When Faust awoke, his face pressed against the sticky and dirty stone ground he was distraught. His kind was blank. He didn't remember what had happened or how he had fallen asleep. Slowly it came back.
"I tried to burn the place down... and then.. and then, you came from my shadow. Yes, you stepped out of my shadow and hit me on the head." He rumbled on pointing an accusatory finger at the smiling silhouette that acted as his shadow.
Seeing that it didn't do anything, he willed his flames, in a much smaller state and hurried a small fireball at the shadow. It didn't react even when the fire was close. It just stared at him and didn't move. The cursed flames connected with the ground, making a small dent, but other than that, the shadow wasn't affected.
Faust was about to continue accusing the shadow of hitting him when he felt watched. Like a hunter watching prey. " Who are you?" His voice asked the empty darkness that surrounded him. Nobody answered.
He walked closer to the flame the group he had scared away was using. His deep blue eyes slowly started being filled with a shade of red that grew deeper by the second until a mix of blue and red glossed over his whole eyes. Marks appeared around him, while he continued going in circles around the flame.
He stopped at one point and looked deep into the darkness, where he saw something move, it didn't interact with anything, but he saw it. He took a deep breath and let it out; the archaic symbols clomped together haphazardly, and slowly, a red knife formed from them.
He watched as, in the darkness, something beast-like appeared. It was humanoid, but barely. It had two arms and legs and stood upright but that's where the similarities ended. It had dark sticking and constantly moving, like it wasn't put on right and the beast was trying to correct the placement. Its eyes were blood red, like his own shadow, but unlike it, this beast wasn't smiling. Instead, it was slobbering like a dog.
Its mouth was a pitch-black tunnel with small white dots. In it were large silhouettes of teeth, like sharper dagger-like shadows in the darkness. Faust let out another bout of air as he slowly distanced himself from the beast. He then started circling it, but within the areas the fire shone light on. He hadn't been able to see it when it was in the darkness so he was sure it would kill him if he were in darkness.
The skin on its arm slowly gathered at the tips of the fingers before it shaped itself into sharp nails turning the fingers into claws. It let out a slow growl, and without warning, it lunged forward. Faust dodged to the side, and with practiced skill, he tilted the tip into the side of the creature. Its momentum carried the knife along the side while Faust continued to drive it inside.
He pulled the knife out after a long line had formed on the side of the creature; it let out a small whimper with its red eyes trained on Faust. One of its hands was clutching its side while the other was defensively brought forward. It didn't rush again but copied the way that Faust moved.
Seconds passed by and the slow dripping of the creature's thick black blood stopped. Where the cut was only a layer of skin remained. Like the two parts of skin had come together, meeting at the cut and sewed together, leaving a slightly raised line on the skin. The creature looked at the wound and back at Faust before it ran towards him again. This time, it was cautious, but not by much.
When Faust tried to sidestep and push the knife in again, the creature swiped its hand in a long arc. Faust stopped in the middle of his step and, with a decisive slash, left a red mark on the creature's hand as he brought his empty hand forward to block the lunge by the creature. His feet left the ground for a few moments and inches, and he was thrown a few steps backward; the creature didn't seem pleased with that outcome.
It opened its mouth wider than was possible and roared. The noise was supposed to disorient Faust, but when it stopped, it found Faust a few steps from it, and with a swipe, he left a deep red line on its torso. As the creature tried to punch him in the face, he left the knife inside it and jumped back causing the creature to hit and crack the ground.
"Flames." His voice rang out coldly, and the knife still in the creature's torso sank inside. With a small expenditure in his spirituality, the creature glowed red for a second. Lines spread hurriedly inside the creature from the cut, and when they met again, dark red flames appeared from the point they met and followed the lines back to their origin, where a larger explosion appeared again.
Three localized explosions consumed the creature in a matter of a few seconds, turning it into a puddle of shadows. When he felt the curse he had implanted onto the creature stop, he confirmed that it was truly dead.
.Faust had now exhausted his spirituality; he felt sluggish, and every movement took the effort of ten such movements.
Faust had now exhausted his spirituality; he felt sluggish, and every movement took the effort of ten such movements. He sat, his back held up by a wall. "Was that creature attracted by the fire." His mind wandered.
He turned towards the pool of darkness and then to the still-burning fire. As he thought, he looked at the darkness, and a thought appeared. "I have been here for a few hours and this night hasn't ended. Those creatures come from the darkness... they live in it if their wonderful stealth skills are to be believed. He stood up and walked towards the pool of darkness. Tearing a piece of his shirt, he dipped it into the pool, and the darkness clung onto the fabric, turning it black.
He walked towards the fire, threw the stained fabric inside,, and watched expectantly as the flame started eating away at the shirt. When it reached the black sludge, the flames turned from orange to a deep lilac. Faust saw this and let out a loud laugh. "You are all going to burn. In beautiful purple flames." He proclaimed to the smiling shadow as he watched the flames grow larger as they consumed the dark substance.
"Now, how do I spread this thing... I can wait for them to come to me, but that will take a long time." While he was thinking, he felt the same feeling. Being watched by a hunter but his intuition told him that the things in the darkness were watching the flames even more. "I wonder if I am fireproof. I can test it out now." He threw that idea far away when a better one appeared in his mind.
He formed a thick, short rod from his cursed flames; however, instead of feeding the marks with his spirituality and allowing his curses and flames to taint the rod, he let it remain as it was supposed to. Black. He took off his shirt, tied it at one end of the rod, and then dipped the fabric-filled end into the dark pool. He let his shirt absorb as much as it could before taking it out.
He was about to place it into the fire but stopped, he looked at the now black shirt and took it out of the rod. It was black in the places that had been touched by the substance. "It seems like it doesn't spread like water. Dip the whole thing." He dropped the shirt in the pool and used the rod to make sure that the cloth was covered in the black sludge. The pool wasn't large, so it was close to emptyness, but most of the shirt was covered, and he wrapped the cloth around the rod again.
When he was finished, he saw that his hands were clean, except for some dark marks on them. "Doesn't spread to the skin either; how does it even spread to clothes?" He had questions but no answers so he ignored them.
In his hand, he now held a makeshift torch. Just like the ones he made to survive the night when he had first come from the Abyss, but now, instead of leather, he used his shirt, and instead of fat, he used mysterious black sludge. "Once again, thank you, Jorge." He didn't forget to thank the man who had taught him most of the things he knew.
He didn't waste any more time, as the things observing him could pounce at any time. He walked towards the still purple flames and placed the makeshift torch inside. He watched, with a slowly growing grin as the flame spread onto his torch before he was now holding the purple flame in his hand.