The black sheet of night wrapped Lomedor in its thick folds. Tiny lights glittered on its surface, glinting like diamonds studded in obsidian silk. Despite the clear warm night the moon was no where to be seen. Lost in the folds of night. Down in the streets the only light that illuminated the cobbles and brick where the flickering candles in the tightly closed windows or the occasional spluttering torch that spat cinders futilely into the darkness. This meager light did nothing to extenuate the shadows. It merely gave them substance. Like thick fog clinging to every nook and cranny of the city. It was in this city that the beast roamed. Free to express its anger on the citizens cowering away from the darkness. Lighting candles to stave off the night but they could not stave off the beast.
In the darkness there was a flash of light and a clash of steel. The hatchet blade was brought down hard on the street. There was the sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh like a cleaver through a butchers chop a shadowy figure prepaired its meal. Severing the parts it needed.
Now the beast was retreating away from the light and into safety. Hunched over and crawling on the balls of its feet and metal hands it moved like a malformed wolf. Covered in feted furs and torn clothing it began to crawl backwards down the narrow street. Food clutched in its maw as it dragged it back to its home. As it crawled back a single line of crimson spread out from it, the meal it was dragging was leaving a sticky trail behind it. The trail of gore sweared cobbles lead up to an alcove in the ally where the grizzly origin of the meat was to be found. From impenetrable shadows a single limb stuck out exposed to the dirty torch light. Surrounded by a pool of congealing blood shinning in the grubby light.
Omurn backed away down the ally. Dragging the body part with him. His teeth sunk deep into the fleshy hand. The frantic eyes flashing in the flickering light. As he backed away from civilizations. Bloodstained metal claws scrapping over the rough stones. He reached his target. A rusted grating that covered the entrance to the seawers below. The stench that arose matched Omurns own aroma almost exatcly. The stains on his fur and armour were evidently sourced from below the streets. He kicked out with his filthy foot and knocked the grate off the hole. Sliding his legs down the sewer mouth he slipped his body through the hole. Looking around with beastial eyes for any signs of life he finally disappeared from view. THe human arm slithering in behind him. The blood trail ending with the grate.
Meat firmly in mouth the creature descent nto its dank home. Mosses and strange plants hung in the darkness. Water dripping incessantly down into the dark pits below. It was into this worth of filth and decay. Of dirt and death. He splashed down into the torrent of brown water than ran through the sewer. Back on hands and feet he bounded up the torrent. His food trailing through the disgusting soup. It wasn't long before he found his home. A small square jutting away from the water flow. On dry land above the lapping waves. Inside its murky depths furs and animal skins lay. All black with dried blood. Omurn bounded up and padded into its home. Dropping the meal into a pile. Several other grizzly relics remained there. In the gloom fragments of bone remained. Tendons to grizzly to tear through and what appeared to be a human scalp. Hunting for rats was hard. easier to kill man that roamed above.
How had he ended up like this? Barely able to walk on his feet and barely able to speak without growling like a beast. His descent from human to monster had been swift but this new descent from monster to barely sentient beast seemed to be harsher still. It seemed that Omurn had fallen as far as possible. He was a broken man now he was a broken monster.
Frowning Omurn pawed at a glass object in the darkness. It glinted in the almost total darkness. Clinking against his metal claw it span around on its edge. The yellow liquid inside sloshing from side to side. It span away from him and Omurn cocked his head. It was important he knew that much. He reached out and drew the bottle back to him and slipped it into a corner of his home. Away from the water and his food. He spoke softly, "ye...s, safe." He smiled revealing blackened teeth and lay his head on the feted blankets on which he lived and slept.
(Eew, short, but I set it allll up.)
Aksinya drifted through the streets of Lomedor in the dark, her little heart felt the weight of the night. It pressed down, making the muscle work all the harder, as fear crept into her mind. She was still under the careful watch of the clan matron, who's breath she could almost feel upon her shoulder. The idea of a silent watcher terrified her tremendously, and her breathing became rapid. From the corner of her eye, a ghostly hand lit upon her shoulder. She screamed and wheeled around, coming face to face with the clan matron, Snowy.
"Dearest! Dearest! It is only I, for I did not want Faust to conquer you in such entirety. He already has, as I can detect." Snowy stated. Aksinya nodded, slowly, and tried to ignore the fact that she'd very nearly embarrassed herself to an unimaginable degree in front of the Matron.
"Faust is a difficult opponent." Aksinya retorted. Snowy laughed, a musical noise that lifted Aksinya's spirits endlessly. The figure patted her upon the head, fingers passing through her hair. Snowy had only come as an illusion, which explained why the woman's hair did not shift with the wind. A fleeting smile perched on her face before whisking away into the night.
"Why...am I deployed? I'm not even an adult." Aksinya inquired of the matron. The matron gave her a grin, and then waved for her to follow. The dutiful young rauko followed, her human appearance downplaying how dangerous she was. Snowy looked even more harmless, but Snowy was an illusion at the moment.
"All trees, no matter their age, can offer an advantage." Snowy explained. Aksinya nodded. Snowy nodded, before giggling one last time. Aksinya's eyes drew from the streets before them to Snowy's delicate white illusion. Behind it, across the walls, was blood. Aksinya shrieked, and slammed her foot to the ground. She slipped. Blood splattered into the air as she landed upon a corpse, her head falling into a hollow torso. Her shriek became a cry of horror, and she planted her hands upon the ground. The ground squished, bits of gore had stained the street in this most disturbing of murders. The vegetarian conquered her instincts momentarily, and pushed herself up, and pushed the gore from where she stood with her sandal-covered feet. She brought up bloodstained hands to her face, looked at blood covered feet, and a body that looked as though butchered for meat. Aksinya vomited, and daintily stepped to a clean part of the street, panting.
"Shortly, you shall be given an idea as to what you are to do. Do not fail the clan in this simplest of tests, Aksinya." Snowy stated. She disappeared, leaving Aksinya covered head to toe in blood and gore. This did not bode well for the young rauko. She wasn't armed, she was standing above a corpse, and there were footsteps on the approach.
"Oh my gods! Who killed this man!" She screamed. Her training drifted back to her, how to slide into the guise of the victim and not the perpetrator nor bystander. Her sharp eyes checked the crime, and followed the blood stains and bloody boot prints. Aksinya's feet were smaller, which would affirm that she was innocent to whatever was coming next. Unless it was the creature who had committed this disturbing act. Was she to fight or flee if such a creature returned? She didn't want to fail Snowy's deceptively simple order.
Not even one. Thavron, head resting on his folded arms, stared at the glass of alcohol before him with a dull, half-unawake gaze, dark circles and faint bags of skin formed beneath his eyes. Tunnel vision had set in long ago; what little awareness he carried was focused on the object as it silently taunted him through its very existence.
The barkeep tossed the angel a puzzled glance as he passed. "You gonna drink that?" Thavron's golden-brown stare slowly tilted up, and he shook his head groggily. The human lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "Then why'd ya buy it?"
"I'm with them," the brown angel murmured, motioning with his lowered head to his immediate left, prompting the barkeeper's eyes to follow in that direction. A conveniently safe distance from the brown angel's own barstool marked a clustered trio of men, active in conversation, cheeks flushed red though still wearing the characteristic navy-blue military uniforms common in the Lomedor Guard. While Thavron was still nearly fully armored, his tabard bore the same markings, enough of an indication of relation than anything.
"I've got a job soon," Thavron grumbled in a low voice, "but if I didn't get anything, they'd call me castrated." The barkeep idly nodded.
"What job?" he inquired, pouring a mug of ale for an impatient customer down the bar.
"Serial killer. Could be an animal, could not. Comes out at night, so I've gotta wait before bringing it in."
The bartender grunted. "Dangerous work. Sure you don't want anything?"
"Hell no. How would you fare catching a beast in such a state, anyway?"
"It'd make it a little more interesting," the man remarked with a grin, chuckling slightly. The uncomprehending Thavron pushed himself out of the chair, placing the helmet on his head and retrieving the sky-blue spear resting against the counter.
While a considerably more peaceful environment compared to the the tavern, Thavron had left for the rest of Lomedor later than he was supposed to. A civilian contact planned to meet him there so the brown angel could escort him safely to his home (a prime killing area for his target in question), but he had never turned up. The brown angel idly pondered the worst, but it seemed unrealistic. Either way, he was capable of searching alone. If it was truly insentient, there would be massive clues of its whereabouts left behind unintelligently; he hoped this would be the case, simply to make his job easier.
Lomedor's streets were suitably dark, nothing but the faint crescent-moon to guide his way. Coupled with his already-narrowed field of view from the presence of his helmet, Thavron was nearly blind. Sighing and groaning, the brown angel quietly lamented the quality of his duties before pushing his body off the ground in a single vertical leap. That night's low-elevation patrol of the streets wasn't intended to be a serious attempt at pinpointing the killer's location or even the site of another murder perpetrated by it. Thavron's mind even wandered, flight path listing and wingtips coming close to striking the top or sides of buildings.
Just as the brown angel's half-closed eyes shut completely, a shout rang out from a street ahead. "Oh my gods! Who killed this man!" For a moment, Thavron groaned in his mind; he really wish he hadn't heard that. But his sense of justice overrode his fatigue and depression, and he opened his eyes before sending powerful flaps through his wings, careening over rooftops at high speeds toward the source of the noise. Once the faint outline of what appeared to be a woman came into view, Thavron's path dipped down.
"Ma'am, you're in great danger, I will take care of this," he rushed to explain as his low flight brought his plates a hair's breadth from the top of the person's head, pushing him forward past her and in the direction the trail of blood led him. A butchered corpse of a man lay not far from there, but his focus for the moment was catching the perpetrator. Thavron struggled to bring himself into a smooth landing, quick flight giving rise to sprinting at a similar speed. The half-dried blood led him to a sharp turn into a dark alley, where the guardsman came to an abrupt stop.
Silence. Dead silence. Thavron's eyes struggled to pierce the veil of darkness, but to little avail. Hesitantly he stepped forward, both hands clutching his weapon, muscles tensed and prepared to react to the slightest movement. Only then had his senses picked up the overpowering odor that conquered the area, a stench that could override even the most foul of long-slain corpses. Suspicious he was in the midst of his target, Thavron steeled himself.
Down in the bowls of lomedor Omurn was woken from his shallow sleep. The past weeks he had heared very little but the quite of the sewers. The faint trickle of water that passed through his domain and the muffled voices above. It was the shrill scream that woke him and the low tones that truly stirred him. The noise registered in his brain as the last tiny vestiges of reason flickered dimly in the clouded mind. It whispered to him. Prey. His feral mind took over. Raising his head off the wet stone and bloodied fur he cocked his trying to listen out for more sound deciding on a course of action.
Nothing but the water and echoes that reverberated along the city's veins. He shook his head slowly from side to side, slack jawed and staring as his animal brain attempted to reason out a plan. While he was slow to think his advantage came when hunting. It took time to reason a plan but acting like a wolf he was capable of carrying out savage suprise attacks that were getting more sophisticated by the day as each night he felled a new human. Tonight was to be no different. Already killing one man and with atleast one more above him waiting to be struck down.
He slunk down from his bed into the slow water flow. His head slung low neck bent down facing the water. He watched himself in the near pitch black, pupils wide and staring at the reflection. Unable to connect the face with the mind he watched with interest at the creature before him. Still moving slowly and carefully through the water on all fours he watched the rippling reflection until finaly he found the exit. The bright circle of light obscuring the unknown creature.
His source of entertainment gone he looked up. Latching his metal claws onto the ladder Omurn hauled himself up. Like a bat clawing on a cave wall he put metal fist over metal fist and scaled the brick and metalwork. It wasn't long before he was on the verge of emerging from the tunnels but he stopped. Predator instinct taking over. Hooking his sharp claws over the edge he lifted himself slowly up emerging into the open air. Large pupils contracting at the light change. It was dark out there but it was like the abyss below. His eyes narrowing he spotted his prey. There where two of them. He sniffed the air. He could smell them. One was covered in blood. The same blood that covered him. He couldn't not make the connection, unsure of its meaning he turned is senses to the other. It smelled... Familiar.. The bird man. He had smelled him before... Hunted him before? Perhaps.
He desided to make his move. Camouflaged by the filth of his clothes and dark furs he pulled himself into the open. His dirt covered face masking his light skin. He slipped from the gratting pressed low to the floor. Arms spread out wide muscles tensed. As quietly as he could he slipped from the alley way into a smaller joining pathway. Flattening himself against the wall Omurn turned back to face the two figures. He could charge them now but the distance was to great. There would be no surprise that is if they hadn't already spotted him. He needed to get higher. He could catch the bird man.
Looking mouth open, wild eyed and staring he searched for a vantage point. The lip of the low roof seemed like a prime opportunity. He hitched his hatchet hands on the roof edge, digging them into the wood. Muscles straining he hauled himself up onto the single story building. Flatting himself to the wooden slats he crept slowly along the gentle slant. He slowed his breathing, through his open mouth trying to be as quite as possible. He found the edge of the roof once more. Peering down on the two humans who stood further down the street. With any luck they would follow the blood trail towards him if they had not already spotted the blood stained hound. If they left then he could stalk them. He brought his legs up and coiled himself up. Ready to pounce down onto the first one to walk up the narrow alley way. He could smell the sweet blood from here and the musty smell of the bird man. As he watched, eyes flicking over the two of them he salivated. Droplets falling onto the wood below him. He drew his lips back over his teeth reviling the blackened fangs.