Episode 1, Part 2
"Oh. This is very strange"
You decided to head for the large and isolated, safe, place. Getting there might be challenging considering the distance. Walking onwards you shortly see the edge of the cemetery through the trees. You can see more poles supporting those strange lights and a long strip of… road, though it is not like the roads you know. Neither are the carriages traveling on it which produce the thunder like sounds.
You can briefly sense human Souls inside the carriages and the carriages do not seem to be living creations. Hmm… Your extremely weakened state convinces you to hide under a seeming. With a twist of the Soul and a pervading ache in your magical nature, your form ripples into the image of a young human woman.
You are shorter, but still tall and graceful for a human, with long and wavy black hair. Your skin is still pale, but your second set of arms are hidden and your tattoos concealed. You know your irises would be brown, lightened from the black they normally are. You leave your hair ornaments, book, and scroll in place but replace your garments with an ankle length homespun dress and a lowered hood of gray wool. Your feet remain uncovered, the touch of base earth not bothering you.
This is just a fragile image you have molded however, the most basic of basic forms of your mirror image ability. You will have to be very careful not to come into contact with people as they could sense the difference through touch and break the seeming. Something similar would happen if you hit any inanimate object at speed.
Carefully approaching the road you stop briefly in the pool of a light post to examine it. It is a very strange thing, not powered by magic as you understand it. A closer look has you thinking it is not magic at all, but harnessing a different energy much like what is found in storms. How odd. Something to consider later when you are concealed from this malefic energy in the air.
Thundering rumbles catch your attention again and you look to your left, watching the approaching lights on one of those carriages as they briefly sweep over you. Its sleek metal body passes quickly and you can feel the rumble in your feet as it passes. You track it as it goes into the darkness before turning down a side street and out of sight. Definitely another thing to examine later.
Homing back in on your goal you start moving quickly across the comfortably warm road surface. Reaching the other side you turn left and gracefully follow the stone path laid besides the road, heading deeper into town. Looking around you can see most of the buildings near the cemetery seem to be homes, at least in the direction you are heading. The strange collection of magic is somewhere off ahead of you and to your left, east of the cemetery and generally in the same direction you are headed. Your goal is somewhere deeper in and to your right.
As you walk you examine what you can of the sleeping Souls around you and how they interact with the magical energy in the air. The energy is slippery and cunning however, and does not bend to examination at your current strength. Stymied for the moment you shift to simply watching the energy for disturbances more closely.
The walk is mostly uneventful for several minutes with homes on your right with little fence wrapped yards and the cemetery on your left. The hints of grave rot mixed with blood are more pungent in this area than you might expect. You briefly consider the possibility of there being lots of murders in the area.
One other strange thing is that there are many of those carriages sitting near the homes on patches of stone. There are many different shapes visible, with the most common being a small thing with four doors. They are all luxuriously furnished with glass windows. There are also a few which are larger and have some kind of bed for carrying things in the back. How odd. You don't have time to stop and examine them though, you must reach a safe lair.
As you near an intersection and one corner of the cemetery you sense something moving rapidly from the east towards the cemetery, disturbing the ambient magic. It is a sucking, swirling, rumble pulling greedily at the energy around it though it is incredibly hard to pinpoint as it does not seem to have a Soul.
It is connected to blood, you think to yourself. Though it is not the cause of the grave rot and blood scent. It seems even faster than the carriages, though you are uncertain of that. Definitely a threat.
You watch the waves it creates in the ambient magic as you make it to the intersection and make a right turn, heading south now. There is definitely some manner of powerful creature living in the cemetery. Likely several.
After walking for a few more minutes you can smell salt on the air, the grave rot covered it before.
The sea? You do not slow as thoughts of oceans flit through your head. You can hear another carriage thundering along in the distance, getting louder. There's also some kind of yelling and heckling underneath it.
The carriage turns the corner jerkily and then wobbles it's way extremely quickly down the street. Laughter and some kind of thumping music emanates from it loudly. The Souls within seem rather young to you. One flaxen haired young man in a colorful coat is hanging out of it precariously, some form of drink in one hand and the other on the roof. He sees you and releases a piercing wolf whistle.
"Yoooooooo! Pretty lady!" The carriage makes an abrupt jerk, "Woahahooooo crap! Drive better you idiot!" and the heckling shifts targets and volume rapidly from you to someone else in the conveyance.
"Screw you Blayne!" another masculine voice blasts out of the car. As it drives past you see a pair of… feet? Yes, a pair of feet is hanging out of the back window, covered in some form of shoe. The vehicle shoots past, "Blayne" dipping back in to yell at the "driver", the wind of its passage ruffling your hair a little.
Reaching up you fix your hair with one hand, the other still gripping your mystical possessions. The vehicle disappears around a corner behind you as you continue on. Distant chants of "The Bronze, the Bronze, to The Bronze!" echo back to you.
The rest of your journey is essentially uneventful as you travel the streets of this town. The sea scent eventually fades as you leave the houses behind and pass a few shops selling food and other conveniences you think, though a lot of them are unrecognizable to you. Then you leave those behind to and arrive in an area with many more trees and much grander homes with larger spaces between them.
Your goal quickly comes into view after that as you near another intersection which declares the street going left to right as "Crawford Street". The ambient magic you have been sensing is quiet in this whole neighborhood and there are very few Souls around. The home itself is aesthetically interesting but completely empty and surrounded by a tall wall.
Perfect for your needs. You cross the street and turn to follow the wall, running your left hand along it as you go. It is suitable to be warded against intruders, sturdy and whole. Good. You come upon an enterance gate and examine its padlock critically. With a gentle push on the bars the gate swings open with a soulful creak as the lock and chain clangs to the ground. Hmm, that lock needs to be fixed. You walk into the enclosure and carefully shut the gate behind you, turning to look at the building.
It is grand enough a part of you whispers, and the windows are well arranged. The building is obviously old and well worn but that does not matter to you. You walk up the stone laid out in front of it and ascend the steps to the front door, a grand double door affair of oak. You trace it gently. It is old and stable enough.
Reaching out you try the handle. It is locked. Not wanting to damage your future security you back out of the entryway and look around for another way in. You find several ground floor windows on the building and decide to see if they will open. Moving around the building you find all of the windows are securely fastened from the inside, though they would open outwards if unlocked. There is a glimpse of a garden area through one set of windows. The building seems to be mostly furnished as well, some stuff covered in sheets and some not. Perhaps the previous owners could not take them with them?
Walking back closer to the entrance you consider the wall and secure your book and scroll to your hip. Then you reach out and
stab with your fingers into the patterned brick and mortar with what Demonic strength you have. With that you climb easily up the side of the building onto a small sub roof. Looking around you spot a possible window leading into a bedroom. Moving over you carefully prise open the window and slip into the musty smelling room.
Pulling it closed behind you and locking it you find yourself in the master bedroom. Much of the furniture here is sheet covered, though the enormous bed is not. Walking around you consider the walls and general size of the room. There are two doors out, one partially open and revealing a hall. The other is closed and you move towards it.
Pulling it open you find some kind of odd tiled room. To your right is a massive tub with a drain in it and strange little spigots on one side and up further on the wall at head height. Walking in there is also a mirror running along the left side of it. Tilting your head to the right you just look at it for a moment.
Some poking around in old memories tells you that this may be some kind of bathroom fit for an empress. The gold filigree definitely speaks to it. This is suitable.
Seeing another door you open it and walk out into a hall with a bannister running along one side. Leaning on it with one hand you look down into the entrance hall a good way below you. Looking left there is a straight stair down and an alcove with a spiral stair going up. You head down the stairs to the first floor, your book and scroll rustling against your hip softly.
The walls are made of many differently sized gray blocks that jut outwards a little at different distances somewhat randomly. There is also decoration with various paintings and other trappings of high class wealth. The floors are smooth stone with various soft white rugs which caress the feet, patterned with angular patches of color.
As you enter a sort of sitting room you catch a faint scent of rust on the air which makes you pause before it fades again. You walk into the dining room and see a dark wood table with several chairs around it and an empty candelabra. You then find another strange room through another door.
There are strange devices all over the place in here. Moving over to the largest you open it and get a lingering blast of cold coming off its shelves but it is otherwise empty. How odd. Closing it you walk back out and head through another door on the right.
You find the enclosed garden and determine it has massive skylights in the roof, one of which in the far corner is currently partially open and dripping a small amount of water onto one of the long beds. There are small plants growing around the room, most on the edge of death. Moving inside you lean over and brush your hand over some wilted white flowers close to the door. Tulips a part of your memories supplies as their sweet scent rises into the air. You look around the rest of the room, brushing a plant here or there before turning to leave, ignoring the internal balcony up some stairs for now.
There's a rustle and then a quiet thump behind you. You gracefully spin around and see a… man behind you. Something is wrong with him. You cannot sense a Soul.
"Hahahaha, a
fiiiiine girl like you shouldn't be here, sweet." The roughly garbed man-thing growls, his pants and shirt somewhat ragged and smelling of dirt and rust, as he shakes a finger at you. You tilt your head to the left.
"Is it yours then?" Your quiet bell-like voice seems to take the thing off guard. A shudder goes through it as it growls like a dog, lank shoulder length brown hair rustling as it hunches forward.
"...No. But that doesn't matter. You're mine now, sweet!" His face
distorts into a gargoyle like visage as he lunges for you!
This is amusing.
Dun dun dun! Combat tutorial! The Vampire Mook is after your blood!
[] Laugh your classic laugh and launch a Soul Arrow into its face to stun it. That should give you enough time to reveal your true power and kill it.
[] Deceive it by screaming and fleeing through the door, surprising it with your true form and then killing it with Soul Arrow.
Don't worry too much about this guy, he's noodly and new, which is in part the reason you didn't sense him. As such these are just two choices on how you want to see him served.
So funny story, I actually had a good bit of difficulty reminding myself where the hell Angel lived in the first season of Buffy as I'm not up to that episode yet so I had to double check he wasn't living in here already.