<i>If you must walk in Carpathia-arrive before midnight. <br/>
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Whatever it takes.<br/>
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Behind the gates of Ravenshead<br/>
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Halls of evil, dreams of dread<br/>
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Only the touch of the dead<br/>
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Waits on the steps of Ravenshead.<br/>
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For when the sun doth set in Carpathia<br/>
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And the worm that gnaws the grave crawls hence forth from gulf and cave<br/>
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And when the moon doth rise in Carpathia<br/>
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Then the creature leaves the lair and the ghost is on the stair.<br/>
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For there is no such beauty in the morning light<br/>
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Nor in the later hours of day<br/>
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As when darkness fell in the deep pine woods<br/>
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And the wolves go hunt their prey<br/>
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Ah, you should hear the sweet sullen song<br/>
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Of the nightbirds' call to the moon<br/>
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And the glorious howling sound of the wind<br/>
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In the wastes and all places marooned.</i><br/><br/><br/>The youngest Donovan couldn’t get the stories out of his mind. Tales of Carpathia horror crept out of their hiding place to now warn him as an adult. Brayden wished that they were just stories to frighten children but he knew better. Even as a child, he knew of monsters. The strange foul smelling blood on his brothers’ cloaks after a nights hunt made them tangible nightmares. Their scars too. He could recite his eldest brother Cathal’s epic tale of how he almost lost his arm “but the bastard got a couple fingers” like it was gospel. Stories were better then. When no one expected you to be anything because children didn’t fight monsters. They heard tales.<br/><br/><br/>Now at almost forty years, Cathal doesn’t tell tell him stories. He expects Bray to follow in line like the rest of the Donovans. Though, being a Slayer wasn’t a part of him so Brayden told stories of a different sort. Stories filled with adventure and thrill. He’d come back with an ancient trinket to add to the hoard along with an exciting story to tell until he got bored. Though, the thing with adventuring was that you always had to find more interesting places and more valuable trinkets to find. Once you explore all the known lands, you search for ones in nightmares. Ones that even Slayers are hesitant to tread or won’t even dare wander.<br/><br/><br/>You travel to Carpathia.<br/><br/><br/>You take your best horse and leave before the sun graces the earth. Why? Because if that land catches you in the dark, it swallows you whole and your body is the land’s forever do it with it as it wishes. Brayden, choosing not to test the truth of stories, arrived in Carpathia at dawn. Even under the same sky as neighboring lands, everything was blanketed in grey and smelled of rot. It’s people mirrored the same hue. Grey and moving at the same hurried pace. Their silent rush to hide from the dark while he walked among them unnoticed.<br/><br/><br/>After managing to get a hint of direction from a stranger, he found shelter for his horse and traveled on foot. The village seemed to quickly vanish behind him as the architecture shifted to decay and abandonment. Houses became few until he just stopped seeing them. Regardless of seemingly being vacant the woods felt...alive. This realization only encouraged him to reach his destination sooner.<br/><br/><br/>Wolves Hollow.<br/><br/><br/>The centerpiece of nightmares. The unspoken rite of passage that could stomp out the fire of Cathal’s tales just by visiting the grounds. Or, stepping foot in the church and surviving with a story to actually tell of course. In theory it didn’t seem like a hard feat to accomplish. Stay out of the dark. Don’t travel through the woods. The church itself was badly damaged to the point that it didn’t serve as adequate shelter. However, it’s catacombs were more than enough and he didn’t know of any that didn’t have a torch or two to light.<br/><br/><br/>Soon the empty catacombs were alive with the orange glow of a torch and a horribly intrigued Donovan. Most of the underground cemetery was empty but that wasn’t necessarily a disappointment. He wasn’t after true value after all. Eventually, the hallways opened up to pews. An altar he supposed that included a couple candelabras. As he passed them, he lit the candles with the torch to provide more light. The first lit half of the room and he turned to light the other. With the action, the sheath of his sword collided with the fixture and his teeth clenched as the metal met the stone floor. For a moment, the room became dimmer with just his torch.<br/><br/><br/>Until his eyes caught the small glow of orange in a corner. Along with the smell of...fire.<br/><br/><br/>Ancient, dry rotting tapestries caught flame quicker than he expected and in his hurry to stomp them out, he dropped his torch which burned out to nothing.<br/><br/><br/>The room was steadily swathed in darkness with his efforts until faint embers faded away.<br/><br/><br/>As the catacombs returned to black, a single phrase left his lips.<br/><br/><br/>“Fuck.”