Slayer

This story, Slayer, serves as one of the prequels to Heroes of Gielinor.

In the darkness of the Varrock sewers, there are many dangers. Giant spiders are among the lesser of these. They are huge, slightly bigger than a dog, and blood red in color. They deliver a fatal poison, that does not kill it's victims. The poison does end their conscious life, their brain dies. However, the motor functions remain intact, controlled by the Giant Red Spider eggs injected with the poison. Anyone tainted, becomes a zombie, a vessel for the Baby Red Spiders. Only once the babies outgrow the body, can it die in piece.

There is danger, of course, in these Zombies, which claw, and bite, run and hunt like an animal. They can kill efficiently, with blows that knock heads off shoulders. Mostly, however, they break rips, tear faces open, reduce people too a bloody pulp, and, still living, feast on them. They are repulsive, ugly, deadly, and deteriorating (the rot still sets in without the heart and blood, so many of the zombies have limbs missing, ribs sticking out, some are even headless-but they are all no less deadly). They are all of these things, and more. But they are not the worst in the sewers.

The worst would be vampyres. They hide in the sewers, where the deadly sunlight cannot reach them. The dangers here are of little threat to them, with their metaphysical strength and unnatural agility and speed. They hold up there by day, and hunt by night. If any an adventurer were to go down there, they would be at constant risk of vampyre attack. They can't all be Count Draynor's, holed up in fancy mansions.

Cara was no mere adventurer, but she was still a target. She knew this of course, and she knew that the creatures, especially the spiders, would take advantage of her lack of armour. Cara didn't really need armor, though, it would have slowed her down. She was unhappy enough with the weight of the the light steel sword by her side, armour would have been absolutely ridiculous. Besides, with her stake, dagger, bottle of holy water, crucifix and bulbs of garlic, she felt well armed.

So she walked down the dark sewer tunnel, with no light but the faint glowing of the torches on the shadowy walls. She tensed slightly when she saw her first Zombie of this night, running for her. It's face had half rotted away, it's left arm was gone from below the elbow. It wore no clothes, except for some rotted rags, and it's flesh had been stripped away with age. It was a walking corpse.

It aimed a swipe at her face, but she rolled underneath the blow. She spun around, grabbed the spine through the rotting flesh, moved her hips, twisted the spine horribly and then twisted herself, flipping the Zombie over her and knocking every single vertebrae out of place.

Thus incapacitated, Cara moved on. Step by step, the stench of rotting corpses grew stronger, and she knew that someone else was with her. Another human, recently deceased, zombies ripping his flesh from his bones. The lights were not lit at this part of the tunnel, though Cara could see the torches were lit further down. There were ten, twelve zombies, in a small circle, completely focuses on the feed. Cara would give them something else to think about.

Chase
Cara was a Godslayer, an ancient being created to destroy the demons that plagued humanity. When one dies, another is born, Cara was a slayer all her life. She was stronger, she was faster, she had instinct. She never trained, but she knew how to fight so well. She was built for it.

She snatched a torch from a wall, and ran along the tunnel. The flame showed her the sickening details of the zombie feast. A wave of revulsion shot over her, and then a wave of rage: these were sick, sick things. She launched the flame into the center of their circle, and one caught fire. One of the ways to kill these creatures was fire, it was a horrific weakness. As the fire burned, it spread, until all were on fire. The death cries of zombies echoed down the tunnels. Damn. More would come as they heard them.

Sure enough, she could already them running at her, their footsteps echoing into her perceptive ears. One came at her, head lolled back in an achingly dead way, and she grabbed it's arm, twisted, lifted it up off the air and slammed into another. As another ran, she thrusted her fist it's chest. More came, deranged, ravenous, and she delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to knock them off their feet. She heard a snarl somewhere to here left, pulled back her fist and slammed it into the zombie's head. The skull cracked, and the creature fell. Cara ran on.

Three zombie's were waiting for her. Cara shouldered past, running on ahead, but was grabbed by a zombie. It came at her, teeth aimed at her face. She slammed her fist into it's head, and kneed it in the ribs. It's grip slackened, and she twisted out of range and tripped it, before running on.

Their footsteps thundered down the tunnel, furiously loud. Every zombie in the tunnel must have heard her by now. Powerful hands grabbed her and pinned her to a wall, while the deathly stench of zombie breath overpowered her. Cara headbutted the zombie in the head, hooked her right foot around it's left, and gave it another headbutt. It fell off her, and she ran on, straight into another one. She swung her shoulder onto it, knocking it off. She kept running.

Four zombies barred her way. Cara slid her gloved hands through a rotting chest and pulled out a rib, which she drove through the zombie's head. She kicked another one, which fell, knocking the one behind it, and she barged past the one wearing it's ribcage through it's brain. She sprinted on, drawing her blade and tossing it ahead of her, where it struck the zombie that was on it's way towards her. She collected the blade as the creature fell. Cara came to a fork in the road, and blindly chose left. She came by a zombie, and decapitated it with a single stroke. And suddenly, she stepping through air, falling into blackness.

Her fingers found a ledge, and she gripped it. It was a pipe. She pressed her toes against the wall, sheathed her blade, and gripped the ledge with two hands. A deafening groaning filled the air. She shimmied across the pipe, using her feet to propel herself faster. Her shoulder hit something hard. it was the floor of the tunnel. She pulled herself up, and took a nearby torch for light. She saw what she had just traversed. There was a massive gap in the tunnel, a cave in creating a massive hole. And hundreds of zombies had fallen in. They throbbed and moaned. They were disgusting. If Cara had slipped, and fallen in..... She dropped the flame in the pit, turned and ran. She was not quick enough to avoid the screams.

Why
There were no more zombies. The pit prevented them from getting to this point, which was probably why the Vamps chose it. Cara felt the vampyres. It was a deep, rotten feeling, that came within her, around her. It was here. The slayer and her quarry are closely entangled, faiths joined, as one.

Blood was splattered on the walls, and smeared on the floor. It was the other way around with zombies. She found a corner, and her all too human ears heard the whispers of voices incredibly far away. Cara placed her back against the wall, and looked around the corner. Nothing. Nothing but another corner. Cara ran to it, and backed against it. This corner was more promising, the voices were louder.

Then it stopped. A black wall. No more. Dead end. Cara looked around, faintly panicked. The voices were clear, though the echoes made it hard to find a direction. Cara stopped, listening closely. Words, faint, came to her ears. Latin, the same words over and over. Chanting. Some sort of ritual? Raising, resurrection?

Cara looked straight up, and found her way out. Six feet above her head, here was a whole in the ceiling. Nearly impossible to see with the lack of light, there were rungs, leading up into the darkness. Cara leaped, and grabbed the bottom rung. She pulled herself up, climbing, until she found something metal blocking her path. A sewer cover?

Cara gently pushed against it, lifting it up a few inches and peeking out. In front of her, were a pair of black shoes. Beyond them, was a vampyre, gnawing on a poor girl's neck. She was beyond saving.

"Give'r" said the owner of the shoes. The vampyre reluctantly shoved her over to it. The girl stumbled into the arms of the black shoes' owner, who proceeded to rip her neck even more.

Cara drew her stake, and jabbed him in the back, where his still heart lay. The creature stiffened, let out a gurgled "Engh!" before crumbling to dust. Cara pulled her self up, as the vampyre's partner ran at her. She aimed high, kicking it squarely in the jaw. It stumbled backwards, and Cara left forwards, a downwards stab crumbling it to dust.

Cara surveyed her surroundings. The room was bare, a single lantern showing all. Some rafters hung above, but in the far end of the room was something of concern. A massive pit.

"What's this for?" Cara asked the dust. "Were you guarding it, before?"

Dust, being dust, didn't answer.

Ascension
The chanting emanated from the pit. Cara looked down. Meters below, surrounded by a cage of candles was a Vampyre. He was old, and as power increases with age, Cara knew this one needed taking care of before others. And there were others. Chanting, with runic symbols around, candles the only form of light. Candles, open flames, deadly for vampyres. They wouldn't be risking this without good reason.

Ascension, the ancient art of making a demon even more powerful, by killing off all the human inside it. Raising it up into a new form, a higher level of being. It makes them very dangerous. She needed to stop it. Maybe a plan could help. She'd never know. Cara was never one for plans.

The oldest vampyre was in the center, about to ascend. He had a name, though Cara wouldn't leave him alive long enough to learn it. He sired two-dozen off-spring, purely for this hour. Twelve were chanting now, they were the more powerful ones, the ones he would keep alive. The other twelve were sacrifices. They thought they were protection, to stop anyone should they come in to prevent the ascension.

The ascension was ten minutes away from completion, he was ten minutes from becoming a near-impervious force of evil. Every single minute for the past hour, he was terrified of someone coming to stop him. Anxiety was crippling him. Just ten more minutes, and no one would ever be able to stop him. Imagine how he felt when Cara dropped from the ceiling, sword drawn, the bright green eyes of a Slayer staring him down.

One of the would-be protectors ran in to protect. With a single swordstroke, he was headless. It flew through the air for about three seconds, before it, and the rest of him, crumbled to dust. Another protector ran at her, and she kneed it in the stomach, before she brought it up to meet it his face and sliced his head off. And then, all at once, they swarmed upon her.

She roundhoused one in the face, before driving her heel down upon another's shoulder and slugging it in the face. Cara drew her stake and fell upon it, crumbling it to dust. She swung her foot around, taking the feet from two vamps. She staked one quickly, but the other booted her in the face. She rolled with it, got to her feet and used the momentum to decapitate another.

She stabbed one with the sword, lifting it up off the ground and slamming it into another. She let go of her blade and tossed her stake from her left hand to her right, drawing the crucifix from her belt to replace it. She bet a vampyre back and forth across the face with it, before hammering it down across the head. The creature buckled and she dusted it.

Seven jumped upon her at once, a mound of vampyres upon one girl. The ones on the bottom fed, or rather they would have, but each was staked until there was nothing but a pile of dust smothering her.

The vampyre in the center, the one surrounded by a frame of candles, the one about to ascend, watched as she fought. The point where he had needed the twelve chanters had passed almost a minute before the Slayer had descended, but it would take seven minutes longer without them. So be it. Six minutes had already passed since she fell. Ten protectors had fallen, three chanters. The rest of them had better last, just long enough for him to ascend. Once that had happened, there was nothing she could do to stop him.

As Cara simultaneously battered a Vampyre over the head with a crucifix and stabbed one in the eye, a third vampyre, the weakest of the twenty-four, crept behind her. As it silently stepped up behind her with the intention of drinking from her neck, Cara swung the crucifix in front of it's face, the holy symbol burning it's way through his flesh. Cara staked him, then quickly did the same to the one still recovering from a battering.

She aimed the stake at one-eye's heart, but it grabbed her hand before she could. It gave her such a powerful punch it knocked her across the room. She lost her crucifix. The Vampyres attempted to jump her before she got up, but she rose before they could strike. A series of blazing kicks crippled one, and a few seconds later it was dust.

She punched one in the face, grabbed it by the shoulders and headbutted it, then again. She punched it once more, and staked it. One came at her, axe in hand. It swung, but she grabbed the handle and twisted it from it's grip. As she kicked out the vampyre's knee, she said. "Finally! One of you has the intelligence to get a weapon" as she decapitated it.

She punched another, or more tried to, as the vampyre leaned back and threw her over it's hip. Cara dropped the ax as she swung her legs underneath herself and used to the momentum to toss it over her shoulder. It slammed against the ground. Hard. Another leaped at her with a flying kick, she grabbed it's foot and twisted, it spun violently before crashing against the ground. Cara bent down to stake it, but she was grabbed from behind.

She elbowed it in the face and staked it through the heart. As the dizzy vampyre got up, and she staked him.

Two vampyres, female and attractive, stepped in front of her. One had tried unsuccessfully to flip her earlier, one had hung back from the fight, sizing Cara up. "Hey girls, want some fun?"

"Oh yesss, pleassse" they answered together.

One aimed a kick at her head, but Cara grabbed her foot and pushed it hard, and it smacked into the other's face. Both stumbled back, and Cara leaped and kicked them both. The rose instantly, together, and charged. They both started punching, and Cara parried them both. They grabbed her throat together, lifted her up and slammed her off the ground, going down with her for maximum impact.

One turned to the other. "Sister...." she said. "Avenge me" And she turned to dust. The remaining vampyre looked. Cara was holding a stake right where her sister's heart once lay. "You bit-!"

Cara slipped her feet under the chest of the vampyre, and pushed her into the air. She landed a ways away, and they both arched their backs and flipped upright. "Your calling me that?" Cara asked.

"You've killed-what? Hundreds of people-how many were children?"

"And how many of us have you killed?"

"You don't count, no soul"

"Yeah.....I guess. From your point of view. Which is way off the mark, I'd wager"

They ran at each other, fists raised. And as they did, the vampyre in the center (you almost forgot about him, didn't you?) stopped chanting. The two vampyres pinned together, and pinned to the ground, by Cara's blade, fell to dust. Ten other dust mounds flowed towards him, and they spun around him, like a cyclone, until they started to glow.

The two girls met, the stake dropped to the floor, and fists flew fast. Blows, blocks, parries, reversals, dodges, faster and faster. Their arms became blurred, and horrific cracks echoed threw the room. Someone was losing this deadly dance. And it wasn't the vampyre.

Cara fell to the floor, left arm badly injured, bloody nose and aching back. The vampyre hung over her, shoulder slashed, black eye. The vampyre came closer, to drink. Cara scrambled backwards, her fingers glancing off a familiar weapon.

"Look what I found" sang Cara, and she shoved a crucifix into vamp's face. It snarled back, slid away. Cara rose to face it, and knocked it off it's feet with a powerful kick to the jaw. The vampyre leaped to her feet, and aimed a punch at Cara's face. She grabbed it's wrist, twisted it, clearing a path for Cara's own punch, witch hit it across the jaw. With that same arm, she elbowed it in the nose.

Cara kneed it in the chest, then again, and again, and again, and she grabbed it's head and tossed it to the ground. She took the holy water from her belt, and poured it down the demon's throat. Cara knew how the vampyre would writhe, how her insides would burn, how this was pain like she had never experienced. So she didn't need to make sure that she was dead.

The vampyre in the center, surrounded by a frame of candles, spoke. Loudly.

"I have a been reborn! I am stronger, faster, I am immortal, I can never die! I cannot be killed!"

"Yes you can"

Cara took aim with her crucifix, and tossed it to the candle frame, and she broke through the frame. The candles fell, the vampyre lit up, and became fire.

"It makes you harder to kill, doll face" Cara said, over the screaming. "But as I think you'll agree, death is still on the menu"

She turned away, walked off. Ignoring his screams. He was soulless, he had to die. And she had to leave. There was still so much to kill.