Werewolf XVIII: Isle of the Damned

[Gryphon]

Seth turned away from the scene of The Hammer's death a snarl on his face.

 

"Damnit - I could've used a good man like him to crew for me when I got off this rock!"

 

Despite the lack of signs it was pretty obvious that there were at least two involved in the killing - there was no way that one person would have been able to immobilise The Hammer and cut him up like that - Seth'd seen it tried once so he knew.

 

Two people... two.

 

Two damn guards left for the small group of prisoners too, maybe they want to cut their time on the island short by killing off the prisoners.

 

Had Bartholomew been looking a bit too pleased with himself lately? Hard to say... but that's ok - Seth didn't want a damned guard to be in his crew anyway.

 

~~~

 

OOC: Accusing Bartholomew Jamison / Ozy... Guards are the enemy.

[Sweetcherrie]

Aimo’s whole body felt sore, the guards had beaten him up after Jamison had given them a green light to do so. What was even worse, he was now deprived of his “special rights”, and his head was surely going to explode that day.

 

Next to the pain in his body, he also felt a stinging guilt. This had not been the first time that he had killed when the alcohol had befogged his brain. Apparently the next dead body was already found as well. He didn’t care too much about the “the Hammer”, but he did care about his own life, and the way this was going….

 

“Maybe I should stop drinking” he sighed; it would be an impossible task, especially while he was in this hellhole. Nevertheless he decided to try anyways. He should even try to become friends with some of the other prisoners.

 

He walked over to Seth, “I see ye don like the guards either, don show it to em, or ye’ll end up like me.”

 

Seth looked at the Arab, with a mixture of disgust and distrust, “What is that of you’re business?”

 

“Relax, I’m on your side, I don like em either” and with that he jovially slapped the pirate on the shoulder, and went his way again, leaving Seth a bit confused.

 

OOC: I'm accusing Bartholomew Jamison / Ozy

[Gryphon]

Seth makes a mental note to keep Aimo away from the rum should it be necessary to have him as a crew member.

[Venefyxatu]

When the Shaman woke up he immediately realized that it had been more than a mere dream ... that another one was dead. The Tribe was angry, and wouldn't stop until they were all dead, unless they could find and eliminate their hosts. In that case they might not have the strength to try new hosts.

When he went to the scene of the murder with the others, he was not surprised to see it exactly as it had been in his dream. As he turned to walk away, he could smell the liquor on Aimo's breath, probably the last he'd drink in quite some time ...

 

OOC : Sleepy. Rather long day tomorrow. Accusing Sweetcherrie / Aimo because Aimo was (up until now) always drunk, and since he sometimes kills when drunk. That and I'm not thinking clearly

[Gnarlitch]

Spike screams and rattles the bars of his cage, trying to get someone to give him some information on what was going on. Finally, a guard came, smacked Spike with a rifle butt, told him to, "Shut the hell up!" and then walked away, closing the outer door behing him. Spike sat the alone in the dark, cursing the world, and waiting...

 

 

Some time later he overhears the guards talking outside, something about a fat arab and killing, blood everywhere. Spike feels hungry at the thought.

 

OOC: Accusing SweetCheerrie/Aimo Why? well, he did kill that other guy, not that I can hold that against him. Wait! I can! He should have brought the guy to me to kill so I could feed! Damn him!! He should die. Can I eat him? Please?

Edited March 24, 2005 by Gnarlitch

[Ozymandias]

Bartholomew flinched openly at the first violent clang of the bars before hurrying away. He had never wanted to think about that one, and had no intentions of doing so now.

 

(OOC: Vote for Sweetcherrie. 'Cause all the cool kids are doing it. )

[Sweetcherrie]

Aimo opened his eyes, he had fallen asleep, and he had been dreaming.

 

It had been weird dreams, probably the side effect of sobering up, but he had seen that there were not only murderers on this island. Someone was actually doing his best to keep them alive.

 

He shook his head to get rid of the dreams, and for once his head didn’t feel heavy. This non-alcohol thing was probably good for his body.

[Akallabeth]

Corwin continued watching the prisoners as the thought over his lost (placeholder). Bah, more yelling again from that crazy Spike! Definitely a murderer if he'd ever seen one . . .

 

(Accusing Spike/Gnarlich again. Corwin forgettest not. )

[Kasmandre]

The prisoners started moving back to the barracks after a hard day's work, looking forward to whatever sleep they'd be able to grab with the spectre of the recent murders hanging over their heads. Aimo moved a little slower than the rest, nursing a hangover that didn't seem to want to stop. Holding his throbbing head with one hand, he slowly made his way toward the barracks.

 

About halfway there his path was blocked by the Shaman. Not wanting to get into another fight, Aimo turned and started going another way, but the Shaman nimbly moved to block him.

 

"Look, Shaman, I don't want any trouble. I just want to get back to my bed and rest my bruised body." The Shaman stood his ground, staring down the aching Arab. After a second, he began chanting, his multi-forked tongue flickering in and out of his mouth.

 

Aimo turned around again and began running, not trying to get to the barracks anymore, just trying to get away from the Shaman. He'd heard stories about what he was capable of and he wanted no part of it. After he'd gotten a ways away he realized that the Shaman wasn't following. He wondered why.

 

Aimo looked around, getting his bearings. He'd somehow managed to run to the far end of the colony in less time than he would have thought possible. Fear did impressive things for the body. Not to mention the fact that he was sobering up. Now he just had to get back to the barracks without running into-

 

"Hello, Aimo!" Aimo flinched. Just as bad as the Shaman, he thought, worse even. All his bruises ached sympathetically as Jamison rounded the side of a building, a hefty club in one hand. Aimo put both his hands up, wanting to avoid another beating (or worse) from the guard. Jamison smiled amiably as he approached Aimo, then drove the butt of his club into Aimo's considerable gut.

 

Aimo wheezed, trying to get some air back in his lungs as Jamison grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to a small cell on the edge of the clearing. Spike's cell. Aimo gasped out an ineffective protest, looking around vainly for any help. The only person he spotted was the Shaman, still chanting.

 

"G'bye, killer," Jamison whispered in his ear as he opened the door and shoved Aimo into the cell, slamming the door behind him.

 

"Wait, but I was trying to help!" Aimo screamed, beating at the door. "I was trying to find out who was killing everyone! I found out who has the key to the Commandant's gun cabinet! Don't kill him, he's trying to help! Don't kill-" but the rest of what he was going to say was drowned out by the laughter of his cell mate and, shortly thereafter, Aimo's own screams.

 

ooc: Tough luck, guys. Aimo/Sweetcherrie was the Seer. Oh well, Night Phase begins now. Wolves, baner, get your PMs in to me in the next 24 hours.

[Gnarlitch]

Spike looks at his new cell mate and smiles...an evil smile.

 

"Bout bloody time those sodding guards brought me my lunch! I haven't eaten in almost two weeks, and that last fella was kinda scrawny. So your a "seer" eh? Wot's a seer anyway? You have visions? Mate, I think you've been drinking a bit too much of late. Well, as for me, I could use a good drink..."

 

AAAARRRGHHHhhaaaaaaaaa...

 

"MMM! Yummy! I've never tasted seer before, had me a slayer once, but not a seer. Thye taste great!" *sluuurrp*

 

 

[Ozymandias]

Jamison, like most of the guards, had had no real idea of why Spike was there. When he'd asked the Commandant, his CO's reply was simply, "Classified, Mr. Jamison. Anything else?"

 

He'd heard the rumors that had long ago spread through all of the prisoners and guards and back again thousands of times over by now. But even being in such, a ominous, empty place, especially with the likes of the Shaman and William of Humperton (who had given the poor man five straight years of nightmares long before they'd either of them started trying to)...Bartholomew had never truly believed.

 

Now, confronted with the sight of blood pouring like water from an upended pitcher across the dry dirt outside Spike's cell and being able for the first time to clearly hear the noises coming from Spike's cell that weren't his curses...those bestial, inhuman snarls and low, throaty growls accompanying sickening wet noises...

 

Batrholomew Jamison did the only sensible thing he could. Rifle falling from nerveless fingers, he turned and ran for all he was worth, mouth open in a soundless scream.

 

He did not stop even when he hit the water, and was not found until two hours later when he washed up on the beach half-drowned.

[Kasmandre]

Again the warriors moved through the night, back into their mortal hosts. There was one more secret killing to do before they could move on the colony en masse. There was one more power on the island that might stop them. And tonight would be its last night.

 

They moved together through the night, stopping at the door to the prisoners' barracks. They swung the door open to find their prey...

 

awake. The Shaman was sitting in the center of the floor, alone. He'd waited until the pirate had snuck out before beginning his preparations and had only just finished. He sat cross-legged on the floor, his body painted in the blood of an island bird he'd caught that evening. A circle of blood and sand surrounded him and runes were painted on every available surface. As the warriors entered, the Shaman began chanting. Behind them, the door slammed shut.

 

The two warriors took an uncertain step into the room, pushing against the force the Shaman was sending against them. The very air of the room seemed to be resisting them, pushing back, pushing them away. But still they kept coming, closer, closer, until they stood just outside the circle the Shaman had drawn. The Shaman's chanting rose to a fevered pitch as the still air in the room kicked up and began buffeting the two intruders. Behind the warriors, someone was banging on the door, demanding to be let in. Inside, the warriors stood before the Shaman's last line of defense.

 

With a simulaneous push, they stepped within the barrier and reached out, not with their physical arms, but with their spectral selves and reached deep into the Shaman. And pulled.

 

The Shaman let out a single heart-chilling scream as his soul was torn out.

 

His scream was soon drowned out, though by the blast of a rifle at the door. Its latch destroyed and the Shaman no longer holding it shut, the door swung open on its hinges. The warriors turned to see their new opponents.

 

"Alright, you dirty blackguards, you just killed a man I'd've had on my crew and I take offense to that," Seth said as he stepped into the room, drawing a pistol from his belt and leveling it at the pair standing over the Shaman's corpse. Jamison looked like death warmed over, still pale from his near-death experience at sea and Spike looked like simply death. But the look in their eyes was the same and alien to either the frightened guard or the ravenous beast. It was the look of a hunter seeing his prey.

 

"Bart," Corwin began, "I don't know what you think you've been doing or if you had anything to do with my Lilah, but I do know that no one else is dying on this island if I can help it."

 

"But, poor fool," the creature that had been Bartholomew Jamison replied as he approached the pair, "you can't help it."

 

Exerpt from the Report on the Incident on His Majesty's Penal Colony on Annisberg:

When our ship arrived at Annisberg with Supplys and Relief for the men there, we found the Colony quite emptied.  There was evidence of some construction lately abandoned, but our true shock was to come when we examined the Prisoner's Quarters.  The inside was painted in all manner of Pagan symbiology with Blood.  In the center was a Black painted in likewise manner and, by all evidences, dead some days of unknown cause.  Also in the room were Corwin Tremaine, a Guard, and Seth Millar, a Prisoner inexplicably armed with all manner of Firearms.  Both men were killed in such a manner whose brutal and inhuman nature necessitates its omission here. 

 

(As a side Note, all of Millar's Weapons - apparently looted from the Armoury by way of a key found on his person - were emptied, yet neither of the other Corpses seemed to be injured by Gunfire, neither did the walls bear witness to frequent misses.  The fired slugs were not found at any point)

 

Further examination found the Bodies of the Commandant and a number of prisoners in states suggesting they had been prepared for burial.  At the far end of the clearing denoting the Colony, we found a Solitary confinement cell containing a man purporting to be one "Spike" (no such name appears on any record in the Colony, nor does the Prisoner in question answer the description of any man supposed to be here).  This Prisoner had apparently survived the last few days on one of his fellow inmates judging by the Remains about his cell.

 

The only other Survivor was found down the shore a short ways.  Bartholomew Jamison, a Guard, was found wandering through the waves in a daze.  When asked, he purpored to be following the orders of some Greater Power.

 

After acertaining these things, the Crew set about burying the Remains of the Commandant and securing the two Survivors aboard the ship.  We then set our sails for England, not even waiting so long as for the daybreak to depart.

 

It is this Report's humble Recomendation that the two men found on the Island be placed in an Asylum until such time as they may give Testimony to what really occured on Annisberg.  In the meantime, the Colony should be abandoned and any displaced Sentences be remitted to the Colony at Austrialia, which is more than ample to take this type of Prisoner.

 

-Captain John Barringer

 

Postscript: Although almost certainly unnrelated, but included in the intrest of Completeness:  Two crewman of my ship were found dead in their bunks of Unknown Cause.  The Survivors of Annisberg are locked sufficently, however, that they could not have accomplished this, though, without outside Aid of one sort or another.  -Cap. JB

ooc: Well, that's all she wrote. The wolves (Gnarlitch and Ozy) win! Their last kill, Venefyxatu, was an innocent villager. The Baner was Gryphon. Great job all!

[Gnarlitch]

"Aw bloody hell. Do I have to explain it to you again?" *points at self* VAMPIRE. Not wolf, or werewolf. That was Oz. I'm a bloody vampire. Have been for a long time now. Get it? Now sod off mate. It's light outside I and needs me beauty rest."