The door at the far end of the room flung open with an emphatic bang. Its steel handle crashed into the wall, digging deeper into the moon-shaped crater. Splinter hailed across the room like a wooden shrapnel. A cloaked body stood there, sheltered in the shadows. The figure stooped, and the shoulders scraped both edges while squeezing through the door frame.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Marshall?" Nycro boomed, "Knock the freaking door for once!"
"Hmph! It's always a chore! Why do we even have these maggots blocking the way?" The giant said,
a grotesque trophy clutched by the hair in one massive hand.
Nycro sighed, pinching the ridge of his nose.
"Who's this fella?"
"Russell, our newest member."
I could feel the room vibrate as the mammoth of men laughed.
"You didn't tell me we would be getting another one so soon!"
A head dangled from his grip like a morbid lantern, its long black hair matted with congealing blood. Fluid as dark as ink dripped steadily down Marshall's arm, leaving a trail of crimson droplets across the floor. The eyes remained frozen wide in pure terror.
"Wait... what is that thing?" I asked.
"Oh, this? Ah, just a souvenir." Marshall said.
What truly struck me, though, was the casual indifference with which he handled such a nightmarish object. It bore features resembling the monstrosity I escaped from.
I raised a brow, looking at Nycro.
"Is this guy really a healer?"
Marshall laughed again.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he sent the head rolling across the floorboards like a bowling ball. It came to rest at Nycro's feet with a wet thud. Then the stranger's face split into an enormous grin. A rich, warm chuckle filled the room—the kind of laugh you'd expect to hear in a tavern during a feast, not in a blood-spattered chamber reeking of death.
Somehow, I hadn't expected the legendary healer to arrive bearing a decapitated head and wearing a grin that would humiliate a clown.
"Well now," he rumbled with a thunderous yet soothing voice, "looks like you've gotten yourself into quite a mess." The incongruity of his jovial tone made me wonder if I wasn't still delirious.
"Marshall." Nycro's voice cut through the room like a razor blade—sharp and brooking no nonsense. "Enough. Heal him."
He moved with surprising grace for someone his size, crossing the room in three long strides before dropping into a crouch beside me. His massive hands with fingers like the plumpest sausages hovered over my maimed leg. Delicate yet precise.
"Now then, who do we have here?" He murmured, his eyes narrowing as he assessed the injury.
The healer removed the cloth wrapped around my leg. His hands pressed against my calf. A soft green-gold glow emerged from his palms, seeping into my flesh like water into parched earth. The sensation was indescribable—warmth spreading through tissues that had known only pain for a while. I watched in fascination as the agony faded away.
"There we go," Marshall muttered, more to himself than to me as he wiped his hands clean on a cloth.
The relief was so sudden and so complete that for a moment I couldn't process it. The tormenting pain vanished. I looked up at Marshall with new eyes, seeing past the blood-spattered exterior to something deeper. Here was a man who could snap my spine like Kindling yet chose to use those same hands to heal. The dichotomy was remarkable.
Nycro cleared his throat, and the moment shattered like glass. Marshall's expression shifted instantly, the jovial healer replaced by a hardened warrior as he rose to his full height. The transformation was somewhat terrifying.
"We need to discuss the mission," Nycro announced, his tone carrying the weight of a funeral bell. "
My blood ran cold.
"The target has been... collecting," Nycro continued, his usual detachment cracking slightly to reveal a hint of disgust. "Dozens of innocents, taken from surrounding settlements. Missing reports have been piling up for months. We go in, we free the prisoners, and we claim Stormwraith's head."
As he spoke, he unfurled a map across the room's sole table. The parchment was yellowed with age, its edges frayed, but the details were meticulously drawn. The mansion's layout sprawled across the page like a spider's web, complete with annotations in multiple hands—the accumulated knowledge of countless reconnaissance missions.
I listened intently as they discussed approaching directions and escape routes. These men spoke of infiltrating a vampire duke's fortress with the same casual expertise that farmers might discuss crop rotation. Yet beneath their professional demeanor, I could sense the tension. This wasn't just another mission.
"Russell." Nycro's voice snapped me to attention. His eyes bore into mine with an intensity that made me want to look away, but I held his gaze. "This isn't some fledgling vampire we're dealing with. A duke has powers beyond your imagination. One mistake—just one—and we all die. Do you understand?"
I swallowed but managed to keep my voice steady.
"Yes," I said with a slight nod.
"Good!" Marshall's booming voice broke the tension as he clapped a hand on my shoulder, nearly driving me to my knees. "Don't worry too much, kid. By the time we're done training you, you'll be dancing circles around those bloodsuckers!"
The days that followed were a blur. A grueling marathon of training and preparation, each session more intense than the last. I was thrown headfirst into a world I scarcely understood. Each lesson peeled a layer of my ignorance and replaced it with something harder and sharper. Marshall, for all his booming laughter and easy smiles, proved to be a ruthlessly effective instructor. There was a cold efficiency to his teaching. A relentlessness that left no room for weakness. No tolerance for failure. Every bruise is a lesson in resilience, and the slightest mistakes would be punished.
"If you want to live through a raid, you've got to learn to move unseen. Be quieter and faster than you are."
I spent hours under his watchful eye. Marshall always pushed me and tested my limits. He forced me to see the world through a different perspective, especially discerning what I would have missed before. These included noticing details such as the flicker of shadows across the planes and the faintest indentation in stone surfaces. I've also learned how to navigate through the hostility of the Void's streets. Not only did the training improve my physical endurance but also refined my mentality.
Yet perhaps his most crucial lessons were those involving my chosen weapon. From Nycro's armory, I had selected the guitar that immediately captured my gaze. When I held it, the weight felt balanced, like an extension of my own body. I sensed a latent power oscillating within it, as if the instrument itself were alive, waiting for my command.
Marshall's face softened slightly the first time he saw me with it. "A fine choice," he murmured, running his hand reverently over the dragon engraving. "But you'll need more than just skill. You'll need to learn its language."
In Marshall's hands, the guitar was transformed into something magical, something fearsome. He strummed a chord, and the air itself shook with energy. He played a series of notes that started as a low rumble, building into a magnificent crescendo. "It's all about the resonance," he explained, his voice solemn in a way I hadn't heard before.
"Every bloodsucker carries a frequency unique to them. Strike the right chords, and you'll tear them apart from the inside out."
He demonstrated, coaxing sounds from the guitar that spoke an unnatural tongue. The style he played tapped into a primal force. I practiced under his guidance until my fingers were blistered. Despite my adept skills, searching for the resonance in every note was an aching experience. However, this instrument could be an extension of me, as I felt a strange awakening deep inside.
Nycro's training, however, was different. His instruction was steeped in precision and hooked onto obsession. He focused on the art of combat, drilling me in movements that had to be executed with mechanical perfection. Every stance, every strike had to be practiced until my muscles remembered, even when my mind faltered. Marshall was encouraging in his rough, jovial way; Nycro was a remorseless critic.
"Vampires are faster than you," he would say after knocking me to the ground for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour. "Stronger. Smarter, even. The only edge you have is their arrogance. They look down on you—let them. And when they least expect it, make them pay for it."
His words carved themselves into my memory. They taught me the balance between patience and ruthlessness. The combat training with Nycro was merciless, each session leaving me battered and wounded. Over time, pain became less of an obstacle and more of a companion. Each bruise, each scraped knuckle, became a badge of honor, a testament to a lesson learned. Marshall's healing touch was always there when it was absolutely necessary.
As the days blended into each other, I could feel myself hardening. The fear that had once gripped me began to subside, replaced by a cold resolve. I would face death, and I would meet it head-on. But it would be different from succumbing to defeat.
The night before the raid, we gathered around a table, sharing drinks. Marshall's laughter echoed into the darkness as he regaled us with tales from past missions, his voice dipping and rising with exaggerated drama.
"...and there I was, naked as the day I was born, face to face with three bloodsuckers, and armed with nothing but a rusty knife!" He crowed, his hands flailing wildly in the air.
I couldn't help but laugh, despite the nerves that coiled tightly. Even Nycro, usually so stoic, cracked a smile, though he hid it quickly behind his mug. For a brief moment, the weight of the impending raid lifted, replaced by an odd sense of camaraderie. We were three broken men, each carrying scars that would never fully heal, but united by a common purpose.
I could feel the weight of the mission hanging over us, but in that moment, we were simply men sharing the quiet understanding of those who had faced death before. The tension slipped away, replaced by a calm acceptance. Tomorrow, we would face creatures of the night that defied humanity itself. But tonight... tonight, we were brothers in arms.
I glanced down at the guitar resting beside me. My fingers grazed the dragon skull carved into its body. It hummed with a dormant power, a promise of violence. Tomorrow, it would sing a new melody—a song of battle that would resonate across the night. But for now, it lay quietly, waiting alongside me.