Talison, Sylas, and The Old Man (Part Two)

By the time Talison and Sylas reached the town, it was dark. There were very few lamps burning, and even the bar seemed quite. There was no one to be found anywhere, not even stray animals were wondering about. The only thing that stood out in the darkness was Talisons' glaive, it's runes glowing in the dark. It made for a makeshift torch, but Talison wasn't comfortable with the idea of their location being easily seen. He tapped each rune twice, and they dissipated.

Sylas looked around, worried. Where is everyone? She was starting to get scared. She let her hood down, and walked closer to Talison. As they were walking, she heard a noise, like a door creaking open. Sylas nudged Talison, and pointed her staff in the direction of the noise. Together, they crept up to the building next to them, and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. Talison nodded to Sylas, and charged in, Sylas running in right afterwards, shutting the door behind them and thrusting her staff into the ground, and light shined out of the top, illuminating the room around them.

There were bodies scattered about, most of them with chunks of them missing. There were a few children in there with them, and from the looks of it, whatever caused this paid better attention to the children and how it ate them. Sylas covered her mouth, trying not to vomit, it was too much for her to take in one viewing, but she forced herself to look around.

Talison held his glaive at the ready, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He surveyed the room, and noticed a child was on the floor by the door, just out of sight from when they came in moments before. He looked hurt, but otherwise still alive. Talison went over to the child, and knelt down in front of him, and asked: "Are you okay? What happened here?"

The child looked up at Talison, and with a whimper, said: "The...the monster attacked my family..." Tears were rolling down his cheek, he looked like he was in shock. "The monster came out after it got dark out, an' he jumped through the window by the stairs. I was the first thing it came after, but my dad saved me. He hit it with a chair, and then...then it tore his arm off! And he started...eating..my dad. I..I hid upstairs, I left my sister alone! I let her DIE!" He was crying even harder now, shaking back and forth. Sylas came over and sat next to him, taking him into her arms and comforting him. "Shhh...it's gonna be okay. We're hear now, and we're going to stop the monster. He won't come back for you..." She told him. She looked up at Talison, who looked about the room, staring blankly. The reality of the situation had sunken in, and his stomach turned. He wasn't prepared for this sort of thing.

Composing himself, Talison turned to the child. "Is there anything you can tell us about it?" He asked as he pulled out a stone from his cloak, and started scratching runes onto his glaive. The child turned to Talison, still shaking, and said: "It's the old man from the orphanage. The monster was wearing the same shirt as the old man from the orphanage. I know because I visited my friend Jasmine today at the orphanage, and he was wearing it." Talison nodded to the child, and placed the stone back into his cloak. "Sylas, is there anything you can do for the family? Can they be healed?" He asked her. Sylas shook her head, and then she gave the child a final hug, and got up. "Go hid in your room, honey, we're going to put a stop to this now." She said to him softly. He went upstairs. Talison and Sylas walked out, and headed towards the orphanage.

All the houses on the way had either broken windows or broken doors. After what seemed like a long walk, they reached the orphanage. There were no lights on inside, and there was a sense of dread that filled them as they approached the door. Talison turned the knob, and walked slowly in, Sylas followed suit.

"I can hear you two, you know." said a voice at the end of the room. Standing there was the old man, hands stained with blood. His back was turned to them, he was in the middle of something, from the looks of it; there were candles lit all around him, and there was a circle drawn around him and something else in the distance. As Talison and Sylas got closer, they noticed that there was a young girl, no more then Twelve years old, tied to a chair and was gagged. The old man turned around to look at them.

"So, you figured it out, did you? Well, good for you. You're too late, though.I'm about to disappear forever, and you'll never see me again...course, you'll both be dead, so...I guess that helps me out." The old man said, a smile on his face.

"Back away from the child, old man, and lets have this out!" demanded Talison. He readied his glaive.

"I think not, boy. You see, little Lucy here is going to be my new vessel. I'm going to pour myself into her. The old man will die, though, so it's something of a win win, right? You want the old man dead, I want to leave the village and find a new...nest, as it were. We're all winners tonight!"

Talison leaped at the old man, bringing his glaive above his head. The old man simply looked up, and the next thing Talison knew, the old man had grown two feet, and was ripped from head to toe. The old man was hunched over, it's mouth big and wide, showing off it's wicked and jagged teeth. It leaped at Talison too, and tackled him out of the air and landed on top of him, slashing at Talison with his newly grown claws. It tore into Talison, and he barely managed to move out of the way of it's bite.

Sylas ran over to help Talison, but the beast was too fast. It grabbed a chair nearby and threw it at Sylas, hitting her in the head and knocking her to the ground. She was knocked out cold. The beast then turned to Talison, who was already back up. Talison gripped his glaive and then slammed the blade into the ground. The blade suddenly caught fire. The beast looked at the glaive curiously, and then smiled, and charged Talison for another attack. It missed Talison, who then went for two quick thrusts with his glaive. The first thrust connected, and pierced the beasts' side, and the beast screeched as the fire from the blade lashed out across his body. The second attack was off, and the beast took the opportunity to strike. It slashed at Talison, who fell to the ground in pain. The beast leaned in close, it's maw open, ready to devour Talison's throat.

Sylas had just regained consciousness, and saw that Talison was about to be eaten. She said a few words quickly, and then thrust her staff into Talison's side. As the beast brought it's head down, it struck something in the air, something solid. The air around Talison rippled, as if it were water. The beast turned to Sylas, who was crawling over to Talison. "WOMAN, YOU DIE FIRST" It yelled, and leaped on top of her, ripping into her shoulder with it's claws. It was choking her now, and it leaned in for the kill...

Before it could do anything else, the beast cried out in pain. Talison was standing up, and he had just brought down his glaive right into the beasts' back. Sylas rolled out of the way as Talison pushed the beast down to the ground with his foot, and kept it there while he stabbed it again and again with his glaive. The flames from the glaive had started to take it's toll on the beast, and soon enough, the fire had consumed it. All that remained of it was a puddle of blood mixed with ashes. Talison sank into the ground from the pain. Sylas limped over to him, and put her hands on Talison, She began to channel a healing spell into him, and as she did, the wounds began to seal up, and the bleeding stopped. After she was done, she did the same thing to herself.

Talison and Sylas went over and untied Lucy, who was knocked out. Talison picked her up, and carried her outside. They went over to the first house they went to, and told the child inside to come with them. Together, they located the mayor's house, and, after a few minutes of shouting, the mayor came out.

"What is going on here? What happened to Lucy? Did you guys find the monster?" The mayor asked. She was panicked.

Talison and Sylas told the mayor everything that had happened, which didn't sit well with the mayor. The Mayor let Talison and Sylas stay at her house for the night, but had only provided one bedroom with one bed, which made things awkward for them. Sylas suggested that they instead go to each of the houses and try and find survivors. They came back empty handed. When they got back to their room, Talison took a pillow and slept on the ground, wrapping himself in his cloak to stay warm.

The next morning, the mayor gave Talison and Sylas their reward of two-hundred gold. They were the saviors of the town, and were always welcomed in the town. The innkeeper told them that if they ever found themselves in town, that they could always stay at his inn. He'd keep a room saved for them at all times, and gave them the key to said room. The local baker made them a apple pie, and the blacksmith offered to make Talison a new weapon. Talison accepted his offer, and gave the blacksmith his glaive. When Sylas asked later why he did, Talison explained that the glaive he was using was breaking from all the runes he was putting on it, and it would have broken soon anyway.

Later on, at their room in the inn, Talison and Sylas were getting ready to leave town. Sylas turned to Talison and asked: "So...where are we going now? You haven't said anything about our next job, you know."

"Our next job is to travel east to Dunnal, and help out someone named Kazalt. He's a mage from Galbasc, and some experiment they were doing there went south, and now they need help with containing the mess." Talison said. "I heard about it last night at the bar. The topic came up during the course of the night and no one had mentioned any progress, so I volunteered us for the job."

"East, you say? Can we avoid the forest, this time? I don't want to go back through there again." Sylas said, laughing a little as she said it.

"Afraid not, Sylas, it's the fastest way to Dunnal. But, at least we're not going to spend time there looking for imaginary ruins this time around."

Talison, Sylas, and the old man (Part One)

The old man had told them that they could find the ruins in the forest east of town. The old man told them that the creature that was attacking the town was inside the ruins, coming out at dusk and taking children from the village. The old man told them that they'd be saviors to the town; saving the kids was reward enough, but they weren't going to turn down the 200 gold reward either.

That old man lied.

Talison and Sylas had been all over the forest, and they never found any ruins. Talison's scale mail was starting to weigh him down, but he kept moving, though he began to use his glaive as a walking stick after a while, the runes he had placed on the blade glowed faintly in the daylight. Sylas's dark green robes were getting dirty, and her long, light blond hair was getting caught in the low hanging branches, so she had to make it into a ponytail. She was leaning on her staff more then she was before they started. They were tired and worn out with nothing to show for it.

They said nothing on the way back to town, both of them were pretty mad about the situation. They were going to have words with the old man when they got back, that's for sure. As they came to a clearing, Sylas suggested that they rest for a bit.

Talison laid he pack down and sat against a tree, he dug into his pack and pulled out a bread roll and gave it to Sylas. He took another one out and took a bite out of it. Sylas sat a little ways away from Talison, and laid down. They had been walking non-stop for hours, and she was getting tired, not to mention that they did not eat the entire day.

"I can't believe that old man lied to us," Talison said, he calmed down some by now. "I bet he was bribed by some other adventuring group to give them the right info, and everyone else the wrong direction to the ruins."

Sylas rolled onto her side to face Talison, still eating her bread roll. She swallowed and said: "What are we going to do about it? I don't think there's anything we can do. It's not like we can rough him up or anything. Most we can do is yell at him."

"We could take his cane away, maybe. That'll teach'em." Talison said with a laugh. "Lets see him work at that orphanage of his then, with all those hyperactive kids running around."

Sylas laughed and said: "Aww, but who will take care of those kids then if he can't stop them from running a muck? He's probably have a heart attack trying to stop them all from tearing up the place without his cane."

"Sylas, you're assuming that he HAS a heart to begin with."

"Ha! Maybe he's the monster killing the kids!"

Talison stopped for a second, the bread roll inches away from his open mouth. He turned his head to look at Sylas, who was giggling at the thought of the old man turning into a monster and eating the kids in a comical fashion. What if she's right? What if the old man was actually the one eating the kids and got the mayor to issue the bounty on a fake monster, just so that he can keep on munching kids? Talison's mind was racing with different old-man-eating-kids scenrios.

Sylas finished eating her bread roll and saw Talison mulling over the idea in his head. "You don't actually think that the old man might be doing all this, do you?" She asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? The old man works at an orphanage, which has an ever decresing orphan count. When asked about the bounty, he told us that we could find the monster here, but we've scoured this entire forest, and no sign of the ruins or the beast have come up. If he is behind it, no one is going to assume the old man is behind it because he's just a frail old man who works with kids."

Talison quickly drank some water from his water skin and got up, he held out his hand to help Sylas up. She looked up at him, still not sure is she buys into his theory, but knew that Talison wasn't going to be swayed. She took his hand and got up, brushing off anything that might have gotten on her robes. She scooped up their packs and they started to head off to town, with the sun starting to go down in the horizen.

Welcome to my humble abode.

Welcome to No Saints, No Sinners, a blog set up so that I can place my writing up online for everyone to see. Feel free to comment on my posts and offer your criticisms.

As for the content on this site, I'm going to be writing fiction, usually based in a fantasy setting (think Lord of the Rings or the Dragonlance books), though I may do some stuff in the same vein as the World of Darkness, whatever comes to mind.

Whatever I end up writing here, I hope you enjoy your stay here.