On a long list of mood killers, the room you're making out in suddenly collapsing into the basement and taking you with it, was up there. Top 3, no doubt. Ian had come to a little before she had, body aching and head pounding. That wouldn't be so out of the ordinary for Ian, but the piece of... rebar!?... that was sticking out of his abdomen and into hers, was new. He definitely was not a fan, 0/10, do not recommend.
He coughed, squinting around them at the debris that was doing a grand job of closing them in. Ian could move it, eventually, but better to save his energy for keeping their blood in their respective bodies. "Fuck me," he muttered, pressing his hands over their wounds, slowing the bleeding with his magic. They needed help. They needed to get out of here before both their supernatural healing could kick in. The last thing he wanted to do was risk Ava. As she stirred, he let out a sigh of relief. "Hey, babe. How you doin'?" @a-vamontgomery
"hey sweetie," ana greeted, appearing suddenly in the doorway amidst all the chaos. "i could sure use your big, strong, arms down in sector b. what d'ya say?" @itsannabethlin
"Never a dull day down here, right, A.B?" Blake greeted. When the shockwave had hit the town, the underground wasn't left out. Agents were scrambling left, right and centre to get topside. Blake was here to help however he could, most likely moving rubble.
"Are you heading to the Southside exit too?" @itsannabethlin
Nightmare all but shut down as the full moon began to ascend into the sky. Older residents drank whiskey and bourbon at the bar as several howls filled the silence in between small talk. Children were ushered inside by their parents and the town guards patrolled the town on high alert, ready to jump into action in case any wolves lost control.
Everything seemed to be going according to the usual full moon plan, and no one suspected that a darkness loomed over the town, unstoppable and devastating in nature, and was waiting for just the right moment to make itself known.
That moment finally came as the moon reached the highest point in the night sky, casting moonbeams through the trees and onto the buildings in town. One in particular hit the attic window of the Council Hall, illuminating the small, dusty area. It rested on the wooden panels of a particularly dusty and battered looking chest that hadn’t been touched since the Founders chucked it into the attic -- which was the last time the chest had been touched.
Just minutes after the light of the moon touched the chest, it began to rumble, softly at first, and then violently. The rumbling then spread to the attic itself and then to the building, making ceiling tiles fall and the wood flooring and walls crack. A dark smoke, moving almost like liquid, began to seep from the seams of the chest and surround it, hissing whenever it came into contact with the wood. Finally, the rumbling stopped, the smoke disappeared, and all was silent.
BANG
It sounded as if several canons had gone off in unison, temporarily deafening anyone in the vicinity of the Council Hall. As the sound went off, a burst of magic exploded from the chest, sending wood pieces flying through the attic and either becoming lodged in the walls or blowing holes right through them like a shotgun blast. The burst of magic flew through the entire town, knocking every living being off of their feet and also knocked the wind right from their lungs. Several light bulbs blew out with the blast and windows shattered, and some people even dropped dead, causing more terror and panic than the initial magic had caused itself.
Back in the attic, the dark smoke still danced around as if it were alive and began to form a solid shape, slowly fading until a person stood where it had just been. Once the smoke was finally cleared, it revealed a woman, partially revealed by the light of the moon. She stood tall, her back as straight as a line, with the ghost of a smile on her face as she looked around the attic, no doubt pleased with being released from the chest. At her feet rested a silver sword, a bow, and a quiver of arrows, shimmering in the moonlight.
“Finally,” she grinned and bent down to pick them up. It had been far too long since she held her most prized possessions in her hands. Once her sword was secured around her waist and her quiver and bow upon her back, she checked the pockets of her clothing and the bag she kept at her waist, making sure the rest of her belongings were on her.
After a few moments of searching, she found a small pouch of coins, a journal and a map, and a few trophies from her kills. She also checked to make sure her handmade bracelets were still tied onto her wrist, as they were irreplaceable, being made of werewolf teeth and such. After being sure everything was in place, pulled her long necklace chain from inside of her shirt. It held a small ball of silver the size of a walnut and glowed dimly in the dark. A soft hum could be heard if the ball were held to a person’s ear, something she did to ensure that her soul was still safely stored within the token.
Once her inventory was taken and she placed the necklace back under the layers and layers of her clothing, she climbed out of the attic window and walked into the center of the town, more than confused about where she was. People were running around, screams and howls could be heard, and hardly a soul paid her any attention until she grabbed a young woman by the arm and pulled her aside.
“Where are the witches?” She asked the girl in a soft, even tone, but squeezed her arm tight enough to bruise.
“What?” The girl’s tone was obviously frightened. With the blast of magic and dead bodies all over town, this threatening woman was the icing on the terror cake of the evening and through her fear, she hardly understood the question in the first place. “Which ones?”
The Huntress almost responded to the girl by yelling at her, telling her that she knew the witches she spoke of, but her question caught her off guard. Which ones? There was more than one coven left after all of the killing she had done? Surely the girl was mistaken. Her confusion must have been plainly written on her face because the girl, while trying to pry the woman’s hand from her arm, told her, “I’m a witch, and there’s more all over town...”
This information pleased her and she squeezed the girl’s arm even tighter, causing her to yelp in pain. A sick smirk appeared on her face as she pulled the girl close, looking directly into her terrified eyes. She was positive that the girl knew the witches she spoke of, as everyone did, and once she passed along her message, she knew it would cause panic among the coven that trapped her. Unfortunately, she had no idea how long she had been trapped or that they had been dead almost as long as she had been in that chest.
Nevertheless, she gave the girl her message. “I want you to tell them that The Huntress has come for them. I will send them and all of their vile offspring to the dark gods for what they did to me. Let them know that their magic wasn’t strong enough to keep me trapped for long, and that I will mount their heads on spears and display them for this town to see. And if you don’t hurry, I will start with you, my dear girl.”
She released the young witch and watched her run away, her smirk still intact. Once the girl was gone, she returned to the building that she had come out of and climbed back into the attic, deciding that in the event of the witches ambushing her, it was much safer to watch everything happening below from the shattered window above.
Legend tells of an ancient hunter made immortal and unstoppable by a group of religious witches to destroy the races of monsters. Their chosen Huntress was taken from her life of poverty and misery and used in a forbidden ritual dedicated to the dark gods. During this ritual, half of her soul was ripped from her body and placed in a token of the Huntress, for safe keeping. The gods replaced the missing piece of her mortal soul with pieces of their own, effectively making her one of them, therefore making it impossible for her to die by normal means.
The gods and witches had made sure that the only way for her to die would be to reunite the rest of her soul with her body and to kill the body, but that task was made impossible; the token stayed on the Huntress at all times -- and only the gods knew what it was.
It also tells of the infamous weapons given to her by her patrons: a silver sword that she named Soul Destroyer, enchanted with the power to effectively reap the souls of anyone killed by it, making it impossible for a necromancer to raise them or for their souls to return int he form of a ghost. Her silver tipped arrows were enchanted in the same way, which made her a more than terrifying opponent, as she had the power to permanently kill anything that got in her way.
She quickly became the bane of supernatural creatures and was given orders by the witches to take out whoever they felt were a threat. It didn’t matter if they were werewolves, vampires, necromancers, or other witches; no one crossed paths with the Huntress and survived. This caused the once formidable groups to say her name in whispers -- or not at all, which she was more than pleased with. For decades she drove monsters almost to extinction and created a large following among humans that began to hunt down creatures on their own and sacrifice them in the name of the Huntress.
Her long and bloody story ends with a shocking betrayal on her part. She began to tire of being given orders and being forced to kill and decided that if her immortality was irreversible, she would not spend eternity under the control of what she viewed as lesser beings. Once she had killed half a dozen of the witches, effectively weakening the group, the rest of the coven realized that she was the one behind it and turned on her. It took all of their combined power to stop her, but they could not kill her or harm her, as their previous magic was much stronger when they created her.
Instead, under the light of a full moon, they were able to trap her in a wooden chest and use every bit of magic they had left in their bodies to seal her in for what they hoped would be eternity. in order to protect any future generations from suffering at the hands of the Huntress, the witches decided to pass the chest down through their bloodlines. Instructions were handed down with the chest to perform the same ritual under the light of a full moon every hundred years, but that part of the story was forgotten long ago.
No one knows where the chest resides currently, and her story has been lost to the history of mortals and only regarded as an old myth. Monsters pass the tale down from generation to generation as a warning to their children about the horrors of mortals and the power of dark witches, but no one alive remembers the true horror of the Huntress, and no one remembers what was fact and what was legend anymore. Only the gods know, and their hope is for the truth to remain sealed with the Huntress herself for all eternity.
