The Axeman

You’ve found yourself in a lot of weird situations ever since you left the coven, but you have to say… this is one of the weirdest.

It’s the dead of midnight, and you made a wrong turn somewhere. You hitched a ride on a caravan that you thought was destined for another town, stowing away in one of the cargo wagons and very nearly succumbing to the rhythmic rumbling of the wagon. Yet… now, as you poke your head out, you find yourself in a place that is most certainly not a town.

It’s… a compound? A handful of buildings scattered around a well in the center, which the now-empty caravan is parked beside. They left it in a hurry; no one even bothered to unload the thing.

Your first instinct is that it’s abandoned. You start to climb out, looking around with a hand on your stiletto, lips pulled back and ready to unleash a threatening snarl on anyone who dares lay their eyes on you. Yet… no one’s here. Not one person. It’s silent, but for the occasional chirp of a cricket, until—

A scream rips through the calm, drawing your attention to one of the buildings that still has a light on. You begin to slink towards it, drawing your stiletto and ready to defend yourself. You’re too nosy for your own good, and it’ll get you killed someday, but you’ll do your damndest to make sure that isn’t today. There’s a smell you’re familiar with on the wind; like rotten iron.

You slowly slip into the opened door, and find… a communal living space, and one thoroughly draped in blood. You nearly step back out, eyes wide, as you take in the scene—this is a kind of brutality you didn’t really know that humans inflicted on each other.

The bodies of six people total are present, each one of them more or less intact but for the loss of their heads, cleanly severed in what presumably would have been a single heavy blow by a bladed weapon. This, admittedly, is an image you’re not unused to necessarily, but not one you’d hoped to see again. It’s almost enough to distract you from the sounds of a struggle upstairs. Thundering footsteps, furniture being knocked over, shouting…

You head upstairs, gingerly. Maybe you can save these folks. Wait, save them? That’s not a familiar impulse.

Up the stairs is a short hallway, itself riddled with signs of struggle; a single corpse rests against the far end of the room, a long streak of blood across the floor that means they probably dragged themselves there before being put down for good. You try not to think about it, approaching the door where you hear the struggle coming from and peering into it…

A tall man stands over another, boot planted firmly on his back. Sparks of iridescent magic fizzle out around him, as he tries and tries to no avail to cast a spell, or to at the very least squirm out from underneath his assailant’s boot. He’s missing an arm. You…

You’re going to be heroic. Why? Too late to ask. You throw the door open as hard as you can, slamming it into the assailant and knocking him off the other man. He yelps, surprised by your arrival and clearly thankful as he issues hurried prayers, scrambling up to his feet and barreling past you out of the room. You try to peek further into the room, holding the door like a shield, but before you can get a look at the attacker, his axe crowns through the door just inches from your cap.

Fuck that. You stumble back, and turn tail, satisfied with your one good deed today. You can hear him rip the axe out of the door, and his footsteps beginning to steadily descend the stairs just as you slip out of their view. Either he’s injured, or he’s just… walking. He doesn’t seem terribly intent to catch up with you. You hurry outside, trying to find a good hiding spot that will conceal your glow…

Ducking into the bushes just outside of the compound and cloaking yourself with a layer of illusion magic, you watch the killer emerge, bloodied axe slung over his shoulder and clothes surprisingly free of blood. He looks down at the trail of blood that his would-be victim must have left behind, regarding it with disinterest. Then… he turns, and looks directly at you with his bright white eyes, prompting you to sink back into the leaves, a cold feeling washing over you.

Yet he just… walks away. He slowly trudges back out to the road, and begins walking off, opposite the direction of the blood trail his victim left behind.

You don’t know if he’ll come back. You hope he won’t. What you do know is that there’s probably not anyone here anymore, and there’s definitely a ton of valuables left lying around.

Jackpot.