Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26020030-20150331144047

What walks these streets tonight is not of this world. Pale beasts, barely resembling their human counterparts. Their skin a deep, malachite-like green, clad in armor - they looked as if Ancient Greece was anything more than a dead civilization! Their milky, white eyes clearly see through the fumes that have clad the suburb in a toxic fog. The Industrial Revolution takes its toll on humanity, as the only place still lit is the local bar, where poor men drink cheap, perhaps even toxic spirits to drown their suffering in.

They stop at the city limits, about to enter the suburb. Muttering words, curses, or whatever, in a language only they can understand, they send out orbs of light, that soon take their true form, to do their bidding. For even the weakest child of man, or of any species, always has something beneath it in the food chain.

They take on the form of faces, peaceful, white faces, that float in the air, expressionless, like masks that people wear to parties in Venice. But that's not something people can even dream of here. Pale as the fog itself, they patrol the city. They're looking for something...

or someone.

In the bar, the night is a common one, as drinks are poured, debts made, and whatever measly daily wage was earned rashly spent on cheap alcohol. At the lead table, down the middle of the room, sit eight men. Only two of them seem to be awake, as the others simply sink their heads into their jugs, filled to the brim, as is per usual. Playing a card game, the two men silently count cards, for the others are too drunk, and maybe too dumb, to notice. They grumble their prayers to Lady Luck, but it is worthless, for the two at the lead know that only a fool would play the hand he's dealt.

Picking up a huge sum (for those standards), they rush out of the bar, and into the side alley, leaving the poor bastards inside to rot, and engage in some vibrant conversation.

"Good night. At this rate, we'll be out of here soon... give me my share, and let's head out before the police comes snooping. You know they steal from us..."

The other person silently counted the money.

"Give it to me, why're you looking at it?"

"Good. Should be enough for me to do..." From there on, he grumbled silently.

"What do you mean, for me? We share."

"Not... not anymore." He broke the silence.

"You swore."

"Oaths can be broken."

"You know the fate that awaits traitors-" He didn't let the other man speak, but instead continued

"If I were you, I would not break an oath. I will call the Lady of Vengeance upon you."

"You know full well she doesn't exist." He drew a gun.

"You sick bastard-" The other man pointed the gun at his chest.

"Thank you for all that you've done, but I have more important matters to handle." He took the shot.

With his dying breath, his compatriot muttered "Kalista. Lady of Vengeance. Avenge me."

His soul departed his body, which was left rotting in the muck behind the trashcan, in the sour rain that begun falling.

The other man happily departed, counting the money, but unbeknowst to him, a silent mask, that mockery of what once was a face, was drifting slowly back to its issuers, that would bring about his demise.

The uncanny trio that had begun this whole ordeal with their search departed from the state of sanity that they appeared to be in, and entered a furious trance. In each of their hands lay a heavily serrated spear, as green as their skin.

Led by the construct, the Mask, as one may call it, they ventured into the seedy belly of the suburb, cloaked by the ever-so-dense fogs.

Such an innocent-looking face, to become the herald of one's demise.

Not long afterwards, they have reached what appears to be their destination. A ragged, cheap slumhouse, five stories tall and two stories wide, where the families that had the misfortune of living here slept, and wept bitter tears over their living.

They climb the flat in utmost silence, trusting in their comrade. The Mask, not knowing emotion, not flinching at all, leads them to the very top, to the flat that in any normal house would belong in the attic.

Silence follows, as through the paper-thin walls they hear the man's heavy breathing, and a grumble of joy. Their expressions change to those of utmost fury.

The man stood little chance when they barged into the room, the unholy trinity, and grabbed him as the Mask stood watch. One grabbed him by neck and held him high up. What follows is more than uncanny, as the other two drive their spears through his arms.

Crucification, the end of the life of a traitor in this poor world. As the man dies in painful, bloodcurdling screams of pure, undiluted hopelessness and agony, they merely stand watch, unfazed, expressionless.

When he finally takes his last breath and fades away, the third one drives the spear through his heart, and his soul, tarnished and broken, is taken by his murderers.

The Mask, and the Oathsworn trinity, Kalista's hunters, finally show emotion in the form of a weak smile.

For they know this man is yet to experience the torture that is Kalista's purgatory. 