Fire and Mask
Warning: Contains violence and death
about her. He’d been there when they first rescued her from Nightmare Court, seen her through her first few raids. Tora only really spoke with her once, that itself was a fluke, but he couldn’t get a grasp on her. It wasn’t just the mask, she just never revealed much of what she was thinking. It was unnerving.
Then she’d turned on the guild, made it very clear what she was thinking.
“You’re just another Court by a different name.”
He could still hear her words, even now.
A branch cracked under Tora’s foot and he snapped back to reality. He hastened backwards, trying hopelessly to get away from her, but stopped just as quickly at the sounds of yelling from behind him. His old guild mates were catching up. This did not look good.
The air around him grew dense, cold, and pungent with the smell of death. A swarm of shadows closed in on him -an assortment of mangled rotting creatures. Among them he saw the corpses of his guild mates: Ebril and Zed, shambling about like broken puppets. It was hard to breathe. He tried to will himself to move but couldn’t. The Mute moved closer. The shouting behind him seemed to be drowned out by her presence alone, dark and looming above him.
“TRAITORS!!”
Like a knife, Birr’s voice cut through the thick air and set off what felt like a chemical reaction. The lumbering undead around them sprung to action, lashing out at the oncoming bandits. The bandits in turn, drew their weapons and charged. The Mute didn’t even look at Tora as she casually stepped over him and into the fray. She took the suffocating cold with her, and Tora crumbled, gasping and shaking.
He didn’t have time to recover though, as he too, got quickly swallowed into the fight. An unnatural shadow consumed the area, blanketing everything in a heavy darkness. He couldn’t see the path anymore, and he fumbled about desperately trying to get out. Swords swung out from the dark, daggers and bullets shot at every direction; eery spectral hands sprung forth from nowhere and clawed at unseen screaming thieves. He eventually found a rock wall and clung to it, praying not to get hit as he listened to the ongoing assault.
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