This is the third night since joining the search for these murderers. Progress has been slim so far. The tight security does not give the murderers a lot of wiggle room and thus also not much to investigate. Sol walks around the torch-lit and sometimes lightning lit streets. Not with his party, simply alone in the darkness. Where he feels most vulnerable and most powerful.
Another painfully slow search, without progress. His party decided to stick together as only Hellas is truly one with tracking experience. The others are more useful in combat itself, but that's not the point of this search. If it were merely about combat the mercenaries would have won long ago.
No, the mercenaries and the parties have to act as hunters lying in wait. A good strategy but this beast knows how to use bait itself. Treating the hunters as simpleminded beasts.
The third night was wetter and colder than usual. The seasons shift as time progresses. Rain actively falls from the sky as the sound of thunder and flashes of lightning give a melodramatic mood to the night. The continuous rain wets the demon's clothes and the sound of the droplets of water crashing into the stone covers the whispers.
'Tonight, it will strike tonight.' Secessus knew because if he was to kill. He would strike tonight as well when nature shows their favor.
During the harsh downfall, it's hard to see the many gazes of the inspecting mercenaries. Most of them probably wondered if he might not be one of the killers. Walking around alone in a town where murder has become a trend.
Then at one point during this long wet night. The smell of blood reaches the nose of the shade demon, his own bloodlust begging him to go. Summoning his wings of darkness and cloaking himself in darkness, he flies at a high speed toward the source.
Mercenaries yell out of surprise or fear when a figure cloaked in darkness and wings hidden by the night flies above them at an incredible speed. Easily crossing half the town in not even a minute. he stands before the house that smells of blood. He tries to carefully open the door.
Locked… The blood is fresh.
With no time for doubt. He kicks down the door and enters the house.
"Wha-!" A woman yells holding a dagger covered in blood. Her victim next to her in a chair, his face stabbed countless times. The murderer cannot speak as strings made of darkness hold her mouth closed. Secessus continues inward entering another room where a young adult girl lies dead, in the process of being fed upon.
The window was forced open, the scent of the blood of the young girl's blood trailing outward.
It ran.
Secessus returns to the murderer he has in his grasp. And walks with her bound toward the door.
"Hey, what's going on?" A mercenary from The Beggar's Coin Pouch asks as he went to check out the noise. The bound woman thrown in his arms by Secessus.
"Another murder, I have its trail."
"What do you mean?"
"I can find it. Warn your captains." Secessus commands before disappearing again. Resuming his wings and cloak of darkness.
'The scent of blood goes far. It is fast and stealthy if it manages to move about in a city filled with mercenaries.' Secessus notices, wondering whatever it would be hunting in this city.
He follows the trail for about ten minutes before he arrives at an entrance. Secessus stands before a graveyard in the city, mercenaries even guarding this place. The scent is close, very close.
"Is there a building here?" He asks one of the mercenaries.
"In a graveyard? You have the catacombs."
"How fitting, it lies with what it creates. Tell your captains I've found its lair." Sol commands the mercenary, his slow meticulous tone and eyes of bloodlust making the mercenaries instinctually obey.
The mercenaries try to leave until the shade demon asks one more thing out of nowhere.
"What's the punishment for murderers?"
"That would be execution."
"Very well. I'm hired to upheld justice after all."
The mercenaries having answered the question now run even faster. The sight of a figure with a menacing aura and eyes filled with bloodlust talking about justice during a gloomy rainy night, not making too much sense.
He enters the well maintained graveyard, more exactly the small building in the center. The door is unlocked, the lock broken long ago. Quietly Secessus enters, only the creaking of the door making sound.
There is a staircase that leads down toward the catacombs. Standing between the statue of an elder man and woman. Cloaked in darkness he follows the staircase the scent of the long perished filling his nostrils.
'Some coffins are open.' He thinks as he moves over to look at the corpses. What remains was not a corpse, but pieces of rotten flesh filled with maggots. The tear marks and the recent events highlighting that this didn't happen naturally.
'It's been feeding itself on corpses. Has it grown tired of rotten flesh?'
Secessus continues to move deeper in the catacombs as the few candles burning that gave light only lessen the deeper he goes. At the end where no more light reaches a figure is praying. An old woman prays with a candle before her toward the darkness.
"Master of vengeance grant my wish. Master of vengeance grant my wish." The old woman continuous to mutter before the darkness. Her voice is tired and the candle before her nearing its end.
The scent of blood continues past her into the darkness. Secessus stays still seeing a figure approach.
"Liala, the old crow has come. What a surprise." The figure says from a distance remaining in the darkness.
"I… I know what happens here. I've heard your whispers. Please grant me vengeance. Allow me to kill my son's murderer!"
"Ooh, who's it supposed to be?"
"Lhedor, the filth of that small mercenary corps. He confused my son with a deserter and killed him! My boy ooh my boy!" The old woman cries unable to retain her calm.
"Ssshhsst Liala, very well. Return in three days time, and we will make sure you will have vengeance." The figure says in a loud whisper before it returns into the darkness.
The old woman leaves, wiping away her tears as she does so. Secessus stands before the darkness alone still cloaked.
'That figure wasn't the thing that fed upon the young girl. The scent remained deeper. But it had fangs, and it didn't feel human. Rather they felt like Uzarai and Uzalla but changed.' With more questions than answers Secessus walks inside the darkness.