It rained a hail of splinters when Jasper ripped Momento-Mori from the wall. The tip of the blade slipped under the still moving torso's arm before rising in a violent flourish towards the shadows. Its arm came off in a floppy manner, and though the second target missed, it seemed the shadows receded to avoid the blade.
Jasper brought his foot up to chest height and brought it down on the armless shade's skull with a sickening crack. All while keeping Momento-Mori raised and ready to drop weight into the shadows.
With a hand gripping the ricasso of the blade for control, Jasper unleashed a complicated series of misses to draw out the shades. The unnatural darkness crept up to the Wanderer. Only then did both feet pivot like a dancers. A heavy slash turned into another and Jasper was spinning down the street in a whirlwind of blood and steel.
The first strike drove one of the voidlings into an ally and the second left a long and clean gash across the other's chest. Jasper meant to finish this one off and ran it through the heart with most of his blade.
The voidling's stunned and drooling expression twisted into a wicked smile as it slid down the length of metal. Jasper cold cocked it with a left hook that left gauntlet marks across its broken cheek. He drew a revolver on the last place he had seen the other and blasted all six shots into its neck.
Even as its head rolled across the wood floor, Jasper continued jerking his blade around inside of the other voidling. With a fervor that most painters never match, Jasper became one with the blade and carved symbols into the shadow. Those symbols soon turned to chunks of flesh that hit the ground. Without canvas left to use, Jasper brought the blade all of the way up through the skull.
He stood panting; blade held high overhead as the body came apart like a flower with two petals. With the inky exterior removed to paint the floor, something macabre became apparent.
Underneath the outer skin was a human. A flesh and blood, green eyed and tan skinned, human.
Three gunshots cut off the investigation. He turned in time to see a glowing round peirce another voidling, and disintegrate most of its chest.
The perpetrator was a red skinned woman with shimmering multi colored hair that had a mostly black default. She wore a camouflaged cloak and more pouches, bags and book carriers than one could count. In one hand was a walking stick and the other held a dessert eagle leaking an excessive amount of blue smoke. An otherwise red toned face was coated in dirt from a dungeon delved at least a week ago.
They both sheathed their weapons.
"I had him."
"Uh-huh, you're welcome."
"Right, um, thanks. What did you shoot it with?"
"Elysium dipped bullets."
"I don't know what that means, but remind me not to mess with you. I'm Jasper."
"Venessa, but you can just call me Crow."
"What brings a Crow like you to a place like this?"
"The death isn't enough?"
"Quick on the trigger and sharp with your tongue. The death's never enough."
"I need help. My tribe used to live in the mountains to the north. Those mountains don't exist anymore, because of an elixir brought in from the tunnel."
"The mountains don't exist anymore?"
"I didn't stutter... It's the same thing that turned these people and animals into monsters. I've been trying to find a way to reverse the effects, or even just slow them... But, no one this side of the walls knows anything."
"So you need information, from the walls. That is a challenge. I thought the mountain tribes lived off of ambushed taskforce jeeps and thunderbird meat. Why not just capture someone yourselves?"
Her grey eyes gave the ink covered body before them a thousand yard stare, "My tribe... they are... dead, or turned."
"Ah, um, sorry about that."
"Yeah, well, time is of the essence, so whenever you are ready."
"We can't leave yet, both moons will be in the sky in a week."
"I know that! So what?" She went from calm in the face of danger to strung out in a mere moment.
"The towns people say that Temnota rises with the two moons and I can't leave them to their own devices."
"Temnota!? You can't seriously be saying we're just going to wait a week so that horrible abomination can try to kill you?"
"I'm not going to wait, I'm going to clean this place up, put some spirits to rest, and then I will kill Temnota, again. First, there's something I have to take care of."
YOU ARE READING
Shadows of Elysium: The Laughing King
HorrorOnce upon a time there was a world, much like our own. This world is gone. The machinations and wars of man saw to every manner of apocalypse. What was left is a world as nightmarish as it is fantastical. Gunslingers and swordsmen ply the same trade...
