No Eyes - "Jack"'s Story

Night, what a horrible night for a curse to befall the land. The castle, had erupted from the ruins of cities, jutting up from the earth itself, fissures like a purple-to-red storm aurora in the sky lit it along with the stars and moon. Monsters had gathered, naturally, transfixed somehow by an unknown pull that likely came from Yam Suph himself, a feat to make even the Pied Piper jealous. Gathered at the great doors of the fortress, they made their way in, little by little, pulled in and seemingly disappearing, some even fighting amongst themselves.

At the gates, a lone man watched, riddled in bandages, mostly around his right arm, itching at it in agitation. The man was Anselm, a young man, mutated into a partial monster, his left eye, surrounded by scars has turned more bestial, yellow, while the other is blue and more human.

"Damn... damn... damn... so many, damn it aw to hell! Can't sort 'em out!" he muttered, gritting his teeth displaying their sharpened appearance as he itched with more fury. "Don't tell me its already inside, aw screw it, I'm tearin' through!" With his bandaged arm he squeezed the bars causing them to bend.

"If you alert the horde this whole thing's a bust," a voice crackled through a headset he was wearing. He grumbled something about ruining his fun under his breath before loosing his grip.

"Fine, sneaky peeky like, then, but how you s'pose one sneaks into Castle Transdimensionvania 'ere?" he responded with no hiding of sarcasm in his voice.

"Why are you asking me? You're the great slayer, you figure it out, we certainly hope to see results, would hate to have spent all that money for nothing," the voice said, before the com went silent. Anselm growled, taking off the earpiece, throwing it on the ground, and stomping it into a fine powder.

"Fine, never needed nobody anyways."

Jack watched the mighty castle from afar, despite his lack of eye holes in his mask. But he didn't need eyes, for his sixth sense was far greater than any human sense. Perched up on a tree branch, he watched in complete silence. After a moment he hunched over to look down below him, which was a good a good forty foot drop to the bottom. Slowy, in his eerie grace, he jumped down from the tree branched and landed on his feet. The strange, tall man took a few steps, towards the castle. Jack yearned for a master to serve his evil. It had been so long since his last master had been eradicated by the Kura. Jack cracked his knuckles and disappeared into the shadows.

She stood at the precipice of the castle that had risen in the wake of Yam Suph. Her name was Judith Frost, a foremost expert on the occult and supernatural. As she came she had noticed she was not the only one gathered here, not surprising given the spontaneous nature of the event. "So, this is the sanctuary I've heard tell of? Sounds to me like a pleasant romp." She spoke in a surprisingly calm and snarky tone despite her gentle demeanor.

---

Anselm stared at the front doors, observing the movements of every monster surrounding the doors. In his own head he had to admit that this was far more than he could handle alone, but stubbornly he wasn't ready to give up. He scanned the walls of the castle, and found its structure infuriatingly resilient against infiltration, windows, what few that were, were barred, likely difficult to remove, and there was little signs of an alternate entry from this side. He was assigned to slay Yam Suph, and rescue the captives, but a burning thought kept itself in his mind, and it made his arm itch more. She's gotta be here.

It was then he picked up a slight sound like the rustling of leaves, and another, a voice nearby.

"So, this is the sanctuary I've heard tell of? Sounds to me like a pleasant romp."

He heard a woman speak. He turned, looking over in her direction, a disgruntled look on his face. "I told em I dun need backup," he grumbled, itching the back of his head. "Th'hell ya supposed t'be anyway? A secretary? Eh, whatever, I'm handlin' this, so you can just-"

As he began to wave his arm to shoo off the woman a strong breeze like a wave rushed through the trees and over them both, his hair and clothes blew violently against the rush and the gates rattled and groaned. All the monsters in the front of the castle were alerted, some of their hair going on ends, and even Anselm's body tingled. Instinct was telling him to move but instead he turned to the woods as they were suddenly lit with floating blue sprites of some sort, a hollow chirping heard in a slowly rising crescendo, heralding a lone figure. What appeared was something that seemed to be a man, black hair, head down, wounded and limping, but aside from the running of blood from his dangling right arm were black feathers molting from him.

"M-me," he hoarsely muttered as he dragged himself by a perplexed Anselm, paying him no mind at all as he went straight to the gate. The man raised his head, grunting as he did so, and opened his mouth like he was readying to scream. There was a strange crackling, as his jaw extended further, the skin of his cheeks seeming to rip in a jagged pattern and the chirping got even louder as the crescendo increased, ghostly blue light gathering around the figure. Anselm, as if by instinct leapt back, moments before a loud sound erupted, and a surge of blue light erupted from the figure's mouth, ripping open the gates and mercilessly plowing through the monsters unfortunate enough to be in the way of the blast, and it slammed into the door cracking it open and causing the structure to shudder under the sheer force. As the beam dissipated, a blue fire lingered on the door, bits of various creatures littered at its steps. The figure continued forward, dragging himself, the various monsters watching him with bated anticipation. "Should have been me," he muttered, as he continued to limp in through the door, the monsters that survived followed him in and soon the front area was cleared.

"Th'ell was that!?" Anselm yelled when things had turned dead quiet, clasping his human hand over his mouth. Noticing the silence, he crept towards the door and looked inside to find no lasting trace of the figure or the hoard. Well, whatever, never look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess, he thought, as he snuck in through the door, arm ready to take on anything that lingered.

She watched as a man who looked closed to deaths door fired a beam of what looked to be raw mana from his mouth, obliterating the gate before them. "Well, that's certainly one way to get in that's for sure." she said in that bright tone of hers. In no time at all she was following Anselm through the hole that was formed. As a precaution, she swept her arms above her head while closing her eyes, then forming between her hands was a bright flame to light their way.