Would Do Anything for Love (EVK2)
Apr 11, 2023 13:44:57 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer and Jesse Jamester like this
Post by vastrix on Apr 11, 2023 13:44:57 GMT -5
In an ancient forest in Northern Italy,
Donzig, Sinclair Godfrey, and Esmeralda von Krauss walk through a patch of trees so old that they have seen the rise and fall of the Roman Empire itself.
Donzig looks around at the ancient glade and grunts.
Donzig: What god are we going to speak to here?
Esmeralda chuckles as she lights an Egyptian cigarette in a bone-white foot-long holder.
Esmeralda von Krauss: Now why would you think we would be speaking to a god?
Sinclair Godfrey looks around at the clearing that they are standing in. There are no signs of life beyond that of the forest. No signs of civilization were ever here.
Sinclair Godfrey: We think that as who else would be alive from the times when Armand von Krauss walked the world as a mortal?
Esmeralda smirks, flicking ashes onto the lush green grass.
Esmeralda von Krauss: There was a time of beings and forces before the gods came into being.
Donzig shakes his head and looks around him with a glare.
Donzig: What? The sky or the mud are going to speak to us now?
A creaking of wood echoes throughout the glade as branches of a nearby great, old tree begin to move. A face seems to appear out of the side of the aged trunk. Donzig does a double take while Sinclair moves to stay out of the reach of the moving tree.
Donzig: What is this?
Esmeralda von Krauss: A witness to the events that took place here some two thousand years ago, give or take. It calls itself an Ent. Its name…let me think. Cedarpaw!
When the ent speaks, it’s in slow, measured, well-thought-out words.
Cedarpaw: Is this the young man that you wanted me to educate?
Esmeralda von Krauss gives the ent a curtsy with a charming smile that hides her predatory nature.
Esmeralda von Krauss: It is, Cedarpaw! He is fighting my Armand, you know him as Sidimund. I wish for Donzig to know the enemy he fights to that he can better do it.
Cedarpaw: Very well. Let me think. Was I awake during the time of the battle that unseated the last Lords of the Krimson Kharnival? Oh yes. Yes, I was. The torment of those poor souls and of those who lost their minds to become the creatures that they became. Let me tell you this story.
Esmeralda von Krauss: And let it be known that Sidimund and I had already been married in secret. He was a Gothic warlord and I was a Roman courtier/assassin.
Cedarpaw: Yes, they were wed before this story.
Donzig: Can we get on with the story? While we’re all young.
Cedarpaw: It takes some time. The weight of nearly seventy mortal generations is a lot of memory to sort through to find just the right one. Ah yes. It began when the Krimson Kharnival came to this area—this very glade. The very concept of a traveling circus was unknown to the people here and they soon became enthused about the horrors contained within. At least some of the people were. Others found their sanity bleeding away, victims of the Lords of the Kharnival.
So very long ago…
A gathering of tents fills the glade. People cook up treats by individual cookfires. Huts where one can buy tickets to see freak shows. Circus acts go on in the main tent such as taming a lion and other acts of courage go on.
The main stars are the wandering freaks. They creep up upon you and give you a fright. Is it a real werewolf on the night of the full moon that is breathing down your neck? Is that a real ghost? What of the man covered by a sentient hive mind of beetles?
Horrors lurk around every corner as the occasional Kharnival goes vanishes without a trace. Have the freaks devoured them? Have those serving up meat pies, barbecued meat, or other frightening pastries that taste so good gotten them?
Caia Ultia and Sidimund walk through the Kharnival. Fearless as they do not believe in the validity of the freaks and instead believe that they are normal men and women in costumes. They purchase honey cakes and sausages that the vendor claim was made from little boys. They generally are enjoying themselves until they try to leave the Kharnival.
Albino creatures with dirty claws and inhuman screams block the way. Sidimund gets Caia behind him and slays a few of them, but they are both brought down.
Caia Ultia wakes up in a small cage that is roughly the size of an old telephone booth. She stands up and looks around at the Kharnival goers staring at her. The crowd parts and a young man steps up to the cage with a wide smile.
Man: Welcome to the secret part of the Kharnival! This is where we compete with the mighty Roman circuses. We have no chariot races or whatnot, but what we do have is a duel to the death.
Caia grabs the bars of the cells in anger, sneering at the man.
Caia Ultia: Do you know who I am, dahling? I can do more for you out there. Who are you so that I know who dies by my hand tonight?
Man: I am Balthasar. I and my wife control this Kharnival. You will be on the docket tonight to fight. You can fight. Can you?
Caia grits her teeth, attempting to break open the cage door.
Caia Ultia: I am an assassin for Rome. Of course I can fight, dahling! I am no prize fighter though so I will not be fighting tonight or any other night.
Balthasar just shrugs with an indifferent look.
Balthasar: Understandable, my dear. You do not have to fight.
Caia Ultia: Oh good.
Balthasar: Of course, you are welcome to stand still and be killed. It’s not very sporting of you, but it is your choice.
Caia reaches for her upholstery needles, but finds none in her holster. Balthasar just laughs.
Balthasar: Did you expect that I would leave your weapons on you? Noo. Izavel took those from you when you were brought in.
Caia Ultia: Where is my husband? Where is Sidimund?
Balthasar: Oh. I think my wife, Izavel, would like to tell you about him.
A dusky woman walks up to join Balthasar, hooking her arm into his with a wicked smile.
Izavel: I’m afraid your husband has died fighting the wraiths. He took down too many of them for them to not want vengeance so they tore him apart. Will you simply let your opponent slay you so that you might join your husband in the afterlife?
Caia’s eyes open wide at hearing of the loss. Tears roll down her face as she grips the bars to the cage tight.
Caia Ultia: I will fight. I will kill my opponent. Then…I will kill everyone here.
Izavel: I highly doubt that. We will watch you die tonight. It will be…invigorating.
Later in the day, another cage is brought over to be within ten feet of Caia. A rather large man is inside the cage. Balthasar walks over to Caia’s cage with a laugh.
Balthasar: Are you ready to fight? This is our champion. We found him somewhere deep in the jungles across the sea. We call him Skullcrusher. Perhaps he will turn your head into a boil and burst it.
Caia watches the Skullcrusher moving in his small cell and licks her lips. She does not know if victory will be possible. It certainly won’t be easy.
Little men dressed as witch doctors open the two cells. Balthasar and Izavel sit in lavish chairs while rich Roman merchants, Senators, and other well-to-do people begin betting furiously over the outcome of the fight.
Caia Ultia and Skullcrusher begin circling around one another, looking for an opening by which to attack.
Skullcrusher reaches for Caia’s head and she ducks under the clumsy attack. She pelts him with several punches to the ribs that seem to do nothing to the larger man. Skullcrusher turns to face her so that she can deliver a stunning backflip kick to the jaw that would have downed any normal man, but as Skullcrusher is a hulking brute…it does little than set him back a step or two.
Caia seizes upon the opening, leaping high into the air with a roundhouse kick that turns Skullcrusher’s head to the side and sends a spray of blood and spittle away from his face.
Balthasar: Very good, Caia of the Romans. You fight well for being a civilized whore.
Caia grits her teeth in anger and goes for another roundhouse kick to the jaw of the large man. This time, he catches her ankle before the foot impacts. He drags her in to punch her in the midsection hard enough to send her flying backwards to where she lands on the ground in a heap.
Skullcrusher lifts her up by the top of the head and hits a knee lift to the midsection that raises her into the air nearly three feet. He drops her to the ground and steps back as she slowly gets to all fours, coughing up blood onto the dirt.
Balthasar: Now’s the time to end this Skullcrusher.
Skullcrusher palms the sides of Caia’s head and lifts her up into the air. He begins to squeeze her skull.
Balthasar: You still planning on killing all of us, Caia Ultia?
Izavel: Come on, you little cunt. Show us that you can kill someone.
Skullcrusher turns as if presenting Caia to the Lords of the Kharnival as if a gift. Balthasar and Izavel smile in anticipation of the kill when a sword erupts from the chest cavity of Skullcrusher, having gone through the heart. Skullcrusher’s eyes go wide in shock. He drops down to his knees and a wild-eyed Sidimund that’s stripped to the waist and covered in claw wounds strikes off his head.
Balthasar and Izavel jump to their feet in anger.
Balthasar: You can’t do this!
Izavel: How dare you destroy the sanctity of the duel! Wait…is that?
Balthasar: One of the Nine Blades of Ekenara Varkas? How? Only-
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Sidimund cuts him from left shoulder to right hip, cutting the Lord of the Kharnival neatly into two portions. Black blood sprays from both parts as they fall away from each other. Tendrils of flesh reach out from the wounds to try to regenerate the wound, but it is too much damage and the parts are too far away. Sidimund swings the blade again and beheads Izavel, black blood fountaining from the headless neck as once again flesh grows to try to find the head and reattach it.
Balthasar lays on the ground, bleeding out his life. He looks up at Sidimund with a smile.
Balthasar: You do not know what you have done. The Kharnival served a purpose in saving the world and now you have broken it. Death comes for…everything.
The bodies of Balthasar and Izavel break apart into a shadowy substance and go into the sword then the body of Skullcrusher follows. All those slain by the black sword break apart and stream into the sword.
Sidimund spins around as he stands by Caia in a protective stance.
Sidimund: Do any of you want to try me?
A few of the wraiths attack. The mindless albino brutes with dirty, long claws and fangs. Sidimund dispatches them with each before settling into an offensive fighting stance, but no one else dares to challenge him. Sidimund throws down the sword and takes the battered Caia Ultia into his arms and kisses her passionately.
When they finally part, Caia looks at her husband with such love. A look that Sidimund returns.
Caia Ultia: My hero.
Sidimund: I am sorry that I took so long to come to the rescue, but I will always save you.
The scene fades as the couple kiss passionately again.
The Present
Donzig looks at Cedarpaw and then at Esmeralda von Krauss.
Donzig: What was that?
Sinclair Godfrey: It’s a story of what Armand will go through to get to Esmeralda. Of course.
Esmeralda von Krauss: It was how we defeated the Lords of the Krimson Kharnival.
Donzig: So then, you just took over?
Esmeralda von Krauss: Not exactly. Though dahling, I do like Sinclair’s observation of the story. Armand would go through Hell for me.
Esmeralda smiles wistfully at that, almost forgetting to flick her ashes onto the ground.
Donzig: So how did you become Lords of the Krimson Kharnival?
Esmeralda von Krauss: A tale for another time, dahling. Let’s head to the gym and do some training for this wrestling thing that you people do. I could always use a bit of a refresher in your Schwächung der Kampfkünste.
Donzig, Sinclair Godfrey, and Esmeralda von Krauss walk through a patch of trees so old that they have seen the rise and fall of the Roman Empire itself.
Donzig looks around at the ancient glade and grunts.
Donzig: What god are we going to speak to here?
Esmeralda chuckles as she lights an Egyptian cigarette in a bone-white foot-long holder.
Esmeralda von Krauss: Now why would you think we would be speaking to a god?
Sinclair Godfrey looks around at the clearing that they are standing in. There are no signs of life beyond that of the forest. No signs of civilization were ever here.
Sinclair Godfrey: We think that as who else would be alive from the times when Armand von Krauss walked the world as a mortal?
Esmeralda smirks, flicking ashes onto the lush green grass.
Esmeralda von Krauss: There was a time of beings and forces before the gods came into being.
Donzig shakes his head and looks around him with a glare.
Donzig: What? The sky or the mud are going to speak to us now?
A creaking of wood echoes throughout the glade as branches of a nearby great, old tree begin to move. A face seems to appear out of the side of the aged trunk. Donzig does a double take while Sinclair moves to stay out of the reach of the moving tree.
Donzig: What is this?
Esmeralda von Krauss: A witness to the events that took place here some two thousand years ago, give or take. It calls itself an Ent. Its name…let me think. Cedarpaw!
When the ent speaks, it’s in slow, measured, well-thought-out words.
Cedarpaw: Is this the young man that you wanted me to educate?
Esmeralda von Krauss gives the ent a curtsy with a charming smile that hides her predatory nature.
Esmeralda von Krauss: It is, Cedarpaw! He is fighting my Armand, you know him as Sidimund. I wish for Donzig to know the enemy he fights to that he can better do it.
Cedarpaw: Very well. Let me think. Was I awake during the time of the battle that unseated the last Lords of the Krimson Kharnival? Oh yes. Yes, I was. The torment of those poor souls and of those who lost their minds to become the creatures that they became. Let me tell you this story.
Esmeralda von Krauss: And let it be known that Sidimund and I had already been married in secret. He was a Gothic warlord and I was a Roman courtier/assassin.
Cedarpaw: Yes, they were wed before this story.
Donzig: Can we get on with the story? While we’re all young.
Cedarpaw: It takes some time. The weight of nearly seventy mortal generations is a lot of memory to sort through to find just the right one. Ah yes. It began when the Krimson Kharnival came to this area—this very glade. The very concept of a traveling circus was unknown to the people here and they soon became enthused about the horrors contained within. At least some of the people were. Others found their sanity bleeding away, victims of the Lords of the Kharnival.
So very long ago…
A gathering of tents fills the glade. People cook up treats by individual cookfires. Huts where one can buy tickets to see freak shows. Circus acts go on in the main tent such as taming a lion and other acts of courage go on.
The main stars are the wandering freaks. They creep up upon you and give you a fright. Is it a real werewolf on the night of the full moon that is breathing down your neck? Is that a real ghost? What of the man covered by a sentient hive mind of beetles?
Horrors lurk around every corner as the occasional Kharnival goes vanishes without a trace. Have the freaks devoured them? Have those serving up meat pies, barbecued meat, or other frightening pastries that taste so good gotten them?
Caia Ultia and Sidimund walk through the Kharnival. Fearless as they do not believe in the validity of the freaks and instead believe that they are normal men and women in costumes. They purchase honey cakes and sausages that the vendor claim was made from little boys. They generally are enjoying themselves until they try to leave the Kharnival.
Albino creatures with dirty claws and inhuman screams block the way. Sidimund gets Caia behind him and slays a few of them, but they are both brought down.
Caia Ultia wakes up in a small cage that is roughly the size of an old telephone booth. She stands up and looks around at the Kharnival goers staring at her. The crowd parts and a young man steps up to the cage with a wide smile.
Man: Welcome to the secret part of the Kharnival! This is where we compete with the mighty Roman circuses. We have no chariot races or whatnot, but what we do have is a duel to the death.
Caia grabs the bars of the cells in anger, sneering at the man.
Caia Ultia: Do you know who I am, dahling? I can do more for you out there. Who are you so that I know who dies by my hand tonight?
Man: I am Balthasar. I and my wife control this Kharnival. You will be on the docket tonight to fight. You can fight. Can you?
Caia grits her teeth, attempting to break open the cage door.
Caia Ultia: I am an assassin for Rome. Of course I can fight, dahling! I am no prize fighter though so I will not be fighting tonight or any other night.
Balthasar just shrugs with an indifferent look.
Balthasar: Understandable, my dear. You do not have to fight.
Caia Ultia: Oh good.
Balthasar: Of course, you are welcome to stand still and be killed. It’s not very sporting of you, but it is your choice.
Caia reaches for her upholstery needles, but finds none in her holster. Balthasar just laughs.
Balthasar: Did you expect that I would leave your weapons on you? Noo. Izavel took those from you when you were brought in.
Caia Ultia: Where is my husband? Where is Sidimund?
Balthasar: Oh. I think my wife, Izavel, would like to tell you about him.
A dusky woman walks up to join Balthasar, hooking her arm into his with a wicked smile.
Izavel: I’m afraid your husband has died fighting the wraiths. He took down too many of them for them to not want vengeance so they tore him apart. Will you simply let your opponent slay you so that you might join your husband in the afterlife?
Caia’s eyes open wide at hearing of the loss. Tears roll down her face as she grips the bars to the cage tight.
Caia Ultia: I will fight. I will kill my opponent. Then…I will kill everyone here.
Izavel: I highly doubt that. We will watch you die tonight. It will be…invigorating.
Later in the day, another cage is brought over to be within ten feet of Caia. A rather large man is inside the cage. Balthasar walks over to Caia’s cage with a laugh.
Balthasar: Are you ready to fight? This is our champion. We found him somewhere deep in the jungles across the sea. We call him Skullcrusher. Perhaps he will turn your head into a boil and burst it.
Caia watches the Skullcrusher moving in his small cell and licks her lips. She does not know if victory will be possible. It certainly won’t be easy.
Little men dressed as witch doctors open the two cells. Balthasar and Izavel sit in lavish chairs while rich Roman merchants, Senators, and other well-to-do people begin betting furiously over the outcome of the fight.
Caia Ultia and Skullcrusher begin circling around one another, looking for an opening by which to attack.
Skullcrusher reaches for Caia’s head and she ducks under the clumsy attack. She pelts him with several punches to the ribs that seem to do nothing to the larger man. Skullcrusher turns to face her so that she can deliver a stunning backflip kick to the jaw that would have downed any normal man, but as Skullcrusher is a hulking brute…it does little than set him back a step or two.
Caia seizes upon the opening, leaping high into the air with a roundhouse kick that turns Skullcrusher’s head to the side and sends a spray of blood and spittle away from his face.
Balthasar: Very good, Caia of the Romans. You fight well for being a civilized whore.
Caia grits her teeth in anger and goes for another roundhouse kick to the jaw of the large man. This time, he catches her ankle before the foot impacts. He drags her in to punch her in the midsection hard enough to send her flying backwards to where she lands on the ground in a heap.
Skullcrusher lifts her up by the top of the head and hits a knee lift to the midsection that raises her into the air nearly three feet. He drops her to the ground and steps back as she slowly gets to all fours, coughing up blood onto the dirt.
Balthasar: Now’s the time to end this Skullcrusher.
Skullcrusher palms the sides of Caia’s head and lifts her up into the air. He begins to squeeze her skull.
Balthasar: You still planning on killing all of us, Caia Ultia?
Izavel: Come on, you little cunt. Show us that you can kill someone.
Skullcrusher turns as if presenting Caia to the Lords of the Kharnival as if a gift. Balthasar and Izavel smile in anticipation of the kill when a sword erupts from the chest cavity of Skullcrusher, having gone through the heart. Skullcrusher’s eyes go wide in shock. He drops down to his knees and a wild-eyed Sidimund that’s stripped to the waist and covered in claw wounds strikes off his head.
Balthasar and Izavel jump to their feet in anger.
Balthasar: You can’t do this!
Izavel: How dare you destroy the sanctity of the duel! Wait…is that?
Balthasar: One of the Nine Blades of Ekenara Varkas? How? Only-
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Sidimund cuts him from left shoulder to right hip, cutting the Lord of the Kharnival neatly into two portions. Black blood sprays from both parts as they fall away from each other. Tendrils of flesh reach out from the wounds to try to regenerate the wound, but it is too much damage and the parts are too far away. Sidimund swings the blade again and beheads Izavel, black blood fountaining from the headless neck as once again flesh grows to try to find the head and reattach it.
Balthasar lays on the ground, bleeding out his life. He looks up at Sidimund with a smile.
Balthasar: You do not know what you have done. The Kharnival served a purpose in saving the world and now you have broken it. Death comes for…everything.
The bodies of Balthasar and Izavel break apart into a shadowy substance and go into the sword then the body of Skullcrusher follows. All those slain by the black sword break apart and stream into the sword.
Sidimund spins around as he stands by Caia in a protective stance.
Sidimund: Do any of you want to try me?
A few of the wraiths attack. The mindless albino brutes with dirty, long claws and fangs. Sidimund dispatches them with each before settling into an offensive fighting stance, but no one else dares to challenge him. Sidimund throws down the sword and takes the battered Caia Ultia into his arms and kisses her passionately.
When they finally part, Caia looks at her husband with such love. A look that Sidimund returns.
Caia Ultia: My hero.
Sidimund: I am sorry that I took so long to come to the rescue, but I will always save you.
The scene fades as the couple kiss passionately again.
The Present
Donzig looks at Cedarpaw and then at Esmeralda von Krauss.
Donzig: What was that?
Sinclair Godfrey: It’s a story of what Armand will go through to get to Esmeralda. Of course.
Esmeralda von Krauss: It was how we defeated the Lords of the Krimson Kharnival.
Donzig: So then, you just took over?
Esmeralda von Krauss: Not exactly. Though dahling, I do like Sinclair’s observation of the story. Armand would go through Hell for me.
Esmeralda smiles wistfully at that, almost forgetting to flick her ashes onto the ground.
Donzig: So how did you become Lords of the Krimson Kharnival?
Esmeralda von Krauss: A tale for another time, dahling. Let’s head to the gym and do some training for this wrestling thing that you people do. I could always use a bit of a refresher in your Schwächung der Kampfkünste.
