Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:31 pm
Motes of dust floated lazily through the nebulous darkness of the inner room. A single candle glowed at the top of a lone candelabrum that sat at the head of a raised stone dais. It was the only bit of furniture to reside within the darkened room. A room filled with the scent of musty rot. A room that had, until this very night, sat long undisturbed and quiet.
A trail was left in the thick dust. Left by feet that had plodded slowly, and a trailing shroud in a path that tracked from the edge of the dais to the cold stone corridor. That shroud was left upon the bottom of the stairwell, a rumple of finely woven cloth and gilt embroidery. A smear of blood had been spackled against the roughly hewn stonewall. It was dried, and had offered no sustenance. The stone had suffered for this, as a gouge had been torn from the wall and left to sit upon the stairs.
Bare feet had padded up those stairs next, leaving marks in the dust of two long years. Claw marks followed up along the wall, lazily left upon the stone. The door of wood at the top had been wrenched from its hinges and thrown across the corridor, left as broken kindling and then forgotten. A tapestry had been torn from the wall, the metal bar that had held it up hanging at an awkward angle.
Finally, the main doors to the building had been rent asunder as well. Torn from their very foundation, the metal hinges still attached, and then cast across a broken courtyard to land in bizarre angles. From thence one would find naught. The old and broken manor was left empty, as the folk of Foggy Bottom would discover the very next day.
Whatever dark cloud had lain over the almost forgotten estate seemed to have lifted, and folk started to remember the building as it once had been. Before the ebony skinned traveler had come to town that was. Since then, four years past, the place had fallen into disrepair. Though many said that they had still seen the glow of bright lights within the building. Had heard the sounds of long conversation and the deep-throated music of an organ. These were gone now, along with all the collected tomes in the old library.
Wherever the dark wanderer had gone, it had acquired much in ancient history. Tales of old Myrkenwood and the surrounding lands. Of the trials and tribulations of the province and it’s peoples… But then the creature had said it had been in search of history. Desired knowledge above all else. All else except for the rich taste of Cainite blood, that was…
Those few vampir who remained within the Wall, who had not hastened from the dark territory known as Myrken had had their reprieve. The beast that had hunted them and then left their bodies mangled and broken only to be seared to dust by the encroaching sun had slept in torprous silence. And now it was awake, and it was hungry. And it was looking for the small creature named Phlynn that it recalled as being a… friend.