| From: | Jett zmjett@*********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Truths and Shadows |
| Date: | Sun, 11 Jul 1999 05:20:06 -0400 |
>>>>>[The room is dim, lit only by moonlight and the flickering candles
that cast enough light to make out the size of the room and the figures
within. Shrieks and curses echo up through the stone chamber, bouncing
off the domed ceiling and echoing until the sound is barely recognizable
as human.
The ceiling soars to a decent height, two stories high perhaps at the
highest point of the dome. Arcane etchings spill down the walls and
across the stone floor, forming a circle roughly 15 meters wide, the
band of runes and symbols around perhaps a meter wide. Black candles
encircle the ritual area, casting a warm, even glow.
At the center of the circle is an altar draped in black cloth. Moonlight
gleams off Jett's pale, bare skin, rendering it smooth and white, nearly
translucent as alabaster as she lies struggling on the surface. Her ribs
and hip and collar bones are visible through her flesh, as though she
were a skeleton with a sheet draped over it. Black bands hold her
wrists, ankles, waist, and neck, effectively pinning her. Occasionally
her form flickers, apparently trying to change into something else but
failing. Her face is drawn with exhaustion from the effort, and black
smoke wisps from her empty eye sockets. Hyena stands over her, waiting.
Behind him burns a fire, heating the contents of a brazier on a
pedestal.
The others come in a grim procession, figures dressed in black, the same
that always seem to be present. The line is led by the hunched figure of
Jackal, with Dog the hulking cultist called Crow, who walks stiffly but
is mobile nonetheless.
Two others have joined the group: a male figure, tall and painfully thin
wearing a plain mask carved of wood. The other is short, powerfully
built, wearing the snarling face of a wolverine.
At the very back of the group is Umbra, his face hidden by the glossy
lacquered black mask.
Hyena's voice echoes over Jett's shrieks of rage. "Enter and be welcome,
brothers and sisters." He nods acknowledgement. "We welcome Brother
Wolverine and Brother Mandrake to our circle." His gaze falls to the two
newcomers, who bow their heads in greeting.
Hyena gestures, as the others enter the circle and bow their heads. A
moment in silence passes. Then: "Brother Crow, if you'd do the honors?"
In his voice, the smirk is apparent as he hands the larger man several
black daggers, slender and deadly and wickedly sharp at the point. More
like throwing knives than true daggers, but lethal nonetheless. "I
believe, as you were the first drawn blood, that it is your right."
Jett's body starts to glow, a faint bluish color. Frost begins to form
on the black beneath her, and the cloth cracks as it grows brittle with
cold. "Now, enough of that." Dog glares at the other woman, and waves a
hand, chanting in some arcane tongue. The Cold Aura spell fades, the
blue glow dissipating.
Crow approaches the altar, spikes and hammer in hand. One hand touches
his side, gingerly, his posture stiff with bandaging. He leans forward
to Jett's face, and whispers softly, "I'm going to enjoy this, bitch..."
"Fuck you." Jett spits in his mask, her saliva still tinged with blood.
Then headbutts him in the face, nearly spinning the beak of his mask
around and causing him to stagger back. Her head falls back to the altar
as the band around her neck constricts choking-tight, causing her to
gasp for air. Crow straightens, regaining his composure after a moment.
He doesn't say a word as he gently places the tip of the spike at Jett's
left shoulder, just below her protruding collarbone. Then strikes the
end with the hammer, the ringing of metal on metal and Jett's cry of
pain echoing together as the dagger is driven home.
Behind the others, Umbra's face is lost behind the expressionless,
indeed, faceless black mask, but he turns away. The other cultist nudges
him, and whispers softly. "A looker, ain't she...not like the other
one..." He watches for a moment. "The show gets better."
The others watch in silence as, one by one, the daggers are driven home,
Jett even unable to struggle as the black bands hold her in place, and
soon she simply ceases fighting, not even dignifying the torture with an
expression of pain as each blade is driven through her forearms,
shoulders, legs, pinning her spread-eagled to the altar. From the wounds
drips thin lines of black blood, which Hyena uses, mixed with ash from
the crucible, to trace arcane lines on Jett's skin.
With the last dagger driven home, the black bands dissipate. Jett is
still, eyes closed and face still. She doesn't respond as Hyena slashes
his own black blade downward across her exposed arm, drawing blood in a
thick black line. The bloodied knife he raises above the brazier,
letting drops fall into the fire. As the blood hits, the flames rise and
change color, gold to red to a deep violet-black color that throws no
light.
Hyena begins to chant again, and the others fall in, one voice at a
time.
Jett begins to weep as her form blurs, pale light radiating from under
her skin and turning it all but transparent. Her back arches as
lightning SLAMS into her, from above, causing her body to lift several
inches from the altar, the daggers tearing in deep but not coming free,
and she screams, a shrill sound of pure agony and despair that threatens
to rise above the audible sound spectrum. A scream that is both human
and inhuman, the sound a being would make if a piece of its soul was
torn away.
The lightning races down her body, sparks licking her bare skin before
Hyena calls it back in, gathering it into his hands as an ink-black
sphere with violet lightning captive inside. Jett lays still again as
the last flicker of light leaves her, sweat gleaming on her body and
fresh blood drawing lines down her sides from her pierced skin.
The blaze in the brass receptical glows brighter, rising, and as Hyena
places the sphere in the flames, black smoke begins to pour from the
fire, coalescing a few feet above, stretching and twisting as it takes
form. It is only a matter of seconds until a semi-humanoid form hovers
before the cultists.
Surprisingly, it's Jackal who steps forward to greet the spirit. "We
have called and bound you, Dark One, to do our bidding."
The voice that comes from the cloud is chilling, broken glass and gravel
and screeching metal forming words. A face is fleetingly visible, a
twisted visage formed of jagged edges and sharp spikes, lightless black
planes. "You have summoned me and I have come. I will serve you."
Jackal bows his head. "Then wait, and we shall call you when your
services are needed."
Simple as that, the spirit vanishes. The fire vanishes as well, blinking
out and leaving the room again lit only by candles and moonlight. A few
moments of silence. Then, Hyena's voice echoes again. "We are the
Walkers of the Lost Circle. We drink of the Darkness and in death find
our life. May the Shadows of Those gone before be thine to bind."
The others echo the words, and nod to each other. The ritual apparently
ended, Dog gazes outside the circle, and then nods, perhaps an all-clear
signal of sorts, and they begin to leave the circle.
Jackal turns to the unconscious figure pinned to the altar.
"Excellent...she is powerful. However, she will be used up quickly." He
looks at Hyena. "Still. We will get what we can from her." He pauses
again. "She will be out for a while, of course. Draining the force from
a spirit often incapacitates it, and skinwraiths recover more slowly
from such a shock."
Hyena removes his mask, tucking it under one arm. "Indeed." His lips
curl up in a faint smile. "Then perhaps we should leave her to Brother
Crow, so that he may take his...pound of flesh."
Jackal simply turns, indifferent perhaps. Dog follows wordlessly,
equally unconcerned, and Hyena leaves soon after. He calls over his
shoulder, "Do not permanently injure her, Brother Crow, or you will be
next on the altar."
Brother Crow already has his pants undone when the rest leave, and has
removed his mask, his blunt, broad face twisted with a leer. "I told you
I'd enjoy this, bitch," he says to the limp woman on the altar, savoring
a moment of his revenge in the empty room.
The camera captures the rape with an unblinking, unjudging glass eye, as
well as the subsequent maiming, the marring of her face and breasts with
a still-bloody dagger pulled from her leg. It's then that Jett wakes up,
when the blade first cuts into the flesh of her cheek. Something in her
seems stilled, beaten, broken, as her head rolls to the side, face
expressionless and eyes staring at a place far beyond the walls of the
room. But there is a spark, a small spark but one nonetheless, that
indicates that she does indeed know what's happening to her.
The figure watching silently from the shadows turns away as Crow begins
his second violation of the incapacitated woman with the hilt of a
dagger, before disfiguring her inner thighs and stomach. The third and
final rape takes place in a pool of blood, before Crow finally tires of
his game, finishes with a grunt, and zips his pants back up. He pulls
the daggers free of the altar, tossing the bloodied metal spikes aside
with a dull clang, and when all have been removed, throws Jett's
battered, abused body over his shoulder and leaving the room.]<<<<<
-- Internal Camera <04:15:34/07-10-60>
