You looked this way and that as you ensured that the coast was clear, peeked into the windows of the nearest buildings quickly to confirm that you were alone. You would investigate them more thoroughly soon, though not until you had done something more important than this. Something that you felt should have been done already, something that you needed to do before you considered doing anything else. You needed to get a better look at your surroundings, confirm that there was nothing else of note that needed your attention, ensure that you had done that little more to ensure that you were alone.
You hurried across to another of the run down buildings, one that had a tree growing beside it, one that you could see was more stable than the others. One that you could use as a vantage point. You struggled briefly with the tree as you attempted to find a foothold on the rough surface of its bark. The tree was a medium sized oak, one that you knew should have been easier for you to climb, yet you felt that you were going about it wrong. For some reason, attempting to climb it struck you as the wrong way to go about it, not due to the fact that you would get your dress dirty, but due to the fact that it somehow seemed unnatural for you to approach it that way.
You didn't know why climbing it seemed such an alien concept all of a sudden, yet you felt that any attempt to climb it would be met with disaster. Of course, there was another way of going about this, a way that didn't involve climbing it, a way that as unnatural as it should have seemed to you, struck you as being the better choice.
You stepped back, sizing the tree and the building up before you leapt towards the building's wall, your foot kicking off it as you pushed yourself towards the tree, grabbing one of the low branches. You half hauled your body up before kicking off the tree, letting go of it as you grabbed the lip of the building's roof, pulling upward as you kicked off the side of it again, then backwards off the tree, your palms shooting down now as you pressed them to the lip of the building's roof. A slight grin came to your lips as you swung your legs up, as you stood atop the building's roof, now able to survey the surrounding area.
You felt proud of yourself.
You carefully paced across the building's roof as you surveyed the rooftops you could see before you, the streets, the tall buildings that stood out. There was the railway station, with what looked like the rooftops of carriages now visible to you, there was the church, still run down and with its roof collapsed inward. There was an opening for what could be a town square, or a marketplace, though you couldn't tell what it was from this distance, there was what you assumed may be a town hall.
There was something else though.
Something that set you on edge.
There was movement.
You could see what you assumed to be misshapen figures lingering in some of the inner streets, figures that moved in and out of your line of sight as they seemed to pace in an agitated manner. They were a good distance away, however, that was all you needed to know. They were a good distance away from you, and even further from the station that you planned to investigate just as soon as you had poked your head into a few of the nearest houses in search of a weapon.
You ducked and slipped over the side of the roof, dangling briefly before dropping down to street level, ignoring a brief stinging sensation in your shoulders as you did so. It felt almost as if you had pulled a muscle, yet not quite, though the sensation quickly passed. You checked a few of the less run down houses quickly, poking through them as you took note of how one of them had the bones of its former occupants within in. Bones that had been picked clean, bones that only invoked a sensation of jealousy within you.
You would have loved to have something freshly killed to eat.
The thought of food did at least remind you to check the kitchens of these homes, prompting you to pick up and discard several knives as you did your best to find the biggest, most sturdy looking knife you could. One that you knew would serve you well should you need to fight, one that you could stab into some foul creature's heart, like one of the Technomancers who had been looking at you with desire in their eyes.
Especially after they had found out what you were.
It was as if they thought that the discovery of what you were would allow them to easily woo you, as if it meant that you couldn't afford to have standards. The only thing you had really desired lately, was a meal, something raw, bloody, something that you could sink your teeth into and tear chunks out of. They could provide that, though you knew that a certain person would object to it, tell you that you shouldn't do that, find a way to make you feel bad for acting on your nature.
A nature he said you were better than.
What did he know though, what gave him the right to tell you that you shouldn't embrace more of this aspect of yourself than you already did?
You slumped against the wall, huffing as you sank down, crossing your arms as you brought them to a rest atop your knees. Your mood had soured with that thought, with the thought that this man, this idiot who thought himself so smart was trying to control you by using the fact that you owed him so much to allow him to do so. He was using the fact that you owed him, to make you bend to his word, to his will and you didn't like it.
Did you?
Was he?
You felt confused, as well as moody, as if something about this very town's nature was getting to you, as if the stench of death, as if the fact that tainted people were so free here caught some repressed desire to be free like that. As if they had everything you truly desired, yet the thought seemed so alien to you, so out of place, so raw and instinctual. Maybe it was his presence that had been keeping this aspect of you in check, maybe you had forgotten how it felt like. Maybe you had never felt it quite like this before.
You sighed as you absently toyed with the knife you had aquired, though the sound of footsteps caught your attention. Footsteps, in the street behind the house. Footsteps that fell unevenly, footsteps that belonged to more than one person. You could hear voices, too, voices that you managed to catch small snippets of as they passed by your hiding place, as they went by unaware that you could hear them.
"They will come, they that survived will come. Come. Into our home, to steal away with the train. Steal. Steal!" one voice wailed, a voice that bore a strange resonance.
"We shall ambush them, they shall pay. He is gone, the beautiful one is gone!" another cried, making you wonder who this beautiful one they referred to was. Were they talking about the idiot who sent you to investigate?
"Such ugly forms they-" came one voice, harmonious and light, though it stopped abruptly as another voice started, a voice that was deep and powerful, resuming where it left off.
"-bear, while we are blessed with such-" the voice cut off, as the harmonious voice resumed once again.
"-wonderous forms, gifts of the divine!" it finished, prompting a small frown from you. They were referring to the thing that Eurochkoles had beaten then most likely, not Eurochkoles himself, who bore a strange form of beauty due to his ageless nature.
As the voices and sounds of footfalls faded off into the distance, you found yourself wondering if you should continue to the station and approach these things in some manner, if you should head back to inform Eurochkoles of this, or if you should check another part of the town first.Earth: 3 - (Long Distance Running)
Fire: 4 - (Sprinting)
Air: 4 - (Creature Lore)
Water: 3 - (Masking Deception)
Powers:
0 - Ageless.
With enlightenment came eternity.
2 (fm) - Pretender Immortal.
Few know the only methods capable of killing you. Fewer still are able to apply them.
4 (fmmv) - Tainted Flesh.
You rapidly recover from all manner of ills, though there are still substances that your body cannot process. A side effect is, that your bodily fluids are toxic to others.
2 (mv) - Voracious
You are what you eat, the more you eat the more you are.
? (?) - Vulture
? ? ?
Points Pool: 0
Author
Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78951 times)