[right][sub][color=cecece][i]DAY 019[/i][/color] [color=af4052]◆[/color] [color=cecece][b]C H A P T E R  O N E[/b][/color][/sub][/right][table][row][/row][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/7CBmM86.jpeg[/img][color=2e2c2c]▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇[/color][/cell][cell][quote]

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	She followed the path nearly all day, pausing only long enough to mark her path with one of her daggers in hand, scouring swift marks into decrepit surfaces. Should she have to double back, at least she had a trail to follow, or it would serve as the only way out when, not if, she found Alex. Thus far, she had not encountered anyone, which was odd, given the amount of boot prints she had come across, some far fresher than others, but they existed as if phantoms without a solid trace to identify. It served to at least cement the rumors of these red-robed figures suddenly vanishing during pursuit; the contingent she had hunted some years ago had been among the rare occurrences where they’d be successfully detained. However, Elowen had not tempered her reserves for interrogation; she later endured psyche evaluations to inquire why she had left none alive, but slyly she had admitted to there being no recourse when faced with a fanatic plight. Yue, as she later uttered, did not tolerate the lesser, and who was she to deny the righteousness he sought when parrying blows from such weak adversaries. Only a sliver of scar marked the hunt, a single mark on her index finger that ran along the length from nail to knuckle where a blade had slid to disarm her. 

There had only been one instance where Elowen had been effectively undone, a memory that surfaced as she ducked under a concrete and metal beam and wedged herself between two shafts of triangulated steel. 

When she had first met Alex Meyer, in the thick peak of summer, wherein the close, compacted buildings of Palmecia stewed and swelled with heat waves and plumes of exhaust, she had assumed him nothing more than a newly bequeathed Soldier given to the cause of their governor. Newly minted as a brazen concept of a man that had curried favor from the echelon of politics and powers, the higher-ups, the powers-that-be, so to speak, that donned and garbed him in the finite qualities of a monster. As a similar weapon, Elowen had been selected as the blade of All Law, the Holy Light, designated to combat his darkness, the trickster within biding time, and patience to bribe her morals of justification and retribution. Stalwart and unwavering, she had stood before him and, with daggers palmed, their introductions swift and to the point where she uttered her name-

[i][color=#844338]I’m Elowen Sloane.[/color][/i]

- And parried him blow for blow, where she demanded that he prove himself to her, time and time again.

In the dark of the present, Elowen welcomed the shadows writhing over her arms as a warming embrace. The path led underground, a near indiscernible trail marked by a curious symbol engraved heavily into the wall. Marred in red with horns: a shaded profile of a bull reared, and broad. Such a thing would’ve gone unnoticed if not for the prick of silver in her dark eyes. Gleaming candles of white light that fell under her lashes, a ring blooming to life as the holy seed of Yue churning away through her bones. Under the refuge and blasted steel, a basement carved deep into the earth, to the belly of Palmecia, dark and dank and molded. The scent of earth swelled deep into her nose as she inhaled, a faint shimmer of warm light welling through her body as Elowen willed the purging fire in her blood to the surface of her skin, warmed and hued in respelendence. The path dropped steeply off into the dark, immediately scouring down and down with ramps of twisted steel. Elowen normally would’ve stuck to the shadows, but knowing that she was reaching ever closer to where she assumed Alex was being kept, she forwent stealth and instead marched into the belly of the beast with daggers spun among her dexterous hands, heralding light into the void. 

[center]...[/center]

Somewhere deeper, farther, in the dreary dark, came a vibrating drone, an esoteric sort of summons that filled a room with ringing walls of metal that hands beat and pounded against. A drumming crescendo quickly followed with a malicious chant that rose and fell and whispered of all ill intent and purpose. Fanatics dressed in red robes lined down a hall and swept into the chamber, and beheld a crudely drawn circle still wet and engorged with life that smeared black lines into curving horns. The rattling of chains and metals came away into the shadows as the Harlot proudly led Alex Meyer by the collar she had clasped tightly around his throat, a slick smile poured over her features. 

[color=000000]"Your time has run out,"[/color] she uttered cruelly, yanking hard and pushing him down to his knees, [color=000000]"and [i]she[/i] is now too late."[/color]

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