the new wrinkles she sported in each progressive frame, she seemed the exact same in each picture.
No significant sounds disturbed her examination.
The Knight's eyes fell on the woman in the left, noticing her as the constant in all of the photographs. Was she the head of the orphanage, the mistress of the house? Judging by the time between each photograph, and how she looked from the beginning, either scenario she'd considered earlier seemed likely. She could be ill, or dead. Regardless, she moved on, keeping the thought and the detail of the woman in her mind, remembering the face.
Aislin moved to the doorway on the far end of the room, looking to the light which came from underneath. Her spare hand moved to train her roundlight into something of a beam, preparing herself to move into the room, before taking the knob and moving through, weapon ready.
Aislin entered a small kitchen. The floor beneath was white tile. Counters lined the wall to her left, interspersed with a stove. Food stuff were arrayed about it - opened bread bags, bags of nuts and trail mix, gummies, crackers. Snack stuff.
Immediately ahead of her was an open fridge. The light cut a neat knife through the black, a low hum reverberating from its back. Something that looked like scraps of meat lay at its base.
Again the woman closed the door behind her, waiting for the click of the latch to sound before she moved to clear the room, Lawkeeper ready if it was needed, before she bothered to investigate the fridge or the scraps that lay in front of it. The roundlight was dialed back, sent back into its ambient role as she moved to kneel in front of the fridge, her spare hand used to check the meat that was before the appliance.
They were scraps of sliced ham. They were still cold. The fridge itself looked ransacked, nearly empty save for a few condiment battles and a jug of milk shoved into the back. The chill seeped out from its interior, making the space Aislin occupied just a tad colder than the rest of the kitchen.
A hallway continued ahead of her, two pathways leading to the left or straight.
Ham? Whatever it was that left it here apparently wasn't interested, or was harried away from this would-be meal. Perhaps the one preparing dinner was hounded away mid-way through. The woman left the ham where it was, and decided to leave the fridge open, planning on using the light to her advantage.
Her eyes looked to the hallway, pondering on the hallway that she had seen when she had entered. She elected to go down this one, going straight when the choice was offered.
Straight ahead the hallway rounded to the left and right, with a door halfway between on her right.
Something shuddered in the room from behind the closed door.
The Lawkeeper was lowered into a steady aim, trained on the door as she backed towards a nearby wall, eyes trained on the door as she moved to speak. "Open the door and step out." She spoke plainly, spare hand dialing the roundlight into more of a beam once more.
"Make no sudden movements."
At her command, another brief shudder. Then, the sound of something hitting the floor. A low, whispered sob - human sounding. Silence.
"Open the door." She repeated, voice firm, finger still off of the trigger but ready at a moment's notice. The Lawkeeper was set to the consecrated rounds, the Paladin not wanting to deploy anything explosive until she had a definite target in sight. "Open the door by the order of Saint Selene's most holy order, and step outside."
At that next order, another hurried flush of whispers and sobs. A quiet urging, a low pleading, followed by the soft one-two patter of bare feet on wood. Silence, then...
"S... say her name again," the voice was young and trembled through the wood.
"In the name of Selene Evêquec and the Wick, open the door, or I will open it for you." And that was something that no one, innocent or monster, wanted to happen. "Come out with your hands on your head. Make no sudden movements." The last sentence was repeated, slowly and firmly.
Were it that they came out swiftly, she would have no choice but to fire.
A short silence. Whispers from the back room.
"No... no, they can't..." the same voice from before, "...they can't say her name. It can't be. Demons can't say her name. Come on. Get up."
More patters on the wood, a soft commotion, before the door's lock clacked off and it swung unward.
Three children were before her - aged four to twelve - two girls and one boy. All were dressed, all looked pale miserable, and the youngest's tears were still wet on her cheeks.
"On your head guys, you heard her," the tallest, a girl with ribbons on her blonde hair, blinked against Aislin's roundlight. "I told you. It's not a demon. They don't have light either."
The boy complied slowly. His face was expressionless, his lower lip trembling slightly. He brought his hands up to his head.
The youngest, still crying, did her best to bring her pudgy little arms up to the top of her head.
The sight did soothe her heart somewhat. Even if one of them was the target, then at least two of them weren't, and they were spared from the end of the nightmare that plagued this place. Her weapon was still trained on them, ready just in case. "Turn around, hands on the wall." Her voice remained authoritative, stern, but at least those that were innocent, if any of them weren't, knew that she was a servant of the light.
"You're safe now. Pray." She instructed, using the same thought they had in reverse. "Beseech Saint Selene, beseech the Wick. I want to hear their names." Rudimentary, but there was more to follow, and if these children passed, perhaps she might escort them from this dark place.
"Come on," the oldest ushered them towards the wall. Though she still hadn't made out exactly who or what Aislin was, she was already comforted. It wasn't a demon. That was most important.
Once against the wall, she orchestrated the other two through a traditional litany - the Prayer of Warding - a bedtime favorite among children.
"Saint Selene, daughter of God, watch over the sons and daughters of man all through this night..."
The older was the strongest, though all three recited the prayer and spoke the names of their savior and lord. Once done, a short silence. The smallest, still holding back the better part of her sobbing, turned with ruddy cheeks towards the shining light and squinted.
"Are you..." she sniffled, her little voice warbling through a wet throat. All she could see was light. "...are you an angel?"
The recital of prayers again soothed the Paladin's worry, though she was still taking no chances. Behind her faceplate the woman was stunned, momentarily, by the girl's question. "... an angel of fire and sword, if angel I be." She offered, gently, before turning her attention back to the brief investigation she would delve into here. "Eldest," She started, "What are your names? How long have each of you been at the orphanage?"
There were so few ways to properly tell, the Knight wasn't going to let them out of the place if there was the slightest chance of their nature being anything more than normal.
She turned towards the light. "I am Hannah. This is Toby and Mariam." She pointed to each in turn. "I'm twelve years old. I'll be thirteen in two months. Toby is eight, Mariam is four."
"I'm..." she sniffled, "...I'm five."
"No you're not, you're four-and-a-half."
An angrier look took the place of her fear, brows knitting together. "That's almost five."
"Well it's not," Hannah replied curtly. She tuned back to Aislin. "I've been here since I was three after my mom went to Vludharrow to find work. She comes back in the summer. Toby and Mariam were both born and raised here."
Of the trio, Toby did his best to look through the light at whoever might be behind it, squinting through its rays. He had held Mariam's hand through the ordeal. "You're not really an angel," he said, a suspicious look drawing his face together in a small grimace, "angels are the saints, and if you were a saint you'd have glowey eyes and you'd shoot fire out of your mouth."
"Toby, stop being an idiot. She's trying to help us."
"How do we know she's not the black thing?" he snapped at Hannah, "we weren't supposed to open the door for anyone, remember?"
"-if I was, I would already be tearing you apart." She spoke curtly, likely inclined to roll her eyes if the situation already wasn't so dire. "Toby. Is this true, what Hannah said?" She asked, immediately dismissing their little discourse, intent on keeping this as brief as possible. "You've been here your whole life, and have seen these two the whole while?"
"As long as I remember," Toby replied, still a bit defensive and suspicious ... though a bit more pale in the face at the mention of being torn apart, "this place is my home. Mariam and Hannah are my sisters."
"He's going to marry me," Mariam replied plainly, wiping the tear trails from her cheeks. She nodded definitively. "I gave him a ring for it. It's in his pocket."
Toby blushed a bit at that. "I'm not really going to..." He stopped, drawing a breath. Miriam smiled up at him. This was a conversation they'd had before.
"Good." Aislin murmured, spare hand dialing the roundlight back down again into its ambient glow, looking the three over once more. "I'm going to get you out of here. Walk in front of me. Again, no sudden movements, I'll show you the way." With that she gestured back down the hall from whence she came, hoping to see the three back out to the front door.
The children walked in front of her with Aislin presumably taking them back the way she came.
"The armor," Hannah gaped as they walked out of their room, "she's a paladin! That must be it! You're a paladin right?"
"I told you she wasn't a saint..." Toby mumbled.
"Well she mine as well be," Hannah retorted.
"Do paladins have wings like angels?" Mariam squinted at the knight, looking suspiciously at her pauldrons. "I'm not seeing any..." She sounded disappointed.
"Are you the one that put the food under the door for us too?" Hannah asked as they walked. "I bet you left it there because you had to go but then you came back to rescue us, right?"
The knight let the children have their musings on her nature, more focused on listening to the building about them, on checking corners and the hall behind them as they egressed the area back the way she came. It wasn't until the question about the food that Aislin bothered to speak, displeased with the information the girl shared.
"You would lose money on that wager, Hannah." Was all that she said, not wanting to alarm the children, especially Mariam, who might not understand what it was that she said. "When we get to the front door, put your hands on your head again, and move slowly out onto the porch and then get on your knees. Understood?"
"Huh," Hanna frowned, "someone did. When were locked in there. Someone slipped ham and cheese from the fridge under the door and told us not to open it for anyone. It was a girl's voice." She nodded vigorously. "Oh but yes ma'am! I understand. We all understand, right?"
The other children nodded their understanding.
The police had positioned a spotlight at the front entrance. As the children stepped outside and got on their knees, a dozen guns clacked into place.
"Hold!" Matoi's voice rang through the chilly night. He waited for Aislin.
The woman took up the rear, the tail-end charlie of this little group, and wondered to herself. This was far too easy in her mind, and part of her wondered if they were being watched, if she was being studied. Still, the chance to save lives was not something that she took lightly, and though some members of her Order would have prioritized the elimination of the target, the situation left little room for error.
She simply hoped she hadn't given the monster the ammunition it needed to start luring out the other survivors.
Holiness is in right action, she reminded herself, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.
Once the children were outside, she backed out the door, weapon still trained on the depths of the manor as she pulled the door closed behind her, holding it shut as she reached for the silver, only showing it to the police once she was hidden behind the door from whatever eyes might lurk in the orphanage.
"Children, move into the yard and get on your knees again." She spoke, braced against the door still.
The children nodded, walking down the steps and moving into the yard where they got on their knees. A small chorus of applause erupted from the watching officers. Three lives saved in fifteen minutes.
"Can we help them, paladin?" Matoi's voice rose from the perimeter. He was the only one who knew that their opponent might be a shifter, and he didn't want to alarm his men anymore than they already were.
"Aye," She spoke from the door, looking out to the perimeter, unable to make Matoi out from the silhouetted masses, thanks to the spotlight. "Though handcuff them, just to be safe." The children were safe, and she was confident that they were children, but she would take no chances. "Keep watch over them. I'm going back in."
The Paladin waited until the three were seen to by the police and returned to the perimeter before she moved back inside of the manor, returning to the closet where she had found them, cautious all the while.
Back in the dark of the manor, Aislin would find crumbs of cheese and small scraps of meat on the floor. It was a large closet. Jackets hung from racks and shoes of various size were laid out on the ground. Other than, nothing significant.
The brief once-over the Paladin paid the closet yielded little in the way of detail, but she figured it worth the effort anyway. Looking back to the hallway, she moved to the right, intent on clearing this place room by room.
Up ahead, the hallway separated into left and right corridors. Directly in front of her was a coffee table with a plant arrangement. To the right the hallway ended, a door on one of the walls. To the left, it continued into what was presumably the main atria.
Aislin turned to the right, looking to the door and listening for any movement inside of it, wondering if there would be a repeat of the earlier situation. So close to the other, she doubted it, but didn't know all the same. Were it that there was no noise, she would tightened her roundlight's beam once more, and proceed to open the door and clear the room on the other side, weapon at the ready.
Aislin entered a small study. A large, leather recliner was in the corner, flanked by two massive shelves filled to bursting with leatherbound books. A lamp hung by the chair, and a coffee table. A cup of something was on the table and it steamed. Beside it was an open book. In the chair was a knit blanket, bundled up in a funnel. It looked cozy.
The fact that anything looked cozy in this place, knowing what had happened - what was still happening - had the inverse effect on Aislin as it normally would. The woman was on edge, the steaming cup was a massive red-flag, and with her free hand she shut the door behind her.
Something had to put that here, had to make it recently, to keep it that warm, and it, whatever it was, had to be close, considering its temperature. Her eyes looked about the room for any other exit, and were it that there were none, she would search for hiding places - areas in which something small could conceal itself.
Gently she dialed back the roundlight into a far wider beam.
Aside from the chair, shelves, coffee table and lamp, the room was empty. It was small to begin with. Were Aislin to come near the coffee table, she would smell a dark sweetness from the steaming mug. Hot chocolate. Little marshmallows floated in the black. The book was jilted at an angle towards the chair, as if someone had been reading in it.
The little blanket was done up in a funnel, almost a cocoon. The kind that people wrap themselves in to get warm. It was quite large and took up most of the chair.
The knight moved to kneel, to shine her light below the table and the chair, looking to see if anything was below them. Clearing that she moved to the chair, looking to the funneled blanket, standing a good two armslengths away as she took it in. As gently as one could do such a thing, she drew her sword, firearm still in her other hand and trained on the blanket, as she moved to push the blanket to the side, testing it for weight.
The blanket moved easily and slumped over the armrest of the chair. Beneath the blanket was a small leather scrapbook, held together by a rubber band.
Once the blanket proved empty, the paladin sheathed her sword and moved to investigate the scrapbook, taking it and moving it to the table and opening it with her spare hand, looking it over while she still kept a firm hand on the grip of the Lawkeeper.
'COLTON'S' the name on the first page read.
Inside were drawings - sketches - rather good. They looked as if they'd been outlined in pencil first then finished in ink. There was no color, though the shading work was impressive. Here was a horse riding a grassy plain, mane tossed in the wind. On this page was a fine rendition of the Monastic Order's insignia - the Evequec Raven - the interlocking wings and body sketched with great detail.
The sketches went on - mostly animals and knights. Some epic poses from history, Saint Valentine fighting the demon of Barrows, Saint Absolon in a great suit of armor that he could never take off...
A picture of a thin man all in black. His shoulders were wide and his legs were thin and his head sat on his chest like an upright spoon. It was a small picture, barely took up a tenth of the page, compared to the other sketches would consumed most of the paper. It was dead in the center.
As Aislin ran her fingers over the sketch, ink smeered the page and sullied her gaunlet in black.
The image of this thin man in black already caught her eye, but as the fresh ink stained her gauntlet she took even greater heed of the picture. This was recent, very recent, and could very well be some depiction of her culprit. The paladin noted the image and let it burn into her mind, leaving the scrapbook behind and looking instead now to the other book that rested on the table, looking to see what it was before she searched the room at large for any sort of telephone.
The book was a text on classical Lutetian chivalry. It was opened to the biography of Saint Lemeux, the first paladin. This page delineated how he died in the last battle against Tenebre's hordes, fighting a demon.
There was no telephone. Aside from the very abnormal pleasantries, everything seemed completely at ease.
Without any signs of scuffle or struggle, and no telephone, this didn't seem to be the library in question from the call, but Aislin didn't write it off entirely yet. So much of the place was, as of yet, uncharted, and this room - despite the uneasiness it instilled in her, seemed to be clear, so she returned to the hallway, moving back down what was the left branch earlier.
Aislin entered the main atria. Far ahead, was the front door, the police spotlights shining through the windows. That same candle flickered on a coffee table. She was at the back now. A staircase went up to the second floor on her right. A door was beside it, leading deeper into the orphanage. Farther left, the hallway continued.
Faintly, very faintly, the sound of writhing cicadas.
So now she stood at the back of the room she had first seen, a brief glance was paid to the staircase, to the door beside her, and she wondered whether she should take this door now. Instead she moved to cross the distance towards the front door, passing the candle, turning her eyes to the walls of this room.
She was looking for a light switch, figuring that the breakers weren't thrown if the fridge was working. Were it that she could find one, she'd turn it on, hoping to shed some light, literally, on the main atria.
Aislin would find a lightswitch near a door to her far left. Several knobs and switches, in fact. None of them, however, seemed to do anything. The room remained as dark and dreary as before - it seemed as if not every part of the house was getting electricity.
Perhaps some of the breakers were thrown, or perhaps some of the systems in the house were purposefully sabotaged. Regardless of that, and though slightly disappointed with that shortcoming, she went back to the task at hand, moving to her starting point at the front door and moving down the leftward hallway, looking to clear the first floor from the outside in.
The left hallway lead into a what looked like a vast rectangular art room. Supplies were up in crates and shelves along the walls, while desks and table dotted the room without clear order or structure. Canvases and easels lay about, sketchpads on desks, sculptures and models in some of the empty spaces. Paper birds hung from wires at the ceiling. It was a large room with a lot of junk in it. At the far end of the room, another door lead out.
The cluttered room gave Aislin some pause, already counting a dozen and a half hiding spots that would make for a good ambush. The paladin moved to begin a serpentine sort of approach to the room, clearing each table and desk individually as she moved through its length, taking her time. This beast, whatever it was, hopefully wasn't going anywhere fast.
Despite all of this the woman kept her wits about her, untouched, for the most part, by fear. She was the hunter here, it was the quarry, and she would have her prize before the night was over.
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
Desks and supplies glided past her, the sea of clutter seeming to part a haphazardous pathway through the room to its center. Three paintings stood there, the banner hung from the ceiling overhead displaying in gilded font: ART CONTEST WINNERS.
Third and second place were quaint watercolors, vague depictions of Lutetian scenery complete with adequate shading and acceptable perspective; about what one would expect from the artistic work of young teenagers.
First prize was masterpiece, the portrait of a young boy. Warm sunlight bathed his rosy cheeks, glinting hazel eyes in gentle gold. Perfectly-placed brushtrokes threaded his auburn hair, his ruffled white shirt, the becoming curve of his jaw and plump of his lips. It was the work of an adult - not without flaw, certainly, but leagues ahead of what a 13 year old should be able to produce. The paladin might have noticed many similarities between this painting and the ink sketches she'd found in the reading den.
It was also hideously marred. Angry red paint scrawled just below the boy's shirt. FAGGOT, it read. FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT- The tail of the last 'T' shot down the painting where it escaped the canvas and resumed on the floor. Aislin would notice the trail of red winding around the mess of the room, disappearing beneath the end of a closed closet.
____
The paladin regarded this all with wary eyes, coming to the paintings and looking over the three of them, her gaze lingering on the winner and its unrivaled quality. It was remarkable really, but it did remind her of the sketchbook, of the fresh ink, and she wondered if this was the same artists - and whether the derisive comments were directed at the artist or the one painted. Aislin thought, momentarily, to check and see whether the paint was fresh, but she dismissed that thought soon enough as she realized she could simply check where its trail lead instead. Dialing in her roundlight slightly, the paladin moved to the closet, her weapon ready as she looked to its base, examining its size.
Standing far enough back that she'd have a moment or two of time if its contents proved hostile, the paladin reached for the closet's door and opened it with a start, the spare hand returning to support her weapon if it was needed.
____
The door opened to the body of a child crucified on a canvased easel. His arms and legs were tied by ropes around the wood, deep lines chewing his limbs where something had cut fine slices out of his flesh. The largest was below his navel and his intestines spilled out over his groin and hung inches from the floor. None of his wounds suggested he had died quickly.
The red paint climbed up the wooden spokes of the easel, mingled with the child's blood, and wrote in clear, perfect cursive next to his body:
The dead boy's head was slumped over his shoulder. His eyes glazed into Aislin's, screaming.
____
Immediately the paladin had tracked her weapon on the corpse's head, though it was only after a moment that the sight and the smell told her he was long expired. Aislin frowned underneath her helmet as she discovered that which she had expected from the start, though her eyes fell to the cursive beside him and the statement lingered in her mind. Who's the faggot now? She kept looking at this body for only a moment before she turned back to the room at large, dialing back the roundlight out of the beam it had been as she gave the room another once-over before she moved to the door that rested on its far end, moving through it in her typical fashion. She cleared one angle and then the other, starting down the far-hall and coming to the next door on her right.
She listened to what lay beyond it for a moment before she breached that door as well, weapon at the ready.
____
Something buzzed in her ears as she turned away from the boy, akin to the hum of cicadas.
The next room was an exercise room. A far-cry from the art space, this area was well-organized and structured. Her round light bounced off the rusty gleam of steel barbells where they hung on their racks like instruments of torture. It was a studio for children and young adults, so the room was geared more for kinetic exercises rather than heavy lifting - padded mats, yoga balls and the like.
Another body here, a boy. He was tied to a bench, headless back arched against the padding. Beneath his stump-neck was a barbell weighted with as many plates as it could carry. His head was not far from the corpse, trailed by blood and gore.
Cicadas again, this time from behind her.
____
The fleeting noise, the buzz that lingered about her ears, was the same that she recalled from the atria, and she remembered how the power was cut there - or drained. She let it slip in the art room, but the moment it fell on her ears in the small gym she wheeled about, weapon ready, for whatever might have been behind her. Another dead child - she did her best not to let the image sink into her mind, and instead focused on the possibility that whatever horror carried this out was soon to meet her wrath. Alert eyes scanned as she hunted for any trace of this monster, spare hand moving soon to the hilt of her blade, ready to draw it if it was necessary.
____
The hallway was dark - darker than it had been when she'd come out of it. The shadows seemed thick and tangible such that Aislin's roundlight had trouble penetrating to the back wall. The cicada sound maximized just as she turned around ... then began to dissipate, leading further down the hall, away from the paladin. The darkness began to recede. Whether it was fleeing or setting up an elaborate trap, the monster didn't seem keen on facing the paladin then and there.
Clang! Grrrrrrr.... It came from behind her.
The corpse was alive, headless and all. He stood not five feet from Aislin, sprinting at her, the weighted barbell trailing behind him and grating on the floor. As he neared, he swung for her, hefting the massive weight like a broomstick for her center-chest.
____
The darkness that seemed to pour from the hallway held her eyes for several moments, confirming for the woman that she was facing something not of this earth. Her blade had begun to slip from her sheath, her finger on the trigger tightened, but neither had the chance to be properly used. Whatever that darkness was it slipped away as quickly as it appeared, the woman's eyes lingering on the door until that heavy crash, the dragging of the weight across the floor alerting her to a presence behind her, the knight not realizing that it was the corpse reanimated to assault her until she laid eyes on it. Quickly she spun, ducking to her left, having no time to bring her pistol to bear on the beast, drawing her blade as she darted out from under the swing and readying her own reply.
Coming from under the monster's arc, she held her blade in her right hand, swinging to take the creature's legs out from under it.
____
The swipe took out the corpses leg, bone and flesh severing beneath the sharpened steel with sickening ease. It fell to the floor, face-down, but took another swipe with the barbell for Aislin's ankles as he collapsed. It seemed to be insensitive to pain.
Little spasms afflicted its limbs and torso. Vomit welled up from the hole in its throat and shot out of its exposed esophagus like a geyser.
____
The paladin sneered beneath her helmet's visor, a sabatoned foot moving to stomp the creature's fist to the floor, sword brought up in a proper arc before she brought it down to sever, or at least maim, the offending arm. She refrained from using her Lawkeeper on the beast, conserving her ammunition for more deserving targets. Were it the first strike of her blade rang true, she'd aim for the other arm, a solid, armored boot coming to stamp itself onto the former boy's torso, to hold him down as she ensured the beast's demise.
____
Both strikes hit their marks, each of the monster's arms severing from the torso. The corpse wriggled beneath her boot for a few moments, before becoming still.
Something shot out of it - a blur of inky black that exploded from its halved throat and skittered across the floor with centipede legs. It moved too quickly to get a clear look at, but it turned right at the hallway and followed the cicada noise.
____
The Paladin watched this creature - whatever it was - slip from the body with unnatural speed and skitter out of the door and down the hallway, following the greater darkness. She didn't give pursuit, tempted as she might have been to do so. She would not charge blindly down a hallway, she would not expose herself to rooms she hadn't cleared, and this body told her that no room in this place was safe, so long as there was a body in it. She would need to clear the whole orphanage, room by room, of these bodies, and ensure that her flanks were secure if she were to confront the being that she had glimpsed earlier.
There was no doubt in her mind that was the figure from the book, the inky sketch of the darksome man.
Lawkeeper and sword in hand, she turned and moved down the length of the exercise room, coming to the door on the far side and stepping back through into the atria once more. She moved to her left, to the next and last door that branched off of this room on this side, and into the hallway that lay beyond. There were far more doors here than there'd ever been before, and the woman figured she might as well start somewhere. The first to be examined was the one to her immediate right, opened in her usual manner.
____
A long hallway lay before her, three doors on the right, four on the left. The last two on the left were open, but the rest were closed.
A vestige of shadow lingered at the far end of the hall, watching her. It retreated as she stepped forward, black tendrils of whispy ink slithering around the corner in a cacophony of insectian clicks. It was gone again, beckoning, challenging her to follow...
As it the noise died, a series of hushed whispers escaped the nearest door to her right. A moment later it creaked open. A food cart squeaked out of the space, laden with bread, cheese, sliced meat and bottled water. Two children - perhaps young teenagers - hunched timidly behind it, a boy and a girl.
"Did..." the girl squinted through the beam of the roundlight, "...did you scare it away? The noise..."
She had shortcut blonde hair and dimpled cheeks - reminiscent, perhaps, of the beauty she would become. Might become. The boy had tough raven locks and glared suspiciously down the hallway, vision sifting through the darkness for any sign of the monster.
____
The Paladin fixed her vision on the thing that lay at the far end of the hallway, not wanting to give it the time to move against her without seeing it first, though this food cart did bring her attention back to the two that had sought refuge in the small room. Aislin kept her Lawkeeper pointed down the length of the hallway as she managed a glance to these two frightened youths, wary eyes hidden behind the visor of her helmet. "For now. Get to the front door, I'll be behind you." As she shoved them back the way she came she kept facing the opposite end of the hall, only turning as they crossed the atrium.
"Get on the porch and drop to your knees - hands on your head. Do not move once you have." If she could, she'd see these two safely through the atrium and onto the porch, just as she had done with the younger children earlier. This thing, whatever it was, wanted to lure her down that hallway, and she wouldn't proceed without clearing her flanks and checking her corners.
She had been caught unawares in the small gym, and was doubly careful of his house and what horrors it held now.
Desks and supplies glided past her, the sea of clutter seeming to part a haphazardous pathway through the room to its center. Three paintings stood there, the banner hung from the ceiling overhead displaying in gilded font: ART CONTEST WINNERS.
Third and second place were quaint watercolors, vague depictions of Lutetian scenery complete with adequate shading and acceptable perspective; about what one would expect from the artistic work of young teenagers.
First prize was masterpiece, the portrait of a young boy. Warm sunlight bathed his rosy cheeks, glinting hazel eyes in gentle gold. Perfectly-placed brushtrokes threaded his auburn hair, his ruffled white shirt, the becoming curve of his jaw and plump of his lips. It was the work of an adult - not without flaw, certainly, but leagues ahead of what a 13 year old should be able to produce. The paladin might have noticed many similarities between this painting and the ink sketches she'd found in the reading den.
It was also hideously marred. Angry red paint scrawled just below the boy's shirt. FAGGOT, it read. FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT- The tail of the last 'T' shot down the painting where it escaped the canvas and resumed on the floor. Aislin would notice the trail of red winding around the mess of the room, disappearing beneath the end of a closed closet.
____
The paladin regarded this all with wary eyes, coming to the paintings and looking over the three of them, her gaze lingering on the winner and its unrivaled quality. It was remarkable really, but it did remind her of the sketchbook, of the fresh ink, and she wondered if this was the same artists - and whether the derisive comments were directed at the artist or the one painted. Aislin thought, momentarily, to check and see whether the paint was fresh, but she dismissed that thought soon enough as she realized she could simply check where its trail lead instead. Dialing in her roundlight slightly, the paladin moved to the closet, her weapon ready as she looked to its base, examining its size.
Standing far enough back that she'd have a moment or two of time if its contents proved hostile, the paladin reached for the closet's door and opened it with a start, the spare hand returning to support her weapon if it was needed.
____
The door opened to the body of a child crucified on a canvased easel. His arms and legs were tied by ropes around the wood, deep lines chewing his limbs where something had cut fine slices out of his flesh. The largest was below his navel and his intestines spilled out over his groin and hung inches from the floor. None of his wounds suggested he had died quickly.
The red paint climbed up the wooden spokes of the easel, mingled with the child's blood, and wrote in clear, perfect cursive next to his body:
Who's the faggot now?
The dead boy's head was slumped over his shoulder. His eyes glazed into Aislin's, screaming.
____
Immediately the paladin had tracked her weapon on the corpse's head, though it was only after a moment that the sight and the smell told her he was long expired. Aislin frowned underneath her helmet as she discovered that which she had expected from the start, though her eyes fell to the cursive beside him and the statement lingered in her mind. Who's the faggot now? She kept looking at this body for only a moment before she turned back to the room at large, dialing back the roundlight out of the beam it had been as she gave the room another once-over before she moved to the door that rested on its far end, moving through it in her typical fashion. She cleared one angle and then the other, starting down the far-hall and coming to the next door on her right.
She listened to what lay beyond it for a moment before she breached that door as well, weapon at the ready.
____
Something buzzed in her ears as she turned away from the boy, akin to the hum of cicadas.
The next room was an exercise room. A far-cry from the art space, this area was well-organized and structured. Her round light bounced off the rusty gleam of steel barbells where they hung on their racks like instruments of torture. It was a studio for children and young adults, so the room was geared more for kinetic exercises rather than heavy lifting - padded mats, yoga balls and the like.
Another body here, a boy. He was tied to a bench, headless back arched against the padding. Beneath his stump-neck was a barbell weighted with as many plates as it could carry. His head was not far from the corpse, trailed by blood and gore.
Cicadas again, this time from behind her.
____
The fleeting noise, the buzz that lingered about her ears, was the same that she recalled from the atria, and she remembered how the power was cut there - or drained. She let it slip in the art room, but the moment it fell on her ears in the small gym she wheeled about, weapon ready, for whatever might have been behind her. Another dead child - she did her best not to let the image sink into her mind, and instead focused on the possibility that whatever horror carried this out was soon to meet her wrath. Alert eyes scanned as she hunted for any trace of this monster, spare hand moving soon to the hilt of her blade, ready to draw it if it was necessary.
____
The hallway was dark - darker than it had been when she'd come out of it. The shadows seemed thick and tangible such that Aislin's roundlight had trouble penetrating to the back wall. The cicada sound maximized just as she turned around ... then began to dissipate, leading further down the hall, away from the paladin. The darkness began to recede. Whether it was fleeing or setting up an elaborate trap, the monster didn't seem keen on facing the paladin then and there.
Clang! Grrrrrrr.... It came from behind her.
The corpse was alive, headless and all. He stood not five feet from Aislin, sprinting at her, the weighted barbell trailing behind him and grating on the floor. As he neared, he swung for her, hefting the massive weight like a broomstick for her center-chest.
____
The darkness that seemed to pour from the hallway held her eyes for several moments, confirming for the woman that she was facing something not of this earth. Her blade had begun to slip from her sheath, her finger on the trigger tightened, but neither had the chance to be properly used. Whatever that darkness was it slipped away as quickly as it appeared, the woman's eyes lingering on the door until that heavy crash, the dragging of the weight across the floor alerting her to a presence behind her, the knight not realizing that it was the corpse reanimated to assault her until she laid eyes on it. Quickly she spun, ducking to her left, having no time to bring her pistol to bear on the beast, drawing her blade as she darted out from under the swing and readying her own reply.
Coming from under the monster's arc, she held her blade in her right hand, swinging to take the creature's legs out from under it.
____
The swipe took out the corpses leg, bone and flesh severing beneath the sharpened steel with sickening ease. It fell to the floor, face-down, but took another swipe with the barbell for Aislin's ankles as he collapsed. It seemed to be insensitive to pain.
Little spasms afflicted its limbs and torso. Vomit welled up from the hole in its throat and shot out of its exposed esophagus like a geyser.
____
The paladin sneered beneath her helmet's visor, a sabatoned foot moving to stomp the creature's fist to the floor, sword brought up in a proper arc before she brought it down to sever, or at least maim, the offending arm. She refrained from using her Lawkeeper on the beast, conserving her ammunition for more deserving targets. Were it the first strike of her blade rang true, she'd aim for the other arm, a solid, armored boot coming to stamp itself onto the former boy's torso, to hold him down as she ensured the beast's demise.
____
Both strikes hit their marks, each of the monster's arms severing from the torso. The corpse wriggled beneath her boot for a few moments, before becoming still.
Something shot out of it - a blur of inky black that exploded from its halved throat and skittered across the floor with centipede legs. It moved too quickly to get a clear look at, but it turned right at the hallway and followed the cicada noise.
____
The Paladin watched this creature - whatever it was - slip from the body with unnatural speed and skitter out of the door and down the hallway, following the greater darkness. She didn't give pursuit, tempted as she might have been to do so. She would not charge blindly down a hallway, she would not expose herself to rooms she hadn't cleared, and this body told her that no room in this place was safe, so long as there was a body in it. She would need to clear the whole orphanage, room by room, of these bodies, and ensure that her flanks were secure if she were to confront the being that she had glimpsed earlier.
There was no doubt in her mind that was the figure from the book, the inky sketch of the darksome man.
Lawkeeper and sword in hand, she turned and moved down the length of the exercise room, coming to the door on the far side and stepping back through into the atria once more. She moved to her left, to the next and last door that branched off of this room on this side, and into the hallway that lay beyond. There were far more doors here than there'd ever been before, and the woman figured she might as well start somewhere. The first to be examined was the one to her immediate right, opened in her usual manner.
____
A long hallway lay before her, three doors on the right, four on the left. The last two on the left were open, but the rest were closed.
A vestige of shadow lingered at the far end of the hall, watching her. It retreated as she stepped forward, black tendrils of whispy ink slithering around the corner in a cacophony of insectian clicks. It was gone again, beckoning, challenging her to follow...
As it the noise died, a series of hushed whispers escaped the nearest door to her right. A moment later it creaked open. A food cart squeaked out of the space, laden with bread, cheese, sliced meat and bottled water. Two children - perhaps young teenagers - hunched timidly behind it, a boy and a girl.
"Did..." the girl squinted through the beam of the roundlight, "...did you scare it away? The noise..."
She had shortcut blonde hair and dimpled cheeks - reminiscent, perhaps, of the beauty she would become. Might become. The boy had tough raven locks and glared suspiciously down the hallway, vision sifting through the darkness for any sign of the monster.
____
The Paladin fixed her vision on the thing that lay at the far end of the hallway, not wanting to give it the time to move against her without seeing it first, though this food cart did bring her attention back to the two that had sought refuge in the small room. Aislin kept her Lawkeeper pointed down the length of the hallway as she managed a glance to these two frightened youths, wary eyes hidden behind the visor of her helmet. "For now. Get to the front door, I'll be behind you." As she shoved them back the way she came she kept facing the opposite end of the hall, only turning as they crossed the atrium.
"Get on the porch and drop to your knees - hands on your head. Do not move once you have." If she could, she'd see these two safely through the atrium and onto the porch, just as she had done with the younger children earlier. This thing, whatever it was, wanted to lure her down that hallway, and she wouldn't proceed without clearing her flanks and checking her corners.
She had been caught unawares in the small gym, and was doubly careful of his house and what horrors it held now.
as written by Ottoman and Ronin
"Wait, wait," the girl's eyes widened as she made out the edge of steel plate from beneath the cone of light, "you're paladin, Eleu you're a paladin!" Her face lit up with a smile. "You've come to-" Her joy faltered as she attempted to usher them into the atria. "No, wait, you can't go after it! You can't possibly think about fighting it!" She looked earnestly into Aislin's visor. "Look. There are still children alive in this place. We've been making rounds, giving them food and water until someone showed up to help. We know where they are!" She patted the pockets on her blouse. "I can draw you a map! I'll show you where they are. So long as they haven't opened the door for anyone, they should still be fine."
"Don't be a fool, Katrin," the boy shook his head, brows knit. He peeked over the knight's shoulder, still scanning for the beast. "That thing would never let her leave with them all. It would confront her sooner or later." He looked at Aislin, eyes dark and stormy. "You know it gets stronger, right? With each person it kills? At first it could just possess dogs and animals, but after a while it started taking over the children, and then the adults." He snarled, teeth barring. "It's that little fucker's fault."
Were it that these two could see her face, they wouldn't have been speaking so freely. Again did she shove the both of them back towards the atrium, pulling the door to the hallway closed behind them once they were there. It only took a moment to sheath the blade she held, though the lawkeeper still rested in her off-hand, held aloft as she turned to the two children again. "I said get on the damn porch." She repeated, not wanting to linger in this place with these two exposed like this. "Drop to your knees, and wait for me to come out after you."
They were children, she had to remind herself of this fact, though one would think these people would prove far more cooperative in the wake of such horrific events. "Move."
____
The children startled at the whipcrack of Aislin's voice. The boy seemed ready to move, but the girl seemed defiant.
"You need us!" she protested, "we know what it is! We know who-"
"Cheeeeeeldrehnnnnn..." The voice screeched down the hallway, hollow and hoarse. A woman stood at the end of it, thin and greyhaired. She leered drunkenly from behind a pair of oval spectacles and limped forward. Aislin might have recognized her as the woman from the photographs in the dining room: the same woman in each picture.
"Come out, dearies, come out," she staggered down the hall, knuckles rapping on the wood. "It's not saaaaafe. It's not. We've got to get you to the mess, where it is..." She stumbled, but caught herself on a door frame, laughing as she collided into it. "...where it... heheh. Is safe. So safe for you, my dearies..."
There was blood on her dress.
____
"Go!" A gauntleted hand pointed defiantly back towards the front door as the Paladin moved to place herself between the two children and the haggard figure. Her pistol was raised and Aislin's hand settled on her blade, ready to cover the pair's retreat. "Get out that door and get on your knees!" Lughadh moved with the children, though the moment that she had a clear line of sight on the creature she took aim. This girl, Katrin, might very well make her time in this orphanage far easier than she'd previously thought, and she wouldn't risk any harm coming to her in particular.
It was barely a moment before the weapon barked fire from its muzzle, Aislin aiming for the upper body of the orphanage's mistress. There was the chance that she was not possessed - or whatever miserable fate befell the corpse that had assailed her before - but judging from her current state, death would be a release, and in the case that she was under this monster's influence...
She fired again, a follow-up shot, the consecrated slug meant to fell the figure if the first did not.
____
But the children were already gone. There was no sight of them, no pounding footsteps as they raced for the front door. They had disappeared into thin air - as if the mistress' foul presence had somehow forced them away.
The first shot practically disintegrated her shoulder, bone and muscle flying off her body in a bloody chunk. She laughed even harder, her bellowing chuckle carrying with it the remnant of a scream.
"That don't do," she spat. With her unmaimed hand, she made a throwing gesture at Aislin before she could line up another shot. A lamp flew off of a nearby table with tremendous speed, aimed for Aislin's firing arm. If impacted, the strike would likely divert her fire, the consecrated round powering through the nearby paneling.
"Won't do..." she growled now, throwing her limbs forward once more. One of the coffee tables from the atria catapulted off the ground, soaring for Aislin's side.
____
The lamp moved too quickly for the paladin to do anything in the way of dodging it, her shot going wide as it sped towards her, the woman moving to deflect it with her vambrace. The ceramic shell shattered against the steel of her armor, Aislin recovering in time to see the table flung towards her with inhuman speed - there was her answer. The knight darted to the side, out of the table's reach, as she drew her Ivaran blade in a flourish, longsword held out to her side as she brought her sidearm to bear once more on the creature. Again did she fire, three rounds aimed center-mass, looking to tear the beast apart from afar before engaging at close range.
Strong, and no doubt cunning thanks to the monster's influence, she doubted the former mistress of the orphanage would last long against her in close combat, but it was something she didn't want to chance at the moment.
____
Each blue-streaked round found its mark, the consecrated lead leaving garish punctures in her torso that continued to burn her skin as if scorched by an unseen flame. She collapsed as one of the bullets kinked her lower spine, paralyzing her from the waist down instantly. But the mistress still lived, and she laughed all the while.
The floor between them splintered, a spiderweb of cracks and scars rupturing through the wood. One of the wood shards emerged a jagged spear and flung itself point-first for Aislin's approaching torso. A large brass lamp catapulted in from the atria, attempting to slam into her back and knock her onto the ground.
"You'll play nice or you won't play at all, deary," she croaked, blood dribbling from her lips, "I won't tolerate it, not even for a second!"
____
Life was a questionable quality for the woman Aislin faced, if what soon assailed her was taken into account. Were it not for the splintering crackle of the floor fracturing between them the Paladin might not have felt it through her boots, but the noise drew her eyes quickly enough that she noticed the sliver racing for her heart. Again did the woman dodge to the side, a hint less gracefully to the right this time, as she pushed herself towards this tormented soul, charging the monster's thrall. The limits of the human body no longer seemed to apply to this beast, Lughadh moving to dispatch her as she had the last now, blade at the ready as she neared her target, the pistol held in reserve if it was needed.
The knight was swift despite her armor, having learned her way around it in her years of service, slipping away from the brass lamp's initial path as she neared the former mistress of the house, but she wasn't swift enough to avoid all injury - that slice of wood caught the outside of her arm, its sharp edge making short work of the sleeve above her gauntlet, her blood drawn without a sound.
This creature wouldn't have the satisfaction.
The moment she was close enough Ash's blade moved to separate the thrall's head from its shoulders, preparing for a follow-up strike should this one turn out like the other she'd encountered in the gym.
____
"Simply won't sta-" her words caught in her throat as the paladin's blade severed her head from her neck. Blood flooded the floor, spattered the far wall with red and staining her greaves. Her body flailed for a few seconds, flapping around on the ground like a gutted fish, before she lay still. Something black exploded out of her side and scuttled down the hallway - the same as the child before.
All of the surrounding furniture was destroyed, save the children's food cart. It stood amid the debris of wood and glass a curious anomaly, still laden with the meats and breads taken from the orphanage's pantry. A note was taped to its side that hadn't been there before - a hand drawn map of the first and second floor of the facility.
"Circled rooms have survivors. DONT GO INTO THE ROOMS WITH THE X'S. Will meet up with you soon.
-Katrin"
____
The knight was unperturbed by the geyser of blood that erupted from the other's neck, her opponent dispatched with a decapitation that, while not her finest, still betrayed her experience with a blade. The thing that came out of the body was allowed to skitter off to whatever end it sought, Aislin not wanting to waste rounds trying to kill it, instead pondering the creature as it retreated from her view. There was something unnatural here at work - that darkness she'd seen before was beyond this world, she was certain - but she was beginning to wonder whether this was a case of possessions, or parasites.
Albeit parasites of a far greater sort than a simple tapeworm.
"... by the Wick." She muttered, turning on her feet to look back to the cart, eyes darting to the note and the map which she took up the moment she was close enough, her sidearm left to hang at her side. Green eyes lighted over the map's details, Lughadh turning her back to the wall behind her that she might not expose herself while she did. She'd already seen to one bastion of survivors, and it seemed like there was one left on this floor, the Paladin looking up from the impromptu map to glance down the hallway to where the circle seemed to point - the two doors that were open. The woman lingered on the thought for only a moment before she looked back to the map, memorizing the two holdouts on the second floor before the map was stuffed away in a pocket, taking her Lawkeeper back up from where it had dangled on its lanyard.
Immediately the she set down the hallway to check the open doors and investigate whether the survivors marked on the map still lived.
____
The unmarked rooms were vacant washrooms and dormitories, cluttered with discarded books and toys. The bunk beds were unmade and clothing lay strewn about the floor. The night's horrors had stalled clean-up hour, evidently.
Aislin would find four children cowering in the corner of the room Katrin had circled. The sounds of gunshots and fighting had frightened them, and a chorus of screams erupted as Ash's metal boots thudded into the room. They were teenagers, three girls and a boy. One of the girls held out a small pocketknife to the approaching light, waiving it through the air.
"S...stay back..." she growled through tears, "...don't come any closer..."
____
The cries of the children there managed to soften her hidden face, a light smile coming to the lips behind the helmet - they were alive, even if they were terrified, and the situation in the orphanage was more clear now. "Stay your blade, child." She managed, relief evident in her voice as she kept an eye on the door, moving further into the dormitory. "You're getting out of here - to the front door, quickly." The paladin gestured that they move, paying a momentary glance to the young ones as she did, making sure to keep her wits focused on the far end of the hallway.
Were it that the children hesitated, she'd help them on their way - her hands firm on their arms - and take up the rear of their column once they were in motion, not unlike how she'd handled the first group. "Get on to the porch, get on your knees, and put your hands on your heads."
____
These would need some more support from Aislin. They were not the younglings from the closet, too innocent and childish to comprehend the horror of the situation. These were teenagers. They understood what was happening. Many of them had lost friends and family already.
Shivering and whimpering, the children gradually came to understand that Aislin was trying to help them. They walked through the atria, clinging close to one another, before stepping into the cold police spotlights that flooded the porch.
Applause again - louder this time. The gunshots had worried the officers. Seeing her with four more children set their minds at ease. Whatever had been fought was overcome. Only Matoi remained stoic, arms crossed over his chest as he waited for the paladin's signal. He did not relax until she gave it. The chief hulked behind him, red-cheeked and scowling. They had been having an argument before Aislin had come out again. At the sight of the paladin with four new survivors, he stamped angrily away.
____
Her attention allowed for little support for the children until they were on the porch itself, the paladin pulling the door shut behind her and showing the talisman to the applauding policemen. To their credit, these shaken teenagers had followed her orders and had pulled themselves together long enough to get out of the orphanage, the Paladin helping them down from the porch after Matoi was informed that it was indeed her who'd brought these children from the nightmare Arodring had become. Again she took up the rear, only allowing herself a lengthy sigh after the teenagers were in police custody, eyes darting to Matoi, waving for the man to come over as she lifted her helm's faceplate.
The knight milled about not far from the rescued children, both giving herself a moment to relax and to put her thoughts to words. "Inspector," She murmured, once Matoi was close enough, "Could you see that these children get something to eat and drink? I'm going to have a word with them, but they need some time to calm down first." Lughadh glanced to them, all seven of those brought out so far, and allowed herself a small moment of pride, pleased that she'd managed to bring this much good out of an otherwise terrible situation.
____
Matoi hurried over to the paladin, nodding at her words. "We brought cocoa and coffee from the station. I sent Simmons to buy snacks. We've set the children up over there." He gestured to a small grassy patch near an ambulance. The three younglings were covered in jackets and blankets and were happily sipping at styrofoam cups and eating fruit snacks. Police surrounded them, talking with them, encouraging them ... but they never set down their rifles.
"We've got them surrounded in the event of..." Matoi swallowed, "...unfortunate circumstances. Hopefully that won't happen." The four new survivors were ushered over to the relief area where they were given jackets and hot drinks. A paramedic began examining them.
"You've clearly made progress, paladin," the inspector watched the children, a smile quirking the edge of his mouth, "seven kids. That's more than I hoped." He looked back to Aislin, brows furrowed. "We heard gunshots." He looked her up and down, noting the blood smearing her greaves and the light wound afflicting her arm. "...did you... kill it? Whatever it is?"
____
"More than I expected to find." She murmured with a nod, glad that the police were attending to the survivors properly and taking the necessary precautions, though the hand that came to rub at her eyes told the Inspector the situation had changed before she had a chance to speak. "As to the threat, yes and no. I'm... less certain about what we're up against now, Matoi." Thralls... the undead, if the poor people were even dead to begin with, made her question her initial assessment. It was little surprise that the initial teams that the police had sent in had wound up like they had, if they had to consider every corpse a possible threat. "But I am quite certain it's demonic."
The gauntleted hand moved to pull her helmet off, Aislin's pale blonde hair slipping from its cover, wound tightly in a bun to accommodate it. She'd have run a hand over it were it not for the gore that stained her gloves, having learned before just what it was like to get something else's humor out of one's hair. "I'm not sure if it's a shapeshifter, but it has... thralls." She hesitated to use the word, wondering if it was the proper term, but figured it conveyed the point well enough. "Corpses, and the living, under its influence. My previous instructions stand, concerning what comes out of that house." It was the safest course of action in her mind, albeit one that might hamper evacuating the survivors.
She wasn't keen on finding what was left of the police teams.
"I... I think these children are safe." Both from what lay inside the orphanage, and what threat they might pose to the police. She hesitated to give such judgement, not wanting to make such a call so early, but what she'd seen thus far - bodies controlled by some sort of creature inside of them, and a darkness that shirked away as one looked towards it - lead her more and more to discount the thought of a shapeshifter, at least for now. "Have there been any pertinent developments?"
"Wait, wait," the girl's eyes widened as she made out the edge of steel plate from beneath the cone of light, "you're paladin, Eleu you're a paladin!" Her face lit up with a smile. "You've come to-" Her joy faltered as she attempted to usher them into the atria. "No, wait, you can't go after it! You can't possibly think about fighting it!" She looked earnestly into Aislin's visor. "Look. There are still children alive in this place. We've been making rounds, giving them food and water until someone showed up to help. We know where they are!" She patted the pockets on her blouse. "I can draw you a map! I'll show you where they are. So long as they haven't opened the door for anyone, they should still be fine."
"Don't be a fool, Katrin," the boy shook his head, brows knit. He peeked over the knight's shoulder, still scanning for the beast. "That thing would never let her leave with them all. It would confront her sooner or later." He looked at Aislin, eyes dark and stormy. "You know it gets stronger, right? With each person it kills? At first it could just possess dogs and animals, but after a while it started taking over the children, and then the adults." He snarled, teeth barring. "It's that little fucker's fault."
Were it that these two could see her face, they wouldn't have been speaking so freely. Again did she shove the both of them back towards the atrium, pulling the door to the hallway closed behind them once they were there. It only took a moment to sheath the blade she held, though the lawkeeper still rested in her off-hand, held aloft as she turned to the two children again. "I said get on the damn porch." She repeated, not wanting to linger in this place with these two exposed like this. "Drop to your knees, and wait for me to come out after you."
They were children, she had to remind herself of this fact, though one would think these people would prove far more cooperative in the wake of such horrific events. "Move."
____
The children startled at the whipcrack of Aislin's voice. The boy seemed ready to move, but the girl seemed defiant.
"You need us!" she protested, "we know what it is! We know who-"
"Cheeeeeeldrehnnnnn..." The voice screeched down the hallway, hollow and hoarse. A woman stood at the end of it, thin and greyhaired. She leered drunkenly from behind a pair of oval spectacles and limped forward. Aislin might have recognized her as the woman from the photographs in the dining room: the same woman in each picture.
"Come out, dearies, come out," she staggered down the hall, knuckles rapping on the wood. "It's not saaaaafe. It's not. We've got to get you to the mess, where it is..." She stumbled, but caught herself on a door frame, laughing as she collided into it. "...where it... heheh. Is safe. So safe for you, my dearies..."
There was blood on her dress.
____
"Go!" A gauntleted hand pointed defiantly back towards the front door as the Paladin moved to place herself between the two children and the haggard figure. Her pistol was raised and Aislin's hand settled on her blade, ready to cover the pair's retreat. "Get out that door and get on your knees!" Lughadh moved with the children, though the moment that she had a clear line of sight on the creature she took aim. This girl, Katrin, might very well make her time in this orphanage far easier than she'd previously thought, and she wouldn't risk any harm coming to her in particular.
It was barely a moment before the weapon barked fire from its muzzle, Aislin aiming for the upper body of the orphanage's mistress. There was the chance that she was not possessed - or whatever miserable fate befell the corpse that had assailed her before - but judging from her current state, death would be a release, and in the case that she was under this monster's influence...
She fired again, a follow-up shot, the consecrated slug meant to fell the figure if the first did not.
____
But the children were already gone. There was no sight of them, no pounding footsteps as they raced for the front door. They had disappeared into thin air - as if the mistress' foul presence had somehow forced them away.
The first shot practically disintegrated her shoulder, bone and muscle flying off her body in a bloody chunk. She laughed even harder, her bellowing chuckle carrying with it the remnant of a scream.
"That don't do," she spat. With her unmaimed hand, she made a throwing gesture at Aislin before she could line up another shot. A lamp flew off of a nearby table with tremendous speed, aimed for Aislin's firing arm. If impacted, the strike would likely divert her fire, the consecrated round powering through the nearby paneling.
"Won't do..." she growled now, throwing her limbs forward once more. One of the coffee tables from the atria catapulted off the ground, soaring for Aislin's side.
____
The lamp moved too quickly for the paladin to do anything in the way of dodging it, her shot going wide as it sped towards her, the woman moving to deflect it with her vambrace. The ceramic shell shattered against the steel of her armor, Aislin recovering in time to see the table flung towards her with inhuman speed - there was her answer. The knight darted to the side, out of the table's reach, as she drew her Ivaran blade in a flourish, longsword held out to her side as she brought her sidearm to bear once more on the creature. Again did she fire, three rounds aimed center-mass, looking to tear the beast apart from afar before engaging at close range.
Strong, and no doubt cunning thanks to the monster's influence, she doubted the former mistress of the orphanage would last long against her in close combat, but it was something she didn't want to chance at the moment.
____
Each blue-streaked round found its mark, the consecrated lead leaving garish punctures in her torso that continued to burn her skin as if scorched by an unseen flame. She collapsed as one of the bullets kinked her lower spine, paralyzing her from the waist down instantly. But the mistress still lived, and she laughed all the while.
The floor between them splintered, a spiderweb of cracks and scars rupturing through the wood. One of the wood shards emerged a jagged spear and flung itself point-first for Aislin's approaching torso. A large brass lamp catapulted in from the atria, attempting to slam into her back and knock her onto the ground.
"You'll play nice or you won't play at all, deary," she croaked, blood dribbling from her lips, "I won't tolerate it, not even for a second!"
____
Life was a questionable quality for the woman Aislin faced, if what soon assailed her was taken into account. Were it not for the splintering crackle of the floor fracturing between them the Paladin might not have felt it through her boots, but the noise drew her eyes quickly enough that she noticed the sliver racing for her heart. Again did the woman dodge to the side, a hint less gracefully to the right this time, as she pushed herself towards this tormented soul, charging the monster's thrall. The limits of the human body no longer seemed to apply to this beast, Lughadh moving to dispatch her as she had the last now, blade at the ready as she neared her target, the pistol held in reserve if it was needed.
The knight was swift despite her armor, having learned her way around it in her years of service, slipping away from the brass lamp's initial path as she neared the former mistress of the house, but she wasn't swift enough to avoid all injury - that slice of wood caught the outside of her arm, its sharp edge making short work of the sleeve above her gauntlet, her blood drawn without a sound.
This creature wouldn't have the satisfaction.
The moment she was close enough Ash's blade moved to separate the thrall's head from its shoulders, preparing for a follow-up strike should this one turn out like the other she'd encountered in the gym.
____
"Simply won't sta-" her words caught in her throat as the paladin's blade severed her head from her neck. Blood flooded the floor, spattered the far wall with red and staining her greaves. Her body flailed for a few seconds, flapping around on the ground like a gutted fish, before she lay still. Something black exploded out of her side and scuttled down the hallway - the same as the child before.
All of the surrounding furniture was destroyed, save the children's food cart. It stood amid the debris of wood and glass a curious anomaly, still laden with the meats and breads taken from the orphanage's pantry. A note was taped to its side that hadn't been there before - a hand drawn map of the first and second floor of the facility.
"Circled rooms have survivors. DONT GO INTO THE ROOMS WITH THE X'S. Will meet up with you soon.
-Katrin"
____
The knight was unperturbed by the geyser of blood that erupted from the other's neck, her opponent dispatched with a decapitation that, while not her finest, still betrayed her experience with a blade. The thing that came out of the body was allowed to skitter off to whatever end it sought, Aislin not wanting to waste rounds trying to kill it, instead pondering the creature as it retreated from her view. There was something unnatural here at work - that darkness she'd seen before was beyond this world, she was certain - but she was beginning to wonder whether this was a case of possessions, or parasites.
Albeit parasites of a far greater sort than a simple tapeworm.
"... by the Wick." She muttered, turning on her feet to look back to the cart, eyes darting to the note and the map which she took up the moment she was close enough, her sidearm left to hang at her side. Green eyes lighted over the map's details, Lughadh turning her back to the wall behind her that she might not expose herself while she did. She'd already seen to one bastion of survivors, and it seemed like there was one left on this floor, the Paladin looking up from the impromptu map to glance down the hallway to where the circle seemed to point - the two doors that were open. The woman lingered on the thought for only a moment before she looked back to the map, memorizing the two holdouts on the second floor before the map was stuffed away in a pocket, taking her Lawkeeper back up from where it had dangled on its lanyard.
Immediately the she set down the hallway to check the open doors and investigate whether the survivors marked on the map still lived.
____
The unmarked rooms were vacant washrooms and dormitories, cluttered with discarded books and toys. The bunk beds were unmade and clothing lay strewn about the floor. The night's horrors had stalled clean-up hour, evidently.
Aislin would find four children cowering in the corner of the room Katrin had circled. The sounds of gunshots and fighting had frightened them, and a chorus of screams erupted as Ash's metal boots thudded into the room. They were teenagers, three girls and a boy. One of the girls held out a small pocketknife to the approaching light, waiving it through the air.
"S...stay back..." she growled through tears, "...don't come any closer..."
____
The cries of the children there managed to soften her hidden face, a light smile coming to the lips behind the helmet - they were alive, even if they were terrified, and the situation in the orphanage was more clear now. "Stay your blade, child." She managed, relief evident in her voice as she kept an eye on the door, moving further into the dormitory. "You're getting out of here - to the front door, quickly." The paladin gestured that they move, paying a momentary glance to the young ones as she did, making sure to keep her wits focused on the far end of the hallway.
Were it that the children hesitated, she'd help them on their way - her hands firm on their arms - and take up the rear of their column once they were in motion, not unlike how she'd handled the first group. "Get on to the porch, get on your knees, and put your hands on your heads."
____
These would need some more support from Aislin. They were not the younglings from the closet, too innocent and childish to comprehend the horror of the situation. These were teenagers. They understood what was happening. Many of them had lost friends and family already.
Shivering and whimpering, the children gradually came to understand that Aislin was trying to help them. They walked through the atria, clinging close to one another, before stepping into the cold police spotlights that flooded the porch.
Applause again - louder this time. The gunshots had worried the officers. Seeing her with four more children set their minds at ease. Whatever had been fought was overcome. Only Matoi remained stoic, arms crossed over his chest as he waited for the paladin's signal. He did not relax until she gave it. The chief hulked behind him, red-cheeked and scowling. They had been having an argument before Aislin had come out again. At the sight of the paladin with four new survivors, he stamped angrily away.
____
Her attention allowed for little support for the children until they were on the porch itself, the paladin pulling the door shut behind her and showing the talisman to the applauding policemen. To their credit, these shaken teenagers had followed her orders and had pulled themselves together long enough to get out of the orphanage, the Paladin helping them down from the porch after Matoi was informed that it was indeed her who'd brought these children from the nightmare Arodring had become. Again she took up the rear, only allowing herself a lengthy sigh after the teenagers were in police custody, eyes darting to Matoi, waving for the man to come over as she lifted her helm's faceplate.
The knight milled about not far from the rescued children, both giving herself a moment to relax and to put her thoughts to words. "Inspector," She murmured, once Matoi was close enough, "Could you see that these children get something to eat and drink? I'm going to have a word with them, but they need some time to calm down first." Lughadh glanced to them, all seven of those brought out so far, and allowed herself a small moment of pride, pleased that she'd managed to bring this much good out of an otherwise terrible situation.
____
Matoi hurried over to the paladin, nodding at her words. "We brought cocoa and coffee from the station. I sent Simmons to buy snacks. We've set the children up over there." He gestured to a small grassy patch near an ambulance. The three younglings were covered in jackets and blankets and were happily sipping at styrofoam cups and eating fruit snacks. Police surrounded them, talking with them, encouraging them ... but they never set down their rifles.
"We've got them surrounded in the event of..." Matoi swallowed, "...unfortunate circumstances. Hopefully that won't happen." The four new survivors were ushered over to the relief area where they were given jackets and hot drinks. A paramedic began examining them.
"You've clearly made progress, paladin," the inspector watched the children, a smile quirking the edge of his mouth, "seven kids. That's more than I hoped." He looked back to Aislin, brows furrowed. "We heard gunshots." He looked her up and down, noting the blood smearing her greaves and the light wound afflicting her arm. "...did you... kill it? Whatever it is?"
____
"More than I expected to find." She murmured with a nod, glad that the police were attending to the survivors properly and taking the necessary precautions, though the hand that came to rub at her eyes told the Inspector the situation had changed before she had a chance to speak. "As to the threat, yes and no. I'm... less certain about what we're up against now, Matoi." Thralls... the undead, if the poor people were even dead to begin with, made her question her initial assessment. It was little surprise that the initial teams that the police had sent in had wound up like they had, if they had to consider every corpse a possible threat. "But I am quite certain it's demonic."
The gauntleted hand moved to pull her helmet off, Aislin's pale blonde hair slipping from its cover, wound tightly in a bun to accommodate it. She'd have run a hand over it were it not for the gore that stained her gloves, having learned before just what it was like to get something else's humor out of one's hair. "I'm not sure if it's a shapeshifter, but it has... thralls." She hesitated to use the word, wondering if it was the proper term, but figured it conveyed the point well enough. "Corpses, and the living, under its influence. My previous instructions stand, concerning what comes out of that house." It was the safest course of action in her mind, albeit one that might hamper evacuating the survivors.
She wasn't keen on finding what was left of the police teams.
"I... I think these children are safe." Both from what lay inside the orphanage, and what threat they might pose to the police. She hesitated to give such judgement, not wanting to make such a call so early, but what she'd seen thus far - bodies controlled by some sort of creature inside of them, and a darkness that shirked away as one looked towards it - lead her more and more to discount the thought of a shapeshifter, at least for now. "Have there been any pertinent developments?"
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
To Matoi's credit, he only stared for a few seconds as Aislin fully removed her helmet for the first time. Paladin or no, Ash was a woman, and not unpleasant to look at. The inspector cleared his throat, nodding as she gave him an update on the situation in the orphanage.
"A demon?" he gaped, "are you sure, paladin? I thought it might be a maneater or some mindless beast, but a demon..."
Lutetian demons were something of a rarity among the world of monsters. Spawns of the Wyrm itself, they were made of the abyss, constructed of the formless void that lingered beyond the edge of creation. Encounters described them as inky-black and tendril-like, wreathed in shadow and taking brief humanoid forms from time to time. They could possess corpses and the weak minded, and could not be killed, simply banished ... either through overwhelming firepower or by killing the one who summoned it. Aislin would know all of this as a trained paladin, and would also know that there hadn't been a confirmed demon sighting for some hundred years. Many suspected they were myths.
"No new developments," Matoi shook his head, "gave us a scare after the gunshots. Chief got on his horn again, tried to convince us to go in. You showing up alive squashed his hopes of organizing a charge." He adjusted his glasses. "If it's a demon, paladin, then it was summoned, wasn't it? That doesn't seem possible. No one in that orphanage should be able to do something like that."
____
She wasn't entirely sure that it was, she couldn't do Matoi the justice of a definite answer, but damn if this wasn't too close for comfort. Her age showed in her features as he glanced back to the Inspector, the Paladin not wanting to think of how many years she'd served the Order in the grey, but her eyes betrayed her thoughts - she felt that she was dealing with something of the Wyrm and it showed. "If the tales are to be believed, Inspector." It didn't stand to reason that demons appeared out of thin air - something attracted it to this unfortunate orphanage, and Lughadh had an inkling as to what. "Allow me a few moments with the children? I'll see to a bandage once I'm done." She paid a half-nod towards her wounded arm before turning again to the survivors.
The knight wore a small smile, not knowing how they were holding up to the day's events so far, approaching them at a gingerly pace before she moved to speak. "Children," She offered, not knowing what term to better use, as no other that came to her seemed to fit. "I have a question or two for you, if you have a moment." She was no inquisitor, and this was no police action - this was no place for harsh words or stern action - these children were safe, and all she sought were answers to otherwise simple questions.
____
"Of course," Matoi gestured to the children, following behind her.
All of the survivors were now settled with blankets and hot drinks. The young children were most talkative, chatting amiably among one another. The older kids were still shell-shocked, clutching their blankets around themselves and staring off into the distance.
Mariam looked up at the paladin with wide eyes as she spoke, sipping a little juice box. "What did she say?" She blinked.
"She has questions for us, Mariam, hush up," Hannah hissed.
"Is she bringing us the animal crackers like they said they would?" the little five-year old turned around and death-glared at one of the officers. "I'm still waiting, just so you know."
One of the teenagers, the one who had been wielding a pocket-knife, looked up. She was the only one to acknowledge Ash.
"What do you want to know?"
____
The smile lingered on Ash's features, glad to see the youngest children were still unphased by what they had been witness to - though she felt that they might not have seen so much as the others had. But it was good that one of them, the one with the knife, recognized what she'd inquired after, and it was to her that the paladin nodded. "What does the name Colton mean to you?" She was straight to the point and saw no reason in dancing around the matter - she had her suspicions regarding the name and the sketches she had seen, but what had been in the art room had solidified such concerns.
"Was he one of the orphans here?"
____
The other teenagers looked up, confusion briefly usurping their fear. The girl only nodded.
"He's an orphan," she sniffed, "been here all his life. Quiet. Not many friends. Good with paint."
"Colton," Hanna mused, before her face lit up, "that's right! He's the one who was getting beat up by Vincent and Brack on Felling!" She crossed her arms defiantly. "I told Ms. Hedhewater about it right away, I did, but they just denied in the end."
"He gets beat up a lot," the teenager nodded, perhaps a small tinge of guilt entering her voice. She looked up at Aislin. "Colton... doesn't really fit in." She swallowed, rubbing at her nose. "He was just teased and ignored for most of his time here, but then he made this painting for the art contest two weeks ago. It was a portrait of Ian..." She shook her head. "...everyone knew about Colton, then. The nastier boys never let him live it down. And the staff did next to nothing about it." A half-smirk seized her lips. "No one really cared about him. Guess they never will." She looked at the entrance to the orphanage. "No way someone like him survived whatever's in there..."
____
The Iverian nodded as the young woman explained, in her vague way, just who Colton was and why, perhaps, the painting in the art room was as tarnished as it was. Certainly the knight inferred just what the girl was getting at, but considering that this Colton might play a vital role in regards to something that had already claimed so many lives, Aislin wasn't keen to run on assumptions. "Why?" She asked, clarifying after she spoke. "Why was he teased, bullied?" Detested, she'd say, by the way the portrait had been ruined, and Hanna's interjection mentioning a beating. Teasing was one thing, name-calling and jeers, but physical violence was another.
"... and who's Ian?"
____
"Colton just..." the girl hesitated, "...doesn't fit in. Doesn't have good social skills. He'd try and talk to us and just say something weird."
"He offered to 'draw my hands'," the male teenager spoke up. He was still pale in the face, but he took sparing sips of his cocoa. "Was the first thing he ever said to me. 'Can I draw your hands? You have nice hands.'" He shook his head. "He's a weirdo."
"He..." a red-headed teenager spoke next, "...wouldn't stop talking to me about my hair. Told me that it looked like Saint Valentine's." She drew a breath. "He's obsessed with the old Order legends ... the knights and saints and the like. Won't shut up about them. I see him in the den a lot, sitting in the reading chair and drawing the old heroes. He goes there every night to sketch after he gets a hot drink from the kitchen."
"He obsesses easily," the first teenager picked up. Typical of adolescent social circles, gossip came easy to them. "Like with Ian. Ian's an orphan here. Handsome guy, pretty popular. Colton followed him around for a while, which was meh. But then he painted him. Like, made a really hot painting of him. Everyone knew then, of course, that Colton was gay." She pulled her blanket tighter over her shoulders. "It got really bad for him after that. Used to just be pushing or shoving now and then, but Colton started getting beat. He started hiding from everyone. I don't know where he goes. The orphanage isn't a big place, it's hard to get privacy. Hopefully wherever he is in there, he's safe, but I wouldn't count on it. He's a scrawny little guy."
____
She blinked at that, surprised, even if she'd halfway expected to hear it. So it was the boy's sexuality that had made him a target? It also explained, in some strange manner, what she'd found in the study - the sketch book, but also the warm beverage. The paladin pondered the thought of how something so warm, in such a similar fashion, might wind up there in the wake of such horrific events. It didn't sit well with her. Aislin crossed her arms at hearing such from the teenagers, glad that they could shed some light on the situation, even as unpleasant as it was. "So he's been targeted because of his sexuality? How long ago did this start?" Did this have time to fester, or had it only been recently?
The boy was lonely and ostracized, a combination that didn't look well with what had already befallen the orphanage.
____
"About two weeks ago, after he made the painting," the girl replied. "He's been teased and mocked his entire life, but things only got physical recently." She took up her cup and took a slow, thoughtful sip. "I couldn't tell you where he is in there. When the..." A pause. Her eyes widened. "...the killing... started..." She took a few, deep breaths. "...these two kids, a boy and girl, told us to go into our rooms and shut the door. Said the monster couldn't open doors."
The boy spoke up again. "I'd never seen them before, those two. But they passed food beneath the doors for us." He shrugged. "Thought at first they might be cops, but they were about our age. It was weird. But hey, we're alive because of them."
"But Colton wasn't with us," the girl continued, "probably off in his hiding place, wherever that is." She gave Aislin a curious. "Why so interested in him anyway?"
____
Then it was only recently that those who had shunned him had moved to more hateful acts. Lughadh's eyes grew distant as she turned her hypothesis over in her head, wondering if what she suspected was even possible - demons hadn't been reported, in any reliable manner, for decades - but this was shaping up to be no simple monstrosity. "Call it a hunch." She murmured in reply, almost under her breath, though her voice was easily heard. A hunch that still had a few holes in it, but she figured that those answers would be found on the second floor of the Orphanage, which she'd see to shortly enough, but not before asking a final question of the survivors.
"Do you know a Katrin, by chance?" It was almost sideways the way she mentioned it, an afterthought, brought on by the boy's words. The paladin's hands returned to her arms, resting there, eager to return to the nightmare at Arodring and discover the truth of the matter.
____
"Katrin?" the girl made a face. "No, there's no one that goes to Arodring named Katrin." Her brows furrowed. "Was that the girl that brought us food? She was with another guy, right? I didn't recognize his voice either."
"Thought they were with the police or something," the boy spoke up. "Yeah, they don't go here. But we definitely wouldn't have survived without them."
____
At that the Paladin simply nodded, not entirely understanding what this meant, but knowing well enough that it was important. Two children here - if they were children - that didn't stay at Arodring cropping up in the wake of this terror? Ones that the survivors seemed to think were instrumental in their making it through the whole ordeal? "Thank you. Rest, relax if you can - you're safe now." With that she parted from the children, stopping briefly with Matoi to see about a bandage of sorts for her arm, and once her wound was seen to she returned to the Orphanage, sidearm at the ready and her roundlight dialed into a beam. According to the map that Katrin had left, the first floor held no more survivors, and in Aislin's mind, evacuating who remained alive inside was the priority over confronting this creature - this demon.
Pending no distractions she'd move up the stairs, cautious of potential targets and threats, moving to the girl's washroom as it seemed to be marked on the hand-drawn map, hoping to liberate whoever might be trapped inside. She prayed that what the children had told her was true - that this monster, whatever it might be, couldn't open doors.
To Matoi's credit, he only stared for a few seconds as Aislin fully removed her helmet for the first time. Paladin or no, Ash was a woman, and not unpleasant to look at. The inspector cleared his throat, nodding as she gave him an update on the situation in the orphanage.
"A demon?" he gaped, "are you sure, paladin? I thought it might be a maneater or some mindless beast, but a demon..."
Lutetian demons were something of a rarity among the world of monsters. Spawns of the Wyrm itself, they were made of the abyss, constructed of the formless void that lingered beyond the edge of creation. Encounters described them as inky-black and tendril-like, wreathed in shadow and taking brief humanoid forms from time to time. They could possess corpses and the weak minded, and could not be killed, simply banished ... either through overwhelming firepower or by killing the one who summoned it. Aislin would know all of this as a trained paladin, and would also know that there hadn't been a confirmed demon sighting for some hundred years. Many suspected they were myths.
"No new developments," Matoi shook his head, "gave us a scare after the gunshots. Chief got on his horn again, tried to convince us to go in. You showing up alive squashed his hopes of organizing a charge." He adjusted his glasses. "If it's a demon, paladin, then it was summoned, wasn't it? That doesn't seem possible. No one in that orphanage should be able to do something like that."
____
She wasn't entirely sure that it was, she couldn't do Matoi the justice of a definite answer, but damn if this wasn't too close for comfort. Her age showed in her features as he glanced back to the Inspector, the Paladin not wanting to think of how many years she'd served the Order in the grey, but her eyes betrayed her thoughts - she felt that she was dealing with something of the Wyrm and it showed. "If the tales are to be believed, Inspector." It didn't stand to reason that demons appeared out of thin air - something attracted it to this unfortunate orphanage, and Lughadh had an inkling as to what. "Allow me a few moments with the children? I'll see to a bandage once I'm done." She paid a half-nod towards her wounded arm before turning again to the survivors.
The knight wore a small smile, not knowing how they were holding up to the day's events so far, approaching them at a gingerly pace before she moved to speak. "Children," She offered, not knowing what term to better use, as no other that came to her seemed to fit. "I have a question or two for you, if you have a moment." She was no inquisitor, and this was no police action - this was no place for harsh words or stern action - these children were safe, and all she sought were answers to otherwise simple questions.
____
"Of course," Matoi gestured to the children, following behind her.
All of the survivors were now settled with blankets and hot drinks. The young children were most talkative, chatting amiably among one another. The older kids were still shell-shocked, clutching their blankets around themselves and staring off into the distance.
Mariam looked up at the paladin with wide eyes as she spoke, sipping a little juice box. "What did she say?" She blinked.
"She has questions for us, Mariam, hush up," Hannah hissed.
"Is she bringing us the animal crackers like they said they would?" the little five-year old turned around and death-glared at one of the officers. "I'm still waiting, just so you know."
One of the teenagers, the one who had been wielding a pocket-knife, looked up. She was the only one to acknowledge Ash.
"What do you want to know?"
____
The smile lingered on Ash's features, glad to see the youngest children were still unphased by what they had been witness to - though she felt that they might not have seen so much as the others had. But it was good that one of them, the one with the knife, recognized what she'd inquired after, and it was to her that the paladin nodded. "What does the name Colton mean to you?" She was straight to the point and saw no reason in dancing around the matter - she had her suspicions regarding the name and the sketches she had seen, but what had been in the art room had solidified such concerns.
"Was he one of the orphans here?"
____
The other teenagers looked up, confusion briefly usurping their fear. The girl only nodded.
"He's an orphan," she sniffed, "been here all his life. Quiet. Not many friends. Good with paint."
"Colton," Hanna mused, before her face lit up, "that's right! He's the one who was getting beat up by Vincent and Brack on Felling!" She crossed her arms defiantly. "I told Ms. Hedhewater about it right away, I did, but they just denied in the end."
"He gets beat up a lot," the teenager nodded, perhaps a small tinge of guilt entering her voice. She looked up at Aislin. "Colton... doesn't really fit in." She swallowed, rubbing at her nose. "He was just teased and ignored for most of his time here, but then he made this painting for the art contest two weeks ago. It was a portrait of Ian..." She shook her head. "...everyone knew about Colton, then. The nastier boys never let him live it down. And the staff did next to nothing about it." A half-smirk seized her lips. "No one really cared about him. Guess they never will." She looked at the entrance to the orphanage. "No way someone like him survived whatever's in there..."
____
The Iverian nodded as the young woman explained, in her vague way, just who Colton was and why, perhaps, the painting in the art room was as tarnished as it was. Certainly the knight inferred just what the girl was getting at, but considering that this Colton might play a vital role in regards to something that had already claimed so many lives, Aislin wasn't keen to run on assumptions. "Why?" She asked, clarifying after she spoke. "Why was he teased, bullied?" Detested, she'd say, by the way the portrait had been ruined, and Hanna's interjection mentioning a beating. Teasing was one thing, name-calling and jeers, but physical violence was another.
"... and who's Ian?"
____
"Colton just..." the girl hesitated, "...doesn't fit in. Doesn't have good social skills. He'd try and talk to us and just say something weird."
"He offered to 'draw my hands'," the male teenager spoke up. He was still pale in the face, but he took sparing sips of his cocoa. "Was the first thing he ever said to me. 'Can I draw your hands? You have nice hands.'" He shook his head. "He's a weirdo."
"He..." a red-headed teenager spoke next, "...wouldn't stop talking to me about my hair. Told me that it looked like Saint Valentine's." She drew a breath. "He's obsessed with the old Order legends ... the knights and saints and the like. Won't shut up about them. I see him in the den a lot, sitting in the reading chair and drawing the old heroes. He goes there every night to sketch after he gets a hot drink from the kitchen."
"He obsesses easily," the first teenager picked up. Typical of adolescent social circles, gossip came easy to them. "Like with Ian. Ian's an orphan here. Handsome guy, pretty popular. Colton followed him around for a while, which was meh. But then he painted him. Like, made a really hot painting of him. Everyone knew then, of course, that Colton was gay." She pulled her blanket tighter over her shoulders. "It got really bad for him after that. Used to just be pushing or shoving now and then, but Colton started getting beat. He started hiding from everyone. I don't know where he goes. The orphanage isn't a big place, it's hard to get privacy. Hopefully wherever he is in there, he's safe, but I wouldn't count on it. He's a scrawny little guy."
____
She blinked at that, surprised, even if she'd halfway expected to hear it. So it was the boy's sexuality that had made him a target? It also explained, in some strange manner, what she'd found in the study - the sketch book, but also the warm beverage. The paladin pondered the thought of how something so warm, in such a similar fashion, might wind up there in the wake of such horrific events. It didn't sit well with her. Aislin crossed her arms at hearing such from the teenagers, glad that they could shed some light on the situation, even as unpleasant as it was. "So he's been targeted because of his sexuality? How long ago did this start?" Did this have time to fester, or had it only been recently?
The boy was lonely and ostracized, a combination that didn't look well with what had already befallen the orphanage.
____
"About two weeks ago, after he made the painting," the girl replied. "He's been teased and mocked his entire life, but things only got physical recently." She took up her cup and took a slow, thoughtful sip. "I couldn't tell you where he is in there. When the..." A pause. Her eyes widened. "...the killing... started..." She took a few, deep breaths. "...these two kids, a boy and girl, told us to go into our rooms and shut the door. Said the monster couldn't open doors."
The boy spoke up again. "I'd never seen them before, those two. But they passed food beneath the doors for us." He shrugged. "Thought at first they might be cops, but they were about our age. It was weird. But hey, we're alive because of them."
"But Colton wasn't with us," the girl continued, "probably off in his hiding place, wherever that is." She gave Aislin a curious. "Why so interested in him anyway?"
____
Then it was only recently that those who had shunned him had moved to more hateful acts. Lughadh's eyes grew distant as she turned her hypothesis over in her head, wondering if what she suspected was even possible - demons hadn't been reported, in any reliable manner, for decades - but this was shaping up to be no simple monstrosity. "Call it a hunch." She murmured in reply, almost under her breath, though her voice was easily heard. A hunch that still had a few holes in it, but she figured that those answers would be found on the second floor of the Orphanage, which she'd see to shortly enough, but not before asking a final question of the survivors.
"Do you know a Katrin, by chance?" It was almost sideways the way she mentioned it, an afterthought, brought on by the boy's words. The paladin's hands returned to her arms, resting there, eager to return to the nightmare at Arodring and discover the truth of the matter.
____
"Katrin?" the girl made a face. "No, there's no one that goes to Arodring named Katrin." Her brows furrowed. "Was that the girl that brought us food? She was with another guy, right? I didn't recognize his voice either."
"Thought they were with the police or something," the boy spoke up. "Yeah, they don't go here. But we definitely wouldn't have survived without them."
____
At that the Paladin simply nodded, not entirely understanding what this meant, but knowing well enough that it was important. Two children here - if they were children - that didn't stay at Arodring cropping up in the wake of this terror? Ones that the survivors seemed to think were instrumental in their making it through the whole ordeal? "Thank you. Rest, relax if you can - you're safe now." With that she parted from the children, stopping briefly with Matoi to see about a bandage of sorts for her arm, and once her wound was seen to she returned to the Orphanage, sidearm at the ready and her roundlight dialed into a beam. According to the map that Katrin had left, the first floor held no more survivors, and in Aislin's mind, evacuating who remained alive inside was the priority over confronting this creature - this demon.
Pending no distractions she'd move up the stairs, cautious of potential targets and threats, moving to the girl's washroom as it seemed to be marked on the hand-drawn map, hoping to liberate whoever might be trapped inside. She prayed that what the children had told her was true - that this monster, whatever it might be, couldn't open doors.
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
Up the stairs to the second floor. The ceilings were not so high here, though the expanse was just as dark as the ground floor, and Aislin would need her roundlight to see. She entered into what looked like a expansive play area. Beanbag chairs supplied the corners, boxed board games shelved away in cubbies along with action figures and stuffed animals. It was all well organized. On the wall behind her a line of neatly-arranged animal plushies sat upright, forward-focused eyes black and beady.
Four doors were to her right. Two of them were open, leading into dormitories. The entrance to a long hallway on her left. As she headed to the bathroom, she would hear dialogue from the other side, feminine and hushed.
She entered to a chorus of surprised yelps. Four girls stood there, aged ten to fifteen, all of them sporting torn clothes and light wounds - gashes along their arms and legs. They looked terrified into Aislin's light for a moment before someone perked behind them. A fifth girl. Katrin.
"It's her!" she exclaimed. "Don't be afraid, it's the paladin!"
Behind Aislin, the sound of breeding insects, an encroaching darkness. She stood at the threshold of the washroom, the door wide open.
____
The moment that ill sound made itself known behind her did the paladin pull shut the door she'd only moments before opened, turning about to confront whatever it was with her pistol, roundlight ready. It was a rash action, but the best course she could think of at the moment - there were only girls in that room, Katrin included. Evacuating these survivors might be a hint more challenging than she anticipated. A spare hand flew to the grip of her blade, drawing it were it that she had the time to.
It seemed that this creature couldn't open doors, though she wasn't keen to test this theory.
____
Katrin ran for the door the moment she saw Ash intend to lock them in, but was too late. The entrance swung shut before she could stop the paladin from leaving. Her hand waivered over the handle. Opening it now, without knowing the state of the thing on the other side ... it was too dangerous.
"Paladin," her voice came from the other side of the wood, firm and warbling with a quiet, determined fear. "Paladin, come inside. You can't fight it. Do you understand? It won't work, you'll die. You can't-"
A heavy, low-toned thrum cut her off - a soundless bass devoid of tonage, comprised of vibration, of bone-quaking, ear-stopping silence. Aislin's ears would begin to ring. Above the drone of her agonized tinnituses, the familiar and digusting chorus of dying cicaedas, of splintering insects. All the darkness in the room began to warp, shadows pulled like moldy silk across the wood-paneled walls. They raked over floorboards and foggy windows stained with night, seeped from corners of the room like writhing tendrils of smoke, all drawn to the middle, to the epicenter of shadow which was ascending the steps one piece at a time. thunk Every sensation exponentiated with each step gained by the monster and Aislin's muscles were forced to twitching in their armor with her skin crawling against her kevlar and her Thunk ears raging against the locusts nesting in their drums and all around the room grew THUNK darker and darker and as the space between the shadow gave birth to something unexistent and intangible and THUNK
It poked its head out of the staircase. It was smiling.
How she could tell it was smiling, she would not know. As it took the last few steps into the play room, she might not have known anything about it except that it was. Skin hung on its body like a shifting patchwork of ink, whipsy chords of half-substantive shadow slithering up and down and through and out of its body like a nest of breeding serpents, making shapes and angles that should not have been possible to replicate in this dimension. Despite this, if Aislin didn't look too hard, if she looked at the whole and not he parts, it would resemble something. A man. Tall, over eight feet, with broad, squared shoulders and a thin, paperthick body. Its head sat on his neck like an upright spoon, lolled slightly to the side, watching her. Watching her and smiling. Here it was, the monster. The Dark Man.
A cool, smoky hand rested on her psyche. "Paladin..." The taloned fingers flexed into her subconscious, picking at strands of her thoughts with the fascination of a child with a magnifying class looking at an anthill.
"...Lughadh..."
A sound like gravel crushed between plates of cracked steel. It could have been laughter.
____
The Paladin's hand stilled on the grip of her blade, letting the weapon drop back into its sheath as she beheld it. This creature, whatever it was, was obviously not of this earth in the slightest, given the way reality twisted and warped about it. The Paladin's fears were confirmed, this was what she had suspected - all that remained to be seen was whether her theory about Colton was true or not, that the boy was the cause of this misery and this being's summoning. The wrongness that ascended the staircase to confront her was speaking without words, doing its best to break the soldier, but she had been through the crucible of the city, had faced daunting foes, both of flesh and blood and of mind and soul, and had emerged the victor. Aislin knew this would be no different.
She did not grace this being with a spoken answer, her eyes narrowed, diverted, away from the center of its mass as she looked over her immediate surroundings and her options, eyes eventually falling back to the door she had pulled shut to protect the innocents inside. It was her duty, wasn't it? To place herself in the line of fire, to protect those unable to protect themselves? But what good could she do here dead, or worse? There was no direct confrontation with this beast, if what she believed, and if the silenced words over her shoulder, were true.
Instead she gave it an answer of fire, several rounds of consecrated lead striking out towards this monstrosity as she moved to open the door once more, diving into the room and pushing back whoever was there as she slammed it shut behind her, banking on the theory she'd thought of not but moments before.
____
It came forward even as she began to move, hands outstretched in what Aislin would perceive were fingers like scythes, long, viscous digits each the size of her own longsword. The demon swiped forward, weapons poised to rake her even at the distance it occupied... before it reeled back, black flesh frantically coagulating around the series of glowing blue rounds that Aislin planted into its body. The half-warbled screech that escaped its throat almost sounded surprised. Consecrated rounds and demons did not mix well.
The paladin was behind the door a next moment, looking into the relieved face of Katrin. The other girls looked far less excited.
"Thank God, thank God..." she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Aislin, burying her head into the paladin's plate. "There's still hope, you're alive...." She stepped back, tears brimming with her smile, before the fear returned to her eyes and the light faded from her face. "Okay. Listen, everyone." She turned to the girls. "It's going to talk to you. Try and block it out, but whatever you do, don't open the door. It goes away eventually, just don't..."
Knock. Knock. Knock. The sounds were surprisingly quaint and small considering what waited on the other side. Aislin would feel its presence again, the cold hum of its mind against her consciousness. The paladin's training served her well, the teachings of her Order doubtless steeling her mind against the bulk of the monster's intrusions. Still, some stray whisps of thought escaped the psychic net. These the demon picked up one at a time with genuine fascination, looking at them, musing over them until it'd found the perfect one to present her with, the ideal candidate...
"Roxanne..." The thought pushed between her brain like a splinter. "Roxanne Allard..."
That same, rock-grinding chuckle.
____
The brief reprieve on the other side of the door was welcome, though it didn't last. The Paladin didn't know what to make of the girl flinging her arms around her, if Katrin even was a girl, as Aislin herself wedged herself against the door, keeping it shut with the weight of her body, just in case. Lughadh, suspicious as she might have been, was no fool, and knew that Katrin was the most experienced in the Orphanage with this creature, having had to navigate around the house without its knowledge, or at least evade it, and took her words to heart before that drone settled again against her mind. She knew that it would test her resolve, that it would do its very best to make her open the door, but even with this in mind was she surprised by the one name that disarmed her quicker than any other.
Roxanne.
She was stunned for a moment, but only a moment, as she realized what power this creature possessed, as she realized that she truly was dealing with something demonic, something psychic. Emerald eyes narrowed once again, and the woman found anchors within herself, thoughts and emotions that she kept hidden, even, on occasion, from her beloved - she focused on the Church, on her duty and her oath, her failures, and her dogged determination to redouble her efforts. "Though the darkness comes upon me, I still embrace the light." She spoke aloud, beginning one of her many litanies where the girls could hear, hoping these words might encourage them.
The pistol was drawn from her side once more, not pointed at the girls but held at the ready, should one of them prove fool enough to try for the door - Lughadh doubted they might overcome her, physically, but in the off-chance they might, she had no qualms with maiming or, God forbid, killing one to save the rest. "For I am the storm, and I am your wrath."
____
A smoky hiss from the other side of the door, the creature's concentration flickering as Ash recited her litany. It was more of a brief annoyance than a serious disturbance, and the monster continued with its probing shortly after, sifting through the fortified web of Aislin's mind with alarming prowess, letting the name of her lover lead it too...
A picture of light. There was Roxanne, a vivid memory restored to the forefront of Aislin's brain. Her smile was bright on her lips, her eyes frosting from behind her pale-blonde hair. The demon seemed to muse at the memory. Its psychic fingers swirled it around in her consciousness like a cat pawing at the surface of a fish pond, letting the image dissolve in a blurry haze before re-materializing as....
Roxanne was dead. She lay naked on their bed, her throat cut, soft belly sliced from hip-to-hip. The blood was only just beginning to seep from her death wounds. She clutched at her sheets, eyes brimming was tears as she looked frantically into Aislin, unable to elicit the last words choking in her throat....
Whether Ash resisted the temptations of her wrath or no, the children would be struggling. Three of the girls were on the floor, hands covering their ears. One of them was mouthing a prayer. Katrin's eyes were scrunched shut and she whispered words of encouragement to the others. The fourth was standing. She gazed into a spaceless oblivion, unblinking, eyes red and weeping. She was staring at the door.
"Mama..." she gasped, pulling a hand over her mouth. She took a small step forward. "...mama...."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
____
This thing presented her with images - false images - of her lover, of the woman which she held so very dear, of someone torn, mutilated by a hateful hand. These things wouldn't befall Roxanne, not that she knew. No, if the church ever discovered what she held so close to her heart with lady Allard she would never be left in such a manner, at the most Aislin herself would be the one punished - cast out from the Order, left to fend for herself on the streets. No one would be hurt in such an unholy manner, in such a despicable fashion, she knew.
The Lawkeeper was raised, leveled at the girl who approached the door, its barrel revealing a stark, black abyss inside its circumference. "Stand down." She would mutter, the Paladin forcing these words out through gritted teeth, eyes narrowed, anger the dominant emotion in her psyche at the moment. This thing, whatever it was, dared to taunt her with such visceral, hateful images, she couldn't help herself.
I am the storm, and I am the wrath.
____
Another image. Roxanne's body became Aislin's, bloodied and broken on the orphanage floor. Ash would watch as the demon stooped over her corpse and sent a piece of itself slithering into her open mouth. The body jerked, convulsed, before rising on slow, unfamiliar limbs. It looked around itself and stared ahead to the exit, smiling the same sickly grin of the demon. It walked towards Caranhall, a horde of children behind her, all smiling, relishing the carnage about to be unleashed, born of the paladin's failure...
A discordant medley of locusts chirps. Though the demon knew that it wasn't having particularly with Aislin, it seemed to be aware that something was going on on the other side of the door. Tension was rising, patience dwindling. It fed the hate with its easy, careless lies, pressing its power even further into the minds of its victims.
"Ma..." the girl was outright sobbing now. She seemed not even to notice the barrel of the gun as she stepped closer still to the door.
____
The Paladin drove these thoughts from her mind with action, delivering one final warning to this deluded child that approached the door and dared to doom them all - Aislin moved to pistol-whip the girl across the temple with her law-keeper, a strong and bold blow that Lughadh preferred to killing the girl outright. But, were it that such didn't stop the girl, to make her see reason or at least not see anything for a while, then Lughadh would not hesitate to end her.
____
The blow struck true, the child reeling backwards and collapsing with the force of the blow. She clutched the gash opening at the side of her head, blinking rapidly and looking about herself with clear confusion. The pain and the force of the paladin's blow had, evidently, shaken her out of the demon's hold.
A snarl from the other side of the room. Everyone would immediately feel the darkness receding, the claws of the demon unhooking themselves from Aislin's mind one talon at a time. It left her with the image of her possessed corpse on the steps of the orphanage, an army behind her. The promise of her failure. If she could not stop it, Caranhall was doomed.
"Okay..." Katrin took heavy breaths, "...it's gone. It's gone..."
____
The paladin lingered against the door for several moments after the darkness, the bestial thing, receded from their presence, listening as much with her ears as she was feeling with her heart - its unnatural air carrying with it a sense of dread, one that she could feel as easily as hear. Once she was sure it was gone, not simply at the note of Katrin's words, she turned to regard the girls before her, glad to see that they were all in relatively good health, even if one of them was a bit banged up now. "My apologies, child." Aislin murmured to the one she'd struck, her eyes soon turning towards Katrin and lingering on her.
"Katrin." She spoke, taking the time now to relax, if only slightly, after that creature's assault, "From what I gather you... you are not a resident of the orphanage. I'd like some answers, starting with who you are."
____
The struck child rubbed at the stinging in her cheek, but it was only pain. She'd barely been conscious when Aislin struck her and gave the paladin a confused look as she apologized.
Katrin, for her part, crossed her feet. Her attention shot to the floor, a blush quickly pluming her cheeks. "So you found out about that, huh?" She looked over her shoulder at the other girls, brows knitting in worry. "Could we..." she moved closer to Aislin, voice lowering. "Could we talk about this alone? I don't want to scare them. They trust me, and it would just confuse them, the answer..." She looked pleadingly at the knight.
____
The woman nodded at the other's suggestion, though her eyes did move to the other children immediately afterwards, knowing that the priority was getting these survivors out of this hell-hole alive. "Suggestions, Katrin?" There wasn't exactly an abundance of privacy at the moment, and if the way was clear beyond the door behind her, she would see these girls safely to the police.
"I'd like to make sure the girls are safe, first and foremost."
____
She glanced back at the girls, nodding. Aislin was right - getting them to safety was most important. "We can talk as we move. I'll try and hold on until they're safe outside the doors, but I can't guarantee anything." A frustrated half-growl. "I can't... stay in one place. It's not something I can control."
As per Aislin's usual instructions, the girls arranged themselves in front of her and began marching through the orphanage, down the stairway. Katrin lingered at the end of the line close to the paladin. Her voice was low, but they were still not completely alone.
"It's Colton," she explained, "you can say that I'm a friend of his. Something bad happened and he lost control. This whole place is filled with ..." She struggled for the words. "... projections. Memories, thoughts, characters from his brain. He's not even controlling them. They just sort of ... escaped. Took on a mind of its own. Most of them are harmless, except for ... y'know." She shivered. "The Dark Man is the worst of all. I don't know how it got so powerful, but it did." Her face brightened. "But it's bound! It knows it, too. It came from Colton's brain, or part of it anyway, so parts of his subconscious sort of ... weaken it. Restrict it. It's why it can't open closed doors. There's a rule in the orphanage that you can't open a closed door unless you knock and are allowed to enter." The front doors were up ahead, police light beaming through the terrace. "Another rule is that no one can leave orphanage grounds until morning. It's why the demon hasn't rampaged across Caranhall yet. It's waiting."
____
The paladin was largely silent as she escorted the children through the silent orphanage, taking Katrin's explanations in stride as they made their way down the stairs and towards the door. So she was a projection, just like this dark man and these other things that plagued the Orphanage? The matter grew more confusing by the moment as Lughadh did her best to keep up mentally, her plan of action shifting with every new hint of information she received. This monster couldn't leave the orphanage, being a product of Colin's mind, but given that Katrin was the same, neither could she. Having to move onto the porch to give the sign and ensure the girls' safety, the paladin stopped only briefly with Katrin, knowing that this spirit, for lack of a better term, would likely be gone when she moved back inside, and asked only one question.
"Colton - where is he?" She presumed he was in the chapel, being the last place that there were survivors marked on the map, but Lughadh wanted to be sure. Once the young woman gave her answer, the paladin would see to the girls' well-being and imparting the sign to the police line beyond.
____
Another chorus of cheers as Aislin delivered the girl, accompanied by a sobbing yelp, a young cry from the crowds. The girls ran down the steps towards the other survivors. It seemed the paladin had just reunited friends.
"The attic," Katrin replied, her face paling. She seemed to guess at Aislin's intentions. "Listen, please. It's not his fault. He didn't mean to do any of this, it just happened." She stepped forward, eyes earnest and pleading. "Max would tell you to kill him, that if you kill him you'll kill the demon, but you can't do that. He's innocent, you can't kill an innocent, you're a paladin..." She seemed uncertain of the words as she said them, but with a sharp intake of breath the girl redoubled her efforts. "You can save him, you see! This orphanage, this whole place is a glimpse into his brain. His fears. His hopes. You can reach out to him and get him to stop it. He can do it. I know he can, you just have to give him the strength-"
Before Aislin's very eyes, Katrin disintegrated into the air like windborn smoke.
The dark atria of the orphanage loomed ahead of her, beckoning her back inside.
____
As she watched Katrin dissipate into the air before her, the paladin lingered on the phantom's words. They were the words of an idealist, of a mind that did not think as she did - merciful as she might be, a fault in the eyes of her comrades - and had not seen the same things she had. The city, the land, had a way of twisting man and beast, and she knew for a fact that paladins could kill the innocent - she'd been forced to herself, at times. The Order demanded great sacrifices from its ranks, and the well-being of Lutetia demanded such from every rank of society. With a steeled heart the knight returned to the orphanage before her, pulling the door closed behind her as she returned to the dark depths of Caranhall's nightmare.
Seeking out the attic as best she could by Katrin's map, the Paladin did her best to make a beeline for Colin's hiding place, her pistol drawn and at the ready, her mind still mulling over Katrin's words as she sought out the source of this horror - that she could save him if she gave him the strength to stop it.
Perhaps.
Up the stairs to the second floor. The ceilings were not so high here, though the expanse was just as dark as the ground floor, and Aislin would need her roundlight to see. She entered into what looked like a expansive play area. Beanbag chairs supplied the corners, boxed board games shelved away in cubbies along with action figures and stuffed animals. It was all well organized. On the wall behind her a line of neatly-arranged animal plushies sat upright, forward-focused eyes black and beady.
Four doors were to her right. Two of them were open, leading into dormitories. The entrance to a long hallway on her left. As she headed to the bathroom, she would hear dialogue from the other side, feminine and hushed.
She entered to a chorus of surprised yelps. Four girls stood there, aged ten to fifteen, all of them sporting torn clothes and light wounds - gashes along their arms and legs. They looked terrified into Aislin's light for a moment before someone perked behind them. A fifth girl. Katrin.
"It's her!" she exclaimed. "Don't be afraid, it's the paladin!"
Behind Aislin, the sound of breeding insects, an encroaching darkness. She stood at the threshold of the washroom, the door wide open.
____
The moment that ill sound made itself known behind her did the paladin pull shut the door she'd only moments before opened, turning about to confront whatever it was with her pistol, roundlight ready. It was a rash action, but the best course she could think of at the moment - there were only girls in that room, Katrin included. Evacuating these survivors might be a hint more challenging than she anticipated. A spare hand flew to the grip of her blade, drawing it were it that she had the time to.
It seemed that this creature couldn't open doors, though she wasn't keen to test this theory.
____
Katrin ran for the door the moment she saw Ash intend to lock them in, but was too late. The entrance swung shut before she could stop the paladin from leaving. Her hand waivered over the handle. Opening it now, without knowing the state of the thing on the other side ... it was too dangerous.
"Paladin," her voice came from the other side of the wood, firm and warbling with a quiet, determined fear. "Paladin, come inside. You can't fight it. Do you understand? It won't work, you'll die. You can't-"
A heavy, low-toned thrum cut her off - a soundless bass devoid of tonage, comprised of vibration, of bone-quaking, ear-stopping silence. Aislin's ears would begin to ring. Above the drone of her agonized tinnituses, the familiar and digusting chorus of dying cicaedas, of splintering insects. All the darkness in the room began to warp, shadows pulled like moldy silk across the wood-paneled walls. They raked over floorboards and foggy windows stained with night, seeped from corners of the room like writhing tendrils of smoke, all drawn to the middle, to the epicenter of shadow which was ascending the steps one piece at a time. thunk Every sensation exponentiated with each step gained by the monster and Aislin's muscles were forced to twitching in their armor with her skin crawling against her kevlar and her Thunk ears raging against the locusts nesting in their drums and all around the room grew THUNK darker and darker and as the space between the shadow gave birth to something unexistent and intangible and THUNK
It poked its head out of the staircase. It was smiling.
How she could tell it was smiling, she would not know. As it took the last few steps into the play room, she might not have known anything about it except that it was. Skin hung on its body like a shifting patchwork of ink, whipsy chords of half-substantive shadow slithering up and down and through and out of its body like a nest of breeding serpents, making shapes and angles that should not have been possible to replicate in this dimension. Despite this, if Aislin didn't look too hard, if she looked at the whole and not he parts, it would resemble something. A man. Tall, over eight feet, with broad, squared shoulders and a thin, paperthick body. Its head sat on his neck like an upright spoon, lolled slightly to the side, watching her. Watching her and smiling. Here it was, the monster. The Dark Man.
A cool, smoky hand rested on her psyche. "Paladin..." The taloned fingers flexed into her subconscious, picking at strands of her thoughts with the fascination of a child with a magnifying class looking at an anthill.
"...Lughadh..."
A sound like gravel crushed between plates of cracked steel. It could have been laughter.
____
The Paladin's hand stilled on the grip of her blade, letting the weapon drop back into its sheath as she beheld it. This creature, whatever it was, was obviously not of this earth in the slightest, given the way reality twisted and warped about it. The Paladin's fears were confirmed, this was what she had suspected - all that remained to be seen was whether her theory about Colton was true or not, that the boy was the cause of this misery and this being's summoning. The wrongness that ascended the staircase to confront her was speaking without words, doing its best to break the soldier, but she had been through the crucible of the city, had faced daunting foes, both of flesh and blood and of mind and soul, and had emerged the victor. Aislin knew this would be no different.
She did not grace this being with a spoken answer, her eyes narrowed, diverted, away from the center of its mass as she looked over her immediate surroundings and her options, eyes eventually falling back to the door she had pulled shut to protect the innocents inside. It was her duty, wasn't it? To place herself in the line of fire, to protect those unable to protect themselves? But what good could she do here dead, or worse? There was no direct confrontation with this beast, if what she believed, and if the silenced words over her shoulder, were true.
Instead she gave it an answer of fire, several rounds of consecrated lead striking out towards this monstrosity as she moved to open the door once more, diving into the room and pushing back whoever was there as she slammed it shut behind her, banking on the theory she'd thought of not but moments before.
____
It came forward even as she began to move, hands outstretched in what Aislin would perceive were fingers like scythes, long, viscous digits each the size of her own longsword. The demon swiped forward, weapons poised to rake her even at the distance it occupied... before it reeled back, black flesh frantically coagulating around the series of glowing blue rounds that Aislin planted into its body. The half-warbled screech that escaped its throat almost sounded surprised. Consecrated rounds and demons did not mix well.
The paladin was behind the door a next moment, looking into the relieved face of Katrin. The other girls looked far less excited.
"Thank God, thank God..." she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Aislin, burying her head into the paladin's plate. "There's still hope, you're alive...." She stepped back, tears brimming with her smile, before the fear returned to her eyes and the light faded from her face. "Okay. Listen, everyone." She turned to the girls. "It's going to talk to you. Try and block it out, but whatever you do, don't open the door. It goes away eventually, just don't..."
Knock. Knock. Knock. The sounds were surprisingly quaint and small considering what waited on the other side. Aislin would feel its presence again, the cold hum of its mind against her consciousness. The paladin's training served her well, the teachings of her Order doubtless steeling her mind against the bulk of the monster's intrusions. Still, some stray whisps of thought escaped the psychic net. These the demon picked up one at a time with genuine fascination, looking at them, musing over them until it'd found the perfect one to present her with, the ideal candidate...
"Roxanne..." The thought pushed between her brain like a splinter. "Roxanne Allard..."
That same, rock-grinding chuckle.
____
The brief reprieve on the other side of the door was welcome, though it didn't last. The Paladin didn't know what to make of the girl flinging her arms around her, if Katrin even was a girl, as Aislin herself wedged herself against the door, keeping it shut with the weight of her body, just in case. Lughadh, suspicious as she might have been, was no fool, and knew that Katrin was the most experienced in the Orphanage with this creature, having had to navigate around the house without its knowledge, or at least evade it, and took her words to heart before that drone settled again against her mind. She knew that it would test her resolve, that it would do its very best to make her open the door, but even with this in mind was she surprised by the one name that disarmed her quicker than any other.
Roxanne.
She was stunned for a moment, but only a moment, as she realized what power this creature possessed, as she realized that she truly was dealing with something demonic, something psychic. Emerald eyes narrowed once again, and the woman found anchors within herself, thoughts and emotions that she kept hidden, even, on occasion, from her beloved - she focused on the Church, on her duty and her oath, her failures, and her dogged determination to redouble her efforts. "Though the darkness comes upon me, I still embrace the light." She spoke aloud, beginning one of her many litanies where the girls could hear, hoping these words might encourage them.
The pistol was drawn from her side once more, not pointed at the girls but held at the ready, should one of them prove fool enough to try for the door - Lughadh doubted they might overcome her, physically, but in the off-chance they might, she had no qualms with maiming or, God forbid, killing one to save the rest. "For I am the storm, and I am your wrath."
____
A smoky hiss from the other side of the door, the creature's concentration flickering as Ash recited her litany. It was more of a brief annoyance than a serious disturbance, and the monster continued with its probing shortly after, sifting through the fortified web of Aislin's mind with alarming prowess, letting the name of her lover lead it too...
A picture of light. There was Roxanne, a vivid memory restored to the forefront of Aislin's brain. Her smile was bright on her lips, her eyes frosting from behind her pale-blonde hair. The demon seemed to muse at the memory. Its psychic fingers swirled it around in her consciousness like a cat pawing at the surface of a fish pond, letting the image dissolve in a blurry haze before re-materializing as....
Roxanne was dead. She lay naked on their bed, her throat cut, soft belly sliced from hip-to-hip. The blood was only just beginning to seep from her death wounds. She clutched at her sheets, eyes brimming was tears as she looked frantically into Aislin, unable to elicit the last words choking in her throat....
Whether Ash resisted the temptations of her wrath or no, the children would be struggling. Three of the girls were on the floor, hands covering their ears. One of them was mouthing a prayer. Katrin's eyes were scrunched shut and she whispered words of encouragement to the others. The fourth was standing. She gazed into a spaceless oblivion, unblinking, eyes red and weeping. She was staring at the door.
"Mama..." she gasped, pulling a hand over her mouth. She took a small step forward. "...mama...."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
____
This thing presented her with images - false images - of her lover, of the woman which she held so very dear, of someone torn, mutilated by a hateful hand. These things wouldn't befall Roxanne, not that she knew. No, if the church ever discovered what she held so close to her heart with lady Allard she would never be left in such a manner, at the most Aislin herself would be the one punished - cast out from the Order, left to fend for herself on the streets. No one would be hurt in such an unholy manner, in such a despicable fashion, she knew.
The Lawkeeper was raised, leveled at the girl who approached the door, its barrel revealing a stark, black abyss inside its circumference. "Stand down." She would mutter, the Paladin forcing these words out through gritted teeth, eyes narrowed, anger the dominant emotion in her psyche at the moment. This thing, whatever it was, dared to taunt her with such visceral, hateful images, she couldn't help herself.
I am the storm, and I am the wrath.
____
Another image. Roxanne's body became Aislin's, bloodied and broken on the orphanage floor. Ash would watch as the demon stooped over her corpse and sent a piece of itself slithering into her open mouth. The body jerked, convulsed, before rising on slow, unfamiliar limbs. It looked around itself and stared ahead to the exit, smiling the same sickly grin of the demon. It walked towards Caranhall, a horde of children behind her, all smiling, relishing the carnage about to be unleashed, born of the paladin's failure...
A discordant medley of locusts chirps. Though the demon knew that it wasn't having particularly with Aislin, it seemed to be aware that something was going on on the other side of the door. Tension was rising, patience dwindling. It fed the hate with its easy, careless lies, pressing its power even further into the minds of its victims.
"Ma..." the girl was outright sobbing now. She seemed not even to notice the barrel of the gun as she stepped closer still to the door.
____
The Paladin drove these thoughts from her mind with action, delivering one final warning to this deluded child that approached the door and dared to doom them all - Aislin moved to pistol-whip the girl across the temple with her law-keeper, a strong and bold blow that Lughadh preferred to killing the girl outright. But, were it that such didn't stop the girl, to make her see reason or at least not see anything for a while, then Lughadh would not hesitate to end her.
____
The blow struck true, the child reeling backwards and collapsing with the force of the blow. She clutched the gash opening at the side of her head, blinking rapidly and looking about herself with clear confusion. The pain and the force of the paladin's blow had, evidently, shaken her out of the demon's hold.
A snarl from the other side of the room. Everyone would immediately feel the darkness receding, the claws of the demon unhooking themselves from Aislin's mind one talon at a time. It left her with the image of her possessed corpse on the steps of the orphanage, an army behind her. The promise of her failure. If she could not stop it, Caranhall was doomed.
"Okay..." Katrin took heavy breaths, "...it's gone. It's gone..."
____
The paladin lingered against the door for several moments after the darkness, the bestial thing, receded from their presence, listening as much with her ears as she was feeling with her heart - its unnatural air carrying with it a sense of dread, one that she could feel as easily as hear. Once she was sure it was gone, not simply at the note of Katrin's words, she turned to regard the girls before her, glad to see that they were all in relatively good health, even if one of them was a bit banged up now. "My apologies, child." Aislin murmured to the one she'd struck, her eyes soon turning towards Katrin and lingering on her.
"Katrin." She spoke, taking the time now to relax, if only slightly, after that creature's assault, "From what I gather you... you are not a resident of the orphanage. I'd like some answers, starting with who you are."
____
The struck child rubbed at the stinging in her cheek, but it was only pain. She'd barely been conscious when Aislin struck her and gave the paladin a confused look as she apologized.
Katrin, for her part, crossed her feet. Her attention shot to the floor, a blush quickly pluming her cheeks. "So you found out about that, huh?" She looked over her shoulder at the other girls, brows knitting in worry. "Could we..." she moved closer to Aislin, voice lowering. "Could we talk about this alone? I don't want to scare them. They trust me, and it would just confuse them, the answer..." She looked pleadingly at the knight.
____
The woman nodded at the other's suggestion, though her eyes did move to the other children immediately afterwards, knowing that the priority was getting these survivors out of this hell-hole alive. "Suggestions, Katrin?" There wasn't exactly an abundance of privacy at the moment, and if the way was clear beyond the door behind her, she would see these girls safely to the police.
"I'd like to make sure the girls are safe, first and foremost."
____
She glanced back at the girls, nodding. Aislin was right - getting them to safety was most important. "We can talk as we move. I'll try and hold on until they're safe outside the doors, but I can't guarantee anything." A frustrated half-growl. "I can't... stay in one place. It's not something I can control."
As per Aislin's usual instructions, the girls arranged themselves in front of her and began marching through the orphanage, down the stairway. Katrin lingered at the end of the line close to the paladin. Her voice was low, but they were still not completely alone.
"It's Colton," she explained, "you can say that I'm a friend of his. Something bad happened and he lost control. This whole place is filled with ..." She struggled for the words. "... projections. Memories, thoughts, characters from his brain. He's not even controlling them. They just sort of ... escaped. Took on a mind of its own. Most of them are harmless, except for ... y'know." She shivered. "The Dark Man is the worst of all. I don't know how it got so powerful, but it did." Her face brightened. "But it's bound! It knows it, too. It came from Colton's brain, or part of it anyway, so parts of his subconscious sort of ... weaken it. Restrict it. It's why it can't open closed doors. There's a rule in the orphanage that you can't open a closed door unless you knock and are allowed to enter." The front doors were up ahead, police light beaming through the terrace. "Another rule is that no one can leave orphanage grounds until morning. It's why the demon hasn't rampaged across Caranhall yet. It's waiting."
____
The paladin was largely silent as she escorted the children through the silent orphanage, taking Katrin's explanations in stride as they made their way down the stairs and towards the door. So she was a projection, just like this dark man and these other things that plagued the Orphanage? The matter grew more confusing by the moment as Lughadh did her best to keep up mentally, her plan of action shifting with every new hint of information she received. This monster couldn't leave the orphanage, being a product of Colin's mind, but given that Katrin was the same, neither could she. Having to move onto the porch to give the sign and ensure the girls' safety, the paladin stopped only briefly with Katrin, knowing that this spirit, for lack of a better term, would likely be gone when she moved back inside, and asked only one question.
"Colton - where is he?" She presumed he was in the chapel, being the last place that there were survivors marked on the map, but Lughadh wanted to be sure. Once the young woman gave her answer, the paladin would see to the girls' well-being and imparting the sign to the police line beyond.
____
Another chorus of cheers as Aislin delivered the girl, accompanied by a sobbing yelp, a young cry from the crowds. The girls ran down the steps towards the other survivors. It seemed the paladin had just reunited friends.
"The attic," Katrin replied, her face paling. She seemed to guess at Aislin's intentions. "Listen, please. It's not his fault. He didn't mean to do any of this, it just happened." She stepped forward, eyes earnest and pleading. "Max would tell you to kill him, that if you kill him you'll kill the demon, but you can't do that. He's innocent, you can't kill an innocent, you're a paladin..." She seemed uncertain of the words as she said them, but with a sharp intake of breath the girl redoubled her efforts. "You can save him, you see! This orphanage, this whole place is a glimpse into his brain. His fears. His hopes. You can reach out to him and get him to stop it. He can do it. I know he can, you just have to give him the strength-"
Before Aislin's very eyes, Katrin disintegrated into the air like windborn smoke.
The dark atria of the orphanage loomed ahead of her, beckoning her back inside.
____
As she watched Katrin dissipate into the air before her, the paladin lingered on the phantom's words. They were the words of an idealist, of a mind that did not think as she did - merciful as she might be, a fault in the eyes of her comrades - and had not seen the same things she had. The city, the land, had a way of twisting man and beast, and she knew for a fact that paladins could kill the innocent - she'd been forced to herself, at times. The Order demanded great sacrifices from its ranks, and the well-being of Lutetia demanded such from every rank of society. With a steeled heart the knight returned to the orphanage before her, pulling the door closed behind her as she returned to the dark depths of Caranhall's nightmare.
Seeking out the attic as best she could by Katrin's map, the Paladin did her best to make a beeline for Colin's hiding place, her pistol drawn and at the ready, her mind still mulling over Katrin's words as she sought out the source of this horror - that she could save him if she gave him the strength to stop it.
Perhaps.
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
There was no way to get to the attic except through the faculty offices, and no way to get through the faculty offices except through the chapel. The doors, she would find, were locked. Hushed voices murmured through the wood as she nudged them, the cacophony cut through by a strong, curiously metallic-sounding clarion tone.
"STAND BACK. STAND BACK. IT MAY BE RETURNING..."
The children screamed as the door splintered, those in the front row recoiling as she stepped into the chapel. A mob of orphans lay before her - the largest batch yet - all overshadowed by the figure of a massive humanoid made of metal and wood. His body was seemingly makeshift, put together from the furniture in the chapel. Chipped pews made up his torso, intertwined brass candlestands and ramp railings forming his gangly arms and legs. His shoulders were capped by two massive books which lay open, face-down on the bench edges like pauldrons. His face was the altar, garbed in a satin white cloth. The raven insignia of the church encapsulated the upper half of his head like a visor. All in all he stood about nine feet tall, the top of his 'helmet' nearly brushing against the ceiling. He wielded half of a confession booth as a shield, a spear made of curtain railings equipped in his offhand.
At the sight of Aislin, his weapon lowered.
"THANK SELENE! OUR RE-ENFORCEMENTS HAVE COME." The creature spoke with a booming, chivalrous voice, his every word laced with a deep, steely thrum. He stepped forward and pressed two brass fingers to its 'lips' and bowed - the traditional Evequec greeting. "HAIL, DAME. YOU ARE A WELCOME SIGHT. I KNEW THE ORDER WOULD SEND HELP, BUT I DID NOT EXPECT IT SO SOON."
The children gathered around the giant's feet, staring at Aislin with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Whatever this thing was, the orphans seemed to trust him.
"THRICE I'VE TRIED TO LEAD THESE LITTLE ONES TO SAFETY," the metal-man growled with the sound of grinding iron sheets, "THE DEMON STOPPED MY ADVANCE EACH TIME. SAINT VALENTINE FORGIVE ME, MY BLADE COULD NOT BEST IT." He gestured to a young child resting on a pew, his leg bandaged. "THE THIRD TIME I NEARLY LOST YOUNG JONATHAN. AFTER THAT, I DECIDED TO WAIT FOR HELP." He nodded at Aislin, his chest puffed, his shoulders squared. "AND IT HAS COME."
____
The Paladin honestly knew not what to make of the sight, of this golem that stood before her, and she stood dumbfounded for a moment, her lawkeeper lowered as she slowly realized what this might be. A protective spirit, some element of the young man's fantasies with knighthood and the church, summoned to guard the orphans gathered here? "Hail, sir..." She managed after a moment, blinking from behind her helmet's visor, raising its plate after a moment to regard this thing properly before she returned the greeting, altogether uncertain how she felt being greeted by some spirit in the way of the church. Her jade gaze dashed over all of those gathered before returning to the amalgamation of the chapel's contents, this most unexpected ally.
"... we should see to their evacuation, immediately." Aislin lept into motion at that, mind still reeling from the phantasms and golems and demons that all walked the halls of Arodring now, clinging to the one objective truth she could observe - there were orphans here, survivors, who needed to get out. "Shall I lead the way?" She inquired, looking to the 'visor' of his helm, believing that to be what he 'saw' with.
She had been taught from her earliest days in the Monastery, both officially and unofficially, to be wary of magic in any form, that it was a tool of deceit and the Wyrm - but this was so radically different than anything she might have expected. It hadn't harmed the children - indeed, from the look of things they trusted it a great deal more than they trusted her - and beyond that, it acted, spoke like...
Lughadh didn't know if it was proper to think in such a manner, but steeled herself with the visual reminder that it bore her heraldry, that it wore the Raven.
____
"AH, FORGIVE ME. I'VE FORGOTTEN COMMON COURTESIES," the knight-giant placed a hand over his chest, "I AM SIR GERAN ORILLE-DARMUS, PALADIN ERRANT OF THE ORDER. YOURSELF?" He twirled the hem of the altar cloth like the end of a great white mustache. "I REGRET THAT OUR FIRST MEETING MUST BE UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, M'LADY. I SUPPOSE IT CAN'T BE HELPED."
There were about six children in total of varying ages, only one of them wounded. Two police officers were also propped against a nearby wall, one in tactical gear, the other in a plain uniform. These were in worse shape, badly wounded and covered in bandages. The first seemed barely conscious, while the second watched Aislin carefully, weary but fascinated.
One of the younger children approached the titan and tugged at his leg. "Sir Geran," she spoke with a slight lisp, "are we going to try and leave again?"
The giant stooped and patted her head with but the tip of his metal finger. "YES, AMELIA. GET THE CRUTCHES WE MADE FOR BETH. DAME LUGHADH AND I SHALL TAKE YOU TO SAFETY." She scurried off to obey. Sir Geran rose and gestures to the two officers. "I RECOVERED THEM ON MY THIRD VOYAGE, FLEEING THE DARK ONE. POOR SOULS. WE SHOULD TRY AND GET THEM OUT WITH THE CHILDREN."
As they made preparations, Aislin would notice a familiar face among the kids - the boy who had been with Katrin earlier, pushing the food cart. Max. He looked up at her more than once, his strong face cold and suspicious.
____
"Dame Aislín Lughadh," She murmured, her tone muted still from the oddity that this meeting was. "Knight Paladin of the Order... as do I, Sir Geran." Immediately the woman moved to the wounded police officers, obviously the worst off of all present and the most challenging to evacuate, taking the time to take in their wounds and concoct some plan of action to see them to safety. "Sir Geran," She called out, over her shoulder, "Do you think that you could see to the children's safety if I focus on the officers?" The children seemed much more inclined to him anyway, perhaps thinking her to be some other illusion or... product of this event.
If Sir Geran was any indication, there was really no telling what she should expect beyond the chapel.
Of course she had noticed the boy, who she assumed to be the Max that Katrin had mentioned, the one who had been tending to the food cart with her, but considered him a non-issue - their nature was tied to this whole instance, and at the very least it meant it was another 'body' she didn't have to focus on getting out alive. For now she turned to the policemen, asking the more conscious of the two, "Can you walk, sir?" The other, she figured, she would have to carry.
____
"HAPPILY, MY LADY," Sir Geran bowed, "I WILL LEAD THE PARTY. BY THE WICK'S GRACE, WE WILL REACH THE FRONT UNMOLESTED." He brandished his sword-spear, "OR BY SELENE'S WRATH, WILL DESTROY WHATEVER EVIL ACCOSTS US."
The first officer nodded as Aislin approached. "I can limp, knight. I'm lucky enough to do that." He looked down at the other trooper. "How're you feeling?"
The tactical officer glanced up at Aislin, pale in the face and lids dropping. "I... I just need... Something to lean on..."
The other officer rose and tried to help his friend up. 'PAULS', his badge read. "I'd help him walk, but I'm pretty beat up myself." He winced as placed a hand under his comrade's arm. "You take one side, I'll take the other?"
Geran shepherded the children to the door, one of them on crutches and helped by two others. They were ready to leave on Aislin's command.
____
With a nod paid to the golem, the paladin looked to Pauls, specifically his legs, as she saw to helping the tactical officer up and holding him aloft on her shoulder. "Don't strain yourself officer, I don't want you in any worse shape." Beyond that, if the worst happened, she wanted to minimize casualties - Pauls was in far better shape than his comrade, and though she never cared for triaging the wounded Pauls took priority on getting out of the house. "If I must fight, you take him, Pauls. Can you handle that?"
She'd hardly given the man a chance to properly answer before she looked back to Sir Geran, helping the wounded officer along as she did. "Sir Geran, I believe we're ready." Thus far this would prove the most ambitious trip out of the manor yet, and the gamble she played here caused her to silently mouth a prayer to the Wick for guidance.
____
"Aye, paladin," Pauls nodded, "I'll manage."
The expedition to safety began - the salvation of the last survivors of the orphanage, led by a battered knight and a delusional golem. One by one they filed out of the candlelit warmth of the chapel and were consumed by darkness.
Sir Geran led the front, ushering the children along with words of encouragement. His heavy metal feet agonized the moaning floorboards. The children walked in a careful line, holding hands with one another and following the titan. They had tried this three times before already. Hopes were not high.
Aislin was in the back, helping along the wounded officer. Max lingered near the end of the line, looking over his shoulder at Aislin.
"You talked to Katrin," he stated. He shook his head. "I bet she told you to try and 'rescue' Colton or some shit like that." His face was twisted with anger. "Am I right?"
____
The boy, Max, wasn't wrong, and Aislin made no pretense to the contrary, nodding in reply. Her decision was not yet made in regards to Colton, whether she should try and save him or kill the young man - it was the sort of situation that she needed to see for herself, with her own eyes, and making any decision right now was simply too rash. "She told me you'd tell me to kill him." Lughadh murmured in reply, keeping her voice down as she helped the wounded officer along, doing her best to keep her pace up as they made their way to the entrance. "I would be a liar if I said the thought didn't cross my mind." Of course, her mind had gone nearly everywhere since this whole mess started.
____
"Good," Max replied, "don't listen to Katrin. She's a fool - a protector. She only sees the good in Colton. But you see through that, you and me both. We know what he's capable of."
The stairwell was up ahead. The children descended single file while Sir Geran awkwardly hoisted his massive figure over the railing to the floor below. He bumped his head against the ceiling twice. "STEADY CHILDREN, HOLD HANDS. STAY CLOSE NOW, WE'RE ALMOST THERE..." Their footsteps thunked on the steps and echoed into the atria.
Max kept in front of Aislin. "I mean, so what if he didn't do any of this on purpose? Intent isn't important here. Consequence is." It was difficult to see Max in the dark (difficult to see anything, for that matter), but any glimpse the paladin caught of Max's face would show it twisted in anger. "She can plead all she wants about how this was an 'accident'. At the end of the day, that..." He growled. "...that thing came from him. His mind. His hate." His shook his head. "Only a monster would have something like that stewing around in his soul. Monsters need to die."
____
The Paladin simply blinked at this boy, phantom, whatever it was, before her, almost wincing from how aggressive this apparition was. While Aislin herself wasn't entirely keen on Katrin's merciful leanings, she certainly wasn't the bloodthirsty embodiment of justice that Max hoped, or wanted, her to be. "Do not ever dare to lecture me on necessity again." And at that she felt the conversation to be over, the debate - if one could call it that - resolved. Lughadh knew not whether she should spare or slay this child, though she did know that Max's rambling was distracting her from the task at hand.
____
A look of surprise took Max as Aislin snapped at him. He was at first confused, then angry, before finally settling on a begrudging, acquiesced resolve. Very well. She knew what she was doing. Time would prove him right, he was sure, and the paladin would do what must me done. Wordless, he walked ahead to the rest of the group.
"Light..." the wounded man breathed, wincing as they journeyed down the stairs, "...all the kids these days that angsty?" He hadn't understood half of what was said, but there was no disguising Max's hatred. If Katrin was a protector figure, a guardian, Max was clearly some manifestation of Colton's self-loathing.
"Spotlights up ahead..." Pauls smiled as they reached the first floor, "God help us, we'll make it after all..." The officer began moving ahead at a faster pace, along with some of the the other children. Sir Geran peered warily about the atria. "CURIOUS... WE ARE USUALLY INTERCEPTED BY NOW." All things considered, the way looked safe. No cicadas thrummed in Aislin's ears, no malevolent darkness lingering in the corners.
"We'll make it..." the officer huffed, smiling through his groans, "...glad for me. Glad for Pauls, more so. Guy has a family, I'm just a shmuck." He chuckled to himself. "Don't know how he survived this long unscathed, was a first responder. Been in here twice as long with half the wounds to show for it. Not gonna question it though, just glad we're getting out of here..."
____
Aislin simply shrugged at the officer's musing concerning Max's attitude, having found, outside of the mysterious figures of Max and Katrin, most of the children here to be either ignorant of their situation, or petrified because of it. As they neared the entrance, approaching the bottom of the stairs, Lughadh carried the wounded officer to the door, offering the other policeman the task of carrying his comrade the rest of the way to the barricade, soon standing by as she saw to the evacuation of the last of the orphanage's youth. Given, there was one that couldn't leave, not truly, though the phantom's fate was something that the paladin left up to the spirit itself, Aislin more concerned with paying Sir Geran the occasional glance to make sure the golem still stood unmolested.
____
Pauls received his comrade with a nod and together limped towards the door with the children. As Aislin left with the first of the children and flashed her silver, she was met with the usual fanfare. Two kids walked down the steps into the arms of their friends.
Sir Geran moved to Aislin's side, hand on his hip, sword slung over his shoulder.
"FINE WORK, DAME," he nodded, "WITH THE CHILDREN SECURED, ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO CONFRONT THE DEMON." A metallic grunt. "I TRUST THE TWO OF US WILL MAKE SHORT WORK OF THE-"
A schlck, a soft groan. Aislin would turn and find Pauls embracing his fellow cop. Where his left arm should been was an inky scythe of black which entered at the wounded tactical officer's stomach and exited out his back. Pauls locked eyes with Aislin, smiled tenderly, and stirred the man's organs in his ribcage. His eyes were black.
The four children that had not escaped backstepped, trembling. The thing that had been Pauls stood in front of the door, barring their way. Darkness proliferated around them, groans escaping from the rooms ahead which Aislin hadn't cleared. Insects chirped in her ears.
____
The creature's mockingly amiable visage did little to phase the knight of the Wick, whose own eyes simply narrowed at this revelation. She had been a fool not to check more thoroughly, but having kicked down the door she had felt there had been little time to lose in evacuating these poor souls from this hellish house. The Paladin's stance, the spread of her feet and the slight bend in her knee, were the only preamble she provided for her attack, her blade drawn from its sheath in an upward arc, aimed to bisect both the former Pauls and his erstwhile comrade. Were that not enough for this pawn of the parasite, a second, falling blow would fall upon the possessed's shoulder, her voice all the more resounding with the faceplate of her helm still drawn up, a long-practiced battlecry slipping from her lips - "God grant me strength!"
In the heat of combat with the creature formerly known as Pauls would she command what children remained, whether the possessed man still fought her or not, barking at the four children who hesitated once she had cleared the entrance of the orphanage, "Get out!" Aislin gave little thought to anything more than simply getting these four to safety, for clearing a path for them to escape, her Iverian features, which some may have found nearly angelic before, twisted in spite and in rage. "We will hold them off!" Were it that the former officer still offered any resistance to the paladin, she would end its misery in quick fashion, dispatching it with her blade before drawing her sidearm to engage whatever horrors dared creep forth from the shadows of her negligence.
"Sir Geran - to arms!"
____
The thing ripped its blade from the officer's stomach as she lunged, Ivarian steel shlcking against something hard and tough and inky. The paladin's speed was impressive, however, and the monster found itself unable to parry her quick downward-counter following the midsection swipe. It ambled a tad too slowly away from her strike, the blade severing its remaining human arm at the elbow. It backstepped, looking almost curiously at the stubbed limb, before a second black scythe jutting from the gooey flesh to fill the vacancy.
They closed in around them - corpses. Child corpses. Each bore the marks of their suffering on their bodies, each with a seemingly different torment. One of them had perfect, straight lines carving every inch of skin so that he looked striped from head-to-toe. Another's arms and legs had been stretched to such grotesque extremes that she walked on the crooked stilts of her femurs with a height that rivaled Sir Geran's. The oldest looked about sixteen, the youngest five. They obeyed the locust call of their master and descended on the company with dumb, emotionless glares.
"THE WICK PRESERVE US!" Sir Geran shouted, hefting his spear and assuming a fighting stance, "GET THE CHILDREN OUT!" The metal man wound his weapon and swung with a throaty battle-cry, a corpse-thing flying through the air and splattering against the far wall. "COME THEN, DEMON-SPAWN! FACE THE WRATH OF SELENE!"
But the way was still blocked - Pauls was not dispatched. He stood before the door, arms turned to weapons, still smiling at Aislin. He eyed the Lawkeeper in her hand, daring her, while the undead hordes closed in around them. Behind Aislin, the long-legged girl had rounded Sir Geran's perimeter and descended upon the last child in the group. Beth. The one who needed crutches to walk. She limped pathetically towards her friends, throwing her head over her shoulder and screaming. "No. No. No. No."
____
The screams of the children behind her summoned a fury from the paladin the likes of which Caranhall and Arodring had yet to see from the Iverian woman, for as she charged the beast-that-was Pauls she issued an unintelligible, nigh-on-inhuman warcry in the manner of her ancestors - a primal, celtic sound that rivaled that of the Bashee's mythical shriek. Deftly her blade parried Paul's attempts to strike her as she closed with the spawn, but her objective was not to strike him with it, instead shoulder-tackling the creature and forcing it out of the orphanage and out onto the porch, the full-force of an armored paladin colliding with Pauls, intent on sending him back. Once free of the doorway, she obliged his wistful gaze, spinning to the flank once she too was free of the doorway, bringing her Lawkeeper to bear on her target, the soft, digital notes that announced the swap of magazines lost in her righteous cry. The second she felt the magazine lock into place, the light push of a reset trigger against her finger, she let the fury of Selene's finest fall upon this beast.
The beast, and any who looked on, had only a moment's warning as the Lawkeeper's light turned to a bold emerald.
The first explosive slug was hurled at Pauls' center mass, aiming to blow the creature apart, following up with a second and third round the moment she regained a bead on the target, and as long as her target remained in one piece.
"Geran, get them out!"
____
Both of Pauls strikes were parried by Aislin's blade, Ivarian steel ringing against the bone black ink-iron of the monster's scythes. His throat warbled an inhuman cry as he was ushered out the door, police spotlight glaring from above.
The monster turned to face the paladin, blades brandished - thinking, perhaps, it had an audience for her demise - before his smile faded as the light switched on her Lawkeeper. Thhkt. The round buried in his chest. He had just enough time to look up, grin dissolved, mouth inflated to a shocked 'O', before the detonated explosive blew him apart.
The force of the blast rocked the burly oakwood doors of the orphanage and blew out the nearest windows. Where Pauls had stood was a puddle of blood and pulp. A black worm wriggled in the meat, screeched, and died.
"GO, CHILDREN!" Geran's voice roared from behind. Four corpses had climbed his body and were yanking at the furniture piecing him together. The knight growled. He spitted a thrall into the floor with his spear and let it quiver in the paneling before yanking one of the offending leeches from his person, throwing her to the ground and stomping her head with his metal foot.
Two of the children hurried out the door now that the way was clear, stepping around the mess on the porch. Back in the atria, the stilted corpses had reached Beth. She was picking her up by her ankle, lifting her off the ground towards her mouth. On the floor, a final orphan pulled against the monster's yank, hands death-locked with Beth's.
"Don't let me go," she pleaded through tears, "don't let me go."
Garen's perimeter was faltering, the numbers of the enemy were too great. Three monsters limped just behind the two remaining orphans, hands outstretched for the girls.
____
The single explosive crack of the slug, combined with the shower of gore that bathed much of the porch, announced to the paladin that her target didn't require a second round, and so she set about to her next task now that the way was clear - ensuring what remained of the chapel's survivors made it out of Arodring. The jade lights upon her Lawkeeper soon shifted to a cold sapphire as she rounded the corner she had only just turned, giving the two children just enough berth to make it past her and out to the police line beyond, her steps as quick as her blade, its length soon returning to a fighting stance. With two free, it left only two still in danger - Beth, currently at the mercy of a particularly gruesome monstrosity, and a bold friend who dared to stay and help her friend - not counting the steadfast Sir Geran, who held off the horde still to the best of his ability.
"Hold fast!"
The moment the two children passed her she raised her Lawkeeper to meet the foe, aiming first for the three creatures that lurched for the two girls that remained, two rounds of consecrated lead seeking out the each of them, preferring to engage those pressing targets with her sidearm while they were still out of reach, regardless of how quickly she closed the gap. Geran would have to wait as she moved, engaging those tormented souls that assailed her along the way with only passing concern, dispatching or maiming them quickly with her longsword, soon focusing solely on the femur-stilted abomination that pulled at the crippled Beth. Aislin's first target was that which made this particular fiend notable - the legs, her Lawkeeper sending a punishing slug into the beast's knee, or what at least passed for a joint on that pitiful creature's leg. Hopefully dropping the beast, or at least knocking it off balance, Lughadh barked at the children as she soon rushed past them, her blade aimed at severing the beast's arm.
"Flee!"
Were it that the creature still dared to resist, the knight would bring her sword down upon its unfortunate crown, if not to split open its skull then at least to cleave into its shoulder, an already deadly feint for her Lawkeeper, brought to bear on its twisted breast. With another two loud cracks of gunfire ringing out in the atria, the Paladin would shift her attention back towards Geran, to work with the golem in providing a covered retreat for Beth and her friend, clearing what harassing monsters she could from her comrade's form, both with blade and bullet - the latter only if she had a clear shot that might not threaten Geran's mighty form.
____
The approaching beasts felled before her bullets, the consecrated metal rupturing and burning necrotic flesh far more effectively than simple lead. A head snapped back with the force of the shot, another's chest caved in. Wherever the rounds found their marks, the surrounding flesh cackled and scorched. The power of the Pleur was absolute.
The stilted girl's balance left her just as she opened her maw against Beth's neck. It collapsed with an otherworldly wail, her leg visible disjointed from the rest of her body. It was just the release her friend needed - Beth was pulled from the monster's grip into the arms of her comrade.
"Come on, come on," she gasped, the two of them making for the door as best they could. Beth was still crippled. Even with her friend's help, it was slow work.
The stilted girl wretched on her remaining limbs, flailing towards her prey once more ... before Aislin's blade cracked her skull and pulped her brain. A torrent of black bile exploded from her throat and coated the knight's greaves before she died on the floor. THOOM. THOOM. The paladin's Lawkeeper hammered with righteous thunder, two more child-thralls collapsing to the ground under her aim. Geran had dispatched the monsters assailing his person and was clearing the approaching hordes with great sweeps of his spear.
Chkchkchkchkchkchkchkkkkkk....
She might have seen it descending the stairs - the tall, black body spun from threads of insubstantial dark. Spindly legs. Toothpick arms. A lolling, spoon-shaped head. The Dark Man came from above, smiling. Always smiling.
The thralls seemed invigorated by their master's presence. Where they had encroached before, now they surged - running as best they could on their decayed limbs towards their targets. Two of them charged Aislin from her right and left, hands outstretched, while another raced around Aislin and made a dash for the escaping children.
"IT COMES!" Geran roared, "GET THEM OUT, GET THEM-..." Not even Geran's booming baritone could defeat the all-consuming drown of the Dark Man's warble. His laughter chirped in her ears, his simple presence emitting an ambiance both deafening and subtle. It only grew louder the closer he came. He was moving slowly - was only at the base of the stairs now - but he was coming. He was coming.
____
With the stilted abomination dispatched, dame Lughadh was free to fall back with the girls, covering them as Beth hobbled towards the exit with the assistance of her comrade, glad that Geran had found his pace in the heat of combat, now holding his own quite well. Whether through its subtly or the simple cacophony of combat with the horde of monstrosities that still assaulted the paladin and the golem, the demonic force that descended into the atria took a backseat as its three spawns came forth so boldly to challenge the knight. Those fool enough to close on the paladin herself would soon understand why so few survived such an egregious error - in what little light still remained in the atrium did her Ivaran steel flash, an upward strike to sever the first beast's arms, bringing the weapon back down to cleave through the creature at the shoulder.
The other attacker was next, the blade brought about as she spun on her feet out of the strike on the previous target, moving into a crouch as she let the beast impale itself on her steel, the longsword thrust into its gullet as she brought the Lawkeeper to bear on the errant pawn, its light once again turning as green as her gaze. Carefully she trained the weapon on its back, center mass, before firing, the weapon's bark illuminating the room and its unholy denizens for but an instant, the explosive slug flying for its target. She could not risk the collateral of a conventional round - for the bullet to slip right through the beast and out into the onlookers beyond or, worse, the children, knowing that the beast's body alone would shield the two from most of the forward force of the explosion. The moment she'd dispatched the quickest of the trio she jumped to her feet, her concern once more returning to that creeping horror that encroached on those that remained in the orphanage. With haste being of the essence she slipped her blade from the foe, her Lawkeeper left to dangle by its lanyard as she hurriedly returned her sword to its sheath, rushing into a sprint towards the two girls as the beast had done only moments before.
Whether they still stood on their own feet or had been knocked to the floor by the force of their pursuer's bane she sought them out, gauntleted hands lifting them by the collar and carrying them, not unlike a kitten by the nape of their neck, out of the orphanage. Uncaring for their comfort, the paladin threw them away from the door once they were clear, far more concerned with slamming the door shut behind them, sealing noble Sir Geran inside the nightmare that had once been Arodring Orphanage. Taking a moment to look out at the police line that lay beyond the gory pulp that had been officer Pauls and the two girls she had so roughly evacuated from danger, the Paladin, allowed herself a chance to breathe, her eyes lingering on Beth and her friend.
Pushing herself off of the solid wooden door of the Orphanage she approached the two girls, helping the both up but taking special care with Beth, apologizing quietly to the both of them for her rude actions but a few moments earlier as she took the crippled young woman into her arms, carrying her to the police line that lay beyond. The last of the survivors had been accounted for - whether they had been rescued or lost - and all that remained was the demon and the source of this unholy plague, the young Colton. With harsh eyes and a cold visage she turned the girls over to Matoi and his men, stepping away from the reunion of the youth with the other survivors to her Destrier to resupply and rearm. She knew that Geran stood no chance against that horde, much less that thing that had come down the stairs, and was doing his best - if he yet lived - to buy them time. The metallic workings of the Lawkeeper in her hands were lost on the knight as she saw to reloading its magazines, making sure each was at full capacity before returning it to her side, her mind still inside of the orphanage, her heart alongside noble Geran to his last.
The crisp click of the Repentance's bolt echoed out across the barricade, the assault shotgun's silhouette held aloft as she tested its sights, chambering a shell as she elected on bringing the weapon along, especially if she was to run into the same unholy horde she had only barely escaped from. She took only one other drum, hooked onto her belt on her back, though she sincerely doubted she would need it - how many abominations could infest the place, and how many remained after the slaughter she had just witnessed? With her Repentance in the crook of her arm, she looked to the east, towards the coming dawn, as she moved to one of the side entrances of the orphanage and reflected on this baleful night. Geran, Pauls, the officer who she had so utterly failed and had not even known, they all lingered in her mind, her failures to Caranhall - to Lutetia.
She would pray for them with dawn's first light, when she had cleansed Arodring of this evil.
The paladin slipped into the door in trained fashion, treating the orphanage now like that killhouse she had so often trained in during her youth. In her mind she could still hear Sir Joguet's bellowing voice, resounding loud, almost in cadence with her as she moved through the halls, checking corners and clearing doors, making her way back to the atrium as thoroughly and quietly as she could manage.
There was no way to get to the attic except through the faculty offices, and no way to get through the faculty offices except through the chapel. The doors, she would find, were locked. Hushed voices murmured through the wood as she nudged them, the cacophony cut through by a strong, curiously metallic-sounding clarion tone.
"STAND BACK. STAND BACK. IT MAY BE RETURNING..."
The children screamed as the door splintered, those in the front row recoiling as she stepped into the chapel. A mob of orphans lay before her - the largest batch yet - all overshadowed by the figure of a massive humanoid made of metal and wood. His body was seemingly makeshift, put together from the furniture in the chapel. Chipped pews made up his torso, intertwined brass candlestands and ramp railings forming his gangly arms and legs. His shoulders were capped by two massive books which lay open, face-down on the bench edges like pauldrons. His face was the altar, garbed in a satin white cloth. The raven insignia of the church encapsulated the upper half of his head like a visor. All in all he stood about nine feet tall, the top of his 'helmet' nearly brushing against the ceiling. He wielded half of a confession booth as a shield, a spear made of curtain railings equipped in his offhand.
At the sight of Aislin, his weapon lowered.
"THANK SELENE! OUR RE-ENFORCEMENTS HAVE COME." The creature spoke with a booming, chivalrous voice, his every word laced with a deep, steely thrum. He stepped forward and pressed two brass fingers to its 'lips' and bowed - the traditional Evequec greeting. "HAIL, DAME. YOU ARE A WELCOME SIGHT. I KNEW THE ORDER WOULD SEND HELP, BUT I DID NOT EXPECT IT SO SOON."
The children gathered around the giant's feet, staring at Aislin with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Whatever this thing was, the orphans seemed to trust him.
"THRICE I'VE TRIED TO LEAD THESE LITTLE ONES TO SAFETY," the metal-man growled with the sound of grinding iron sheets, "THE DEMON STOPPED MY ADVANCE EACH TIME. SAINT VALENTINE FORGIVE ME, MY BLADE COULD NOT BEST IT." He gestured to a young child resting on a pew, his leg bandaged. "THE THIRD TIME I NEARLY LOST YOUNG JONATHAN. AFTER THAT, I DECIDED TO WAIT FOR HELP." He nodded at Aislin, his chest puffed, his shoulders squared. "AND IT HAS COME."
____
The Paladin honestly knew not what to make of the sight, of this golem that stood before her, and she stood dumbfounded for a moment, her lawkeeper lowered as she slowly realized what this might be. A protective spirit, some element of the young man's fantasies with knighthood and the church, summoned to guard the orphans gathered here? "Hail, sir..." She managed after a moment, blinking from behind her helmet's visor, raising its plate after a moment to regard this thing properly before she returned the greeting, altogether uncertain how she felt being greeted by some spirit in the way of the church. Her jade gaze dashed over all of those gathered before returning to the amalgamation of the chapel's contents, this most unexpected ally.
"... we should see to their evacuation, immediately." Aislin lept into motion at that, mind still reeling from the phantasms and golems and demons that all walked the halls of Arodring now, clinging to the one objective truth she could observe - there were orphans here, survivors, who needed to get out. "Shall I lead the way?" She inquired, looking to the 'visor' of his helm, believing that to be what he 'saw' with.
She had been taught from her earliest days in the Monastery, both officially and unofficially, to be wary of magic in any form, that it was a tool of deceit and the Wyrm - but this was so radically different than anything she might have expected. It hadn't harmed the children - indeed, from the look of things they trusted it a great deal more than they trusted her - and beyond that, it acted, spoke like...
Lughadh didn't know if it was proper to think in such a manner, but steeled herself with the visual reminder that it bore her heraldry, that it wore the Raven.
____
"AH, FORGIVE ME. I'VE FORGOTTEN COMMON COURTESIES," the knight-giant placed a hand over his chest, "I AM SIR GERAN ORILLE-DARMUS, PALADIN ERRANT OF THE ORDER. YOURSELF?" He twirled the hem of the altar cloth like the end of a great white mustache. "I REGRET THAT OUR FIRST MEETING MUST BE UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, M'LADY. I SUPPOSE IT CAN'T BE HELPED."
There were about six children in total of varying ages, only one of them wounded. Two police officers were also propped against a nearby wall, one in tactical gear, the other in a plain uniform. These were in worse shape, badly wounded and covered in bandages. The first seemed barely conscious, while the second watched Aislin carefully, weary but fascinated.
One of the younger children approached the titan and tugged at his leg. "Sir Geran," she spoke with a slight lisp, "are we going to try and leave again?"
The giant stooped and patted her head with but the tip of his metal finger. "YES, AMELIA. GET THE CRUTCHES WE MADE FOR BETH. DAME LUGHADH AND I SHALL TAKE YOU TO SAFETY." She scurried off to obey. Sir Geran rose and gestures to the two officers. "I RECOVERED THEM ON MY THIRD VOYAGE, FLEEING THE DARK ONE. POOR SOULS. WE SHOULD TRY AND GET THEM OUT WITH THE CHILDREN."
As they made preparations, Aislin would notice a familiar face among the kids - the boy who had been with Katrin earlier, pushing the food cart. Max. He looked up at her more than once, his strong face cold and suspicious.
____
"Dame Aislín Lughadh," She murmured, her tone muted still from the oddity that this meeting was. "Knight Paladin of the Order... as do I, Sir Geran." Immediately the woman moved to the wounded police officers, obviously the worst off of all present and the most challenging to evacuate, taking the time to take in their wounds and concoct some plan of action to see them to safety. "Sir Geran," She called out, over her shoulder, "Do you think that you could see to the children's safety if I focus on the officers?" The children seemed much more inclined to him anyway, perhaps thinking her to be some other illusion or... product of this event.
If Sir Geran was any indication, there was really no telling what she should expect beyond the chapel.
Of course she had noticed the boy, who she assumed to be the Max that Katrin had mentioned, the one who had been tending to the food cart with her, but considered him a non-issue - their nature was tied to this whole instance, and at the very least it meant it was another 'body' she didn't have to focus on getting out alive. For now she turned to the policemen, asking the more conscious of the two, "Can you walk, sir?" The other, she figured, she would have to carry.
____
"HAPPILY, MY LADY," Sir Geran bowed, "I WILL LEAD THE PARTY. BY THE WICK'S GRACE, WE WILL REACH THE FRONT UNMOLESTED." He brandished his sword-spear, "OR BY SELENE'S WRATH, WILL DESTROY WHATEVER EVIL ACCOSTS US."
The first officer nodded as Aislin approached. "I can limp, knight. I'm lucky enough to do that." He looked down at the other trooper. "How're you feeling?"
The tactical officer glanced up at Aislin, pale in the face and lids dropping. "I... I just need... Something to lean on..."
The other officer rose and tried to help his friend up. 'PAULS', his badge read. "I'd help him walk, but I'm pretty beat up myself." He winced as placed a hand under his comrade's arm. "You take one side, I'll take the other?"
Geran shepherded the children to the door, one of them on crutches and helped by two others. They were ready to leave on Aislin's command.
____
With a nod paid to the golem, the paladin looked to Pauls, specifically his legs, as she saw to helping the tactical officer up and holding him aloft on her shoulder. "Don't strain yourself officer, I don't want you in any worse shape." Beyond that, if the worst happened, she wanted to minimize casualties - Pauls was in far better shape than his comrade, and though she never cared for triaging the wounded Pauls took priority on getting out of the house. "If I must fight, you take him, Pauls. Can you handle that?"
She'd hardly given the man a chance to properly answer before she looked back to Sir Geran, helping the wounded officer along as she did. "Sir Geran, I believe we're ready." Thus far this would prove the most ambitious trip out of the manor yet, and the gamble she played here caused her to silently mouth a prayer to the Wick for guidance.
____
"Aye, paladin," Pauls nodded, "I'll manage."
The expedition to safety began - the salvation of the last survivors of the orphanage, led by a battered knight and a delusional golem. One by one they filed out of the candlelit warmth of the chapel and were consumed by darkness.
Sir Geran led the front, ushering the children along with words of encouragement. His heavy metal feet agonized the moaning floorboards. The children walked in a careful line, holding hands with one another and following the titan. They had tried this three times before already. Hopes were not high.
Aislin was in the back, helping along the wounded officer. Max lingered near the end of the line, looking over his shoulder at Aislin.
"You talked to Katrin," he stated. He shook his head. "I bet she told you to try and 'rescue' Colton or some shit like that." His face was twisted with anger. "Am I right?"
____
The boy, Max, wasn't wrong, and Aislin made no pretense to the contrary, nodding in reply. Her decision was not yet made in regards to Colton, whether she should try and save him or kill the young man - it was the sort of situation that she needed to see for herself, with her own eyes, and making any decision right now was simply too rash. "She told me you'd tell me to kill him." Lughadh murmured in reply, keeping her voice down as she helped the wounded officer along, doing her best to keep her pace up as they made their way to the entrance. "I would be a liar if I said the thought didn't cross my mind." Of course, her mind had gone nearly everywhere since this whole mess started.
____
"Good," Max replied, "don't listen to Katrin. She's a fool - a protector. She only sees the good in Colton. But you see through that, you and me both. We know what he's capable of."
The stairwell was up ahead. The children descended single file while Sir Geran awkwardly hoisted his massive figure over the railing to the floor below. He bumped his head against the ceiling twice. "STEADY CHILDREN, HOLD HANDS. STAY CLOSE NOW, WE'RE ALMOST THERE..." Their footsteps thunked on the steps and echoed into the atria.
Max kept in front of Aislin. "I mean, so what if he didn't do any of this on purpose? Intent isn't important here. Consequence is." It was difficult to see Max in the dark (difficult to see anything, for that matter), but any glimpse the paladin caught of Max's face would show it twisted in anger. "She can plead all she wants about how this was an 'accident'. At the end of the day, that..." He growled. "...that thing came from him. His mind. His hate." His shook his head. "Only a monster would have something like that stewing around in his soul. Monsters need to die."
____
The Paladin simply blinked at this boy, phantom, whatever it was, before her, almost wincing from how aggressive this apparition was. While Aislin herself wasn't entirely keen on Katrin's merciful leanings, she certainly wasn't the bloodthirsty embodiment of justice that Max hoped, or wanted, her to be. "Do not ever dare to lecture me on necessity again." And at that she felt the conversation to be over, the debate - if one could call it that - resolved. Lughadh knew not whether she should spare or slay this child, though she did know that Max's rambling was distracting her from the task at hand.
____
A look of surprise took Max as Aislin snapped at him. He was at first confused, then angry, before finally settling on a begrudging, acquiesced resolve. Very well. She knew what she was doing. Time would prove him right, he was sure, and the paladin would do what must me done. Wordless, he walked ahead to the rest of the group.
"Light..." the wounded man breathed, wincing as they journeyed down the stairs, "...all the kids these days that angsty?" He hadn't understood half of what was said, but there was no disguising Max's hatred. If Katrin was a protector figure, a guardian, Max was clearly some manifestation of Colton's self-loathing.
"Spotlights up ahead..." Pauls smiled as they reached the first floor, "God help us, we'll make it after all..." The officer began moving ahead at a faster pace, along with some of the the other children. Sir Geran peered warily about the atria. "CURIOUS... WE ARE USUALLY INTERCEPTED BY NOW." All things considered, the way looked safe. No cicadas thrummed in Aislin's ears, no malevolent darkness lingering in the corners.
"We'll make it..." the officer huffed, smiling through his groans, "...glad for me. Glad for Pauls, more so. Guy has a family, I'm just a shmuck." He chuckled to himself. "Don't know how he survived this long unscathed, was a first responder. Been in here twice as long with half the wounds to show for it. Not gonna question it though, just glad we're getting out of here..."
____
Aislin simply shrugged at the officer's musing concerning Max's attitude, having found, outside of the mysterious figures of Max and Katrin, most of the children here to be either ignorant of their situation, or petrified because of it. As they neared the entrance, approaching the bottom of the stairs, Lughadh carried the wounded officer to the door, offering the other policeman the task of carrying his comrade the rest of the way to the barricade, soon standing by as she saw to the evacuation of the last of the orphanage's youth. Given, there was one that couldn't leave, not truly, though the phantom's fate was something that the paladin left up to the spirit itself, Aislin more concerned with paying Sir Geran the occasional glance to make sure the golem still stood unmolested.
____
Pauls received his comrade with a nod and together limped towards the door with the children. As Aislin left with the first of the children and flashed her silver, she was met with the usual fanfare. Two kids walked down the steps into the arms of their friends.
Sir Geran moved to Aislin's side, hand on his hip, sword slung over his shoulder.
"FINE WORK, DAME," he nodded, "WITH THE CHILDREN SECURED, ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO CONFRONT THE DEMON." A metallic grunt. "I TRUST THE TWO OF US WILL MAKE SHORT WORK OF THE-"
A schlck, a soft groan. Aislin would turn and find Pauls embracing his fellow cop. Where his left arm should been was an inky scythe of black which entered at the wounded tactical officer's stomach and exited out his back. Pauls locked eyes with Aislin, smiled tenderly, and stirred the man's organs in his ribcage. His eyes were black.
The four children that had not escaped backstepped, trembling. The thing that had been Pauls stood in front of the door, barring their way. Darkness proliferated around them, groans escaping from the rooms ahead which Aislin hadn't cleared. Insects chirped in her ears.
____
The creature's mockingly amiable visage did little to phase the knight of the Wick, whose own eyes simply narrowed at this revelation. She had been a fool not to check more thoroughly, but having kicked down the door she had felt there had been little time to lose in evacuating these poor souls from this hellish house. The Paladin's stance, the spread of her feet and the slight bend in her knee, were the only preamble she provided for her attack, her blade drawn from its sheath in an upward arc, aimed to bisect both the former Pauls and his erstwhile comrade. Were that not enough for this pawn of the parasite, a second, falling blow would fall upon the possessed's shoulder, her voice all the more resounding with the faceplate of her helm still drawn up, a long-practiced battlecry slipping from her lips - "God grant me strength!"
In the heat of combat with the creature formerly known as Pauls would she command what children remained, whether the possessed man still fought her or not, barking at the four children who hesitated once she had cleared the entrance of the orphanage, "Get out!" Aislin gave little thought to anything more than simply getting these four to safety, for clearing a path for them to escape, her Iverian features, which some may have found nearly angelic before, twisted in spite and in rage. "We will hold them off!" Were it that the former officer still offered any resistance to the paladin, she would end its misery in quick fashion, dispatching it with her blade before drawing her sidearm to engage whatever horrors dared creep forth from the shadows of her negligence.
"Sir Geran - to arms!"
____
The thing ripped its blade from the officer's stomach as she lunged, Ivarian steel shlcking against something hard and tough and inky. The paladin's speed was impressive, however, and the monster found itself unable to parry her quick downward-counter following the midsection swipe. It ambled a tad too slowly away from her strike, the blade severing its remaining human arm at the elbow. It backstepped, looking almost curiously at the stubbed limb, before a second black scythe jutting from the gooey flesh to fill the vacancy.
They closed in around them - corpses. Child corpses. Each bore the marks of their suffering on their bodies, each with a seemingly different torment. One of them had perfect, straight lines carving every inch of skin so that he looked striped from head-to-toe. Another's arms and legs had been stretched to such grotesque extremes that she walked on the crooked stilts of her femurs with a height that rivaled Sir Geran's. The oldest looked about sixteen, the youngest five. They obeyed the locust call of their master and descended on the company with dumb, emotionless glares.
"THE WICK PRESERVE US!" Sir Geran shouted, hefting his spear and assuming a fighting stance, "GET THE CHILDREN OUT!" The metal man wound his weapon and swung with a throaty battle-cry, a corpse-thing flying through the air and splattering against the far wall. "COME THEN, DEMON-SPAWN! FACE THE WRATH OF SELENE!"
But the way was still blocked - Pauls was not dispatched. He stood before the door, arms turned to weapons, still smiling at Aislin. He eyed the Lawkeeper in her hand, daring her, while the undead hordes closed in around them. Behind Aislin, the long-legged girl had rounded Sir Geran's perimeter and descended upon the last child in the group. Beth. The one who needed crutches to walk. She limped pathetically towards her friends, throwing her head over her shoulder and screaming. "No. No. No. No."
____
The screams of the children behind her summoned a fury from the paladin the likes of which Caranhall and Arodring had yet to see from the Iverian woman, for as she charged the beast-that-was Pauls she issued an unintelligible, nigh-on-inhuman warcry in the manner of her ancestors - a primal, celtic sound that rivaled that of the Bashee's mythical shriek. Deftly her blade parried Paul's attempts to strike her as she closed with the spawn, but her objective was not to strike him with it, instead shoulder-tackling the creature and forcing it out of the orphanage and out onto the porch, the full-force of an armored paladin colliding with Pauls, intent on sending him back. Once free of the doorway, she obliged his wistful gaze, spinning to the flank once she too was free of the doorway, bringing her Lawkeeper to bear on her target, the soft, digital notes that announced the swap of magazines lost in her righteous cry. The second she felt the magazine lock into place, the light push of a reset trigger against her finger, she let the fury of Selene's finest fall upon this beast.
The beast, and any who looked on, had only a moment's warning as the Lawkeeper's light turned to a bold emerald.
The first explosive slug was hurled at Pauls' center mass, aiming to blow the creature apart, following up with a second and third round the moment she regained a bead on the target, and as long as her target remained in one piece.
"Geran, get them out!"
____
Both of Pauls strikes were parried by Aislin's blade, Ivarian steel ringing against the bone black ink-iron of the monster's scythes. His throat warbled an inhuman cry as he was ushered out the door, police spotlight glaring from above.
The monster turned to face the paladin, blades brandished - thinking, perhaps, it had an audience for her demise - before his smile faded as the light switched on her Lawkeeper. Thhkt. The round buried in his chest. He had just enough time to look up, grin dissolved, mouth inflated to a shocked 'O', before the detonated explosive blew him apart.
The force of the blast rocked the burly oakwood doors of the orphanage and blew out the nearest windows. Where Pauls had stood was a puddle of blood and pulp. A black worm wriggled in the meat, screeched, and died.
"GO, CHILDREN!" Geran's voice roared from behind. Four corpses had climbed his body and were yanking at the furniture piecing him together. The knight growled. He spitted a thrall into the floor with his spear and let it quiver in the paneling before yanking one of the offending leeches from his person, throwing her to the ground and stomping her head with his metal foot.
Two of the children hurried out the door now that the way was clear, stepping around the mess on the porch. Back in the atria, the stilted corpses had reached Beth. She was picking her up by her ankle, lifting her off the ground towards her mouth. On the floor, a final orphan pulled against the monster's yank, hands death-locked with Beth's.
"Don't let me go," she pleaded through tears, "don't let me go."
Garen's perimeter was faltering, the numbers of the enemy were too great. Three monsters limped just behind the two remaining orphans, hands outstretched for the girls.
____
The single explosive crack of the slug, combined with the shower of gore that bathed much of the porch, announced to the paladin that her target didn't require a second round, and so she set about to her next task now that the way was clear - ensuring what remained of the chapel's survivors made it out of Arodring. The jade lights upon her Lawkeeper soon shifted to a cold sapphire as she rounded the corner she had only just turned, giving the two children just enough berth to make it past her and out to the police line beyond, her steps as quick as her blade, its length soon returning to a fighting stance. With two free, it left only two still in danger - Beth, currently at the mercy of a particularly gruesome monstrosity, and a bold friend who dared to stay and help her friend - not counting the steadfast Sir Geran, who held off the horde still to the best of his ability.
"Hold fast!"
The moment the two children passed her she raised her Lawkeeper to meet the foe, aiming first for the three creatures that lurched for the two girls that remained, two rounds of consecrated lead seeking out the each of them, preferring to engage those pressing targets with her sidearm while they were still out of reach, regardless of how quickly she closed the gap. Geran would have to wait as she moved, engaging those tormented souls that assailed her along the way with only passing concern, dispatching or maiming them quickly with her longsword, soon focusing solely on the femur-stilted abomination that pulled at the crippled Beth. Aislin's first target was that which made this particular fiend notable - the legs, her Lawkeeper sending a punishing slug into the beast's knee, or what at least passed for a joint on that pitiful creature's leg. Hopefully dropping the beast, or at least knocking it off balance, Lughadh barked at the children as she soon rushed past them, her blade aimed at severing the beast's arm.
"Flee!"
Were it that the creature still dared to resist, the knight would bring her sword down upon its unfortunate crown, if not to split open its skull then at least to cleave into its shoulder, an already deadly feint for her Lawkeeper, brought to bear on its twisted breast. With another two loud cracks of gunfire ringing out in the atria, the Paladin would shift her attention back towards Geran, to work with the golem in providing a covered retreat for Beth and her friend, clearing what harassing monsters she could from her comrade's form, both with blade and bullet - the latter only if she had a clear shot that might not threaten Geran's mighty form.
____
The approaching beasts felled before her bullets, the consecrated metal rupturing and burning necrotic flesh far more effectively than simple lead. A head snapped back with the force of the shot, another's chest caved in. Wherever the rounds found their marks, the surrounding flesh cackled and scorched. The power of the Pleur was absolute.
The stilted girl's balance left her just as she opened her maw against Beth's neck. It collapsed with an otherworldly wail, her leg visible disjointed from the rest of her body. It was just the release her friend needed - Beth was pulled from the monster's grip into the arms of her comrade.
"Come on, come on," she gasped, the two of them making for the door as best they could. Beth was still crippled. Even with her friend's help, it was slow work.
The stilted girl wretched on her remaining limbs, flailing towards her prey once more ... before Aislin's blade cracked her skull and pulped her brain. A torrent of black bile exploded from her throat and coated the knight's greaves before she died on the floor. THOOM. THOOM. The paladin's Lawkeeper hammered with righteous thunder, two more child-thralls collapsing to the ground under her aim. Geran had dispatched the monsters assailing his person and was clearing the approaching hordes with great sweeps of his spear.
Chkchkchkchkchkchkchkkkkkk....
She might have seen it descending the stairs - the tall, black body spun from threads of insubstantial dark. Spindly legs. Toothpick arms. A lolling, spoon-shaped head. The Dark Man came from above, smiling. Always smiling.
The thralls seemed invigorated by their master's presence. Where they had encroached before, now they surged - running as best they could on their decayed limbs towards their targets. Two of them charged Aislin from her right and left, hands outstretched, while another raced around Aislin and made a dash for the escaping children.
"IT COMES!" Geran roared, "GET THEM OUT, GET THEM-..." Not even Geran's booming baritone could defeat the all-consuming drown of the Dark Man's warble. His laughter chirped in her ears, his simple presence emitting an ambiance both deafening and subtle. It only grew louder the closer he came. He was moving slowly - was only at the base of the stairs now - but he was coming. He was coming.
____
With the stilted abomination dispatched, dame Lughadh was free to fall back with the girls, covering them as Beth hobbled towards the exit with the assistance of her comrade, glad that Geran had found his pace in the heat of combat, now holding his own quite well. Whether through its subtly or the simple cacophony of combat with the horde of monstrosities that still assaulted the paladin and the golem, the demonic force that descended into the atria took a backseat as its three spawns came forth so boldly to challenge the knight. Those fool enough to close on the paladin herself would soon understand why so few survived such an egregious error - in what little light still remained in the atrium did her Ivaran steel flash, an upward strike to sever the first beast's arms, bringing the weapon back down to cleave through the creature at the shoulder.
The other attacker was next, the blade brought about as she spun on her feet out of the strike on the previous target, moving into a crouch as she let the beast impale itself on her steel, the longsword thrust into its gullet as she brought the Lawkeeper to bear on the errant pawn, its light once again turning as green as her gaze. Carefully she trained the weapon on its back, center mass, before firing, the weapon's bark illuminating the room and its unholy denizens for but an instant, the explosive slug flying for its target. She could not risk the collateral of a conventional round - for the bullet to slip right through the beast and out into the onlookers beyond or, worse, the children, knowing that the beast's body alone would shield the two from most of the forward force of the explosion. The moment she'd dispatched the quickest of the trio she jumped to her feet, her concern once more returning to that creeping horror that encroached on those that remained in the orphanage. With haste being of the essence she slipped her blade from the foe, her Lawkeeper left to dangle by its lanyard as she hurriedly returned her sword to its sheath, rushing into a sprint towards the two girls as the beast had done only moments before.
Whether they still stood on their own feet or had been knocked to the floor by the force of their pursuer's bane she sought them out, gauntleted hands lifting them by the collar and carrying them, not unlike a kitten by the nape of their neck, out of the orphanage. Uncaring for their comfort, the paladin threw them away from the door once they were clear, far more concerned with slamming the door shut behind them, sealing noble Sir Geran inside the nightmare that had once been Arodring Orphanage. Taking a moment to look out at the police line that lay beyond the gory pulp that had been officer Pauls and the two girls she had so roughly evacuated from danger, the Paladin, allowed herself a chance to breathe, her eyes lingering on Beth and her friend.
You go through so much for the sake of the rest of Lutetia...
Pushing herself off of the solid wooden door of the Orphanage she approached the two girls, helping the both up but taking special care with Beth, apologizing quietly to the both of them for her rude actions but a few moments earlier as she took the crippled young woman into her arms, carrying her to the police line that lay beyond. The last of the survivors had been accounted for - whether they had been rescued or lost - and all that remained was the demon and the source of this unholy plague, the young Colton. With harsh eyes and a cold visage she turned the girls over to Matoi and his men, stepping away from the reunion of the youth with the other survivors to her Destrier to resupply and rearm. She knew that Geran stood no chance against that horde, much less that thing that had come down the stairs, and was doing his best - if he yet lived - to buy them time. The metallic workings of the Lawkeeper in her hands were lost on the knight as she saw to reloading its magazines, making sure each was at full capacity before returning it to her side, her mind still inside of the orphanage, her heart alongside noble Geran to his last.
The crisp click of the Repentance's bolt echoed out across the barricade, the assault shotgun's silhouette held aloft as she tested its sights, chambering a shell as she elected on bringing the weapon along, especially if she was to run into the same unholy horde she had only barely escaped from. She took only one other drum, hooked onto her belt on her back, though she sincerely doubted she would need it - how many abominations could infest the place, and how many remained after the slaughter she had just witnessed? With her Repentance in the crook of her arm, she looked to the east, towards the coming dawn, as she moved to one of the side entrances of the orphanage and reflected on this baleful night. Geran, Pauls, the officer who she had so utterly failed and had not even known, they all lingered in her mind, her failures to Caranhall - to Lutetia.
She would pray for them with dawn's first light, when she had cleansed Arodring of this evil.
The paladin slipped into the door in trained fashion, treating the orphanage now like that killhouse she had so often trained in during her youth. In her mind she could still hear Sir Joguet's bellowing voice, resounding loud, almost in cadence with her as she moved through the halls, checking corners and clearing doors, making her way back to the atrium as thoroughly and quietly as she could manage.
'No one is coming to save you.
Everything is your responsibility.
Kill who needs to be killed.'
Everything is your responsibility.
Kill who needs to be killed.'
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
Her blade danced across the creatures, nimble and sure, sundering flesh and bone with the ease of a practiced master. Her explosive round pulped the unwary abomination like a firework, guts and organs splattering across the walls in the aftermath of the blast, the shockwave perhaps momentarily off-centering her. The children yelped as Aislin took them by the collar but otherwise offered no resistance. The police spotlights shone ahead of them. They'd made it.
As Aislin slipped out, she might have noticed the brief nod from Geran, the smile tugging at his mustache. Yes. They'd done it. They were safe. As she parted, he touched two brass fingers to his non-existent lips. It was the last thing she'd see before she surrendered him to the darkness.
---
The shift from cicada-hum to deafening applause would have been strange - paranormal horror to human gratitude in half a second. There was something frenzied in their cheer this time as she descended the steps to hand over the final survivors. Did that mean....? It must. Why else would she escort them personally? By the Wick, she'd done it! All of the pain and struggle, all of the confusion and death, it was over. The Monastic Order had come to Arodring and the Monastic Order had triumphed. Matoi surged through the barricade, hand extended, ready to congratulate the knight...
No. She brushed straight passed him to her Destrier. The crowd went quiet, the elation of the officers falling to murmuring confusion. The click of loading ammunition resonated across the courtyard like a heartbeat. Surely she wasn't going back in? The children were safe. What more was there to do? What task remained for the knight?
By the time she turned back to the orphanage, the police line was dead silent, confusion turned to disbelief. By God. She was going back in. Some watched her with admiration, mouths dropped as if she were the figure of Selene herself. Others - the chief among them, watching from his car - shook their heads and snorted to themselves. Going back for more glory, no doubt. It would get her killed.
Only Matoi seemed to understand, grim and quiet as he watched the knight return to the mouth of hell. Of course she had to go back. The children were safe, but the evil persisted. It was her responsibility. Her duty. Her oath. Either she would return in triumph, or she would not return at all.
"The Light go with you, paladin," he murmured.
And she was gone.
---
She entered to a nightmare, Sir Geran on his hands and knees, shield shattered, spots of black rust lining his metal arms and legs like scars. The Dark Man stood above him, grin widening as the knight slipped back into the atria.
"DaMe..." Geran's voice warbled with agony, "..F...f-FlEe... YoU mUs-...sT... eScaPe... UGHN!" He grunted as the demon's stick hands underhanded his torso, sending him flying across the room to her left. He crashed into the floorboards and lay still.
The Dark Man laughed, a deafening ambiance of mist and insect. He met Aislin's eye, body shifting and morphing in neurologically painful patterns. "Lughadh...." His cancerous voice slithered into her ears like worms. The creature's hands rose, the horde of remaining orphan-thralls scurrying to his side. Over thirty in all. Relatively docile before, they were as animals now: teeth gnashing, muscles clenching, heads lolling back and forth on their necks while sporting the same rictus-grin of their master. Darkness emanated from them, whisps of sickly black which extended towards the defiant knight, wrapping themselves around her armor in a loving embrace.
At the touch of the vile corruption, Aislin's silver warmed and flared a soft shade of ether blue, the light of the Pleur shining against the dark of the Wyrm.
The demon's hands rose. His children screeched. Thirty undead monsters charged the paladin as one.
____
A momentary glance to fallen Geran was all that Aislin dared, not taking her eyes off of the Dark Man or his spawn otherwise, his visage steeled as she raised the shotgun to bear on her targets. Katrin had told her this thing was beyond her - was beyond combat - and this was no new situation for Lughadh. There were many enemies that she had faced in the past that she could not overcome through force of arms alone, and such was why the Monastery prided itself not simply on strong arms, but also sharp wits. Already her mind was in motion as to how to approach the source of this nightmare, to get up the stairs the monster had come down minutes ago, though such deliberation was easily camouflaged with the carnage she soon inflicted on the horde that soon assailed her. The immature forms of the children were met with the twelve-gauge fury of the Repentance, the shot tearing apart forms that should have rightfully grown to adulthood but were called home far too early.
The weapon was kept on semi-automatic for now as the paladin lured the beasts back from whence she came into a choke point, where they were forced to come at her through a doorway, using the funnel to devastate the thralls with the shotgun, not so much whittling away at their number as hacking it to pieces. Only after the atria and the hall she had backed down found itself spattered with dark ichor and littered with an abundance of meaty gore and severed limbs did she reload, forcing the rabid pawns of the Dark Man to crawl over their own number as she locked the bolt back, a quick finger dropping the first drum before swinging about her form for the second. In but a moment did it lock into the weapon with a mechanical snap, wedged in front to back, before she dropped the bolt with a militant clank - another shell chambered, and soon another demonic puppet sent to its proper end.
But still through it all did she look for the Tall Man, the real threat, as she eliminated his more mobile means of engagement, aiming to draw him out of the atrium and away from the stairs that lead to Colton. Occasionally she would check her flanks and her rear, gradually retreating as the children still came, making sure that she was neither flanked, nor cut-off.
____
One after another, the spawn of the Dark Man met untimely demises at the business end of Aislin's Redeemer. Whole chunks of their bodies flew off in messy spatterings of gore, small corpses thrown backwards by the force of the blast. Still they encroached, clambering over their fallen comrades without a second thought, ambling towards the knight with murderous fervor.
The chokepoint served Aislin well as she reloaded, the surge unable to overwhelm her immediately with the mess of bodies littering the way. They were at a little more than half their numbers now. Just as the paladin reached for her second drum, she might have noticed something flying for her shoulder. One of the corpses had flung the obliterated head of another thrall at her. Four children raced ahead, tripping over bodies, writhing on the floor to their feet. They were determined to talk advantage of her reload time, attempting to reach the knight before she finished and throw their arms around her ... ripping chunks off her armor, battering her limbs, digging pointed nails through her kevlar and nanofoam to the skin beneath...
The Dark Man loomed behind the horde, moving slowly towards the knight. She had trapped his thralls ... but unless she moved before he arrived, she would be trapped herself.
____
The first of the miserable little creatures to close with the armored titan would receive the butt of her Repentance across its face, the crack of bone and teeth audible even over the incessant cries of the enthralled and the insectoid hum of their master, deflecting the former child long enough to bring the barrel back around to face it. What bone the buttstroke had broken was soon utterly shattered with the explosive bellowing of her weapon, the vanguard of their twisted number soon joining their erstwhile comrades in the bloody, mutilated masses that littered the floor. But despite these who charged her so boldly, despite the brief respite in the thunderous cry of her Repentance, she never stopped moving, always pulling back, always planning her next move. Quickly she fell back, doubling back the way she'd came, luring the Dark Man into the hallways, slaughtering his thrall along the way.
Still always did she check her flanks and her rear, and always did she keep the Dark Man in her sight, not knowing what powers he might possess that she had not yet witnessed.
____
They toppled over each other, bones crunching, flesh spattering under the roaring gunfire of her Redeemer. The Dark Man's approach seemed consistently slow, approaching by increments as she gradually led him down the hallway, never gaining enough speed to confront her directly...
...he lunged suddenly, sprinting across the way without seeming to move at all. He simply grew; bounding the distance to Aislin in a few curt seconds. His hand raised as he moved, toothpick arm turning into a viscous curved blade. It slammed downwards, looking to cleave the paladin in two where she stood - shattering the floorboards otherwise.
____
To say that she was ready for what happened would be inaccurate, but the Paladin had long ago abandoned traditional expectations with this otherworldly foe, Ash's instincts taking hold as the thing grew at her. Once again she spun to her side, the Repentance thrown away as she moved, the knight ridding herself of the extra weight as she dodged the Dark Man's strike, launching herself into a sprint past his flank as she sought to slip by, back into the atria beyond. The corpses of those thrall foolish enough to confront the business-end of her assault shotgun might have given lesser men pause, but the woman chose her steps carefully, navigating the obstacle with the practiced ease of years of training and almost two decades of practical combat experience - and those that still stood upright? Those unfortunate beasts would come to understand the strength of Ivaran steel, as her blade found itself brandished once more, cutting down any who dared block her way to the atria, the stairs, and, eventually, the attic.
If given the opportunity the knight would burst into the atrium and charge across its depth, bolting for the stairs and what she felt was the only true solution to this nightmarish outbreak.
____
Aislin successfully slipped past the Dark Man's guard, two more corpses crumpling at her feet, heads severed from their necks. The paladin would have a seemingly clear shot as she burst into the atria, the stairwell ahead of her...
Something caught her ankles - one of the demon's tendrils. It wrapped around her armored foot, attempting to yank her to the floor and drag her across the floorboards.
"Lughadh...." the monster called to her. He towered into the ceiling, winding back his formless arm and thrashing it over the paladin's frame. What had been a blade was now a horsetail of flanged whips - black, hissing and impossibly sharp. They would attempt to rake over Aislin's torso, denting the steel plates of her armor, cutting deep through the nanofoam to the flesh beneath. Her blood would burn where it pierced the skin.
____
The dark appendage wrapped about her ankle, catching her mid-stride with a start, though she regained her balance soon enough, pivoting on her feet as she pulled against the demon's grasp. Aislin did not grace the darksome thing with a spoken reply as she drew her blade up to deflect the many flanges of the whip away from her, down and to her flank, her spare hand pulling the Lawkeeper from her side and training it further up the tendril's length, the sidearm barking as explosive slugs flew from its barrel, aimed at severing the tendril from its master. Once she was free from its grip she continued, her armored form flashing through the darkness as she rushed for the stairs and the chapel.
____
The whips clanged against her blade, an otherworldly screech emanating from the end of the tendril's line. A flash of red and white, a resonant THOOM ... then, the abyss. It had consumed the explosion.
The cord was cut, but the stairwell appeared no closer than it'd been before. Each pounding step the paladin took to her salvation almost seemed to have no effective on the distance traveled, as if she were running in place....
He came up beside her, to her right, as if from the splinters in the paneling. His arm was a sword that swiped for her midsection, aimed to tear out a chunk of her platemail and leave a gash in her side. There was something angrier in its hiss, an urgency to its all-consuming insect hum. It was getting angry. Impatient.
____
What subtlety the demon had - were it that creatures of its nature had subtlety - soon evaporated as its actions grew more rash, its hiss more pronounced. Deftly the knight moved to deflect this creature's strike, her blade guiding its arm away from her form as she twisted and ducked about its movement, her weapon brought to bear on its core as she parried its blow. A distracting strike, her explosive slugs otherwise useless against this thing, aside from causing it pain.
Always was she pulling away from it and towards the stairs as quickly as the combat would allow, ever vigilant for a proper chance to dash away from the creature and up the stairs.
____
But the demon moved with the grace and fluidity of an entity not bound to the physical laws. Its strike parried, the monster seemed to shift to the side - its unmoving body sliding through empty space as if dragged by offstage pullstrings. Aislin's sword cut the empty air. She may have had enough time to see the scythe morph, ink-arm coagulating from a sword to a bludgeoning hammer, before the monster swung its weapon upwards against Aislin's face. The blow would be strong enough to sunder the clasps connecting her helmet to her cuirass and send the protective piece flying. If connected, Aislin herself would be send sprawling to the floor.
____
The liquid motions of this being did little for her own patience, eyes narrowed behind her helmet's visor, but the beast would find her a far more agile foe than Sir Geran, ducking back from the whoosh of its newest weapon. With its arms committed, Ash raised her Lawkeeper against its form, aimed for its core as she fired at it again, the magazine having switched to consecrated lead in lieu of explosive slugs. God willing, it would buy her a valuable moment or two to pull away from its proximity.
____
Holy lead sparked into the monster's torso, a warbling cry losing from its throat. Ink flesh spasmed around the bullets, struggled to shift in the same way it'd done before. It was no use. The energy of the Pleur crippled the Dark Man, the demonic beast unable to surmount the binding power of the Wick.
It would seem to be the moment Aislin needed, providing her with a few precious seconds to make for the stairs. No sooner had she bounded halfway up the flight, however, then did a barrage of inky ropes bar her way. The Dark Man shot pieces of himself across the room even as he struggled to free himself from the Pleur's weight, throwing chunks of his flesh at the paladin in shards of stringy black. The bulk of his form muddled slowly across the floorboards in a bubbling soup.
____
The Paladin's blade was Aislin's answer to the Dark Man's desperate bid to block her way, the sidearm falling to her side to hang by its lanyard, both hands upon her sword as she cleared the way to continue up the stairs. In great flowing sweeps of her weapon she sliced her way through the Dark Man's rope-like tendrils, managing to swerve through the chunks of darkness that the creature threw at her, evading those she didn't outright deflect, making her way up the stairs as quickly as the situation would allow. Once atop the flight she bolted for the orphanage's chapel, taking her Lawkeeper in hand once again as he passed through the doors she had kicked in not but minutes earlier, pushing forward to find the way to the sought-after attic.
____
Many tendrils whithered and hissed as Aislin's blade cleaved through them - hot ink spattering from the cut chords and sizziling on her plate mail, eating through the nanofoam, scorching her skin. Still she fought. Inch by bloody inch, the paladin hacked her way through the prison of dark, racing against time as the Dark Man came closer and closer to re materializing.
It was not enough. Just as she neared the end, he came up beside her, his essence coagulating back into his preferred form - tall and thin and hungry. He smiled. His fingers outstretched, tendril hands like scythes....
Something slammed into him from behind. The beast shrieked in surprise as Sir Geran, now a mangled mess of scorched brass and twisted metal, wrapped his deformed arms around the monster and held him. It wriggled in his grasp, screaming.
"GO!" Geran cried, "GO! FiNISH THiS! AUUGHH!" The beast bit into him, his body rusting away at his proximity to the darkness. He did not loosen his grasp.
With Geran buying her time, Aislin indeed made it back to the chapel. The doors closed behind her. Safe, for now, from the Dark Man. Looking out the windows, Aislin would see the faintest hint of dawn teasing the horizon through the woods. The night was almost over. She was nearly out of time.
As she approached the door leading into the faculty dorms (which lead into the attic), she would find the entranced barricaded - doubtless by Sir Geran and the children. She would be able to clear it relatively easily, though it begged the question why the area had been sealed off in the first place.
____
With the precious time bought by Sir Geran's valor, Aislin slipped away from the Dark Man and into the chapel, the pained cries of the golem soon sealed behind the chapel's doors. As far as Lughadh was aware there was no other way into the chapel, but she still took a moment or two to check for any such vulnerability, which brought her to the window, and to the sight of the coming dawn. There wasn't much time, not now. While it would not be prudent to be hasty in finding this lost child, hesitation would be of no use to her here - there was simply no room for it. After a moment or two of relative silence sealed inside this holy place she strode to where the altar should have been, coming to kneel gently before the imagined pontifice, her head bowed in prayer as she quietly beseeched Saint Lemeux for his guidance and strength, taking the opportunity to catch her breath after the confrontation in the atrium below. She had slain dozens of the thing's thralls, but it? It was too strong for her alone, and she'd no capability to request back up, not out here - beyond that, who would believe her? A demonic entity? 'Nonsense, they would say, and she could hear them now.
But what else could it be?
Her jade orbs opened with a start at the thought, narrowed beneath an angular brow, rising to stand with her blade still in hand. The paladin looked about the once-proud chapel, a humble place of worship for a noble building, stained forever by the evil of this night, and came to her conclusion. It was better that the others think her a braggart, a liar, than to let them see the truth, than to let this beast roam free to wreak its power upon Caranhall. Her scars alone would be proof of this nightmare's nature, for she would end it before the sun rose.
Quickly she moved to the barricaded doors, clearing away the blockage with her free hand, the Lawkeeper having been returned to its holster at her side. Only once the way was clear did she take it in hand again, shifting magazines once more in the weapon as she moved through the door, her roundlight illuminating the way as she sought the entrance to the attic, and the end to Caranhall's darkest night.
Her blade danced across the creatures, nimble and sure, sundering flesh and bone with the ease of a practiced master. Her explosive round pulped the unwary abomination like a firework, guts and organs splattering across the walls in the aftermath of the blast, the shockwave perhaps momentarily off-centering her. The children yelped as Aislin took them by the collar but otherwise offered no resistance. The police spotlights shone ahead of them. They'd made it.
As Aislin slipped out, she might have noticed the brief nod from Geran, the smile tugging at his mustache. Yes. They'd done it. They were safe. As she parted, he touched two brass fingers to his non-existent lips. It was the last thing she'd see before she surrendered him to the darkness.
---
The shift from cicada-hum to deafening applause would have been strange - paranormal horror to human gratitude in half a second. There was something frenzied in their cheer this time as she descended the steps to hand over the final survivors. Did that mean....? It must. Why else would she escort them personally? By the Wick, she'd done it! All of the pain and struggle, all of the confusion and death, it was over. The Monastic Order had come to Arodring and the Monastic Order had triumphed. Matoi surged through the barricade, hand extended, ready to congratulate the knight...
No. She brushed straight passed him to her Destrier. The crowd went quiet, the elation of the officers falling to murmuring confusion. The click of loading ammunition resonated across the courtyard like a heartbeat. Surely she wasn't going back in? The children were safe. What more was there to do? What task remained for the knight?
By the time she turned back to the orphanage, the police line was dead silent, confusion turned to disbelief. By God. She was going back in. Some watched her with admiration, mouths dropped as if she were the figure of Selene herself. Others - the chief among them, watching from his car - shook their heads and snorted to themselves. Going back for more glory, no doubt. It would get her killed.
Only Matoi seemed to understand, grim and quiet as he watched the knight return to the mouth of hell. Of course she had to go back. The children were safe, but the evil persisted. It was her responsibility. Her duty. Her oath. Either she would return in triumph, or she would not return at all.
"The Light go with you, paladin," he murmured.
And she was gone.
---
She entered to a nightmare, Sir Geran on his hands and knees, shield shattered, spots of black rust lining his metal arms and legs like scars. The Dark Man stood above him, grin widening as the knight slipped back into the atria.
"DaMe..." Geran's voice warbled with agony, "..F...f-FlEe... YoU mUs-...sT... eScaPe... UGHN!" He grunted as the demon's stick hands underhanded his torso, sending him flying across the room to her left. He crashed into the floorboards and lay still.
The Dark Man laughed, a deafening ambiance of mist and insect. He met Aislin's eye, body shifting and morphing in neurologically painful patterns. "Lughadh...." His cancerous voice slithered into her ears like worms. The creature's hands rose, the horde of remaining orphan-thralls scurrying to his side. Over thirty in all. Relatively docile before, they were as animals now: teeth gnashing, muscles clenching, heads lolling back and forth on their necks while sporting the same rictus-grin of their master. Darkness emanated from them, whisps of sickly black which extended towards the defiant knight, wrapping themselves around her armor in a loving embrace.
At the touch of the vile corruption, Aislin's silver warmed and flared a soft shade of ether blue, the light of the Pleur shining against the dark of the Wyrm.
The demon's hands rose. His children screeched. Thirty undead monsters charged the paladin as one.
____
A momentary glance to fallen Geran was all that Aislin dared, not taking her eyes off of the Dark Man or his spawn otherwise, his visage steeled as she raised the shotgun to bear on her targets. Katrin had told her this thing was beyond her - was beyond combat - and this was no new situation for Lughadh. There were many enemies that she had faced in the past that she could not overcome through force of arms alone, and such was why the Monastery prided itself not simply on strong arms, but also sharp wits. Already her mind was in motion as to how to approach the source of this nightmare, to get up the stairs the monster had come down minutes ago, though such deliberation was easily camouflaged with the carnage she soon inflicted on the horde that soon assailed her. The immature forms of the children were met with the twelve-gauge fury of the Repentance, the shot tearing apart forms that should have rightfully grown to adulthood but were called home far too early.
The weapon was kept on semi-automatic for now as the paladin lured the beasts back from whence she came into a choke point, where they were forced to come at her through a doorway, using the funnel to devastate the thralls with the shotgun, not so much whittling away at their number as hacking it to pieces. Only after the atria and the hall she had backed down found itself spattered with dark ichor and littered with an abundance of meaty gore and severed limbs did she reload, forcing the rabid pawns of the Dark Man to crawl over their own number as she locked the bolt back, a quick finger dropping the first drum before swinging about her form for the second. In but a moment did it lock into the weapon with a mechanical snap, wedged in front to back, before she dropped the bolt with a militant clank - another shell chambered, and soon another demonic puppet sent to its proper end.
But still through it all did she look for the Tall Man, the real threat, as she eliminated his more mobile means of engagement, aiming to draw him out of the atrium and away from the stairs that lead to Colton. Occasionally she would check her flanks and her rear, gradually retreating as the children still came, making sure that she was neither flanked, nor cut-off.
____
One after another, the spawn of the Dark Man met untimely demises at the business end of Aislin's Redeemer. Whole chunks of their bodies flew off in messy spatterings of gore, small corpses thrown backwards by the force of the blast. Still they encroached, clambering over their fallen comrades without a second thought, ambling towards the knight with murderous fervor.
The chokepoint served Aislin well as she reloaded, the surge unable to overwhelm her immediately with the mess of bodies littering the way. They were at a little more than half their numbers now. Just as the paladin reached for her second drum, she might have noticed something flying for her shoulder. One of the corpses had flung the obliterated head of another thrall at her. Four children raced ahead, tripping over bodies, writhing on the floor to their feet. They were determined to talk advantage of her reload time, attempting to reach the knight before she finished and throw their arms around her ... ripping chunks off her armor, battering her limbs, digging pointed nails through her kevlar and nanofoam to the skin beneath...
The Dark Man loomed behind the horde, moving slowly towards the knight. She had trapped his thralls ... but unless she moved before he arrived, she would be trapped herself.
____
The first of the miserable little creatures to close with the armored titan would receive the butt of her Repentance across its face, the crack of bone and teeth audible even over the incessant cries of the enthralled and the insectoid hum of their master, deflecting the former child long enough to bring the barrel back around to face it. What bone the buttstroke had broken was soon utterly shattered with the explosive bellowing of her weapon, the vanguard of their twisted number soon joining their erstwhile comrades in the bloody, mutilated masses that littered the floor. But despite these who charged her so boldly, despite the brief respite in the thunderous cry of her Repentance, she never stopped moving, always pulling back, always planning her next move. Quickly she fell back, doubling back the way she'd came, luring the Dark Man into the hallways, slaughtering his thrall along the way.
Still always did she check her flanks and her rear, and always did she keep the Dark Man in her sight, not knowing what powers he might possess that she had not yet witnessed.
____
They toppled over each other, bones crunching, flesh spattering under the roaring gunfire of her Redeemer. The Dark Man's approach seemed consistently slow, approaching by increments as she gradually led him down the hallway, never gaining enough speed to confront her directly...
...he lunged suddenly, sprinting across the way without seeming to move at all. He simply grew; bounding the distance to Aislin in a few curt seconds. His hand raised as he moved, toothpick arm turning into a viscous curved blade. It slammed downwards, looking to cleave the paladin in two where she stood - shattering the floorboards otherwise.
____
To say that she was ready for what happened would be inaccurate, but the Paladin had long ago abandoned traditional expectations with this otherworldly foe, Ash's instincts taking hold as the thing grew at her. Once again she spun to her side, the Repentance thrown away as she moved, the knight ridding herself of the extra weight as she dodged the Dark Man's strike, launching herself into a sprint past his flank as she sought to slip by, back into the atria beyond. The corpses of those thrall foolish enough to confront the business-end of her assault shotgun might have given lesser men pause, but the woman chose her steps carefully, navigating the obstacle with the practiced ease of years of training and almost two decades of practical combat experience - and those that still stood upright? Those unfortunate beasts would come to understand the strength of Ivaran steel, as her blade found itself brandished once more, cutting down any who dared block her way to the atria, the stairs, and, eventually, the attic.
If given the opportunity the knight would burst into the atrium and charge across its depth, bolting for the stairs and what she felt was the only true solution to this nightmarish outbreak.
____
Aislin successfully slipped past the Dark Man's guard, two more corpses crumpling at her feet, heads severed from their necks. The paladin would have a seemingly clear shot as she burst into the atria, the stairwell ahead of her...
Something caught her ankles - one of the demon's tendrils. It wrapped around her armored foot, attempting to yank her to the floor and drag her across the floorboards.
"Lughadh...." the monster called to her. He towered into the ceiling, winding back his formless arm and thrashing it over the paladin's frame. What had been a blade was now a horsetail of flanged whips - black, hissing and impossibly sharp. They would attempt to rake over Aislin's torso, denting the steel plates of her armor, cutting deep through the nanofoam to the flesh beneath. Her blood would burn where it pierced the skin.
____
The dark appendage wrapped about her ankle, catching her mid-stride with a start, though she regained her balance soon enough, pivoting on her feet as she pulled against the demon's grasp. Aislin did not grace the darksome thing with a spoken reply as she drew her blade up to deflect the many flanges of the whip away from her, down and to her flank, her spare hand pulling the Lawkeeper from her side and training it further up the tendril's length, the sidearm barking as explosive slugs flew from its barrel, aimed at severing the tendril from its master. Once she was free from its grip she continued, her armored form flashing through the darkness as she rushed for the stairs and the chapel.
____
The whips clanged against her blade, an otherworldly screech emanating from the end of the tendril's line. A flash of red and white, a resonant THOOM ... then, the abyss. It had consumed the explosion.
The cord was cut, but the stairwell appeared no closer than it'd been before. Each pounding step the paladin took to her salvation almost seemed to have no effective on the distance traveled, as if she were running in place....
He came up beside her, to her right, as if from the splinters in the paneling. His arm was a sword that swiped for her midsection, aimed to tear out a chunk of her platemail and leave a gash in her side. There was something angrier in its hiss, an urgency to its all-consuming insect hum. It was getting angry. Impatient.
____
What subtlety the demon had - were it that creatures of its nature had subtlety - soon evaporated as its actions grew more rash, its hiss more pronounced. Deftly the knight moved to deflect this creature's strike, her blade guiding its arm away from her form as she twisted and ducked about its movement, her weapon brought to bear on its core as she parried its blow. A distracting strike, her explosive slugs otherwise useless against this thing, aside from causing it pain.
Always was she pulling away from it and towards the stairs as quickly as the combat would allow, ever vigilant for a proper chance to dash away from the creature and up the stairs.
____
But the demon moved with the grace and fluidity of an entity not bound to the physical laws. Its strike parried, the monster seemed to shift to the side - its unmoving body sliding through empty space as if dragged by offstage pullstrings. Aislin's sword cut the empty air. She may have had enough time to see the scythe morph, ink-arm coagulating from a sword to a bludgeoning hammer, before the monster swung its weapon upwards against Aislin's face. The blow would be strong enough to sunder the clasps connecting her helmet to her cuirass and send the protective piece flying. If connected, Aislin herself would be send sprawling to the floor.
____
The liquid motions of this being did little for her own patience, eyes narrowed behind her helmet's visor, but the beast would find her a far more agile foe than Sir Geran, ducking back from the whoosh of its newest weapon. With its arms committed, Ash raised her Lawkeeper against its form, aimed for its core as she fired at it again, the magazine having switched to consecrated lead in lieu of explosive slugs. God willing, it would buy her a valuable moment or two to pull away from its proximity.
____
Holy lead sparked into the monster's torso, a warbling cry losing from its throat. Ink flesh spasmed around the bullets, struggled to shift in the same way it'd done before. It was no use. The energy of the Pleur crippled the Dark Man, the demonic beast unable to surmount the binding power of the Wick.
It would seem to be the moment Aislin needed, providing her with a few precious seconds to make for the stairs. No sooner had she bounded halfway up the flight, however, then did a barrage of inky ropes bar her way. The Dark Man shot pieces of himself across the room even as he struggled to free himself from the Pleur's weight, throwing chunks of his flesh at the paladin in shards of stringy black. The bulk of his form muddled slowly across the floorboards in a bubbling soup.
____
The Paladin's blade was Aislin's answer to the Dark Man's desperate bid to block her way, the sidearm falling to her side to hang by its lanyard, both hands upon her sword as she cleared the way to continue up the stairs. In great flowing sweeps of her weapon she sliced her way through the Dark Man's rope-like tendrils, managing to swerve through the chunks of darkness that the creature threw at her, evading those she didn't outright deflect, making her way up the stairs as quickly as the situation would allow. Once atop the flight she bolted for the orphanage's chapel, taking her Lawkeeper in hand once again as he passed through the doors she had kicked in not but minutes earlier, pushing forward to find the way to the sought-after attic.
____
Many tendrils whithered and hissed as Aislin's blade cleaved through them - hot ink spattering from the cut chords and sizziling on her plate mail, eating through the nanofoam, scorching her skin. Still she fought. Inch by bloody inch, the paladin hacked her way through the prison of dark, racing against time as the Dark Man came closer and closer to re materializing.
It was not enough. Just as she neared the end, he came up beside her, his essence coagulating back into his preferred form - tall and thin and hungry. He smiled. His fingers outstretched, tendril hands like scythes....
Something slammed into him from behind. The beast shrieked in surprise as Sir Geran, now a mangled mess of scorched brass and twisted metal, wrapped his deformed arms around the monster and held him. It wriggled in his grasp, screaming.
"GO!" Geran cried, "GO! FiNISH THiS! AUUGHH!" The beast bit into him, his body rusting away at his proximity to the darkness. He did not loosen his grasp.
With Geran buying her time, Aislin indeed made it back to the chapel. The doors closed behind her. Safe, for now, from the Dark Man. Looking out the windows, Aislin would see the faintest hint of dawn teasing the horizon through the woods. The night was almost over. She was nearly out of time.
As she approached the door leading into the faculty dorms (which lead into the attic), she would find the entranced barricaded - doubtless by Sir Geran and the children. She would be able to clear it relatively easily, though it begged the question why the area had been sealed off in the first place.
____
With the precious time bought by Sir Geran's valor, Aislin slipped away from the Dark Man and into the chapel, the pained cries of the golem soon sealed behind the chapel's doors. As far as Lughadh was aware there was no other way into the chapel, but she still took a moment or two to check for any such vulnerability, which brought her to the window, and to the sight of the coming dawn. There wasn't much time, not now. While it would not be prudent to be hasty in finding this lost child, hesitation would be of no use to her here - there was simply no room for it. After a moment or two of relative silence sealed inside this holy place she strode to where the altar should have been, coming to kneel gently before the imagined pontifice, her head bowed in prayer as she quietly beseeched Saint Lemeux for his guidance and strength, taking the opportunity to catch her breath after the confrontation in the atrium below. She had slain dozens of the thing's thralls, but it? It was too strong for her alone, and she'd no capability to request back up, not out here - beyond that, who would believe her? A demonic entity? 'Nonsense, they would say, and she could hear them now.
But what else could it be?
Her jade orbs opened with a start at the thought, narrowed beneath an angular brow, rising to stand with her blade still in hand. The paladin looked about the once-proud chapel, a humble place of worship for a noble building, stained forever by the evil of this night, and came to her conclusion. It was better that the others think her a braggart, a liar, than to let them see the truth, than to let this beast roam free to wreak its power upon Caranhall. Her scars alone would be proof of this nightmare's nature, for she would end it before the sun rose.
Quickly she moved to the barricaded doors, clearing away the blockage with her free hand, the Lawkeeper having been returned to its holster at her side. Only once the way was clear did she take it in hand again, shifting magazines once more in the weapon as she moved through the door, her roundlight illuminating the way as she sought the entrance to the attic, and the end to Caranhall's darkest night.
as written by Ronin and Ottoman
Dark lay the hallway. Aislin's round light cut a neat blade of bright through the black, dust and airspeck swimming in its beam. Bodies lined the floors, adults, the teachers, caretakers and custodians of the orphanage. Some had died quickly; a cut throat, a caved-in face. Others were not so fortunate. Bones piked out of the abdomen of one wiry-looking tutor, his ribcage enclosing around his deflated stomach like a devoured turkey. Another gaped over a table, his mouth filled to bursting with all twenty of his fingers and toes.
A woman slumped on a nearby wall, her eyes closed as if asleep. The thing had ripped her heart out of her chest and a gush of crusty red marred the satin white of her blouse. She was beautiful; Aislin's roundlight reflected on her wheat blonde hair in a halo.
The familiar voices of Max and Katrin perforated the room, more echo than words. The children themselves were nowhere to be found.
"Save him..." Katrin pleaded, "you've been in his mind. You know how to bring him back. Help him..."
As if in answer, Max's harsh tone interceded. "Can't be saved. He did this. Killed them all. It's inside him. Always was. Always will be. End it..."
---
She ascended the ladder into the attic. The place felt warm, almost bright, though the whole expanse was lit only by a dingy corner lamp. Furniture, boxes and supplies spread throughout the room without pattern. A wide window above a pair of dressers displayed the purpling death-throes of the night.
Beneath an old, musty bed tucked away in the back, Aislin heard the whimpers of a child.
____
Once again did she take care to close doors behind her once she had cleared the immediate area, casting only fleeting pitiable glances upon the slain that were strewn about the place. Careful footsteps carried her through the slick of their gore, her weapons at the ready should the need arise, though they were left unused as she found her way to the attic, careful eyes constantly checking her flanks and her corners, even as she pulled down the ladder. Armored footfalls announced her arrival long before she bothered to do so herself, and even if the room was illuminated it put her once again in a state of unease, just as the refrigerator had done before, an alien feeling in the depths of this darksome hall. But even as strange as it felt to see light once again, she knew this place to be without immediate danger, the paladin soon stooping as she stood at the top of the ladder, her Lawkeeper soon returned to its holster as she craftily worked her sword to pull the ladder back onto itself and close the attic's door.
The whimper behind her told her that this was the place she had sought, and turning away from the entrance she approached the bed, her heavy boots causing the worn boards to creak beneath her. Only once she stood at its side did she fall into a crouch, taking a moment to lay her blade at her side before leaning down to look underneath the bed, her helmet's face still down. To some it was likely an intimidating sight, and perhaps it was to this boy, but she hoped that her voice would prove otherwise.
"Colton, is that you?" She asked, "It's safe for now."
____
Colton startled, jarred by the iron woman stooped before him. Then she spoke. The whimpering stopped. He blinked, wiping his cheeks. Silence followed, a pair of bright green eyes glaring out of the dark in equal measures curiosity and distrust. Finally, a tuff of curly black hair peeked out from the underside of the bed and he wriggled into the open. He came up on his knees, prostrate, open-mouthed, skinny hands shaking.
"Paladin..." he mouthed the words. His awestruck gaze trailed the curve of her armor unblinking. His chest rose and fell, the truth slowly prevailing over his grief. Yes. It was real. He hadn't created this, she was there. Right in front of him. Hero. Savior. Paladin.
Aislin's training would familiarize her with the sensation of psychic interference. The lamplight glimmered gold on her plate and shone, briefly, like suns. Warmth flooded through her. Strength returned to her fatigued muscles, the wounds left by the Dark Man suddenly not as painful. Colton's admiration for what Aislin represented had triggered a telekinetic resonance; his affection gave her power.
He smiled. Somehow, he smiled, and the room shone with warmth and light, and the dawn seemed that much closer. His little muscles tensed excitedly and he opened his mouth to speak...
Then he saw the dried blood spattering her pauldrons, the dents in her armor. His eyes wandered the many wounds littering her body, the ammunition missing from her gunbelt. Piece by piece his smile fell. The room darkened. His face twisted, briefly in anger, before falling back to grief. The boy shriveled before her and buried his face in his hands, turning away as if to hide himself from her. Tears leaked through his fingers.
"I'm sorry," he rasped between breaths. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
____
An armored gauntlet reached for the boy, hesitating in mid-air as his chorus of apologies began. Only after hanging between the knight and the child did it reach its destination, the steel hand lighting upon his shoulder as he did his best to shrink away from her. "Colton," She repeated, her voice firm as her hands proved gentle, pulling him back to face her, her green eyes looking over his form to take in who sat before her, having felt quite easily the light from just moments earlier. There was no doubt in her mind now that this boy was the source of this entire affair, as if Katrin and Max weren't evidence enough already - aside from that Dark Creature - that what was happening here was far beyond the scope of the material world. The key to Caranhall's safety stood, or rather sat, now before her, and while the situation had proven all too severe up to this point, the weight of it all soon settled on her mind.
Her hand retreated from his shoulder, falling away to join its twin as it gently pulled at the straps and undid the buckles that kept her helmet upon her head, soon freeing her visage from the steel of her armor, looking to Colton with a haggard expression once she'd set her helm upon the bed. Bags were beginning to form under her eyes, having been denied sleep now for just over a full twenty-four hours, her brows almost falling away at their flanks, and her lips pursed - but despite her fatigue and her pain, one facet of the Paladin looked to the child in front of her with light, utterly earnest in her appreciation of the misunderstood boy sitting here, afraid and alone, in the attic of the orphanage. Though she didn't know the entirety of his story or his reasons, she sympathized with him on more levels than one - she knew, more than anything else, what it was to have to hide one's self, and what it was to be misunderstood.
"I forgive you."
Her words were but a murmur, but here in the quiet of the attic her voice seemed just as pronounced as before. Once more a hand moved forth, offered palm up to the boy for him to take, should he choose to do so. "What happened tonight was your fault... there's no taking it back." The grisly scene of the bodies in the room below flashing in her mind, all too easily reminded of the carnage and suffering caused by this child. "But I still forgive you." The Paladin offered a weary smile to him, "None of us are without fault, Colton," She continued, moving briefly to stand that she might soon sit on the bed, patting the mattress beside her, inviting him to do the same. "None of us are without sin, not even me." A light sigh, a brief breath that spoke of shortcomings far worse than her passion for Lady Allard. "... but, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?" Roxanne was always the bastion of etiquette - she was simply reserved.
"My name is Aislín, Colton, but you can call me Ash if you'd like. I fear I found yours out from the others, if you'll forgive me for being so forward."
____
Colton turned at her touch, wet eyes widening as she unclasped her helmet and gave God a face. He looked searchingly into her eyes - green eyes, green like his - and found, mingled in all the weariness and suffering and pain, a deep, unrelenting strength. Strength and compassion. His heart fluttered as she spoke just three words - three simple words that offered, however slight, some small chance of redemption.
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness for his sins, his faults, his shortcomings. Forgiveness for the hatred, the insecurities that had birthed the demon, for his lack of resolve to keep the monster at bay. Forgiveness for his cowardice, his groveling in the face of his own monster. There was hope in forgiveness. If she, paladin, could forgive him, perhaps he could forgive himself.
He lay his small hand in her outstretched palm. They rose together.
Colton found his place on the bed next to Ash. He held her hand, listening and nodding as she spoke. "I'm just glad you came." He replied. "I don't know. I don't know what would have happened, if not." He looked over at a dusty grandfather clock near the center of the room, still ticking. It was almost six.
"We only have a few more minutes," he said, "at six, the doors open. We can leave." His vision glazed into the trapdoor from whence Aislin had come. "So can he." His hand tightened in her gauntlet, his heartbeat rising. Aislin would see the fear in his face, how genuinely terrified this boy was at the creature his own psychic powers had birthed.
"He'll come for us first."
Dark lay the hallway. Aislin's round light cut a neat blade of bright through the black, dust and airspeck swimming in its beam. Bodies lined the floors, adults, the teachers, caretakers and custodians of the orphanage. Some had died quickly; a cut throat, a caved-in face. Others were not so fortunate. Bones piked out of the abdomen of one wiry-looking tutor, his ribcage enclosing around his deflated stomach like a devoured turkey. Another gaped over a table, his mouth filled to bursting with all twenty of his fingers and toes.
A woman slumped on a nearby wall, her eyes closed as if asleep. The thing had ripped her heart out of her chest and a gush of crusty red marred the satin white of her blouse. She was beautiful; Aislin's roundlight reflected on her wheat blonde hair in a halo.
The familiar voices of Max and Katrin perforated the room, more echo than words. The children themselves were nowhere to be found.
"Save him..." Katrin pleaded, "you've been in his mind. You know how to bring him back. Help him..."
As if in answer, Max's harsh tone interceded. "Can't be saved. He did this. Killed them all. It's inside him. Always was. Always will be. End it..."
---
She ascended the ladder into the attic. The place felt warm, almost bright, though the whole expanse was lit only by a dingy corner lamp. Furniture, boxes and supplies spread throughout the room without pattern. A wide window above a pair of dressers displayed the purpling death-throes of the night.
Beneath an old, musty bed tucked away in the back, Aislin heard the whimpers of a child.
____
Once again did she take care to close doors behind her once she had cleared the immediate area, casting only fleeting pitiable glances upon the slain that were strewn about the place. Careful footsteps carried her through the slick of their gore, her weapons at the ready should the need arise, though they were left unused as she found her way to the attic, careful eyes constantly checking her flanks and her corners, even as she pulled down the ladder. Armored footfalls announced her arrival long before she bothered to do so herself, and even if the room was illuminated it put her once again in a state of unease, just as the refrigerator had done before, an alien feeling in the depths of this darksome hall. But even as strange as it felt to see light once again, she knew this place to be without immediate danger, the paladin soon stooping as she stood at the top of the ladder, her Lawkeeper soon returned to its holster as she craftily worked her sword to pull the ladder back onto itself and close the attic's door.
The whimper behind her told her that this was the place she had sought, and turning away from the entrance she approached the bed, her heavy boots causing the worn boards to creak beneath her. Only once she stood at its side did she fall into a crouch, taking a moment to lay her blade at her side before leaning down to look underneath the bed, her helmet's face still down. To some it was likely an intimidating sight, and perhaps it was to this boy, but she hoped that her voice would prove otherwise.
"Colton, is that you?" She asked, "It's safe for now."
____
Colton startled, jarred by the iron woman stooped before him. Then she spoke. The whimpering stopped. He blinked, wiping his cheeks. Silence followed, a pair of bright green eyes glaring out of the dark in equal measures curiosity and distrust. Finally, a tuff of curly black hair peeked out from the underside of the bed and he wriggled into the open. He came up on his knees, prostrate, open-mouthed, skinny hands shaking.
"Paladin..." he mouthed the words. His awestruck gaze trailed the curve of her armor unblinking. His chest rose and fell, the truth slowly prevailing over his grief. Yes. It was real. He hadn't created this, she was there. Right in front of him. Hero. Savior. Paladin.
Aislin's training would familiarize her with the sensation of psychic interference. The lamplight glimmered gold on her plate and shone, briefly, like suns. Warmth flooded through her. Strength returned to her fatigued muscles, the wounds left by the Dark Man suddenly not as painful. Colton's admiration for what Aislin represented had triggered a telekinetic resonance; his affection gave her power.
He smiled. Somehow, he smiled, and the room shone with warmth and light, and the dawn seemed that much closer. His little muscles tensed excitedly and he opened his mouth to speak...
Then he saw the dried blood spattering her pauldrons, the dents in her armor. His eyes wandered the many wounds littering her body, the ammunition missing from her gunbelt. Piece by piece his smile fell. The room darkened. His face twisted, briefly in anger, before falling back to grief. The boy shriveled before her and buried his face in his hands, turning away as if to hide himself from her. Tears leaked through his fingers.
"I'm sorry," he rasped between breaths. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
____
An armored gauntlet reached for the boy, hesitating in mid-air as his chorus of apologies began. Only after hanging between the knight and the child did it reach its destination, the steel hand lighting upon his shoulder as he did his best to shrink away from her. "Colton," She repeated, her voice firm as her hands proved gentle, pulling him back to face her, her green eyes looking over his form to take in who sat before her, having felt quite easily the light from just moments earlier. There was no doubt in her mind now that this boy was the source of this entire affair, as if Katrin and Max weren't evidence enough already - aside from that Dark Creature - that what was happening here was far beyond the scope of the material world. The key to Caranhall's safety stood, or rather sat, now before her, and while the situation had proven all too severe up to this point, the weight of it all soon settled on her mind.
Her hand retreated from his shoulder, falling away to join its twin as it gently pulled at the straps and undid the buckles that kept her helmet upon her head, soon freeing her visage from the steel of her armor, looking to Colton with a haggard expression once she'd set her helm upon the bed. Bags were beginning to form under her eyes, having been denied sleep now for just over a full twenty-four hours, her brows almost falling away at their flanks, and her lips pursed - but despite her fatigue and her pain, one facet of the Paladin looked to the child in front of her with light, utterly earnest in her appreciation of the misunderstood boy sitting here, afraid and alone, in the attic of the orphanage. Though she didn't know the entirety of his story or his reasons, she sympathized with him on more levels than one - she knew, more than anything else, what it was to have to hide one's self, and what it was to be misunderstood.
"I forgive you."
Her words were but a murmur, but here in the quiet of the attic her voice seemed just as pronounced as before. Once more a hand moved forth, offered palm up to the boy for him to take, should he choose to do so. "What happened tonight was your fault... there's no taking it back." The grisly scene of the bodies in the room below flashing in her mind, all too easily reminded of the carnage and suffering caused by this child. "But I still forgive you." The Paladin offered a weary smile to him, "None of us are without fault, Colton," She continued, moving briefly to stand that she might soon sit on the bed, patting the mattress beside her, inviting him to do the same. "None of us are without sin, not even me." A light sigh, a brief breath that spoke of shortcomings far worse than her passion for Lady Allard. "... but, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?" Roxanne was always the bastion of etiquette - she was simply reserved.
"My name is Aislín, Colton, but you can call me Ash if you'd like. I fear I found yours out from the others, if you'll forgive me for being so forward."
____
Colton turned at her touch, wet eyes widening as she unclasped her helmet and gave God a face. He looked searchingly into her eyes - green eyes, green like his - and found, mingled in all the weariness and suffering and pain, a deep, unrelenting strength. Strength and compassion. His heart fluttered as she spoke just three words - three simple words that offered, however slight, some small chance of redemption.
Forgiveness.
Forgiveness for his sins, his faults, his shortcomings. Forgiveness for the hatred, the insecurities that had birthed the demon, for his lack of resolve to keep the monster at bay. Forgiveness for his cowardice, his groveling in the face of his own monster. There was hope in forgiveness. If she, paladin, could forgive him, perhaps he could forgive himself.
He lay his small hand in her outstretched palm. They rose together.
Colton found his place on the bed next to Ash. He held her hand, listening and nodding as she spoke. "I'm just glad you came." He replied. "I don't know. I don't know what would have happened, if not." He looked over at a dusty grandfather clock near the center of the room, still ticking. It was almost six.
"We only have a few more minutes," he said, "at six, the doors open. We can leave." His vision glazed into the trapdoor from whence Aislin had come. "So can he." His hand tightened in her gauntlet, his heartbeat rising. Aislin would see the fear in his face, how genuinely terrified this boy was at the creature his own psychic powers had birthed.
"He'll come for us first."
Ottoman
The Second Son
It was only natural that they would be the first targets - the greatest threat to the being present and its psychic tether to the material world - and with a nod Aislín acknowledged the boy's words, another sigh slipping from her lips, born of fatigue and something more. Softly she squeezed the hand in the palm of her gauntlet, hoping to reassure the boy, careful of his delicate hand - delicate at least in comparison to her own steel fist. Her other reached once again for her Lawkeeper, brandished aloft for a moment or two as she checked its magazine, making sure that she had selected the rounds best suited for the work ahead. "I'll be ready for him, don't fret." Or as ready as she could be, a paladin against a demon, a solitary oak against a sweeping flame. What she had experienced below, in the atria, was enough of a taste of combat with this being to tell her that it was beyond her martial capabilities, and that the best she could hope to do was to delay the beast, preoccupy its attention long enough alongside the police for reinforcements from the Order to arrive, to contain this unholy threat.
At least, that would have been the case were it not for Colton.
Her emerald gaze slipped from the attic's door, away from that portal of doom and back to the young man beside her, a soft smile curling at the flanks of her lips as she squeezed his hand once again, not paying the clock any heed. "Pray with me, Colton?" She asked, her voice soft, dulcet, not unlike that of her love. "For forgiveness, for my sins and for yours?"
At least, that would have been the case were it not for Colton.
Her emerald gaze slipped from the attic's door, away from that portal of doom and back to the young man beside her, a soft smile curling at the flanks of her lips as she squeezed his hand once again, not paying the clock any heed. "Pray with me, Colton?" She asked, her voice soft, dulcet, not unlike that of her love. "For forgiveness, for my sins and for yours?"
Ronin
Active Member
Colton looked up at her, eyes wide and searching. Forgiveness for him, yes... but for her? What did that mean? What incomprehensible guilt could possibly weigh on the mind of a paladin, a champion of the Light? The boy was confused, but he trusted her. He closed his tear-soaked eyes and leaned close, laying his head against her armored side. The steel was cool against his forehead.
"You must help me," he whispered, "to pray. I've forgotten how."
Insects hummed in the distance, the room darkening on the side closest to the hatch. The Dark Man neared.
"You must help me," he whispered, "to pray. I've forgotten how."
Insects hummed in the distance, the room darkening on the side closest to the hatch. The Dark Man neared.
Ottoman
The Second Son
The return of the Dark Man's heralds did not go unnoticed by the Paladin, the insectine whir sending a chill down her spine, the power that she had felt in the atrium below still ringing in her ears. Once again did the paladin squeeze the boy's hand in comfort, a light smile coming to place itself on her features, ashamed that the boy had to live in fear when he was such an ardent admirer of the faith. No doubt that would be a particular note in her after action report from this disaster, that the hatred of his peers had birthed this nighmarish scenario. "Of course, Colton." She murmured in reply, her mouth agape for a moment as she pondered which prayer the two should share in, shortly settling on one of her own fall-backs.
The creature's concerto grew in intensity, its presence undeniable, perhaps even irritated by the prayer that the Paladin offered to God and shared with the boy. The knight felt her chest tighten, the fear of the beast below all-too-present in her heart - not so much for her own sake, but for everyone else's, in Caranhall and beyond. Her grip on the Lawkeeper tightened, and once more did she turn her eyes away from the attic's door and back to the boy at her side, the edges of her smile turning, twisting.
"Close your eyes to my sins and wipe out my evil."
"Be merciful to me, God, because of your love.
Because of that mighty love, your great mercy, wash away my sin.
Wash away all of my evil, and make me clean again.
I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.
I have sinned against you - only against you - and have done evil.
So you are right in judging me; you are justified in your condemnation.
I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
Sincerity and truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom.
Remove my sin, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; and though you have crushed me and broken me,
I will be happy once again."
Because of that mighty love, your great mercy, wash away my sin.
Wash away all of my evil, and make me clean again.
I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.
I have sinned against you - only against you - and have done evil.
So you are right in judging me; you are justified in your condemnation.
I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
Sincerity and truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom.
Remove my sin, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; and though you have crushed me and broken me,
I will be happy once again."
The creature's concerto grew in intensity, its presence undeniable, perhaps even irritated by the prayer that the Paladin offered to God and shared with the boy. The knight felt her chest tighten, the fear of the beast below all-too-present in her heart - not so much for her own sake, but for everyone else's, in Caranhall and beyond. Her grip on the Lawkeeper tightened, and once more did she turn her eyes away from the attic's door and back to the boy at her side, the edges of her smile turning, twisting.
"Close your eyes to my sins and wipe out my evil."
Ronin
Active Member
Colton followed her prayer. Her litany hummed in his mind, a soothing cadence set against the chaotic warbles of the Dark Man's song. Peace washed over him. Nestled into Aislin's side, he felt as if nothing could hurt him. Colton may have not believed himself, but he believed in her. Her strength. Her light.
Aislin might feel the psychic resonance of his faith - a warmth stirring in her chest which quickly spread out to her limbs. Her nerves tingled, her sore muscles flexing off their fatigue. Her sword, sheathed at her hip, stirred with a strange energy.
The clock struck six, the old grandfather belching its baritone tune. Gong. Gong. Gong. An explosion of wood resonated somewhere beneath them as the demon broke through the closed chapel doors, slithering closer to his prey. He was nearly upon them. The darkness loomed.
Still Colton clung, hoped prayed. Still he believed in Aislin, in the Light, that good would win out in the end.
Aislin might feel the psychic resonance of his faith - a warmth stirring in her chest which quickly spread out to her limbs. Her nerves tingled, her sore muscles flexing off their fatigue. Her sword, sheathed at her hip, stirred with a strange energy.
The clock struck six, the old grandfather belching its baritone tune. Gong. Gong. Gong. An explosion of wood resonated somewhere beneath them as the demon broke through the closed chapel doors, slithering closer to his prey. He was nearly upon them. The darkness loomed.
Still Colton clung, hoped prayed. Still he believed in Aislin, in the Light, that good would win out in the end.
Ottoman
The Second Son
The boy's spirit seemed to wrap itself about her, easing the paladin's pain with his warmth and his energy, though the shattering commotion below did manage to peel her attention away from Colton, if only for a moment. The clock had struck six, the time of judgement had come, and there was little doubt in the Iverian's mind that death was coming for her at an alarming pace now, slithering over the bodies that lay below. With a sharp, nasal inhale, the woman steeled herself for what she knew she must do, and as she moved in a fluid flourish the paladin begged of the child beside her, "Colton, forgive me."
Colton didn't have but a moment to feel the cold steel of the Lawkeeper's barrel against his forehead before the knight's finger depressed and the firing pin struck home, sending one of the paladin's slugs into the boy's brain.
Colton didn't have but a moment to feel the cold steel of the Lawkeeper's barrel against his forehead before the knight's finger depressed and the firing pin struck home, sending one of the paladin's slugs into the boy's brain.
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Ronin
Active Member
The boy's head snapped back as the slug pulverized his brains and exited through the other side of his skull. Blood and flesh spattered the floor beside his body. He jerked once and then fell limp in her arms. His eyes opened in the last moment. They glazed upwards at Aislin, still rimmed with tears, still bright and sparkling with hope.
"Paladin..."
The Dark Man loomed behind her, silent, watchful. He stood motionless some ten feet away, his head lolled to the side. A pair of black, lidless eyes moved slowly between Aislin and the corpse of his summoner, a crooked smile spreading over his jaw. He understood.
His toothpick arm lifted, pointing a single, inky finger at the knight. It hovered in the air.
Then, all at once, he was receding. His body withered, the wet, rope-flesh of his torso and limbs shriveling, shrinking. A low hissing sound gassed out of his body like a deflating balloon, until his being condensed to the size of an apple, then to a grain of sand, then to nothing. The paladin was alone in the attic with the ticking grandfather clock and the body of the boy she couldn't save.
Light filtered in through the window as the sun peeked over the distant mountains. Dawn had come to Caranhall.
"Paladin..."
The Dark Man loomed behind her, silent, watchful. He stood motionless some ten feet away, his head lolled to the side. A pair of black, lidless eyes moved slowly between Aislin and the corpse of his summoner, a crooked smile spreading over his jaw. He understood.
His toothpick arm lifted, pointing a single, inky finger at the knight. It hovered in the air.
Then, all at once, he was receding. His body withered, the wet, rope-flesh of his torso and limbs shriveling, shrinking. A low hissing sound gassed out of his body like a deflating balloon, until his being condensed to the size of an apple, then to a grain of sand, then to nothing. The paladin was alone in the attic with the ticking grandfather clock and the body of the boy she couldn't save.
Light filtered in through the window as the sun peeked over the distant mountains. Dawn had come to Caranhall.
Ottoman
The Second Son
The knight found her gaze locked with that of the deceased, holding the child's body for some time before her steely grip loosened on the Lawkeeper, moving to return the weapon to its holster once her senses returned to her. That same hand reached soon for Colton's face, otherwise delicate fingers moving to slid shut the child's eyes, giving the boy respite from the cruel world that had tormented him, and the nightmare that he had given birth to. Part of her wondered if she could have bested the creature with him at her side, with his power in her, but she knew in her heart that even if she had taken that chance, if she had elected to confront the beast and emerge victorious, he would still have to die. The chance - no, the inevitability - of this happened again was utterly unacceptable, and beyond that, it was a mercy to the child not to have to live with such memories, such grief, such guilt. But what of her own, to have taken the life of a boy who had committed none of this own his own volition? That was her burden, she reminded herself, that she had sworn to take as a paladin of the Order, to safeguard the innocent no matter the cost. Only rarely did the cost come so blatantly as the body of a child in one's arm.
However, it was done, the beast was banished, and Caranhall was safe.
Aislin rose from where she sat, Colton still in her arms, almost cradling the body. There were times when she regretted taking the silver, times like these, when she wore the blood of innocents, but to have a dead child in her arms made her reconsider the costs of the silver, not simply in terms of her soul, but also of her life. She would never marry, she would never have a family, she would never be a mother -but in a way this was its own comfort, a reassurance, that she would not have to suffer the sight of her own child in such condition, or to have them be the source of such suffering and sorrow as Colton had been. As always, Lughadh reminded herself that things were better this way, that innocents were safer for her doing so, that some might live unmolested by the evils of the Wyrm, even if her dreams were not.
As the light of day graced the face of the Arodring Orphanage, the paladin walked through the door one last time, a spare hand grasping the silver in sign to the police that still lingered in their blockade of the property, whilst the other held still the body of the boy. The Iverian knight moved with deliberate, measured steps across the porch of the place and down the short flight of steps, soon crossing the threshold to the policemen, moving straight for the ambulances, silent as she stalked through the ranks of men and women. In short order the body was deposited, laid plainly on a tarp for the police and the medical technicians to examine, should they so desire, and the bloody paladin moved towards Matoi, leaving the man with a curt statement, "It is done." With that she departed without another word, moving back to her Destrier, glad for the helmet that hid her face, her short breath soon hidden by her steed's explosive growl.
Never again would Aislin Lughadh ever see the town of Caranhall.
However, it was done, the beast was banished, and Caranhall was safe.
Aislin rose from where she sat, Colton still in her arms, almost cradling the body. There were times when she regretted taking the silver, times like these, when she wore the blood of innocents, but to have a dead child in her arms made her reconsider the costs of the silver, not simply in terms of her soul, but also of her life. She would never marry, she would never have a family, she would never be a mother -but in a way this was its own comfort, a reassurance, that she would not have to suffer the sight of her own child in such condition, or to have them be the source of such suffering and sorrow as Colton had been. As always, Lughadh reminded herself that things were better this way, that innocents were safer for her doing so, that some might live unmolested by the evils of the Wyrm, even if her dreams were not.
As the light of day graced the face of the Arodring Orphanage, the paladin walked through the door one last time, a spare hand grasping the silver in sign to the police that still lingered in their blockade of the property, whilst the other held still the body of the boy. The Iverian knight moved with deliberate, measured steps across the porch of the place and down the short flight of steps, soon crossing the threshold to the policemen, moving straight for the ambulances, silent as she stalked through the ranks of men and women. In short order the body was deposited, laid plainly on a tarp for the police and the medical technicians to examine, should they so desire, and the bloody paladin moved towards Matoi, leaving the man with a curt statement, "It is done." With that she departed without another word, moving back to her Destrier, glad for the helmet that hid her face, her short breath soon hidden by her steed's explosive growl.
Never again would Aislin Lughadh ever see the town of Caranhall.
Ronin
Active Member
There was no applause as the paladin exited Arodring Orphanage for the fourth and final time. The line of officers watched as Ash descended the steps, her gleaming plate marred with blood and gore, her helmet and pauldrons riveted with fresh dents and burn marks. The dead boy in her arms offered no comfort, and the small gathering of surviving children held each other close as they looked into his face. It was as they feared.
Matoi approached as she lay the body down, unsure what to say but certain that he needed to speak. She cut him off before he could talk. 'It is done'. Just as quickly, she was leaving, packing up her gear, mounting her destrier. Evil had come to Caranhall, and the paladin had made it right. There was nothing more for her here.
"Sir?" one of the officers approached the inspector, "what do we do now?"
Matoi watched as Aislin's bike grumbled to life. He offered her a nod as she sped away. "We go in there and start cleaning up."
The cop drew a long breath. "It's safe then, sir?" A few other officers gathered around. "I mean... it's over?"
Matoi turned to them, his men, saw the fear in their eyes, the sadness. Good men, he decided. Brave men. But in the end, just men.
"It's over," he nodded, "she made sure of that." At what cost? He cast aside the thought. That was her price to pay, not his. Now he needed to do his part. For the first time in his life, Matoi understood why Lutetia needed paladins.
"Let's go," he shouted to his men, "let's put this nightmare to rest."
They entered Arodring with the rising dawn.
Matoi approached as she lay the body down, unsure what to say but certain that he needed to speak. She cut him off before he could talk. 'It is done'. Just as quickly, she was leaving, packing up her gear, mounting her destrier. Evil had come to Caranhall, and the paladin had made it right. There was nothing more for her here.
"Sir?" one of the officers approached the inspector, "what do we do now?"
Matoi watched as Aislin's bike grumbled to life. He offered her a nod as she sped away. "We go in there and start cleaning up."
The cop drew a long breath. "It's safe then, sir?" A few other officers gathered around. "I mean... it's over?"
Matoi turned to them, his men, saw the fear in their eyes, the sadness. Good men, he decided. Brave men. But in the end, just men.
"It's over," he nodded, "she made sure of that." At what cost? He cast aside the thought. That was her price to pay, not his. Now he needed to do his part. For the first time in his life, Matoi understood why Lutetia needed paladins.
"Let's go," he shouted to his men, "let's put this nightmare to rest."
They entered Arodring with the rising dawn.