Continued from here
16th of Cylus 720, First Break
Woe heard the snap of a cable before he could react. A bucket of caltrops was set over the door, it's payload came falling down on his back as he went blindly through the door to Sywena's suite. "Ach shit!" He spat, and clawed the little metal jacks away from his head and neck. As the small needle-like points pierced his clothing and skin, he nearly lost his wits with the pain.
A quick caress of ether to the rune on the back of his neck dismissed it, and lessened the pain of their pin pricks. Yet the trap had the intended effect of alerting Sywena, who woke from the bed, and looked up just as Woe was fetching the whip from his belt.
Did she know he was coming? Did she see him in the tavern? Too much uncertainty for him, he neeeded to arm himself for this, lest he get caught unawares. He only said a few words, lacing them with his etheric venom to latch onto Sywena's tangle. He wanted to know why, why she did this, what was she after?
The well-oiled hinges of the room door slid shut behind him after he motioned for it to close. "Hello Sywena." He muttered, whip in the other hand.
She gasped, then reached for something in the side of her bed. Rather than let her get it, he lashed out with his whip, catching her by the wrist, and pulling her forward. Yet he was too slow even then, and whatever it was sprang with a metallic click and mechanical twang. A crossbow!
The bolt skidded across the ground, her aim disrupted by his whip strike. With another yank of the whip, she relinquished her hold on the weapon. Woe pulled her toward him, stepping forward as he did so, careful to avoid stepping on those caltrops.
Once he was clear of the area the caltrops had fallen, he rushed forward to grapple with the small woman. It was easy enough to over-power her, and pin her to the ground as she fought.
"Let... go!" She growled. Woe responded by punching her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. "Argh, Woe, please!" So she did know who he was. And she'd intended to kill him. His anger deepened.
As they struggled on the floor, Woe felt something stirring in his soul. Was it... the sadness, the anger, the vacancy in his tangle? No this was something else. As he wrapped the cord of the whip around Sywena's neck, he turned his attention inward, letting muscle memory take the reins.
What was it that was bothering him? He'd tortured hundreds of people, killed about half that many, and cared not a whit for any of them. Why after all that time, since he came to Etzos, really, had he begun to feel such an extreme of emotions? Was it some awakening of his soul that had occurred between then and before? Something that had taken hold over the gradual evolution of his sense of self? Or was it something entirely alien?
Alien... Then he realized. The Spark. The Spark was the commonality to those events. Only after he'd initiated into Empathy, had he felt such a depth and damnable curse of emotional turmoil. The first pangs of it had afflicted him after Werthom's death, then onwards to his first meeting with Magpie. Then there was Emmy, who he'd felt the need to unburden his 'feelings' to, and lost control of his spark. His spark needed something, it wanted... something.
What did it want?
He'd given it the reins so many times over the past seasons... What else could it need, other than to further its bond with him. Then he realized; the spark had a hunger, a thirst. It only came apparent as he felt Sywena's weakening struggles beneath him.
The Spark was wounded, bleeding slowly from the seams that burst from the rapid advancement of his magic. What could he do about it?
He would staunch the flow.
Woe flipped Sywena onto her back, holding her by the shoulders as she coughed out what breath she could manage. His eyes dilated, as he made the realization that had eluded him for nearly an arc. An arc of internal turmoil and conflict. A conflict that would soon come to a close.
Drink. Said the dark voice at the back of his mind.
He bent down, and kissed Sywena. The warmth of her lips recoiled from the touch, not nearly as willing as Emelia's had been. Yet her strength waned as she lost her breath steadily. In another moment, she did breath, but not air.
Her soul began leaking out in a trace tendril from her lips. The first taste was incomparable to anything Woe had felt. Beyond the smoke of the poppy. Beyond ecstasy of moments he'd shared with Emelia, Heen, or Magpie. Beyond them altogether by a hundred fold.
Like a sublime,etheric opium, one fit only for a god to consume, Woe drank her soul in. He ignored the scream tearing through the room, shaking the foundations of the Inn. The soul came through in rivulets as her flesh lost its softness, and began caving into a dessicated husk. Finally, when at last Woe felt himself kissing nothing but ashen bone, he groveled at Sywena's corpse. He clawed, pawed, and fondled the destroyed husk, trying to capture only a fraction of what he'd only now experienced.
"No.... no no no..." Woe murmured, "I need more! More!"
Yet, other matters would soon concern him, as he heard shouting from outside Sywena's room. Woe's head shot up to look at the door. He saw the scattered caltrops, the husk of Sywena, and her belongings.
With little effort, he threw the ashen remains of the girl beneath the bed, and began sweeping away what caltrops he could from the floor. Even his whip he tossed beneath the bed, deciding that it'd be worth it to lose.
Then, standing and straightening himself up, he moved toward the door. And opened it.
Fleaface was behind it. "Oy Master, heard ye might've been 'ere." Woe's dilated eyes went wide. He stared behind Fleaface, at the railing that led into the open common room of the floor below. "Don'tcha worry master but we better clear out of here. Figured something like this might 'appen."
Woe turned his attention from the common room to Fleaface, "You... Knew this would happen? How? And...'"
Fleaface tapped his nose. "Trade secrets master. Somethings even I can't tell ya." Woe stared at the man's mouth as he made the words, but almost didn't hear them. He felt the call to drink another soul, but caution and knowledge of Fleafacce's potency as a fighter stayed another attempt at murder. Especially a murder so soon after the most recent. Woe would have to watch himself from now on, as he felt a new addiction wracking his being.
"But eh... We better clear up around here, made a bit of a mess. Once we're done, we'll be on our way, aye?"
Woe was still too senseless with euphoria to argue, and perplexed by the absurd notion that Fleaface could've planned this. His Fleaface wasn't clever enough to orchestrate a happening like this. At least, he didn't think so. "Right. Yes. Let's... take care of her body."
So they spent the better part of the next few bits frantically erasing all but Sywena's memory, and the evidence of what had occurred there. When at last they were done, Fleaface brought Woe home, letting the senseless mage lean against him for support as they went along.
"Fleaface?"
"Master?"
"Do you think..."
"Master?"
For another few moments, Woe said nothing, but then forgot what he was going to say afterall. It was nothing, a whisper of a shadow between the Empathy initiate, and the burgeoning expert who was swiftly becoming a master.
"Nothing."
Fleaface gave a slight tilt of his head to regard Woe, and then shrugged. The two made it home through the streets, and in through Woe's front door to his apartment building.
Within moments, Woe collapsed in a heap in his bed. Before long, he began to forget what it meant to feel emotions that were his own. He slipped into a deep and comfortable sleep, unburdened by his own whirlwind of emotions, for the first time in almost an arc.
He thought not of Magpie, of Emelia, of Heen, nor Sywena. He thought of himself, and how he was going to rebuild from the terror that had gripped him for a solid arc. He was free, free to be the monster he'd forged from the moment he crawled out from under Erastus' hatchery.
Concluded here
