Castle Gangrene
Castle Gangrene was built on a mountain that oversaw the entire city of Hermes by Lord Xerxes Bismarck over a thousand years ago. He started life as a peasant but gradually rose in power due to his cunning nature and exceptional skills in war which lead to the realm of men successfully repelling the armies of non-humans that tried to take the city. Due to it being on the very edge of the Realm of Men and by proxy almost always the target of various attacks, the city and its inhabitants had become hardened and had lacked certain morals and had a darker view on the world. The city of Hermes was the first major line of defense against everything that wanted humanity dead, it has been defended by the mountains and the Bismarck family for generations. It's in this very castle that we find covered in shadows, James Bismarck; the last surviving heir of Tobias Bismarck sitting on a throne and there before him kneeling on one knee, was the cloaked figure that threw the knives at Karito in the forest. It stayed in the kneeling position with its hooded head facing the ground until Bismarck's voice came from the shadows; "I assume you have completed the task?" he questioned.
"Yes my lord" the figure responded with a raspy voice, "My daggers impaled his chest and he fell, but he used a portal to escape."
Silence reigned in the room for a while before the shadows grew larger and wrapped around the figure twisting around him and lifted him into the air while a tendril hovered in the air waiting for a command. As the figure struggled against the shadow tendrils, Bismarck spoke up; "If he escaped, then how is the mission complete?"
"I got him in the chest my lord, and I watched him fall. Even if he escaped, he should have bled out from the knives and he was still weak from the torture my lord." The figure replied as the shadows kept him suspended in the air trying to make his lord see reason. Bismarck kept silent for a while before the shadow tendril that was hovering wrapped itself around the figures neck slowly tightening itself until it left the figure gasping for air.
"I find your half assed work disgusting, but none the less you have served your purpose. Goodbye." The shadow tightened and a snapping sound was heard as the figure stopped moving, a group of shadows formed under the body becoming liquid in nature before they loosened up and let the figure's prone form fall into the pool of shadows. As the body slowly sank into the shadows, Bismarck pondered his next move before an idea surfaced in his head.
"Beli-Ola, I have need of you." His voice rang through the seemingly empty hall before a figure dropped down from the rafters and landed on the ground cracking it with his weight. He straightened himself and knelt down on one knee before Bismarck. "My lord. Beli-Ola answers your summons" Beli-Ola told him while keeping his head down and watching the body drown in the shadow pool. "Beli-Ola, do you still have the assassin's scent?"
���Yes my lord."
"Good. Find him, and bring me his head"
"As you wish, my lord." With that, Beli-Ola stood up and walked out of the room leaving Bismarck alone with his shadows and the still sinking body.
The Fighters Pit
In Hermes, there were various forms of entertainment; most blood related, but none was for famous than The Fighters Pit. It originally started out as a form of execution in which two criminals would fight to the death for the amusement of the public, the winner would gain the right to live until the next fight, and if they ran out of criminals the they would then execute the survivor. Gradually, people started placing bets on the winner of each match, and soon the pits grew larger and more organized until it changed from a pubic form of execution to a public form of entertainment and execution. The fighters were mostly composed off criminals but the occasional slaves and civilians could be found among their ranks due to being sold to pay off debt or looking for a way to make money.
Glass woke up to the roar of the crowd above her cell, covered in blood while her head was pounding. She got up slowly using the wall to support herself as she gained her bearings before looking around her cell; it was small, dark, damp, and the lack of a roof allowed her to see that the cell was deep underground and the smell of waste filled the air stinging her sensitive nose and combined with her splitting headache drove her to puking in a corner.
"What happened? Where am I?" she wondered while wiping her mouth and straightened herself using the wall and waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness before moving towards what appeared to be a door but was stopped from reaching it by an ethereal chain which connected her to the cell wall and stopped her from reaching the door. Seeing the chain stopping her, she sat in a corner and tried to remember how she got into her current situation;
"Last thing I remember is my caravan being ambushed. We fought back and then someone got me." She tries to remember more but the effort only makes her head hurt more and she gives up trying to remember. She stays silent and soon dozes off.
She wakes up several hours later to the sounds of the crowd cheering even louder and the movement of her cell. She feels the room shake and slowly moving upwards and soon the cell was above ground and the door swung open to reveal to her an arena filled to the brim with people cheering at the prospect of blood. The crowds cheering slowly died off as a stout bald man dressed in leather armor stepped into the ring and raised his hands to gather their attention and soon, all were silent. The man put his hands down, cleared his throat, and with a loud voice addressed the crowd;
"Ladies and gentlemen, today I have a special treat for you. Our generous patron James Bismarck has delivered us a very special gift, an accomplice to the despicable creatures responsible for the disappearances of our fellow citizens."
The crowd began to hiss and boo while some started throwing rotten fruits at her, yet she couldn't dodge due to the chain keeping her in place. The man let the bombardment continue for a while before raising his hands to calm the crowd before speaking again,
"I understand your anger ladies and gentlemen and she will pay for her crimes; true she played a part in the disappearances but we are not without mercy. She has been sentenced to three years into the pit starting today!!!" with this announcement, the crowd began to roar and cheer as a second cell rose from the ground.
"Presenting her first opponent, a beastman from the Savage Kingdom" the other cell door opened and she heard a bellow of rage emanate from the cell, "He is responsible for several raids in the past five years and has been sentenced to ten years of the pit. You know him as The Wind Bull, the despicable Taurus the Butcher." The crowd roared in rage as majority of them knew who it was and remembered the raids and the loved ones that they lost in the raids. The match conductor began to slowly leave the arena and spoke his last words, "Remember, this is a battle to the death. Do not disappoint" and with that, he left the ring and the ethereal chains disappeared. The crowd waited and watched as Glass cautiously emerged from her cell and scanned the arena; there was a rack of weapons close to the edge where her opponents' cell was, "Not going after that" she mutters to herself and began to think of ways to beat her opponent, however she was distracted by a loud roar and the sound of her opponent's cell shattering, looking over at his cell, she saw that it had been reduced to rubble and there was a large figure in the dust. The figure swiped its hands in an "X" shape and generated a large burst of wind which cleared the dust and smashed her back into her cell. She wiped some blood from her mouth and slowly got up;
"What was that? Wind magic? Physical strength?" she thought to herself as she steadied herself and moved backwards hoping that the increased distance will put her out of the range of whatever he did, but it was no use, Taurus ran towards her before leaping into the air and punching the air in her direction generating two wind blasts which headed towards her. Glass planted her feet into the ground and channeled magic into her arms and watched them morph into insectoid appendages with beetle shells to shield her from the wind blast before closing her eyes and waiting for the blasts to hit, when the blasts hit her makeshift shields, she buckled under the force and her feet sunk into the ground, but she stood her ground. She opened her eyes and saw several cracks and small holes on the shields, and through one of the holes she saw Taurus descending on her location with his fist ready to punch through her already weak defenses.
As Taurus descended with his fist Glass tried to move out of the way, but she couldn't get her feet free in time instead, she held up her shields and sent more magic into her hands to repair the shields and braced herself as his fist collided with her shields which resulted to a shockwave spreading through the entire arena and the force behind the blow destroyed the floor around Glass and sent her flying into one of the arena walls. She opened her eyes noticed a weapon rack next to her before turning back and looked at the miniature crater that their clash created, she heard a grunt and saw Taurus climb out. As he climbed out, she got a good at him; he was easily 6'9 and his skin strained to contain his muscles, he was completely shirtless and wore a simple trouser. His only working black eye scanned the arena until he found his opponent by a weapons rack and began making his way towards her while his horn glinted menacingly in the sun.
Glass saw him making his way towards her, she turned her hand into a tentacle and used it to grab several throwing knives from the weapons wrack which were then hurled at great speeds toward Taurus, as the knives made their way towards him, a swirl of wind surrounded him deflecting the knives and he continued on his course. Seeing that the knives were useless, she frantically searched around for any weapon to use and her eyes landed on a small bone dagger which she used her tentacle arm to pick up before reverting her hand back to normal. As she turned back in the direction of her opponent, she found him crouching right in front of her sitting form reached down and grabbed her throat and began to lift her to eye level while slowly crushing her throat.
As Taurus slowly suffocated her, Glass heard the crowd cheering for her death over the roar of blood in her ears and she hated it. She hated their cheers, hated their laughter, hated the people that brought her here, hated whoever they worked for and everything in this damned town. Channeling her hate, she tightened her grip on the dagger and stabbed him in the eye causing him to let go and she dropped to the ground. As she coughed and gasped for air, Taurus screamed in rage and pain while clawing at his face until he managed to pull out the dagger from his eye and bellowed in rage as high-speed winds picked up and tore up the arena floor while he kept on screaming. A powerful gust of wind picked up Glass and threw her to the other side of the arena where she crashed into the weapons wrack and fell to the floor screaming in pain as a mace fell on her arm effectively breaking it. Taurus heard her screaming in pain and the winds stopped completely, only to be replaced by gentle winds which flowed through the entire arena. The winds swept over Glass and at that moment, Taurus turned towards her direction and made his way towards her, somehow easily avoiding the torn patches of ground and several debris scattered across the arena despite having no eyes.
Glass saw Taurus approaching and hurriedly used her uninjured hand to push herself up and out of the way, but to her surprise, Taurus changed his path and continued towards her almost as if he could see her.
"How is he doing that?" she thought to herself as Taurus once again moved to block her escape route, "Its almost like he can see me" she thought as she was unknowingly being herded into a corner. She realized this too late when she tried to run away again and found herself face to chest with Taurus and before she could react, his hand lashed out and found her throat once again and lifted her to his now ruined face.
"H, h, how did you find me? Your blind" she gasped out as he increased the pressure on her throat.
"I read the wind" he responds, as if it's the simplest thing in the world, "Years ago before my capture, I once faced a group in a cave system. It was pitch black and I was out of supplies. In the dark, I learnt how to use the wind to see when seeing isn't an option."
He increased the pressure on her throat and lifted her into the air while raising his other hand into the air to gain a cheer from the crowd.
"Are you not entertained!!!!!" he yelled to the crowd and was met with a sea of cheers and chants as the crowd was now in a frenzy due to the excitement of the fight and they were in the mood to see blood. Glass could feel herself getting less and less air with each breath as the hand on her throat kept tightening, and her brain was rapidly going through all the animals that she knew of which had the ability to get her out of her predicament, when suddenly an animal came to mind. Using the last of her magic, she focused on the animal she wanted, before channeling the transformation to her neck and waited for the perfect time to use it. Her face began to turn purple and when she thought that all hope was lost, that when opportunity presented itself; as he held her and felt her futile struggle, he began to laugh, at first it started as a giggle, then it grew into a full-blown maniacal laughter which was carried through the arena. Soon his laughter died down and he spoke;
"I must commend you. You've done so much damage and lasted so long for someone so small, plus you've given me a good fight. I will remember th… gack" his speech was cut short when Glass suddenly contracted her newly developed neck muscles and released a stream of yellow venom into his mouth. Taurus dropped her in disgust and began to claw at his throat as the venom began to work on his body, soon tears of blood streaked down his cheeks before he dropped down to his knees and started vomiting large amounts of blood. Glass laid on the floor and coughed several times before sucking up large amounts of air and propping herself up with her only good arm and got on her feet.
She made her way towards Taurus who now lay in a pool of blood and she put a foot on his chest before raising her hand in the air, "Are you not entertained!!!!!!" she yelled to the crowd as she planted her foot firmly on Taurus's chest. Taurus weakly raised his hand and tried to grab her leg, but ultimately failed due to extreme loss of blood.
As the life left him, the conductor of the match stepped into the arena and lifted a hand in the air which silenced the crowd
"Ladies and gentlemen, that was one hell of a fight if I do say so myself, and it's all thanks to, whoaaa" he was interrupted by Glass who lunged towards him. He leapt backwards and easily avoided her before he snapped his fingers and a cell rose from the ground, the cell door opened and an ethereal chain shot out from the cell and wrapped itself around her neck before dragging her into the cell. As she was dragged away, she stared at the man and heard something which got her attention; "That was Glass, ladies and gentlemen, and we owe Lord James Bismarck for her capture and her presence here. Let's give it up for Lord James Bismarck ladies and gentlemen."
As the chain dragged her into the cell, all she could hear was the sound of the crowds cheering Bismarck, and as the cell door closed and the cell dragged her underground into the dark, she knew who was responsible for her predicament.
"Watch out Bismarck" she thought to herself, "I swear to all the gods, I will kill you James Bismarck, even if it���s the last thing I do"