We've reached Chapter 10 of Avalon Tales! We shift back to Isabelle with this one, as she pokes her nose into places where she shouldn't be! Want to see what she finds? Well, you can read about it below!
My writing has been coming out in dribs abd drabs as I sink into a lull, but I'm hopeful that a holiday is all I need to pull me out of this funk and get my head down, especially since the finish line is technically visible, far onto the horizon. I think I need to find a way to make these writing stints more manageable in a way where I don't start off strong and then crash and burn mid way through. Moving to one a month is doable I suppose but then it would take a year and a half to get anythng finished. Need to think about it I suppose.
Anyway, let's move onto Brennan and Riz and see what's up with them, though it looks like it might just be Riz today!
The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
Riz Tales, Woo Hoo!
Just wanted to get that out my head, and if the original song isn't stuck in your head, then you must be impervious to ear worms!
Can't exactly remember the genesis of this strip, I just know it pretty much came out as you see here, fourth wall break and all. I believe the next two weeks issues will be simpler affairs as I have a lot to do behind the scenes. Of course, let's see if I stick to that!
Short Diversions: Avalon Tales Chapter 10
Last time, we saw Cade and Robyn join forces to help Isabelle, only to learn that she was already getting into the thick of things. Now, we pull the focus back on her as she explores the demon nest, looking to find any information she can, while also seeking to put an end to the Blood Brothers threat, but is that all that's going on?
Read on to find out!
Avalon Tales Chapter Index
Chapter 10
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Chapter 10: Into the Demons Nest
The industrial area had fallen silent, and Isabelle didn't like that. She’d expected to encounter some guards when she neared, someone keeping the outer perimeter safe from prying eyes or enemy reinforcements. Instead, there had been no one. Even when crossing the threshold into the area itself, walking in the shadows of dilapidated warehouses and the skeletal frames of machinery, there was no sign of any one, be it Avalon or otherwise.
This isn't right, this place should have been locked down tight. Where did dad go? Where did any of them go? Isabelle asked herself these questions as she carefully walked around, wanting to get to the site of her initial encounter. Her scar hadn't stopped throbbing the entire night so she'd been semi used to it, but the other feeling she'd been getting from it, one the entire time she'd been there, that was new. The only way she could describe it was as a wave motion, and while she didn't know exactly what it was trying to tell her, the fact she was feeling it at all was not a good sign.
Stopping for a moment to gather her thoughts, she glanced at the equipment attached to her belt, the demonic sensor, the same one that failed to warn her about the impending threat last time. As she expected it wasn't registering anything, the needle flickering lightly but not enough to register a change. Isabelle quickly discounted its result as the atmosphere where she was told a different story. The air felt oppressive and the building's silhouettes twisted when not in the centre of her point of view. She knew that something was greatly wrong. Having memorised the deployment maps, she knew that the industrial area, while large, wasn't as dense as where she was, the walk to her goal should have taken her only five minutes, ten at most. Yet she was nowhere near where she wanted to be, and it had already been twenty minutes. She moved closer to one of the buildings, and noticed how the wall actually looked, like an image had been stretched to fit the frame. From the looks of it, the warehouse should have been made from corrugated iron sheets, so she should have been able to run her hand over it, feeling the bumps, but instead, despite how it looked, it was perfectly smooth. She pulled her sword from its resting place, and got in a combat stance as she’d seen enough of this place to know that it was hiding something. Carefully, she slashed the wall, and the expected noise of steel on steel was replaced by nothing as the sword cut through thin air.
This whole place…She said to herself as she came to the realisation about what she’d wandered into. But, where is my father? The sound of footsteps caught her attention, heavy thuds that no human could have made, not normal ones anyway. These were nearby, but she couldn’t see the source yet. The way her scar was feeling though, she had an inkling that she was about to come face to face with a demon. Ducking down behind a small wall, she waited as her suspicion was proved right. The monster was of a similar type to the ones that ambushed her and her team earlier that night. This one was on its own though and was moving with no urgency, it twisted its head at regular intervals, and Isabelle recognised its actions for what they were. It was doing a security sweep. Keeping herself out of sight, Isabelle saw a unique opportunity, and sought to take advantage of it.
Waiting till it had passed, Isabelle, keeping low, followed it, ducking behind whatever cover she could find. From this vantage point, she could see more evidence of how this demon came to be by the number of surgical marks over its body, tell tale signs that the creature had been pulled apart and then sewn back up again. What bothered her now, was if the creature was looking around because she’d been detected somehow, or if this was all routine, and her arrival had gone unnoticed. She’d preferred the latter, as she doubted she could storm the base all by herself. The demon seemed to stop every other step, checking every direction as it was going, then, it turned to go down a side route, one that wouldn’t give much cover. Isabelle resolved to carry on though, and duly crept forward to see where the demon had gone, and was delighted to see that it was heading down stairs that shouldn’t have been there. She realised quickly that this meant her suspicions about this place were correct. That huge demonic presence that Rei spoke of, this weird illusion that had fallen on the area it all pointed to a simple fact. The Blood Brothers base had been under their feet the entire time.
I have to let Dad know…Wait, his team wouldn’t have missed any of this… Isaeblle thought as she looked around at her surroundings once more. Since she came to realise what was going on, more and more of it seemed to warp. The signs were there, even down to the silence when there should have been at least a hum of noise in the background as the rest of the world moved on. Instinctively she reached for her shoulder where her scar was, and almost like intuition, she felt afraid for her father. From what he had explained to her, to what was going on now, all signs pointed to him walking into a trap, one that even he would find it difficult to escape from. Isabelle;s drifted down to the stairs that led downwards. It was clear that she had two options, the first was to keep exploring up here in the hopes that she wandered into anyone from Avalon, someone she could explain the situation to. Then they would have to get the message to everyone else, adding more links in the plan’s chain that could fail. The second one, and the one that was calling her most, was to go down into the base herself, and face the threat head on. If she could spoil the trap before it was sprung, then that would be enough for her, even better if she could reclaim the Holy Grail which had obviously been taken as bait..Clutching her sword tightly, she started towards the stairs, slowly at first, just to see if the demon was still there or if it moved further in its patrol route. She was doing this alone, but she was glad in a way, no one was going to get hurt because of her choice. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and started down the stairs, her eyes fixed ahead of her as more of the dimly lit staircase came into view. The construction had been haphazard, with no finesse involved, as though the only concern was to make it stable, there was no change with this regard the further she went down, diving deeper and deeper underground till the steps met the ground, which in keeping with the appearance of everywhere else, was raw earth with wooden panels laid down to provide some support, though they were broken in multiple places on account of the demons that had been treading on them in number. She took in the dank smells of the corridor, noting the lights that had been strung together to provide abysmal illumination. So far, she couldn’t see any off shoots from this corridor that would allow her to start looking around, so she was forced to follow the direction that was open to her. The thought of a security system hadn’t strayed too far away from her mind, but so far, she hadn’t seen anything that resembled a camera.
Then again, do demons even need anything like that? She reasoned to herself. The only consolation, as she saw it, was that there hadn’t been a stampede of demons on her position, meaning that either they didn’t know yet that she was here, or they didn’t care, indeed, if it was the latter, she might have played into their hands by coming down here. If that was the case, Isabelle was just going to have to prove to them that they would be obstinate to the extreme in doing as they wished.
Hearing a sound from the end of the corridor made her tense up. It was a demonic growl, and it was in multiple. Isabelle stopped and quickly scanned the walls she’d passed, hoping to see any sign that they were movable. Paying close attention to the floor, she discovered a patch where it seemed like a muddy footprint ended up halfway under a wall. Still there was no obvious signs of entry, no way to get the door to open, inspecting it closer she noticed small sections of the wall that could be flipped up, and this part of the wall continued four such things. The contents of the first two looked reminiscent of ammo clips, though as if you asked someone who had a vague idea of what they’d look like to create some from memory. They clearly wouldn’t fit in her Avalon Issue weaponry, which only meant that they were designed for the demons,
Demons using weapons was not a new thing. Many demons seemed to be born with some weaponry to hand, be it claws or other bladed weapons that emerged from their own being, there had even been instances of the demons using human weaponry that they either scavenged or stole from the still warm bodies of their kills. Then of course, there was the demon weapons, which as the name implied, were demons bound to weapons through processes not entirely known to Avalon,. The existence of these ammunition clips, spoke that the demons were making their own arsenals, separate to the aforementioned demon weapons. There was one obvious advantage Isabelle could see to this approach would be to quickly arm a fighting force, and there could be no good to come of that. Pocketing the ammo clips for now, she turned her attention to the other two small boxes, finding relief when one of them resembled a handle, that she slid the side, causing the wall to fall backwards and slide partially out of the way, revealing another corridor. She stepped through and then closed the door up, finding the same handle contraption on the other side of the door. After making sure the coast was clear in this new pathway, she pressed herself up against the door she had just come through and listened as several demons marched past, presumably on their way to the surface. From what she could perceive, it didn’t sound like they were in any kind of rush. From that, Isabelle concluded that they were another guard patrol, going out to make sure that their illusion was still in effect, and that no one was coming to pry.into their affairs.
Theorising that she was safe for now, Isabelle turned around and began to explore the new corridor she was in. Appearance wise, it looked identical to the first one, and now that she knew what to look for, there were doors all over the place, though to her surprise, the first ones she checked, all led to empty rooms, devoid of anything that might have given a clue to their purpose .However, scraps of newspapers offered tantalising information about when these tunnels might have been excavated. The dates on the scraps were from the late sixties, she could make out the first three digits as a one, nine and a six, but the other was smudged, still it gave her a decade to work with, and from the looks of things, the demons had just moved into this site, after all, demons could see in the dark, they had no need of lights like the ones that dangled above. The thought that Avalon itself had made this base could not be so easily dismissed.
Further exploration provided no further evidence that she hadn’t already come across, just more empty rooms. Her luck changed however when she found another tunnel behind one of the doors, and this tunnel looked nothing like the others, being much rougher, and the lights being much more haphazard. Inspecting them more closely, they looked more modern than the other ones. The corridor tilted downwards, and got wider as it descended. Now, Isabelle found herself in a massive chamber, with other openings in the distance. She walked into the middle of the space and looked around, trying to gauge the size and realised that if someone wanted, they could place a whole army in here. She had little time to dwell on any of this however, as her scar started pulsing, she strained her ears to see if she could hear footsteps from the way she had just come from. At first she could hear the distinct sound of someone heavy footed, but then it stopped. Everything went quiet and she began to wonder if the coast was clear when the room itself started to shake. Isabelle’s mind immediately jumped to the threat of an earthquake but then it became clearer. It was footsteps, the sound of thunderous footsteps echoing throughout the underground area. The wall near where she had came from seemed to erupt as a massive shape burst through it. Despite all the dust that had been kicked up, she was able to tell that the shape belonged to a giant suit of Knight’s armour. It was pitch black in colour and the joints seemed to be blue ethereal flames connecting the pieces of armour together. The giant lumbered forward, baleful burning eyes glaring at her from a visor.
“What manner of demon are you? Are you trying to insult us with that form?” Isabelle shouted angrily. She took aim and fired, wanting to see how strong the armour was, and to her non-surprise, the enhanced bullets did practically nothing, but the sound of metal bouncing off metal told her enough. The armour was literal armour, and not hardened skin seen on the stronger demons. She deduced that either the ethereal flames was the demon, possessing the armour, or that another demon was hiding inside it, extending the flames as a method of control, like a human driving a car. Unsheathing her sword, she activated its cutting edge, and stood her ground. The size difference between the two was immense, but nothing she couldn’t deal with, she had her duty to fulfill after all.
I can use it’s size against it, I’m far more agile than that walking heap of scrap. I take down the legs, I’ve won. Isabelle thought out her plan of attack, having seen nothing that would hinder it. With the distance she had between the pair of them, Isabelle studied its movements carefully, just as she had been taught to. She noticed that there was always a slight wobble just after its foot came down, and it was momentary, but it was all she would need. She charged forward, alternating between keeping an eye on her target, and what it was doing with its arms, the last thing she wanted was to be blind sided by a massive fist. In reaction to this, the giant stretched out to grab her, a move she easily avoided as it was lumbered around. Ahead of her was the target she was aiming for as the giant went to put its foot down again, wanting to steady itself in an attempt to squash her. This move provided her with what she wanted, and just as the foot slammed into the ground, she struck. Time seemed to slow as she watched as her sword and the her target came at each other, she held her breath when the blade made contact. There had been resistance, but not for long.
To her relief, the sword cut through the armour just as she’d hoped it would. Then as it followed it’s arc, it swung free. There was a splash of that ethereal flame from the opening, and she darted back to avoid it burning her. What she wanted to happen now, was for the giant to lose its balance and fall, either direction was fine with her.
That didn’t happen though.
The giant instead straightened itself up, and she could already tell something was different with it. It took another step forward, but there was no wobble anymore, and in fact, its entire movements seemed smoother. Before she even had time to register any other change, the giant slammed its fist into the ground narrowly avoiding her, but the shockwave hit her hard. She managed to roll as she hit the ground, preventing much of the damage, but the foe was already on her, as it moved to kick her. She couldn’t evade this one as easy as before so was clipped by the side of the armoured boot. She was knocked towards the far wall. She pulled herself up, and tried to calm the running thoughts that were circling her head, wanting to find a way to overcome the massive enemy. As if reading her mind, the giant changed its movement again, acting like it was now floating off the ground instead of any traditional movement. With immense speed, it closed the gap, its right fist at the ready.
For the second time in her life, Isabelle found herself frozen, unable to do much as the enemy went in for the attack. Her only reprieve came from the giant changing its target at the last moment, instead of going for her, it reached up, punching the ceiling. The result was instantaneous, as the roof of the massive chamber began to collapse. Regaining her senses, Isabelle looked to her left, seeing a passageway that was her only hope of getting out alive, She ran for it, but the giant struck the ground behind her, causing her to be thrown into the tunnel, the force of the blow caused her to lose consciousness. The last thing she saw was the rocks falling, sealing up the exit, separating her from the giant.
When she woke up, she was back in her old childhood bedroom, the early rays of dawn poking through the curtains. There was an old fashioned alarm clock dinging away, but she was trying her hardest to ignore it. What she couldn’t ignore was her mother standing in the doorway, arms crossed but wearing a more jovial expression.
“You can’t stay in bed all morning, you know?” Diana stated, her kind smile bringing tears to Isabelle’s eyes. “We’ve got a lot to do today, so let’s get up and meet the day!”
Isabelle wanted to rush out of bed, run to her, and wrap her arms around her as tightly as she could, but she couldn’t move.
“Time to wake up…” Diana repeated, her voice slowly fading out, as the surroundings lost all colour, and then all definition.
“...Time to wake up…” Her words became echos as another voice joined the fray, saying the exact same thing. At first they hid behind what Diana was saying, but quickly the roles were reversed, and the other voice took over.
“Time to wake up…” This other voice was male, and Isabelle woke up, finding herself in that same tunnel as before, but this time, she knew she wasn’t alone. The voice was still there, and the source was close by. Taking a look around, the corridor had rooms on each side of it that resembled prison cells, with metal bars forced and twisted into place. Now back on her feet, she started scanning the cells one by one, till she found the only occupied one. The occupant was draped in dirty robes, and wore a crown that had been crudely constructed out of barbed wire, with dried blood on his head from where the spikes had dug into his flesh. His eyes were closed at first, but he opened them slowly, revealing their light blue colour, then he spoke again:
“You have woken up I see…”
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Next Chapter (not live yet!)
Well, that's another chapter down!
Next week sees the return of my 'The Plot Thickens' experiment, as new cards are drawn and added into the story.
Till next time,
Keep on writing!
Peter James Martin
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