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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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 Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 6:47 pm
A heavily wooded, cold, autumn island, Felsenhiem is known for their vicious wildlife and skilled axmen. The great forest of firs and pines hides the home of the witch Alix O'Malley, who resides in the renewed home of a hunting lodge, once owned by a wealthy hunter. A lot of fishing goes around this region, and once a year the people brave the woods during the short period of hibernation of the vicious Felsenhiem wolves to dig for the precious steel in the mountains.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:25 am
The chilly waters of Felsenhiem began to slosh and crash, almost nervously, against the shore as the carriage boat came into sight.
It was almost nightfall now, the dim lights of the village the only beacon available. But through Michi's eyes, Alix guided her Gura to the secluded beach. As he reached shallow waters, his legs unfolded until the crawled on the sand, a mobile carriage, and crawled qith quick, spider-like steps to the heart of the woods. Inside the bouncing carriage, Alix was pleased to hear things grow silent with the realization.
The witch had returned.
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:35 am
Behind the witch came a shadow...
It landed on the beach where the witch had landed, and it shook with fatigue, causing the more bold or drunken townspeople to approach it, mostly armed with sticks and fists. The thing looked up at them, red eyes glowing in the night, and stood up. It's hand grabbed the nearest villager and drew him into the dark folds of its cloak, which folded in on itself until it became little more than a black sphere about six feet across. Then the sphere touched the ground and the shadow withdrew, forming a tall, thin man wiping something red off his lips. He flicked the material from his fingers to the ground, where it sizzled faintly in the silence. All that was left of the unfortunate villager was a skeleton. The surviving villagers looked into the man's eyes, entranced. "you will forget that I was here. If you do not, there will be... repercussions." As one, they nodded, then turned and went back to their tasks, wondering vaguely what that nice man had been doing on the beach at this time of night.
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The red mist slowly drained from Johann's vision. As it did, he saw the object of his bloodlust, a man who was obviously dead. Living people had more blood. In fact, ants had more blood. Fighting to keep himself from dry-heaving, he built a small cairn and prayed in front of it for a short while, then began walking towards the heart of the woods. He wasn't positive that the witch would live there, but it was as good a bet as any. Witches were nothing if not traditionalists.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:48 am
Gura stopped to a halt as the legs made a click against the stone drive way up to the lodge.
It had been a modest building before, wealthy but simple. However, since Alix's new arrival, it had become warped. The side buildings stretched to connect to the house, and swirled up into spires with cone tower buildings. Everything flowed and wisped, and the house looked like what smoke would be if it petrified and became a house. And...like a living thing...it whispered. Very lightly, but eeriely so, as it's mistress stepped out of the carriage. With a snap of her fingers, the iron gates swung shut with a clang, and her dolls Gura and Michi immediately shrank, coming to her side. The doors opened on their own, and she entered.
The inside was as frightening and eerie as the inside. Dolls of every shape and size...most of them quite disturbing, hung from the wooden posts everywhere. The furniture had high backed chairs and tables that curled deviously, dark wooded things. A deep, musky smell of fresh cloth and wood polish made an oddly attractive smell. The fire poofed up as she entered, warming up the cold house immediately. But Alix made her way to the main elevator, hauled by thick cords, to her workroom.
Another click of the fingers and she was in the uppermost tower. Opening her case, she pulled together various cloths and accessories, and began to work on her models...
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:54 am
Johann arrived at the building and looked at it. For some reason it felt like... home? But that made no sense. Johann's first home had been a Marine base, and after that a succession of ships. But this place called to something inside him... A mystery for another time, perhaps. He floated over the walls and momentarily entered his 'Gear Second' to search for life signs...
When he picked himself up and wiped the blood from his lip he stared at the house. The whole thing blazed with brilliant white life, but that was impossible. White denoted a complete absence of all emotion, something that could only be achieved in the moments before death or by seeing a loved one killed in front of your eyes with no way to stop it. A whole house seething with the blazing blankness wasn't just wrong, it was impossible. He jumped up into the air and concentrated, searching for the slightest trace of emotion. Then he saw it, a faint chord in all of the infinite flames that nonetheless was present there. Nothing living was devoid of all emotion, and created things that for some reason had a spark of life would take on the characteristics of their creator. The narcissistic robin red concentrated on the tallest tower.
Of course.
Drama.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:02 pm
"Oh my twitchy witchy girl," trilled Alix as she sewed, "I think you are so nice. I give bowls of porridge and I give you bowls of ice-" she sewed in a pair of blue button eyes, "Cream."
The first had been done. He was a familiar, with blonde hair and a pair of toy sunglasses, with a delicate artistic costume. But he was different. Some fingers were like small brushes. His hair shifted around like a moving paintbrush. This was Daron's model.
The Kravinoff doll had his dark, tan skin...and icy hair. But his hands were crystalic, tiny blades all of them. His clothes were stiff, and Alix was still working on the legs, not dark...but a pale white.
And that's when the bell rang.
From a small rack of them, it was Michi's. She had found someone...someone willing coming up to her door. Curious at the arrival of guests, she opened the cache and hid her project underneath. She'd finish them later. She took the elevator down, curious to who could have braved all the fierce Felsenhiem wolves, her vassals in this forest along with the dolls, to visit her home. She controlled them, with her special brand of perfume...the underlying scent being that of a matriarch. As powerful as wolves were, they were quite easily decieved. She looked through the window at the bottom floor, and saw a man...
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:06 pm
Johann turned his attention to the hinges of the door. The bell hadn't been a request to enter, merely a statement that he was coming in, and if she wanted to still have a door then she could hurry up and come down. A Rankyaku took out the hinges, and a Shigan broke the lock beyond repair, then he barely had to touch the door and it fell in. He walked inside, instantly noticing the racks and racks of dolls along the walls.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:13 pm
"Good evening..."
Alix's voice drawled from the chairs. Michi had reported the broken locks and hinges, but it was nothing. Easily repaired. It came to be so as soon as Munsehr walked in, the doors groaning in protest as they lifted themselves up, latching back to the hinges. Outside the iron warped and reshaped itself, good as new. All with the snap of her fingers.
She drummed her hand, with a delicate manicure on each nail, as Michi watched eeriely from the top of the chair, staring intently at Munsehr, her yarn hair thick and corded on the sides of her face with a patchy dress. Arcto had taken a position by Alix near the chair, but he too turned to stare at Munsehr, unreadable behind the silver armor, where only darkness could be seen behind the helmet. Gura, a regular jack-o-latern, was stroked gently in Alix's lap with her free hand. And everything...and I mean everything...stared at the visitor with unriveted attention.
"What are you doing wandering around in the middle of the night?"
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:16 pm
Johann looked up at the witch, stroking a jack-o'-lantern, and raised one eyebrow. "Rather a morbid hobby you have, is it not, miss? you put a bit of yourself into your work, too." Without taking his eyes off the witch he flickered, and several dolls exploded into clouds of fluff and cloth. Johann looked down and untangled some string from his fingers. As he did, he continued to speak, but without taking his eyes off his fingers. "And the wolf pack was most... interesting. All dead now, but a surprising number of them had AB- blood. Tangy, yet not very filling."
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:21 pm
Alix pouted, "Now you're being very rude." she scolded, as if to a child. Michi went to work, picking up the cotton, and entrails, of her dolls, "It's not my problem they guard this place. They think I'm their mummy and I don't try to disappoint them. And now they're all dead. And my dolls are messed up too. Tragic," she said, void of any real concern. "And now I'll have to fix them up again. Bother."
She stood, cradling Gura in one hand, "And you haven't even introduced yourself yet either. Were you taught no manners?"
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:24 pm
Johann tilted his head to one side. "You set your wolves on anyone who dares come up the path to your house, wield a Devil Fruit that allows you to bring your dolls to life, and speak to someone three times your age as if he were a child and then call me rude?" He vanished, reappearing with one hand on the side of the witch's head and the other on her shoulder, levering them apart, with his suddenly elongated canines hovering a hairsbreadth from her neck. "Some would say that in itself is... rude."
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:27 pm
"Is it so bad?" she said with a sickly sweet voice, even with his fangs hovering threateningly over her neck. She waved away Arcto, who quickly jumped up to pierce him with the lance. "I only wish to live alone. And you've arrived without visitation. A little alone time with some," she put a dainty finger to her mouth, looking for the right word to describe her servants, "Friends, per say, is all I ask. Is that so hard to ask for?"
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:30 pm
Johann stood up, retracting his fangs, and brushed his jacket off, his hair extending from a combed-back white skull-hugger to his normal sun-yellow mess. "That rather depends on what you intend to do during that time." Without warning he spun around, grabbed the knight's spear, and gripped it hard, sinews bunching underneath his pale skin and bending the spear until the tip was pointing the other way around. "For example, formulating an attack plan. And as for your 'living alone,' this entire house blazes with vitality. I could almost believe that the building itself is alive."
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:35 pm
"You guessed right."
And then Alix and Artco weren't there. They seemed to never have been there. But they were on a balcony, where Alix stood with her sliver knight, her jack-o-lantern, an raggedy doll as she loomed over him with a heightened sense of mystique.
"I am the Queen of Dolls, Alix Grace O'Malley." she said, beginning her proper introduction, "I am this house and this house is me. And you," she said with a smirk, holding up a newspaper, "Are the newly famous, 'Zombie Doctor' Munsehr."
It was an article from the Marine HQ incident. And he was there, bold in battle with his undead appearance, and the bounty-
"100 million seems quite bounty isn't it?" she complimented nastily, "Even I never racked up that much after Gura, Michi and Arcto."
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The Devil Has Eyes Captain
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:40 pm
Johann rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. I'm not impressed, you know." He was, with a flash of Soru, once again behind her, looking down at her with his hands clasped on top of her head, supporting his chin. "And if I recall you correctly, you're the nasty little girl who killed her three best friends and made them into dolls, yes?"
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