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There are maybe fourteen men who have been hunting for me for all of today. They are finally going home. Probably to recuperate and organize a bigger hunting party. Heh, they don't know the routes through the forest like I do. That ranger I met a week ago was quite willing to share her secrets with me. 

Two days ago this village begged me to get rid of that vampire count. Now, I am a wanted man. What did I do? Besides the usual "sleep with the Sheriff's daughter" routine? Oh right, Murder. And not of bad guys, which is totally cool and no one complains about that. No, they accuse me of murdering the region's priest of Nirsi, named Alphen. The town is about one day away from the murder scene. It's also about one day away from the mansion. I tried explaining this to them, but the villagers claim they saw me at the murder site. Luckily, I managed to buy some supplies before the town turned ugly.

And I'm monologuing too much. Again. This time, a cloaked figure leaps out and tackles me. Its claws are out and it tries to dig them into my chest. I quickly worm my way out and draw my whip. By the time the figure scrapes its claws out of the ground, my whip is around its ankles. A quick tug and it falls, right on the shoulder. Or wing, in this case.

"Ow! Seriously Manny!" Oops. It's Swayaah. She's one of my exes. Quite a fighter, big fan of claws. Also, she's half demon. What? Don't look at me like that. She's one of the good ones.

"Bad timing, Swayaah. Some people think I murdered a high priest a few days ago." Swayaah shrugs and rotates her shoulder, then starts talking:"So, no sparring this week? I assume you have a plan to clear your name and get the culprits responsible."

With my hands confidently on my hips, I turn to her, give her my killer smile, and reply "Nope!" I love Swayaah. I really do. But sometimes she doesn't get it. "No plan, Swayaah."

"Contacting your family?"

"Nah."

"Investigating this on your own?"

"Uh-uh."

"Hide until this blows over?"

"Nope."

"So, wait, where are we walking?"

"We're baiting the inevitable zombie ambush, Swayaah. It's like clockwork sometimes." Right on time, a throng of zombies show up. Maybe a hundred or two. Honestly, I'm not counting, but I could use the action. These two hours with Swayaah have been fun, believe me. But when it boils down to it, I've been waiting for the vampires to make their move. So first things first. Zombie horde.

"Right. Duh. Third party intervention." Swayaah finally gets it. And she leaps into the fray, shredding three zombies and headbutting the fourth. Swayaah fights zombies pretty much weekly, so this is nothing to her. I take this opportunity to grab a rotting tree log with my whip and see how zombies I can nail with it. Sweet! It trips three of them, and starts rolling downhill , catching more along the way. I got at least a dozen.

And that's my winning move.  Swayaah managed to nail ten of them with a wild shoulder-to-groin two-handed slash that toppled a whole bunch. I lean over to give Swayaah a high five. She waves her gory hands in my face. "Claws, Manny." Bah, I always forget about those claws. Those things hurt.

A quick search of the nearby trees reveal the summon idol used to attract the zombies. Hmm, I didn't expect that. "I don't think a vampire called them here. They wouldn't need this to bring them here." Swayaah shrugs again and slaps me with sarcasm. "What a twist, Manny. I guess this didn't fit into your plan!" I glare at her as she gives me an impish grin.

Sunset approaches. Swayaah and I have spent the day walking and talking. Mostly about our school days. Lots of asking about who I'm dating now. Which to her is very different than sleeping with. But we come along a clearing and we reach a large merchant caravan. And each carriage has the same emblem on them.

"Sweet. This is Kaniss's caravan! I gotta talk to her for a bit. Er, once the sun sets." I start heading over there, and Swayaah quickly scoots over. "Do they sell cheap cloaks? This one is pretty messy with all the dried zombie guts." I nod.

Swayaah, now with a new, clean raggedy cloak, waves me goodbye and heads off. She's late enough for class already. And anyway, I need some time to figure out what to do now. I thought this was a simple "scare Manny out of town so we can ambush him" maneuver by the vampires, but someone else is using Summon Idols to call zombies over. What a Mystery!