“Already leaving?” Dimarkis asked as I walked back downstairs,
“Unfortunately, good bit of travel needed for this next one. And…I’ll be gone awhile too.” I said as I walked over, softly squeezed his shoulder before scratching Mittens’ chin before setting a small bag on the table filled with maybe a ten-twenty platinum coins along with my key to the shop before walking outside of the shop, I walked for a bit before dipping into an alleyway before just hopping into a shadow and fell into endless, pitch black and icy cold darkness. I rose up in forestry,
“Alright, Robshaw family…here we go.” I said, I can travel through shadows at a speed ten times that of Omen or my own feet, I just have to have been there before, I have been very, very close to where they were, so I just went intangible as I casted some spells on myself as I shot forward, pulling my hood up, my mask and snood covering my face as I moved at a speed that made all sounds in my ears blur together into nothingness, like after a heavy snow-fall, it was just dead quiet, all I could hear clearly was the blood rushing through my ears.
I broke out of the forest about an hour later, making myself invisible prior at the moment of smelling smoke, I ran through a rather bustling town, huge canals and rivers moving about it turning hundreds of waterwheels in mills of all kinds, the roads were cut stone along the sides were the trash and waste filled canals were, but where I was running was dark, compact dirt that because of the constant water splashing onto them was more akin to something like a mud-brick, there were still horrible conditions, I saw little kids having to climb into the equipment to fix it, only to scream in pain as a limb was caught in the cogs and gears, kids having to fish bobbins out of weaving plants only to end up being sewn into the fabric themselves, I saw kids on roofs sweeping chimneys by tying ropes around them and lowering themselves down into them, hiding inside of huge cotton machines as they kept them running. There kids are paid maybe four copper pieces a week and have to work up to forty hours a week well before the age of sixteen. There were little kids with boxes and rags at corners begging for anything in return for polishing shoes, a little girl walking about selling matches. There were even times where in the capital or larger cities, I would see kids in brothels, not because their family worked there, or to grab their drunk father off the floor, but working there.
Lodor’s military might was built upon the broken, bloody backs of children, that cannot be forgiven and it is my duty to punish those who allow it to keep going. I saw kids in glass making plants in coastal cities without any protective equipment beyond a pair of broken goggles and worn through gloves and were only ever paid by the piece they made and would work up to twelve hours a day without a break. There were kids in factories rolling cigarettes or cigars, coal mines, canneries, working as bobbin doffers, making shoe or silver polish, making them work for hours on end sewing garments, shoes, artificial flowers, feathers, match boxes, toys for noble kids and similar things. Long, hard hours, low wages in unhealthy, insanity working conditions killing many. I’ve seen kids pushing farming equipment because their family was so poor they couldn’t afford any kind of animal to pull it, rolling huge stones to press olives into oil or grapes into wine, forced into mines for precious stones, coal or in huge pit quarries in charge of piles of brick three times their size, plus all of the horrible things that happen with magically gifted children born to lower rings or tiers about the masses of cities and towns about Lodor, being abducted from loving homes forced into military barracks disguised as orphanages. I will put an end to all of this…no matter the cost. No matter how many nobles I have to eviscerate, I will stop the slaughter of innocent children for the sake of progress and having a bolstered military like this.
I ran up the hill before jumping and ghosted through the wall of the huge manor, landing in a study of some kind, I barely even gave pause to the finery around me unless it was obviously supremely expensive or in any way untraceable. I drew my dagger as darkness condensed around me, the moment I saw someone in the hall, I just bolted towards them, barely letting myself become visible as I kicked off the wall and flipped sideways over them, slitting their throat to the point their head fell free and across the floor the moment their knees hit the ground, I kept moving as I made quick and rapid work of the next family member, then the next, leaving the youngest for last, who I let wander the halls seeing the slaughtered bodies of his families members, leaving him sobbing loudly, crying for Mommy amongst similar things, I just clicked my tongue as I shook my head then snapped my fingers making all of the blood vessels in his lungs rupture filling them with blood as he collapsed, vomiting and coughing up blood before falling to the ground, drowned in it. When every body hit the floor, I swung my hand and across every wall, the floor and ceiling were hundred of blood splattered DBs. I rose my hand as blood floated up, I could already hear bells clanging and people on their way here, I just wrote across a massive wall of white stone, letting the letter drip down and bleed into each other, “YOU…CAN’T…CATCH…ME” I nodded softly at my work before running down the hall.
I jumped through a window letting it shatter as I just simply twisted and swan dove two stories into the shadow of a cherub statue in the gardens and rose up in a completely different area. There was no town or anything around me, just a massive compound of military buildings, I ran through the walls before my boots skidded to a halt in the dead center where maybe four-five dozen soldiers were training, a man in full armor barking orders at them as they went through drills. I laughed softly as I rose my hand towards him before he dropped to his knees grabbing his throat before the front of his armor heavily bent outwards then with the loud sound of sundering metal ripped outwards as all of his blood shot towards me, swirling around me in a slow, goopy helix around me as I allowed myself to come into vision as I grabbed my great-sword handle as they all rose weapons to me, I looked to my right at the huge white pedant of the military hanging from the central clocktower of the far wall and shot my hand out, the blood shot across and formed a massive DB. I kept the blood on my right as I held the sword in my leg,
“Try me” I said lowly, as the screams of DB amongst similar things roared out across the landscape around me, I went intangible as I just let myself literally ghost through them as their weapons passed through me without even grazing my skin or armor. I let my sword swirl around me as I let it slide through the flesh of the soldiers around me, letting smoke swirl around me as I channeled their life out of them, I pulled my arm back pulling the blood from one of them as I turned on my foot and pushed my hand forward letting an absolute hellfire of needles of blood shoot forward into a few more, I put my sword back as the blood channeled around me before I grabbed it and slammed a huge scythe made of blood around me that then splattered everywhere, I allowed myself to be carried in a few turns on my feet as I drew my great-sword and longsword. I slid forward as I slid across the muddy ground, taking out the knees of a soldier, rising behind him as I sank my sword through his back, shooting my other backwards into another, I swept them both forward before thrusting them both backwards behind me into two more. I kicked off the ground as a guy went to slam a halberd into me, I landed with my legs around his throat before I just twisted and wrung it with a loud crack, throwing myself backwards as he crumpled, slamming my longsword into the gut of a man as I flew over his shoulder, taking my sword with me cutting him from navel to shoulder, letting organs spill out and pour out onto the ground with a heavy wet plop sound before I leaned back as a sword was swung, I hit my elbow into their wrist throwing the sword out of their hand as I turned and sank my sword into their sternum with a wet, loud crunch before I pushed it downwards turning their chest into a Venus fly trap, I snapped my head around as I flicked my hand out and another’s ribs erupted out their back like a grotesque pair of wings, revealing their lungs moving as they screamed before collapsing pain and blood-loss.
Four dozen left: I turned and full force kicked someone in the chest before grabbing behind me at someone’s throat where they gasped and clawed at my hand and wrist as their skin grayed then blackened as I moved my hand back, green magic covering my hand and wrist as they collapsed, their throat rotting away as their veins turned black shooting upwards and downwards across their body. I hissed outwards as I leaned forward and this…huge cloud of green fog surrounded me making them faulter or run away from me as they fell to the ground, grasping at their throat and vomiting as poison and disease erupted through their body, I rose a finger and a bolt of green magic shot across the grounds into the back of a soldier running for a carrier hawk station as he fell dead to the ground, the shadows on the ground erupted up my body forming this inky hazy cloak over and around me before my entire form rippled and four mirrored forms of me shot outwards, only I could attack, but the other four floated around me taking hits and confusing them. I twirled my sword around me, letting the blade block various shots from crossbows and regular bows atop the walls as I floated back before grandly moving my arm: all of the remaining soldiers all stumbled back in fear as the bodies of their fallen brethren groaned and picked themselves up, wounds still pouring blood and eyes now solid pits of darkness. I can animate, speak, raise and control all forms of the dead. I swung my arm back as blood was ripped out of the dead and around me as a massive ring, I pushed my hand forward and bolts of blood shot out and peppered the walls making the seven archers on the walls collapse and fall off them before crumpling dead on the ground.
“YOU MONSTER!” one screamed at me as I blocked his blade right in front of me with the armor over my right arm as I turned my sword around back sinking it into his belly as I pulled him close,
“Oh…you have no fuckin’ idea!” I growled before silver light poured out of his eyes, mouth and nose, coiling and curling towards my mouth as I breathed in deeply and ate his life essence, throwing his body to the ground as I ripped my sword outwards nearly fully cutting him in half. I swirled my sword around as I let my armored other hand slip along it collecting blood as I said a few arcane words, blood from the bodies swirled up into the air before coiling and curling around me before breaking into three large orbs that bubbled, rippled and roiled as the three orbs that were about six feet wide shifted and warped into three monstrous golems of bubbling blood that all roared these gross, gurgling roars as they lashed out at the soldiers around him. I held my arm out and floated off the ground as I put my sword back on my back as I then rose my hands, clouds formed low, just about a yard over the battlements of the castle, red lightning crackled about the clouds before it started raining blood over the entire fort, but where the thick, sticky blood hit organic material, it turned into puffs of smoke, but where they hit organic material: leather, flesh, grass or wood, it bubbled and burnt as acid.
After the rain stopped, I wafted my hand outwards and the clouds dispersed, but I still remained floating in the air, blood dripping from my armor, not bothering my person at all because it was my magic, though I was thoroughly soaked. I moved my hand over me and all of the blood covering me lifted away as I controlled it away from me letting it drop to the ground before I floated out of the fort, a massive burning D.B in blood-acid across the front face of the fort’s keep.
As I walked out of the fort, I unfurled my scroll, the Atwood family of Mistpoint. About a week by normal people’s methods of travel to the north-east, for Omen, about two-three days. I summoned him as I walked down the beaten dirt road that curled down away from the fort and smoothly carried myself up onto his saddle and flicked the reigns as he bolted.
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