A Wolf In A Hole
Aug 8, 2018 23:45:20 GMT -5
Post by Raleigh Cooper on Aug 8, 2018 23:45:20 GMT -5
[Open Thread. Eloise St. Germaine if she wishes to jump in.]
Raleigh was not one for underground passageways. Especially when he had himself a fine woman to be entangled with back in the city. But sometimes the subordinate had to make an appearance to pass on a message or two from those in the city. Being a trader of meat and other goods afforded him the perfect cover to enter the city. As an unmarked mage he gained another advantage. Even when searched at the gates no one who suspect a thing. Fore Ra was a clever fiend and had devised a way to hide the messages he received in code carved in the form of decorative designs in the bones of the animals he slew. Most he sold at the market. People liked pretty things after all. Save for the special message bones that he kept aside for special customers. These he'd slip into the packages of dried meat and herbs he delivered to select shops. Where the people would decipher the code by rubbing ink over the bone and rolling it upon a piece of paper to imprint the words onto the parchment for the recipient to read.
Personally Ra liked using blood to act as the ink, but most were squeamish when it came to slicing their own fingers. He always had extra bones on hand to carve messages given to smuggle out. Which carved before burning the paper. He had passed on a message to higher ranked people in the group that morning. Now he found himself in the library. Dark and dusty as it was. Giggling and muttering as he hunched over a note book, pen working furiously. If one were to peek over his shoulder they'd be able to read a snippet of what he was writing.
...In the cold black darkness of the midnight hour, the world was deathly still. Nothing stirred- as if the world were holding its breath against the evil that had slithered into town with an icy wind snapping at its back. The wind followed the dark being like a skittish pup as it let out a mournful sigh, retreating from the village alongside the black figure. The barren branches of lifeless trees clacked and groaned in the wind, like skeletal fingers silhouetted again a soulless sky they so desperately clawed towards. A lone crow, grizzled by age, let out a low call of nevermore. Its sharp vocals drifting through the vacant streets, bouncing off of cold stone walls. The biting air was filled with the scents of rotting vegetation and open sewage. A palatable tension, of men and women hiding behind masks as they pretended to live happy lives, filled the air with a stale falsehood. Within this town of liars and cheats, where skeletons are regularly buried deep within one's closet. Where deceit and villainy lay hidden behind the happy farce each villager- erected around themselves like castle walls- a single pair of honest souls lingered...
The pen continued to scratch furiously at the paper. Inking the words to a new horror story the author had begun with much glee. He so loved to write and was far more literate than one would expect. A skilled learned from his mother. She had drilled the finer arts into his mind. He knew all the prim and proper ways to speak and act, and chose to ignore them. He much preferred how he spoke. Off kilter and never at all consistent. It was far more fun than boring properness and irritating airs. All they did was make him want to rip people's throats out. But the fancy shmancy words was what sold books and so he wrote all fancy and proper-like. Funny how people enjoyed a good, bloody horror story in the privacy of their homes, yet they shied away when faced with the real thing. Everyone always seemed to hide away their darker sides, only indulging it in the shadows. Like skeletons hidden away in the closet. It made the world a boring place. But it helped him to sell books. As a new author, it helped to get his name out. Not that his name was actually on the cover, as he chose to write under a pen-name; Syran Cooper. But you know what he meant.
708 Words
Raleigh was not one for underground passageways. Especially when he had himself a fine woman to be entangled with back in the city. But sometimes the subordinate had to make an appearance to pass on a message or two from those in the city. Being a trader of meat and other goods afforded him the perfect cover to enter the city. As an unmarked mage he gained another advantage. Even when searched at the gates no one who suspect a thing. Fore Ra was a clever fiend and had devised a way to hide the messages he received in code carved in the form of decorative designs in the bones of the animals he slew. Most he sold at the market. People liked pretty things after all. Save for the special message bones that he kept aside for special customers. These he'd slip into the packages of dried meat and herbs he delivered to select shops. Where the people would decipher the code by rubbing ink over the bone and rolling it upon a piece of paper to imprint the words onto the parchment for the recipient to read.
Personally Ra liked using blood to act as the ink, but most were squeamish when it came to slicing their own fingers. He always had extra bones on hand to carve messages given to smuggle out. Which carved before burning the paper. He had passed on a message to higher ranked people in the group that morning. Now he found himself in the library. Dark and dusty as it was. Giggling and muttering as he hunched over a note book, pen working furiously. If one were to peek over his shoulder they'd be able to read a snippet of what he was writing.
...In the cold black darkness of the midnight hour, the world was deathly still. Nothing stirred- as if the world were holding its breath against the evil that had slithered into town with an icy wind snapping at its back. The wind followed the dark being like a skittish pup as it let out a mournful sigh, retreating from the village alongside the black figure. The barren branches of lifeless trees clacked and groaned in the wind, like skeletal fingers silhouetted again a soulless sky they so desperately clawed towards. A lone crow, grizzled by age, let out a low call of nevermore. Its sharp vocals drifting through the vacant streets, bouncing off of cold stone walls. The biting air was filled with the scents of rotting vegetation and open sewage. A palatable tension, of men and women hiding behind masks as they pretended to live happy lives, filled the air with a stale falsehood. Within this town of liars and cheats, where skeletons are regularly buried deep within one's closet. Where deceit and villainy lay hidden behind the happy farce each villager- erected around themselves like castle walls- a single pair of honest souls lingered...
The pen continued to scratch furiously at the paper. Inking the words to a new horror story the author had begun with much glee. He so loved to write and was far more literate than one would expect. A skilled learned from his mother. She had drilled the finer arts into his mind. He knew all the prim and proper ways to speak and act, and chose to ignore them. He much preferred how he spoke. Off kilter and never at all consistent. It was far more fun than boring properness and irritating airs. All they did was make him want to rip people's throats out. But the fancy shmancy words was what sold books and so he wrote all fancy and proper-like. Funny how people enjoyed a good, bloody horror story in the privacy of their homes, yet they shied away when faced with the real thing. Everyone always seemed to hide away their darker sides, only indulging it in the shadows. Like skeletons hidden away in the closet. It made the world a boring place. But it helped him to sell books. As a new author, it helped to get his name out. Not that his name was actually on the cover, as he chose to write under a pen-name; Syran Cooper. But you know what he meant.
708 Words
