Dark Ages: Fire
The Hunter
In the thickest forest, of the blackest night, beneath the darkest stars, below the tallest trees, amongst the deepest dreams, between the ravenous beasts most deadly, a stalker quieter than silence hunts the deadly game of darkness, speaking to a ghost that only he can see and hear, professing the prayers of a mighty hunter.
Apparition:
“Travelers, orb of the iris, of deepest jet and darkest pitch, wherefore art thou fiend.”
Hunter:
“Misery of witless hap, isolated by ignorance, and wander many years a fool, running from great fortune, for shame, for vainglory.”
Apparition:
“For sensation, have you set your pious plate, hath thee vows of paternoster, should they need the swarthy, moments weak against the wind.”
Hunter:
“Decoy, vile thoughts from the poisoned mind, withal, dead to the world, thoughtless without order, mortal over the fires of hell, meat before respite, melancholy, should they slap your parents, should there be life beyond you, and for all the houses, if a further soul is lost.”
Apparition:
“Satanic scripture written in blood, a science to teach you, and made for us the Minotaur, for some who have seen the horns, the red stare fools. Lachrymose, chaste for those who cannot escape the maze, fortune, naught, and the crows will harvest in the bloody soil, beside the fiery sword, your mettle hammered by smashing thunder if you prefer.”
Hunter:
“The bible of hell is every book conceived.It is no wonder that you cannot see it burning.”
Apparition:
“Broken words perverse, like the followers of prophets who cannot speak the truth, so the cold will preserve the demons of deserved fear, and even there the beast will find you.”
Hunter:
“Monsters above the maze, and the demons began to curse the maps and hide the truth before your eyes, listless, nature always wins, admonish the waves of fire.”
Apparition:
“Tearing down your world manifest, for every answer within the books are never the feign words of demon borne, or find your rotten misery, in your death breath, Lazarus rising, and before they worshiped the tower they were the Vikings.”
Hunter:
“Moreover, become druid, and become wizard or witch, become sorcerer, and become immortal, destroyer and doubter, and the words spilled upon the page.”
Apparition:
“The false prophet sleeps and the slayer sleeps, raze will not befall the dryad or the sylvan, the salt will not drink your blood, whilst your rumors split themselves and fuel the fire, unto, the end of days.”
Hunter:
“Had you sought to be a god you shall not even in your darkest hour and the grave will open for you.”
Apparition:
“If you consume the sage and thyme, you may stay in the garden, to a weed scathe and scorn.”
Hunter:
“A soul no closer than an idea, and the devil put yellow paint into his mouth and spat sulfur on the canvas.”
Apparition:
“Liberal, haphazardly, and screaming like the tortured souls of the fire, usurper of the damage done, and gone into Hades through a stone portal in the ground where the granite becomes molten which through the devil sinks.”
Hunter:
“The survivors of brimstone are blinded thence they had seen, and the demon was gone, and if the Hierophant is needed make your altar and offer your soul just as you do to the gods in your time of need, and the demons shan't make without haste.”
Apparition:
“With games of choice to offer make quickly about dispute, without the false witness of god, lo the gods of man and each tale contains the next, grace of persuasion yet desperate of dire tithes, but more the heretics praise expounding zealotry as a growing ignorance.”
Hunter:
“The master lets down the drawbridge and the apprentice knows when to leave, and whence to make fort, and with this knowledge the dawn of ages and denizen with the help of the demigods, and the alchemist made theirs a city of glass.”
Apparition:
“Each calculus of knowledge now molten yet clear, and the cursed vengeful symbols bring the doubt of faith, and for every vindictive cross they crucify not one body for a crime, fate, brings a new rain on the spring of youth, and the seeds will make trappings that amaze.”
Hunter:
“Through the streets again with him the liar, for the gifted must make children, and if a simpleton wary and murder than a twist of fate shall be resolute, science of the scion, temptation, would have you forget jurisprudence, if doth the jury of hell.”
Apparition:
“Stand on circumstance with the diva satanic, and from your sacred writ to obey and learn, for there is no hell without the other racing charger, a lesson in despondency.”
Hunter:
“Our ancestors watch this union of blade to bone...making my aim straight and true.”
Apparition:
“The blessed may go with the good graces of god, so say we all, this twilight unlike another, in hallow, in heart, in haven, free and accepted, forever more, welcomed by all, and blessed be.”
Hunter:
“Ere consumption, past destroying the futures, for your malice, sad are the words of the sycophant, hopeless and manifest, search the world for fuel, seek the wolves of perdition, war beyond hope.”
Apparition:
“There is jeopardy from the hounds of hell that hunt the bounty-souls, a hunter, made before the worlds to which they heed, tired of hypocrisy and slaughter.”
Hunter:
“Hunting insurgents for good measure, through the setting sun, and the rising tides of day, until the felicity from hunting in the dark shadows of the night finds me. I will feed on the spies consigned for fuel to hunt, prayers at every cairn, bloodletting in every shadow, readily, and stealing breath from still waters I shall run deep, and a song at your slaughter. For if the beast hears flit and me I will hunt them all without fail, and when I perish, the beasts will multiply, in the den of thieves, I will feed my wolves, and you will know us by the trail of the dead.”
Apparition:
“Sink your teeth into a river, individually they are weak, tell us these stories, but what power is war, should not a vampire sleep restless in the night.”
Hunter:
“At what so forth verily shall requite, haunted at best while others tare and tithe the hunted?”
Apparition:
“The saints and sinners drinking the black blood of the shadow child, dark stairwells upward to doorways of light, for favored listless and despondent ways. There came a schism, where the holy no longer found their pray to be sacred and sought to find animals in their very spirits, and the earth was carved for farm until the thieves could make great feasts by the charity of ministry."
Hunter:
“Verily came many faiths of them each having many shades, as many holy halls as colors of light yet without exception all of them warring and scorning as a generation of hypocrisy and heresy and magical thinking.”
Apparition:
Reminiscent and pleasured, “Where the devil of old tale lived in infamy of superstition never mentioned and never trusted, and there the devil walked the earth terrible and strongest, where the whims of platitude combine with fear the raucous of the devil's playground prepares to consume the heart of humanity.”
Hunter:
“Predator prophet, may the blessed smoke tree save us from the holy, wrath above us all, leaves of red to show life and shadow our abide, and let the blossom appease and distract the angels, our steps are felt by the shadow, forever our freedom…”
At the very moment where silence dies, the hunter realizes he has become the prey, a panther leaps to him with much malice. The hunter turns with a dagger and diminished breath, his full thought unspoken. It is this dagger lodged by instinct piercing, the throat of the black cat unbroken, not properly stricken tears only ineffectively cutting into the neck. A wound visual but not tangibly victorious nor palpably sufficient, it is highly angered, its claws combat. Where a bear would claw with a thrashing pummel, the feline bats and raps padded clubs with claws attached that if not laid to low will break his armor or pull him apart at first catch to shred him thoroughly and lick his bones clean. He has but the length of a breath to prevail, with a hissing gasp the cat will soon tear his head or a limb with sturdy fangs that glisten in the dying starlight. The hunter’s first reach is timid but with death imminent, he reaches into the open wound of the neck and holds a cord of sinew with all his strength, with the dagger in his open hand he tears the wound long and straight opening the cat taking four slices parallel to his armor for once and all over older scars. In tradition, adapted over the years driving down the darkness, the hunter names the creature Old Scratch and wherewithal will fatefully keep the title for himself, until the next hunt.