Post by Moridanu on Apr 26, 2008 2:49:13 GMT -5
In those long moments of silence and color that hang veil-like between sunset’s sleep and night’s ascension, an almost imperceptible twitching of reality began…
An enormous tract of forest blanketing an otherwise barren plain seemed to throw off the wet weight of day’s watery light. Never had the sun shone fully on that ancient, knotted army of vegetation, and so the land in its entirety had taken on the sheen of perpetual twilight—suspended in time and splashed with the grey soap-skin gleam of the concealed sun, the forest was a place that knew no hours. But like a waking animal, it sensed the heavy nightfall that always arrived to wash the faint stains of day away…and it seemed to ripple cat-like as the first cold stars appeared.
To the west, a nearly dead-calm stretch of water lapped at the stony shore. Hundreds of meters wide and deceptively docile, the lake held certain mysteries of its own; riddled with caves along its bank and guarded by an almost impenetrable ring of dark, warped trees, it rarely provided adventurers with a cause for exploration. Unsettling and often wreathed in ropes of fog, that mirror-like body of water was surrounded in disconcerting myths as old as some of the first human civilizations…and as it did every evening, the lake slipped into a gentle heaving that belied its day-long state of stillness.
Situated in the heart of the forest, an impressive piece of architecture hulked menacingly in the dark. Although its cracked and peeling façade faced travelers by day, it seemed to shake off the damage done by light at the first faint purrings of dusk. With gables and turrets, beautifully sharp edges and gargoyle-graced precipices, the tavern was a place of shadow-laden beauty. A wide porch wrapped around the front, roofed and sided by latticework heavy with curling vines. Beyond, a double-sided door made of thick, heavy oak studded with steel seemed to rebuff any attempt at entrance. But once that threshold was passed, a black curtain seemed yanked from the arrival’s eyes, and the full splendor of the Vampire’s Tavern was revealed…
A majority of the first floor was constructed of dark, deep-stained wood (by an owner long-since dead), and now boasts no less than a dozen sumptuous chairs upholstered in deep red. Taking up much of the back wall and yawning like a toothless leviathan, an enormous fireplace smolders under the care of an ageless sentinel…a woman, seen rarely, who’d wrested control of the place from a mortal under the command of her master. She was the one who’d chosen at leisure the massive collection of liquors and distillations…she was the one who’d been given mammoth sums of money with which to buy the highly-glossed and ebony-inlaid bar, the black leather stools with black wooden lion’s feet, the curio cabinet with grotesque souvenirs from countries the world over, the egg-like human skulls capped with claret candles.
She was the one who’d taken over the tavern when her master disappeared, and she’s now the one who lives in its upper recesses, perhaps sensed by those who frequent the place on nights when her temper flares. But unless provoked into curiosity, she seldom descends to the main chamber. Better to allow the handful of mortal girls, kept as pets, management of the tavern. They were often eaten (sucked dry by fantastic specimens of her own species), but a teeming village miles south of the establishment kept Nyte in a fresh supply of human beauties.
The forest, the lake, and now the tavern itself had shivered to life under the trembling fingers of evening, and now the mistress, too, felt the pull of her waking hours…
An enormous tract of forest blanketing an otherwise barren plain seemed to throw off the wet weight of day’s watery light. Never had the sun shone fully on that ancient, knotted army of vegetation, and so the land in its entirety had taken on the sheen of perpetual twilight—suspended in time and splashed with the grey soap-skin gleam of the concealed sun, the forest was a place that knew no hours. But like a waking animal, it sensed the heavy nightfall that always arrived to wash the faint stains of day away…and it seemed to ripple cat-like as the first cold stars appeared.
To the west, a nearly dead-calm stretch of water lapped at the stony shore. Hundreds of meters wide and deceptively docile, the lake held certain mysteries of its own; riddled with caves along its bank and guarded by an almost impenetrable ring of dark, warped trees, it rarely provided adventurers with a cause for exploration. Unsettling and often wreathed in ropes of fog, that mirror-like body of water was surrounded in disconcerting myths as old as some of the first human civilizations…and as it did every evening, the lake slipped into a gentle heaving that belied its day-long state of stillness.
Situated in the heart of the forest, an impressive piece of architecture hulked menacingly in the dark. Although its cracked and peeling façade faced travelers by day, it seemed to shake off the damage done by light at the first faint purrings of dusk. With gables and turrets, beautifully sharp edges and gargoyle-graced precipices, the tavern was a place of shadow-laden beauty. A wide porch wrapped around the front, roofed and sided by latticework heavy with curling vines. Beyond, a double-sided door made of thick, heavy oak studded with steel seemed to rebuff any attempt at entrance. But once that threshold was passed, a black curtain seemed yanked from the arrival’s eyes, and the full splendor of the Vampire’s Tavern was revealed…
A majority of the first floor was constructed of dark, deep-stained wood (by an owner long-since dead), and now boasts no less than a dozen sumptuous chairs upholstered in deep red. Taking up much of the back wall and yawning like a toothless leviathan, an enormous fireplace smolders under the care of an ageless sentinel…a woman, seen rarely, who’d wrested control of the place from a mortal under the command of her master. She was the one who’d chosen at leisure the massive collection of liquors and distillations…she was the one who’d been given mammoth sums of money with which to buy the highly-glossed and ebony-inlaid bar, the black leather stools with black wooden lion’s feet, the curio cabinet with grotesque souvenirs from countries the world over, the egg-like human skulls capped with claret candles.
She was the one who’d taken over the tavern when her master disappeared, and she’s now the one who lives in its upper recesses, perhaps sensed by those who frequent the place on nights when her temper flares. But unless provoked into curiosity, she seldom descends to the main chamber. Better to allow the handful of mortal girls, kept as pets, management of the tavern. They were often eaten (sucked dry by fantastic specimens of her own species), but a teeming village miles south of the establishment kept Nyte in a fresh supply of human beauties.
The forest, the lake, and now the tavern itself had shivered to life under the trembling fingers of evening, and now the mistress, too, felt the pull of her waking hours…
