Episode X Dark Hunter

The Dark Master is Coming

Something was wrong with Videsse. She was not unaware of it. The headaches were getting worse every minute. The nauseousness came and went in increasing waves. The tremors in her hands were becoming more violent, and the pain in her lame leg sharpened. She could feel the muscle fasciculations of her thighs; evidence that the tremors in her hands were symptoms of a condition that affected every nerve and fiber.

What was wrong with our heroine? Simply put, there is a price to pay for everything that we love dearly; a price for every person we love, every idea we cherish, and every drink we cradle in the palm of our hand. All of these bind ghostly chains to our hearts, and those chains are the very maladies that haunted our heroine, regardless of how she would deny it. Some bonds are subtle, like the dead lingering among the lovelorn living, their whispers inaudible. Whether they are true whispers or the imaginations of the soul, they are no less tied to the heart with adamant cords.

Other fetters are more apparent such as the body's yearning for a drink. Although Videsse's will was a stronghold keeping the amber liquid at bay, the body would not be as easily beaten. It had thrust its forces against that wall of will. The siege ramps of tremors, pain, and retching, all raised in the hopes of breaching the wall and again tasting a drop of whiskey. If unsuccessful, the eyes and the ears would join the battle with the battle machinations of hallucinations and voices, catapulting those fiery missiles over her ramparts. And still, if that should prove fruitless, the last and desperate action of the body would be to throw itself against the heavy gates of Videsse's stubborn resolve, until her very body and mind break and oblivion takes her.

Yes, my Videsse, this is the battle that threatens your city and how I mourn for you. If I could have saved you this, if I could have only put my hand on your drink, every time it came to your lips; to be a watchman on the tower calling to you, "The army is on the horizon." But alas, these hands were too weak and my voice too mute for your ears, too much a phantom than a form. The only power given to me is to tell your story. So I must continue the labor, as our heroine and her companion exit the diamond tower and reenter the streets of Adascopolis; a peaceful city passed through by a sieged one.

"Well, that didn't work," Cam said throwing up his hands.

Videsse did not reply. She walked swiftly and checked her gauntlet display as she sidetracked and darted through the city-walkers.

Cam called out more loudly from behind her, "That didn't work. Now, what are we going to do?"

"Shut up, Cam!" Videsse ordered with a backward glance. "I'm trying to think." Thinking was becoming difficult. Then in an inconsistent moment, she asked Cam, "Why did you say that about the Dark Side back there?"

"Just something I heard the man that captured me say. I thought it might be something they say." Cam shrugged his shoulders. "You know--code, or something."

Videsse nodded and actually considered that it might have been a "not-bad" comment, possibly, maybe.

She looked up at each building, but could not for long. Her head was throbbing, and her hands were shaking more every minute. She caught a shadow out of her left periphery; a short, knee-height shadow, humanoid. She darted her gaze to the left, but it was nowhere to be seen. Was something watching her, watching her from some unknown plain? However, that would be preposterous, and Videsse knew that. She was certain of it. Yet, here was the first moment that Videsse had the rare feeling so unrecognized in her, fear. Her stomach, her head, her hands, her eyes; the lingering question haunted her more than the shadow, what was happening? A fleeting thought arose from within, I need a drink. She banished that thought in her usual fashion. "I don't need anythin'," her voice whispered to herself as if it was an incantation against the invisible world inside of her.