House of Horrible

Dread. Its a simple word and emotion, but when you are standing outside of a fairly normal looking house armed with only a sword, dagger, your ability to conjure fire and a fear of being thrown in prison, well you get that feeling of dread.  The house was on the outskirts of the city, it looked fairly normal, two stories, appeared to have a basement, mostly wood construction (I briefly toyed with the idea of burning it down and walking away).  There weren't any guards on the outside that I could see, appeared to be the double door down to a cellar that was popular at the time, the occaisional passerbye didn't seem to note anything odd about the location.

I was in an alleyway across from the house trying to figure an angle of attack (I'm sure that looked great, armed dude sitting there staring at a normal house).  I tried contacting Tolar as the prison, but in a not so surprising event, he wasn't there, everyone I spoke to didn't acknowledge he'd ever been there, nor that I had been a guest there (even the guards who escorted me out acted like they didn't know me).  Which either meant I was going insane, or I was being massively played. Either way Tolar could throw me back in prison, and apparently have people forget I'm in there entirely, which made my options incredibly slim. I decided on the most obvious and stupid solution and went up and knocked on the front door.  It was a bold move honestly, and bold moves usually wind up with you dead, this was no exception (well other then being dead).  A nice old lady answered, at first I was got completely off guard, I almost excused myself and left.

"I may have the wrong house M'am." She had the door open, I could see inside, looked fairly normal if not overly decorated with furniture.

"Oh why don't you come inside young man we can discuss this." That should have been my first indication things were all wrong, you don't invite someone in who said they have the wrong house.  I stepped inside ready to explain how someone is out there trying to set her or someone living with her up, I heard the door shut and a latch get locked in, I turned to ask why she did that when she hit me in the face and sent me flying against a small end table (on the heirharchy of things to get knocked into, end tables are one of the worst they usually have sharp pottery or glass objects that tend to get imbedded, I think I took a cat statue to my ass on this fall that I still have a scar from). The old lady had changed, like I could see the outline of her, but behind it was something else, a form of shadow creature.

"Couldn't have left good enough alone could you Lorentino? Had to push the issue!" She lept across the room and snatched me by the throat, "Why you couldn't have remained in prison forever is beyond me!" Thrown now hit a wall, the studs took some damage from the impact (as did my poor back).

"What can I say I like to finish what I start." She came again, I unsheathed my sword and buried it in her mid section, a hard back hand had me let go of the handle still stuck in the beast.

"Me too." She drew the sword out of herself, I could see the thick globules of black blood running down the length of the blade. She hefted it above her head with both hands, ready to strike the killing blow, I ignited the handle with fire, she dropped it and it took off the front half of her face with a sickening *slikt* sound. My sword clattered along the ground while the shadow/oldlady stumbled around partially faceless and wailing. I took up the blade again sticking it in her guts, planting one foot solidly against what should have been her ribcage I pulled back and swung upwards cleaving her torso and remaining head in two (and coated myself in her black blood). Partially exhausted and fully injured I stumbled to my feet and used my sword as a sort of cane to hobble to the "kitchen", unlike most houses I'd been in, in my limited life there was a door on it and it was shut, I pushed it open and immediately vomited.

The room was a slaughter house of body parts, all in various states of cooked/cleaned, apparently a recent shipment must have arrived and my knock at the door disturbed the old lady beast. The sight of it was too overwhelming in my state so I threw up repeatedly, I puked things I didn't even know I'd eaten.  When I stopped I was immediately aware I wasn't alone Tolar was behind me inspecting the damage of the creature. I could hear outside men breaking into the basement, there was the sound of some fighting and something god awful dying.

"You did well Lorentino very well." He was dressed in royal purple, some kind of leather armor that was tailored a lot nicer then I'd ever see armor be tailored.

"What's going on here? What are they doing downstairs?" My voice was hoarse, puking tends to do that.

"Do you really want to know? Or would you simply like to know that you helped us stop it from going any further." He had moved closer, I could see he wore no weapons.  Strange for a man in armor to have nothing, made me fear what he did use.

"No I don't need to know, who are you Tolar really?" In all honesty I never exactly found out what happened at that house, never had much of a need to figure it out for sure.  Its not the most horrible thing I've seen or been involved in, but its the one that keeps me up at night sometimes, I guess its true you never forget your first horrific murder scene.

"A friend Lorentino, now as your friend I'd say you've had enough of Rolak, best to go back to where you came from."

"What of the hunter?"

"I have no idea, he was never here, did you get the right directions? I mean you don't seem like a man who follows things correctly?"

"You said they wanted my aunt here!"

"I lied."

"And that I stumbled into something!"

"Well you did, they probably figured the hunter was someone who ended up in that kitchen and you were looking for him, I doubt he's anywhere near this town." Tolar had that smile of someone who's crushing your soul with each sentence. "Have a nice ride back to wherever tell your Aunt I said hello not that she knows me, but you never know right?"  I wanted to hit him or stab him or set him on fire or something! But in the end I just left.  They had retrieved my horse (someone had thankfully been feeding the nag, I mean I wasn't fond of the horse but its still my damn horse!) and wished me well, Tolar had even included a map amongst my things (I actually have the map still, he had labeled things hilariously like "Don't go here you'll get lost and die" this made up the majority of the maps notations). I made my way out of Rolak and back towards home, or where home should have been, but would be no longer, but that will have to wait till next time my journal. Scram I got work to do.