The Shadows of the Damned

[Sprolf]

THE SHADOWS
[font=Engravers MT]OF THE DAMNED



[font=Book Antiqua]
It is the year 814, and war with Kusari looms on the horizon.
Sirius is in turmoil, and chaos rules the night.



Planetside,
Bretonia


The motorcycle sliced through the tempestuous night, a red, watery streak down the deserted alleyways and roads that wove between the towering structures of the city. Mile after mile, it seemed, of black stone and dark Bretonian architecture gave way to nothing else but larger roads, smaller roads, or the occasional tunnel - which would require careful navigation, as the catacombs of the city were extensive, to say the least. It had not been built with ground travel in mind, and the passages down here were complex and roundabout beyond the understanding of man...

The lightning rippled across the sky, the billow of the flickering clouds silhouetting the complex, brutal, early Bretonian Gothic style of the structures. The steeples, towers, gargoyles and crenelations stood out against the sky in the brief moments of the flashes of lightning, only to disappear to leave the world dark, the sounds of thunder rolling across it with its rolling, rumbling voice.

The sleek bike shot out of the alleyway into a court. The red brakelight flared, lighting the entire dim square within the buildings as the vehicle slowed down, sharply turning to the side in a skid around the centre of the court to avoid colliding with any of the encircling structures.

The bike slid around the court, ever slower as it skidded across the damp stone, a wave of grey water rippling across the inundated stone as the motorcycle slowed down. The small waves from the bike's passage lapped up against the central part of this court, a stone circle with a great, arching tree in it - or what used to be one. The entire thing appeared to be petrified - a grey, stoney mass as opposed to a black, rotting trunk that one might expect in this damp. Not a single leaf was visible anywhere. This section of the city was probably centuries old, not like plants would have survived anywhere after it this city sprawled across the entire planet.


The motorcycle jerked as it finally came to a halt, and the boot of the rider stomped down on the water-covered pavement to steady the vehicle. The water splashed against the side of the sleek, advanced motorbike and against the leg and coat of the rider - who was busy glancing upwards, scanning the buildings above. They were there, looming, omnipresent, but only revealed to the eyes in shadow against the flickering, rolling sky. A white, luminescent, face dominated one, a circular light. It was like a moon on this moonless night. A moon with hands, that was. No man in this moon, just the lettering of a clock. A clock which displayed that it was almost three - in the morning.

The rider shut the bike off, and the plasma flywheel engine slowly whirred to a halt.
The red lights around the rims of the solid, slick wheels dimmed slowly, as did the rest of the lighted highlights along the cutting-edge lines of the vehicle. The headlights remained on, casting their pale glow across the courtyard, upon the enigmatic tree that stood in defiance of the city.



The clock began to strike three.

A single brazen note echoed over the city, a reverberating gong that seemed to shake all the raindrops in the air, and seemed to make even the lightning quaver in fear.

The second strike sounded, the noise so powerful that it could be felt.

The third.



And then silence, the pouring of the rain onto the pavement, the endless deluge.

A fourth strike sounded, seeming to reverberate from beneath the very foundations of the city.

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