WHEN TWO MUDS MEET
Another place.....
There was nothing but blackness. A void. This had existed for all time, totally empty of anything.
Into this void, an unknown being placed a single bright star. This star, the Original, and its associated world, slowly grew in size and population. The realm of this star became well known, and many travellers from other times, other places, visited the Original, until the catastrophe.....
Inexplicably, the Original star guttered, faded into nothing...
Out of this death, however, new pinpricks of light formed, and grew. The void soon became awash with many, many stars of differing size, some more visited than the rest. The void was like this for many years, full of stars, at any moment appearing from nowhere, or fading into blackness. Often, the different visitors of these worlds had made a visible impression on more than one, frequenting them more often than any others. These people were even reported to be on different worlds at the same time, sometimes under the same name, sometimes with a completely different name, but always the same mind behind them.
There were two worlds in particular, one created in the image of the Original, one very, very different, that were connected by one traveller. To start with, this traveller only frequented the mirror of the Original, but, slowly, he began to drift between the two, eventually spending more time in the other world, a world with which he was more accustomed to. A harder world, a dark world of vampires, where the rewards were greater, but the life was full of perils.
After spending much time in this world, the traveller, after finally carving out a reputation for himself, decided it was time to return to his original land. There were others, however, in his new world that wished to see the end of him, or as near as they could create it. As the traveller prepared to leave the world of the vampires, they set upon him, wounding him badly. Maimed, bleeding, the traveller struggled to cast a spell before he was killed....
As the attackers rushed forwards to administer the final blow, the traveller's eyes flashed purple brightly, and in front of him appeared a shimmering portal. The traveller staggered into the hole in reality, which quickly sealed behind him, leaving the attackers behind. With the final traces of magic fading from the air, the leader of the attackers stepped forwards. Stabbing his two swords deep into the earth, he spoke.
"You may have lived this day TrinitY.... but I swear that I will hunt down you, and all of the other foul sons and daughters of Nosferatu. This I swear, on my bloodline. This, I swear, for all Tremere.........."
Something moving, deep in the blackness......
A human form, spinning slowly towards....
//Shimmer\\
Stars faded, stars were created.... stars shone on worlds that were dead to all life...
Many worlds appear to be the same, many changing constantly....
The same people on many worlds, countless thousands of worlds around countless thousands of stars
\\Shimmer//
towards a world.... one of the twin worlds.... A larger copy of the
//Shimmer\\
Brightly coloured lines stretch between the stars, creating a web of colour. Lines vanish into the blackness, pulse..... vanish.
\\Shimmer//
the Original. A larger copy of the Original. The body spins through, past the star of that world...
A flash of purple light, seeming to issue from the eyes of the body, and it is gone.
//Shimmer\\
"I still say we should hunt him down and kill him," one of the people in the room, a young man, perhaps not even out of his teenage years, stormed. "He can't be allowed to pick us off one by one like this, ya know what im sayin?"
"Agreed," said a slightly older man. "I say we put an end to this killer's reign."
"Hold, you two," a young woman sitting in the corner said. "You know what will happen if we kill this one. He has two other bodies of similar size.... and this time he will know who to target first. We will all be destroyed by him."
"Then we kill all of his bodies, and drive him from this world altogether!" the first man cried. "WE MUST STOP HIM!"
"At what cost? I know that you have already had one body destroyed by him, and another badly injured. Will you risk your final body to put an end to him?" the woman countered.
"I will avenge tha fallen.... all of my brothers killed at tha hand of this madman!"
"At what cos...?"
"At ANY cost!" the man cut her off. "Any cost..........."
With this last comment, the man sprang from his chair and, drawing his sword, strode towards the mist just outside the door to the north. The woman raised a hand, as if to stop him, but the young man just ignored her.
"I will bring tha head of the killer back with me... With, or without ya help.......," he said as he vanished into the mist.
The woman and the other man looked at each other. Silently, the man got out of his chair. Drawing a heavy dagger from his belt, and donning his cape, he too went into the thick mist.
"Good luck," the woman whispered.
"They'll need it," a disembodied female voice answered.
"Can't you help them at all? You are, after all, immortal..."
"I wish I could, but I have sworn not to meddle with your affairs." came the voice. "There is another, however. One comes to help even now. He does not know it, but he will be your saviour."
"Who? Who comes to help us? Please, tell me that I might know him when I see him."
"You will know... You will know.........."
Suddenly the form of the woman flickered, distorted.
"Ah! I must go! Farewell, immortal..........!"
The woman ceased to exist in this realm.
"And so it begins.... the time of the troubles," came the female voice, to the empty room.
"But how will it end?" a male voice answered.
"There's only one way to find out, isn't there?"
The only answer to this was a sound, a sound that could have been a chuckle, or could have been a purr.
The young man suddenly stabbed his longsword into the ground in front of him. "Damn it man! We've been lookin for him for days, and there are still no signs of him!"
"Yes, young one. It seems that our quarry has evaded us. But...."
"But what man?"
"I have a bad feeling about this.... I feel...."
"What d'ya feel warlock?"
"Wait," the warlock said, and stopped in the centre of the deserted roadway. He sheathed his dagger, and slipped a small ring onto his finger. "Here goes nothing...."
The man made some magical gestures, frowned, tapped his ring, then made the gestures again.
"What ya doing, spellcaster?"
"I now see what our killer sees......"
"Can you tell where he is? Quick, tell me!"
"Wait... Yes. I know... He is....!" The warlock's sentence was cut off by a strangled gasp, as he grabbed for his dagger.
"Wha? Where is he?"
"He is here! He is he....!"
The warlock staggered forwards a step, a look of mixed horror and surprise stuck on his face. He was scrabbling frantically at his chest. As the swordsman watched, the warlock was forced to his knees by some invisible force. The young man pulled his longsword from the ground, only to have it fall from numb fingers as the air above the warlock shimmered, showing an outline of a man. The scenery seen through the shape created by this outline seemed suddenly to invert, and then to coalesce into the features of a man. This man, now fully visible, sneered, put his foot on the struggling spellcaster's back, and wrenched his broadsword from the body below him, accompanied by a spray of blood. The warlock gasped, shuddered, and died. The body flickered for a few seconds, then vanished.
The young swordsman finally overcome his shock. Grabbing his longsword from the ground, he leapt at the killer, a war cry issuing forth from his mouth. With a contemptuous laugh, the killer parried the blow, and delivered a neat backhand to the swordsman's face, sending him spinning to the ground, a large mark left by the gauntlet of the killer.
"Begone, dog. I am not interested in the killing of such a pathetic weakling," the killer said.
The swordsman's only reply was to throw himself at the killer again.
"If you persist in trying this, I will be forced to kill you, boy," the killer sneered as he parried the second blow, and delivered a neat slice along the swordsman's ribs. The swordsman cried out in pain, but continued the attack, swinging his longsword wildly at the killer. The killer turned all of the swings with ease, delivering small cuts to the swordsman at each attempt. Finally, the killer seemed to tire of this. Spinning his blade rapidly, he cut a long scar across the swordsman's face, taking out his left eye, before sliding his blade through the young man's side, just above his right hip. As the swordsman fell to the ground, the killer sheathed his sword.
"Farewell, foolish boy.......,"
The killer passed on.
"Uhhhhh........ Wha happened ta me?" the young man groaned.
"Rest easy. He let you live, but has badly injured you," the woman said. "I told you it was foolish to chase after him....."
"Tha warlock?"
"I am here, albeit in a different body," whispered a cowled figure. Although the voice was the same, the body was drastically changed. The voice now belonged to a much younger person, still older than the swordsman, but nowhere near as old as the warlock. "I have lost much of my power, and stand before you now as a Necromancer..."
"Then... tha killer is winning, innit?" the swordsman whispered.
The necromancer merely nodded.
"I have healed the worst of your wounds," the woman told the young man, "But I could do nothing about your eye. You will never see out of it again."
"I'm gonna blaze that mutha....," the young man gasped as he tried to get up. "Ahh! Damn man, that hurts..."
"Rest, we are safe here,"
"Wait! Something is happening!" The Necromancer cried, pulling his dagger from his belt. The very world itself seemed to scream, and arcs of electricity jumped around the room to form a shimmering gateway to another place.
"What is this?" cried the woman, jumping back from the opening portal.
With an unearthly scream, a human shaped form, wreathed in lightning, fell through the portal onto the floor of the room. As soon as the figure was through, however, the feedback created by the portal forced it to close up again, returning the room to normal. Slowly, as the dust settled, the three inhabitants of the land could see who had entered their realm so abruptly.
Kneeling on the floor was a tall man, with short dark hair. He was dressed all in black, but the clothes were of a strange make to the people of this realm. He wore heavy black leg plates, that seemed to shine with a dark light He had spiked black leather gloves on his hands, and was wearing a studded black leather belt. On his chest there was a black chest plate, seemingly made from the same material as the legplates. Around his neck, there was a pendant with a Daemonic Skull on it, and a silver five pointed star on a leather cord hung next to it. Around his body was a long, black coat with large pockets on the inside. Barely visible under this trenchcoat were two scabbards hanging at his waist, containing two very different looking weapons. This stranger had many nasty wounds on his body, bleeding freely onto the floor. As the stunned adventurers watched, the wounds began to heal and seal up. The stranger's eyes flashed bright purple, and the gashes and rents in his armour magically fixed themselves.
"What manner of sorcery is this?" asked the Necromancer. "Who, or what are you?"
The stranger stood up, and checked himself over.
"Wait," he said coldly, before taking a swig from a bottle of Vodka he pulled from a pocket of his trenchcoat.
"Ahh..... Much better," he grinned. "As to who I am.... I have many names. This body I currently inhabit is named TrinitY..... but..... Perhaps it would be better if you called me Snypster. That name had meaning here.. Once..."
"Snypster? I vaguely remember the word.... from a time when we worried about our names... before they became so.. Changeable." the woman said.
"You no longer use names? What?"
"We found that we changed them too often to let them describe ourselves. Now, only the immortals are named."
"Ah. I see..."
"We are now known by our skills, or our true personalities."
"Right....," said Snypster, confused by the changes of the world since he last visited. He went to sit down, and saw what lay on the table. "Whoa! What happened to this guy?
"That is a problem we have yet to solve..... There is a cold, heartless killer in the land," answered the woman. "He's already destroyed the Necromancer once, and the swordsman... well, this is his last chance. Everything we've tried to do has ended in failure. Too many have lost their lives to this psychotic killer.... And the immortals can't help us. All that they said is that someone is going to come.... to..... help....... It's you! You're the help that is coming for us!"
"Whoa, they said that? Then I'm sorry to disappoint ya, but... I've got my own problems. The reason that I came here is to escape the people... if you can call them that.... that are after me in my own world. That's why my.... entry.... was a bit sudden. I had to break through the wards surroundin this world. It seems that by doing that.... I'm not workin in the rules of this world. I'm workin with the rules of my other world still...."
"Then you can help us! If you're working along different rules to him, then you can find an advantage! You can do something about him!"
"Yeah, but there's still the problem of my hunters. I think that they may still find a way to follow me here... and if they do, well... you wont wanna be around to see me fight them..... it may prove to be a bit too destructive for this world's good.... But, I'll see what I can do about the killer for ya."
"Thank you... Thank you!"
Striding into the centre of the roof, Snypster again arched his body into the fighting stance. His eyes flashed blue five times in quick succession, and, appearing from the shadows, came five clones. With a yellow flicker of his eyes, a long, thin blade and a heavy looking sword, dripping with dark liquid, materialised in his hands. All at once, the clones attacked. Whirling among them like a vengeful demon, Snypster sliced limbs from bodies, disembowelled attacker after attacker, and plunged his blade deep into the bodies of his foes.
Standing some distance away from this display was a group of statues. One of the faces of these statues, when looked at in the early morning light, bore a strange resemblance to a grinning cat. As Snypster dispatched the last of his clones, and stood silent among the dead, a disembodied woman's voice near the statue whispered something.
"I really hope you know what you're doing..."
For a second, the cat/statue seemed to grin wider, before the sun, now almost clearing the top of the pagoda, burnt the shadows away.
"If you really want to find him... we must go looking," said the Necromancer. "The only time I have ever seen him is when he is attacking one of us. If we try to look for him, I think he will not be able to resist the temptation of killing us."
"You make it sound like he will win..."
"If he lost, we wouldn't be having this problem, now, would we?" the Necromancer said bitterly."
"Fine. Let us go, and hunt ourselves a killer..."
"Wait," came a disembodied female voice. "Snypster, you have proven yourself to be ready, but, be warned. Not only have the hunters from your world followed you here... but, the killer you seek is also from your world, or has at least been touched by it in some way."
"What? You mean, I'll be facing another Vampire?
"Yes TrinitY, that is exactly what she meant," came a second, male, voice. The voice sounded... almost as if it was purring the words it said. "Watch out though.... His mind is even more decayed than ever....."
"Vampire? What did you mean about another Vampire?" demanded the Necromancer. "Is this killer a Vampire?"
"Most people from my world are Vampires, Necromancer," Snypster answered absently, thinking about the comment that the unknown man had made.
"Then.. YOU are a Vampire?"
"Yes, Necromancer, I am a Vampire. I am TrinitY, elder of the fourth generation of clan Nosferatu."
" How can this be? It is the middle of the day, and yet you still live?"
"Because I am in control of the beast within myself. Listen, I do not have time for this. If the killer is a Vampire, and my hunters are here, then this whole realm may be in danger. I do not know if it will survive the sort of conflict this can produce...."
With his final comment said, Snypster/TrinitY strode through the gates of the oriental pagoda, before rising from the ground, and heading southwards.
"I know you to be here, killer. Come out, show yourself."
At first, there was no reply. But, as TrinitY waited, a shimmer in the air gave rise to a masked figure.
"You know why I am here killer. Let me see your true face, before you die."
"I spit on you, Nosferatu. You will never defeat me."
"So be it. I will kill you, nameless. Your clan will never hear of your death."
"The Assamite will rule forever!"
"The Assamite are all dead. They have been for centuries."
"You lie! I will kill you!"
"Stop, both of you," came a third voice. Standing high upon the roof of the inn, the three hunters looked down at them. "Assamite, I know not how you came here, but you are the last of your clan, and it is my duty to ensure that you are destroyed, to rid the world of your foul taint forever. And as for you, TrinitY... It has been decreed that you will be staked, torsoed, and left to rot for your crimes."
"My crimes?" TrinitY sneered. "You and your brethren do not deserve to be called Tremere. I was aiding your bloodline, by staking out the weak. You should thank me for that, or I will be forced to eradicate more of the taint."
"Tremere? KILL THEM!" cried the Assamite, leaping straight up onto the roof of the inn. He drove his sword deep into the chest of one of the hunters, and then wrenched it out, and spun around, leaving a headless corpse behind. He threw himself at the leader, but the other hunter managed to hit him with the two large maces that she carried. His spine shattered, the Assamite fell from the roof, dragging the mace wielder with him. They both lay still, the Assamite crippled, the hunter paralysed by the sword that had been stabbed straight through her heart.
The leader of the hunters drew both of his blades, and leapt down from the roof towards TrinitY.
"Ready to die, sewer dweller?"
"Question is, are you Tremere... are you?"
Blade met blade met blade met blade, with a ferocious crash. Both combatants, their blades locked in a cross above their chest, looked each other in the eye.
"See you in hell Tremere," TrinitY snarled as his eyes glowed bright red, sending the Tremere screaming backward as the fireball hit him full in the chest. TrinitY jumped at the Tremere, stabbing his soulblade deep into the stomach of his foe.
"Goodbye, Tremere."
"Give my regards to Caine," replied the Tremere, hurling TrinitY backwards. The two Vampires began to throw fireballs back and forth between them, scouring deep furrows and craters in the earth. TrinitY jumped aside from one particularly large fireball, which burst deep inside the inn, sending an explosion of wood and tile high into the air. The remains of the inn began to burn fiercely, adding light to the combat, which was now going on into the evening.
"Why wont you die scum?" cried the Tremere, hurling himself at TrinitY's throat. TrinitY simply vanished, faded into the shadows. From behind the Tremere came a mocking laugh.
"Because that isn't how today is set to end."
TrinitY appeared from the shadows behind the Tremere, and plunged both blades deep into his back, twisting them viciously. As the Tremere frantically tried to cast one last spell, TrinitY reversed his weapons, and pulled them upwards, almost slicing the Tremere into three. TrinitY then swept the blade of his heavy sword downwards, onto the Tremere's neck, severing his head.
"Curse you Nosferatu... Curse you......," the head whispered in a pained voice.
"Farewell, Tremere.....," TrinitY replied, hurling the head into the flames.
"I told you it would work out, didn't I? Snypster, or TrinitY as he is called now, has rid the land of the killer, and therefore made it safe for the few chosen to come forth from their places of refuge, and finally reach immortality."
"It was close, though. Those hunters, If they'd got to TrinitY first.... Then what would have happened Cat?" asked a beautiful woman, stepping, untouched, through the flames. "The hunters would have done their job, and then returned to the world of the Vampires.... and we would still have our killer."
"Yes, it was close, wasn't it? I mean, if I hadn't sent the hunters after him in the first place, he would never have come here... but if the hunters had got to him first... why, I'd would have had to get another champion to get rid of the killer, wouldn't I?"
"Why you scheming old ...!" Said TrinitY, who had been hovering, unnoticed, ten feet above Cat's head. "You set me up!"
"Yeah, I do that a lot. Something about abusing my power properly...."
End.
Story By Snypster (Wireplay Mud2)