Mancala — Roleplayer Guild

"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself."
- Desiderius Erasmus

Chapter 2 - Blood of the Innocent

This story begins with desperation, a mystery, and many secrets. An intense famine in Penumbra sweeps food from working people’s tables. Just as it begins to subside, an epidemic fever arrives to sweep many of the famine's survivors into the grave. A group of charitable aristocrats open a home for the hundreds of children who have been orphaned by these twin scourges. Very soon, however, many dozens of them die. It was not the fever nor the famine. What was it that was killing the children of St. Augustine's Home for Lost Children?

Dreamcatcher kneeled to examine the body. She was a young girl of about eleven or twelve, and like the others she was pale as snow, and as cold as ice. There were no cuts, bruises, or marks of any kind to be found on hers or any of the other bodies. 

“So Hunter, what’s killing these children?” the caretaker asked. Many people were unwilling to speak to Hunters, refusing to believe that such things as monsters could truly exist. It was fortunate that the people living around the Rogue District were a superstitious sort—Dreamcatcher was able to investigate the situation with few worries. It was unfortunate that she had never seen anything like this before.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Dreamcatcher sighed. She had been a part of the Fraternity for nearly a decade now, so she was used to the sight of death. Still, she did not enjoy seeing the petrified corpses of children.

“Is it a dhampir? It’s a dhampir isn’t it?!” the caretaker asked nervously.

“No. There would be a bite mark if it were…”

“Oh gods! It must be a lycanthrope. I did hear howling the other night!”

“I really don’t think…”

“Or it was a Bogeyman! It was definitely a Bogeyman!” the caretaker shrieked.

“What the hell is a Bogeyman?” Dreamcatcher sighed again, “Look, never mind, just try to stay calm, ok? I’m calling for help right now…”

Fortunately for her, it was mid daylight, so most Hunters were sleeping right now. Dreamcatcher closed her eyes and faded into a deep trance. If there were any fellow Hunters in the area, she would find them.

—-

Eddie sat and stared down at his filthy toes, pale as maggots in the darkness. He had no idea why they took his shoes. He was hardly going to run, cuffed by his left ankle to one damp, mold-covered wall and his right wrist to another. He could scarcely reach the gate of his cell, let alone rip it from its hinges. Apart from picking the scabs under his broken nose til they bled, all he could do was sit there and think. His least favorite activity.

They called the prison Safety. Not because it kept its inmates safe, but because it kept everyone else safe away from them. From outside, the view of the structure was less than impressive; the top of its rooftop was shorter than the police precinct’s just beside it. In actuality, the prison burrowed several miles deep and housed hundreds if not thousands of the city’s nastiest criminals. A duskstone powered alarm system was set up throughout the entire prison. Anyone not wearing the gaoler’s insignia would be zapped by tens of thousands of volts of electrical energy if they attempted to pass any of the checkpoints. In the hundred years since it’s construction not one person had been able to escape its labyrinth of iron and stone.

Eddie heaved in a ragged breath. Gods, the place stank. The rotten wood stool and the rat droppings stank, and the bucket they never bothered to empty stank, and the mold and rusting iron stank, and after two nights in there he stank worst of all. He had passed by the place every day on his way in and out from work, but had never actually gone inside.

“You’ve a visitor,” said the key-keeper. She was a weighty lump of a woman with a dozen rattling chains about her neck and a face like a bag of potatoes. “But you’ll have to make it quick.” And she hauled the heavy door squealing open.

A visitor? All of Eddie’s friends were fellow policemen, which was to say he had none left after being suspected of Thomas’s murder.

He was a strange one. His clothes were unassuming, if a bit tattered, with a muddy brown cloak covering up most of it. What caught Eddie’s attention was the expression on this man’s face. The stranger must’ve been several years younger than him, but he had an old eye. An eye that had seen things.

“Hello, Edward Blake I presume?” the man greeted him cheerfully, as if visiting Eddie in that rotting jail cell was the most natural thing in the world.

“Who’re you?” Eddie grunted.

“Hm…I’ve gone through quite a few names, but my colleagues call me Blade Dancer. That should suffice for you.”

“That ain’t no fuckin name!” Eddie retorted

“Mmmm, perhaps not,” the man considered, “But it is mine nonetheless.”

“You ain’t got no blade.”

The man frowned at that, “Well, they wouldn’t let me in here if I was carrying any weapons.”

“And why’s that?”

“Well I’d guess it was probably a matter of security —”

“Not that! Why’re you here? I ain’t never seen you before in my life,” Eddie scowled.

Blade Dancer tilted his head sideways as if not fully understanding the question, “Why to break you out of here of course. Can’t have an innocent man rotting away in prison.” And with the same effortlessness he would’ve used to break a loaf of bread or a toothpick he ripped away the iron bars of Eddie’s cell.

Within seconds the alarm went off and Safety was on lockdown. 

“What the hell are you?” Eddie shouted disbelievingly, still in awe of that inhuman display of strength. “And do you know what you’ve just done?!”

Blade Dancer ignored the question as he slapped the the key-keeper on the cheek as she sprawled through doorway to investigate the situation. The force of the blow sent her several feet sideways, and upon hitting the wall she was knocked out cold. Blade Dancer then pulled out a silver coin with a mysterious symbol engraved onto it and began tapping the wall with it.

“W-what’re you doing now?!” Eddie exclaimed. Blade Dancer just gave him the same pitying look and said, “Well truth be told, I didn’t actually come here to rescue you. See, we’re actually going to go down, not up.” He continued tapping the coin onto the wall and added, “And right now, I’m calling for backup.”

—-

 Lady Almaeda had never enjoyed riding. She found horses dull company and the hardness of the saddle left her with bruises. But she found her horse, Olivine, to be an infinitely better conversationalist than her present company - Lord Dorian Salforis, future director of the Tartarus Energy Corporation. He reined in alongside her and bowed slightly, “Are you enjoying yourself m’lady?”

I could die of boredom, she thought. “This trip has been lovely, Dorian, thank you for inviting me,” she said.

He bowed again, slight color filling his cheeks as he spurred on ahead to make sure the path was clear. The Central Park was generally well policed, but the police could not possibly rid such a wide area of every vagrant and vagabond. They scurried about in the shadows of trees begging for scraps. The moon was bright that evening, but one could never be too careful.

Almaeda let him lead the way, relieved that she didn’t have to stay by his side. Dorian tried his best to be charming, and there was certainly nothing wrong with his looks. When they had found out about her date with him, Almaeda’s friends were practically shaking with excitement. Rich, handsome, and well-educated—what was not to love? But something about him bothered her…it was almost as if he were hollow inside.

“Dorian, it has been a lovely evening, really, but it’s getting late and —“ she recited the words she practiced in her head “Dorian?”

But he was gone.

The park was an eerie silent. Even the wind stayed quiet. Then from the darkness echoed a voice.

“Liar.” it screeched

“Who said that?” Almaeda responded. “Dorian, if this is some sort of joke it isn’t funny!”

“Whore.” said the same voice.

“Do you know who you’re talking to, whoever it is out there? My family is —“

“Die.” said the voice. Almaeda scrabbled back as it seemed to get louder, closer. She screamed, and then the whole world grew dark.

"...Are you okay?" came another stranger's voice. Almaeda opened her eyes. She was okay. The man that stood before her was as unassuming as they came, short of stature with shaggy brown hair and sporting a pair of crooked spectacles and an enormous tome was tied to his back. He helped her up, "Can you stand?"

"Y-yes thank you, umm..."

"Lorekeeper," the man responded.

Though she had doubts that was his real name, Almaeda thought it best not to inquire further. After all, right there, in that dark park, he was her only friend. "Thank you...Lorekeeper. I don't know what came over me."

"Unfortunately, I do," he responded grimly as he pulled out his enormous book and began scribbling on the pages. "And we're going to need some help if we're going to get through the night alive."
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