Plague of Madness
The streets were in chaos, already large fires burned out of control down the block, consuming shops, houses, and anyone not fast enough to escape. Hanging in the empty sky, Vakasri, the Curse Moon, watched over the horrors unfolding in its poisoned light. The red moon light gave everything the look of a hellish fever dream.
Sethes moved to the side pressing his back against a building as a pack of screaming men waving chair legs and broken bottles barreled past him. The look in their eyes spoke of madness, the city felt infested with it. Every instinct in Sethes’s body was telling him to run, to let the city burn, but he’s pushed the fear aside and focused on the hate. The vague but powerful hatred of whatever was focusing the power of Vakasri so acutely on Ayer’s Port, whatever had been in his dreams dredging up the dead for the past few nights.
Sethes moved cautiously down the streets, he clutched his rifle in his hands, hoping not to be forced to use it. He headed toward the apparent source of the madness, the docks. An intuition told him which ship would sit at the center of the chaos.The ship crewed by haunted and speechless elves, that arrived just before everything started to unravel.
Coming around a corner, he spotted three more rioters. Two men and a woman holding small kitchen knives, covered in blood kneeling over a body still twitching. One of the men looked up, Sethes could see the flesh between his teeth. The rifle boomed and the madman fell to the ground, the other two cannibals fled in screeching terror away from the living meal. Sethes eased over to the victim, but saw the same madness in the dying man’s eyes that was driving everyone else, and even as he bled to death the man clawed and snapped at his savior.Cursing him with his last breath.
Sethes fell back against the nearest wall, he tried to ignore the rising panic in his chest, the trembling of his hands as he reloaded his rifle. He pushed the images of Terin and Mathias from his mind, of how Mathias had that same look as he died while Sethes just watched. The screaming from the closer streets only seemed to intensify and the knight began to pray.
"Mother of Light, who led us from the dark." He began, a prayer taught to gnome children to help them to bed, "I lay my heart in your hands. Guide me through this night, shelter my soul against evil, and let me see tomorrow’s sunrise." The rifle reloaded Sethes picked up the pace and began to run to docks, acknowledging that he’d stop for no one else. He began the prayer again, "Mother of Light, who led us from the dark. . ." And kept repeating it, until he reached the elven ship.
The fish market by the docks were predictably destroyed, but strangely quiet. Sethes could feel the pressure of watching eyes, of hungry eyes. Crouching low he brought his rifle up, nothing stirred. He spotted Peace of Mind’s Breath at the dock illuminated by the unnatural reddish light of the moon. He moved closer and there at the edge of his vision he saw them, the gleaming eyes of waiting gnolls. He brought his rifle to his should instinctively and took aim.
"We don’t have to fight. Let me pass." The glittering of the eyes did not falter, Sethes estimated five lurking behind a destroyed stall. He strafed to the side, keeping his rifle pointed at the watchers, "Whatever is causing this will destroy you in the end too." Still no response, a new and urgent dread came over Sethes.
"It’s too late for them." A soft voice whispered in Sethes’s ear, he tried to wheel around, but a strike to the back sent him rolling toward the stall with the eyes. He looked up at his attacker.
Albus Ayer was gone, whatever lurked on the elven ship had scooped him out and poured its own madness into his body. The man already muscular was now grotesquely disproportionate, he limped under the weight of his body mass. His bare flesh moved across his body twisting into knots and faux faces, all screaming silently in the crimson light of the Curse Moon.
"I thought you’d be happy, I tore them to pieces just for you." Sethes crawled backwards pulling away from the horror of the corrupted knight, "You aren’t pleased? I know how much you hate them. I can feel what they did to your mind. It’s so. . . alluring." Sethes’s hands shook uncontrollably as he brought the rifle to bear on Albus. The creature’s eyes light with excitement, "You are so close, just pull the trigger."