Unraveled Threads [Pathday 3]

[Ripper]

The Drunken Wicker held a slow crowd usually in this early hour of the morning. Drowsy poets slumbered tiredly over their mugs, drudging through quiet verses while the faint noise of steady slumber came faintly from one of the bar patrons had leaned to heavily into his drink and now lay hunched over his table in the corner with his arms cradled under his head. A tired barkeep wiped down his rows of empty glasses, cleaning one after another with a dishrag until each one were free of streaks and grime. A low murmur of voices conversed subduedly through the early morning hours. The microphone stood silently and unattended atop a unlit stage and no music or guitar sound came from the empty stool that stood there also.

The soporific atmosphere was then suddenly dashed with a startled crash as the proprietor slammed down a fresh cleaned mug onto the bar in front of him, banging it down on to the polished wood frame like a gavel that abruptly aroused the sleeping patron out of his slumber during mid-snore. The sound held lingering there in the air like a gunshot and suddenly Ripper was seeing the room from a different time; back to a time where entire crowds were packed wall to wall inside the cluttered establishment and a strong vibe of chaotic festivity held heavily in the air.

It was odd to him how easily the scene recalled back now so vividly. Although he had only been freshly turned then at the time and he remembered struggling to hang onto his memories as if he might never see them again.

[Ripper]

Food and the taste of sunlight he had clung to the hardest, recalling them nightly and visualizing the sensations before they slipped away into mere words and eventually faded from memory.

Perhaps this is why that night stayed with him so readily and he watched again as the scene played out while vampires surged over the bar in droves, upending tables and scattering stools in their mad rush to tear into the solitary figure who stood in their midst. The tall man moved through them like a demon, twisting aside and swatting away attackers while he impassively observed the mad crowd that thronged him and roared steadily calling for his blood. Ripper watched again as his own hand carried a knife tear into the man, slashing through cloth and flesh that actually nicked a cut into Cobb's wrist. The ancient vampire turned to look at him and Ripper swore then it was this one moment of distraction that had allowed the next moment to happen.

A stronger blow drove its knife into the Necromancer's skull as Reganleif, his kith and cousin who had attacked side by side with him had sunk her blade in up to the hilt. A momentary widening of the eyes was the only indication or response of reaction from the evil man that stood still wordlessly before quickly fading away into nothing but ash.

For a moment then in the pub there was nothing else heard save but the only sound of complete and utter silence.

((Memory 1 - the death of Cobb))