Dark Chronicle: Chapter 1

The tale begins with the first step.

All he remembered was screaming in pain. His back was against a cold steel slab. Was he dead? Pulsation sensations of horrific styles made his back arch. The top of his head was angling into the steel, gravity was threatening to crush it. Water. A dark sky with no clouds, water. It was rain. It beat down on him. He screamed for silence, perchance for death to come to him.

 

A sting was felt. His right side felt a horrific sensation. His wing! It was bent in half! His one working wing fluttered. It provided no protection from the rain. Cold, coldness. He wanted to feel warm. He would die in fire willingly if it meant he could feel warm. Then the silence he longed came to him.

 

The water fell down on him in silence and he felt like he heard the voice of a goddess spreading a song of love. It was beautiful. The water had no weight, it was just an illusion. The black clouds poured down its illusions and at once he was at peace with the world. Then came a light at the end of the tunnel. He was going to be free soon.

             

Lightning stuck, it was a painful long death as it seemed to wake him from his peace. The sound did not deafen the pain. The blade of electricity traveled to the hilt. It lasted a few seconds past eternity. He grinned at it. Let it kill him, the longer the pain, the more likely the end result. He almost laughed and then, he lost it.

 

He was dead unconscious. The image of the rain pouring onto him was the last image before his grand fade out.

 

Dex awoke from this memory. They called him Dex, so that was the name he went by, nothing true to his true name if he ever was given one. Of this he had no idea. For all he knew he was given a girl name as a sick joke. Wouldn’t be the first sick joke in his life. The greatest joke was here, now. It was sick alright. And he was sick of it.

 

A heavily tattooed vampire looked at him. “Hey Dex! Its your time.”

 

The gargoyle did not say anything to the vampire. Nonverbally, he used his broken right wing to hide his face. The tattooed creature walked away. The wooden cage was no protection from the outside world. He would break it open if he felt he could live outside it. His left arm was shattered, with a giant stitch that somehow made it movable, but it came at a price, more pain.

 

The tavern above was growing a raucus. Someone was about to die. When he heard the sound of applause, he knew he had to mourn the death of one of his fellow slaves. If only his wing wasn’t broken, he could fly away, or if his arm wasn’t whatever it was, he could atleast fight for his freedom.

 

Two monstrosities came in and hauled him up. It was his time to fight. He would have loved the roar of the crowd if he didn’t want to kill every single individual in it.

 

A voice rang out from the tavern.

 

“We present to you, one of our most interesting contests. Now, our Boss, Chief Zu, would like to personally vouch to our guests from the continent that our fighter is a gargoyle without a master. He is ripe with broken body parts, and he is malnourished.”

 

“why would I want him then?” A foreign voice spoke. Dex was unfamiliar with the dialect.

 

“I have been able to buy up the merchant districts with his bouts, I lie not. He is an underdog in every fight, and has barely walked away on all of them. But he is undefeated and, he shows signs of knowing The Anceint Scroll.”

 

“You lie,” came the foreign voice.

 

“Even if I lied, knowledge alone of the ancient scroll makes him a valuable quantity.”

 

Dex was finally raised into the tavern, the place had been cleared out hours ago. Day was soon to set in. Perfect time to run an underground gambling den. The Chief of the Broken Gang, Zu, was sitting in a golden seat, his henchmen around him. All of them wore tattoos around their arms. A fellow gargoyle, who painted his face with a ungodly features, stood guard.

 

They were of two separate worlds, one, a gargoyle who had a master, and then there was Dex, who had nothing and was out purpose. A lower life form who could barely walk, Dex wouldn’t even get the eye of his would be comerad. Instead Dex choose to hate this creature who would side with protecting a criminal lord.

 

To the right, wearing some foreign fur, was a vampire from another land. The continent. He only heard of it, but never really believed it existed. The Foreigner was looking him over as if he was a piece of potential property. In return, Dex allowed the foreigner to see the face of a gargoyle who was planning to kill him. The thought of fighting though sent pain to his body, but he hid it.

 

“You will now see what happens when we use a young wolf, during the full moon,” a Werewolf in its beast form came forward. “He is on loan from the outer tribe, they wager a fishing post that he will win.” Zu started to laugh.

 

“I like this one, he has fire in his eyes.” Dex looked at the foreigner. What? Fire? Deep inside Dex knew the fire was real, it was all that kept him alive when he wanted to die just so he could see the look on his owners face of losing his new empire. Something in him, he did not know what, forced him to fight on.

 

“And this here, is my money maker, Dex, the gargoyle who knows the Ancient Scroll.”

 

“How do you know?” The foreigner was baiting the lord to reveal his secret.

 

“I can vouch for this!” a random voice came through the air. Dex turned his head. He was sick of the Ancient Scroll talk. It was all some gimmick to enhance his reputation. The voice however was from another vampire he had never seen before.

 

The foreigner looked at the vampire, then at Dex. “I will see, if I buy him, and my research shows this to be a lie, I get my money back?”

 

“You have my word.”

 

Money, that was all he was worth in this world.

 

Two orcs pushed the Werewolf forward. It looked at his prey, Dex with sharp cold eyes. In its beast form, Dex would die if he let it kill him.

 

Money, it was a sickening word. Dex was let out of his cage. “Now kill me a lowly peasant!” Zu yelled loudly. Dex walked forward. For money, he was going to have to kill this creature. It was to the death. Dex never killed before, he always crippled his enemies. But Zu and his gang never let the victims live. He was told this would be his first kill. All for money. For money, this scared beast was going to have to die.

 

He could see fear and anger in the werewolfs eyes. It did not want to die in this state, a slave.

“Now fight!”

 

Dex watched seamlessly as the beast fought him. Dex let his left arm be grabbed by the jaws. It hurt, it always hurt. However this let the creature open up, he thought of slamming his palm into its throat. Then follow it up with a fatal...but it wanted to live. The gargoyle bit his lip from yelling in pain and threw himself forward, towards the beast’s face, in an effort to end the fight.

 

“Let’s escape.” It was a whisper, but Dex could feel the pressure on his weak arm lessening. “I take the one on your left, or you can kill me and die a slave.”

 

The creature let go. It kicked Dex hard that he landed on his stomach. Dex started to get up when it let out a giant howl. It came forward and lifted him by the head, getting ready to crush it. The gargoyle however was ready to strike the throat thrust. However he stopped.

 

“I can take the one on the right, but what about the gargoyle with the sword?”

 

Dex felt happy, he did not feel pressure on his skull but pretended to let out a wail of pain. A brief glance and the two understood the dance.

 

It threw Dex again, and he tumbled his way to make it look like his head hit the wall. He was scrounging on the floor.

 

It look at his face, the fiction was at an end, in a few seconds, it was going to choose wether or not to bite his face off, or they would fight back.

 

“Ill hold him down. Two on one.”

 

Dex realized the fight was over, he realized it before the three present vampires did, and so did the other folk at the tavern. It was all he needed. He bolted his legs up and ran.

 

The blade was to the right side of the guard. He did not see the face, nor have the time to look at any of them as he was making his move. All he hoped was that the werewolf was doing his part too. Freedom never existed, never was a possibility until this moment, and for that, he could ignore the pain on his arm. There was also this strange sensation about the thought of holding a scythe like blade. He never used a weapon before. However the sheathed weapon was calling to him.

 

He did nothing more than simply reach for it, and slew the guard. In retrospect it was not this easy as simply taking his blade and killing him with it, but the natural movement felt just right. To the small audience, it looked like an Orc realized halfway what he was doing, blocked the gargoyles left arm, received a throat thrust, then in horror could not move as his life was ended.

 

The massacre that followed was beautiful.

 

In a one armed style, he dodged and took out another. Muscle memory was kicking in. The other guard was already killed by the wolf beast. Now their backs were to the wall. They would be fighting their way out or dying on their way out.

 

Instinct was impressing him as even his broken wing was moving, it wanted him to fly away. Shame it was folded improperly or he could have.

 

“That sword strike, the twirl of the blade before the downward cut, it is on the third segment of the scroll. I am impressed. However he holds the blade wrong.” The vampire analyst was telling the foreigner. However the Foreigner was too scared to listen.

 

Dex held the sword like it was his only protection, as if it kept him warm from the cold. His entire stance showed that he was weak and scared. It was close to him, like a blanket. A random thug came at him sensing the kill, however Dex cut him down in an instant. The blood loss was setting in from the holes in his arm.

 

“Just a little while longer,” was all he told himself.

 

Chief Zu was cut in half. Chaos was unfolding. The Werewolf grabbed Dex by the one good arm. Swords were clanging. The other gargoyle in the room held out two swords, he was fighting someone. Nothing in the scene was making sense as Dex feinted.

 

He awoke to the rain. He was cold, again. Thunder struck. Not a dream. He was hungry. He was alone. Food. He needed food. Dex looked around and noticed that the streets were empty. He must have been in a poor part of town. It looked completely filthy. His new found sword was gone. His cloathing, most of it was gone. He had a swollen cheek. Mud had been put over his wound. A nice gesture from whoever did it. He was no longer bleeding to death.

 

However he realized he could not walk. His leg, it too was useless now. Add it to the list, he chuckled to himself. He knew not of where he could find a place to recover. His stomach hurt, he must have been kicked there recently. There was something in the distance. As he slid his way in the mud, he could realize it was a giant mansion. It was beautiful, and if anything, whoever lived inside surely had means to feed and heal him.

 

“I am free,” he kept giggling to himself as he slid his way to the front. He did not know if he really believed it himself. He just said it as if it came out as naturally as breathing. In minutes he was at the gate, know able to use some knee action to prop himself against the big doors. Dex huddled himself against the wall as the wall itself had a small roof that saved him from the horrific rain. The bad memories of a time he did not recall.