Visions of the Animus [not game thread]
Visions of the Animus
A Beskar-Secura Large Mafia Game
Firenze, Italia - c.1502
Nightfall; eternal betrayer of the innocent, companion of the malevolent.
The bitter, black expanse had enveloped the city of Florence unusually early that day, yet the streets were still bustling with activity long after the Santa Maria Novella's bells had subsided; nobles, priests and captains walked side-by-side with thieves, smugglers and footpads, their status within the city by day meaning nothing under the veil of night.
Upon the Ponte Vecchio, a slender figure stopped and leaned upon the cold stone wall, staring down into the Arno's waters; moonlight shimmered on the surface of the river, casting an almost ethereal glow upon the two reflections that gazed upon it.
"Il fiume... it is beautiful tonight, no?" the newcomer whispered, his eyes surveying the figure beneath vermilion-shaded spectacles; his right-hand had been clenching tightly upon a drafting compass hidden up his sleeve for some time, and he was maintaining considerable willpower in order to refrain from showing his hand too early.
"Si, magnifico" came the reply; a female, her voice soft and effeminate yet tinged with an air of severity and intense concentration. The gentleman furrowed his brow as he looked her over once more, as it became increasingly clear to him that this was not the woman he was looking for; he promptly slid his compass into one of his many coat pockets, nodded politely and slid into a passing group of citizens.
The woman smiled slyly as she watched the engineer vanish from sight; once she was certain he had disappeared, she left the bridge and ducked into a nearby alleyway without drawing the attention of anyone nearby. She then proceeded to tug at her flowing brunette locks, pulling the hairpiece away to reveal a shortened, sandy-blonde bob; she tousled her hair, partly to try and retain some semblance of her usual style and partly due to the fact that the hairpiece was incredibly irritable.
Her attire followed soon after, with the fuchsia-hued silk of her elegant gown easily torn away to reveal tanned leather trousers and the form-fitting pearl-white blouse of her courtesan guise; she slid a royal blue-and-burgundy jacket over this, fastened it and proceeded to slip out of the alley and walked boldly into the Piazza della Signoria.
A large crowd had gathered at the foot of the Palazzo della Signoria, which cast an imposing figure over the market stalls scattered across the square, whereby even the podium for public executions seemed to cower beneath it's gaze. The crowd was turning around periodically as if they were in Il Colosseo watching sparring gladiators; the thief noticed that they were observing a hunched figure that had taken to the rooftops, scrambling from building to building with a sense of unknown urgency that eluded his audience below.
Intense and maniacal laughter suddenly echoed around the square, seemingly issued by the palace itself; the crowd looked up to the parapets, where they could see a sinister silhouette cast against the moonlight, with notable horn-like protrusions curved downwards from the head and arms and legs aloft, seemingly fixed into a strange and contorted pose.
"Il diavolo!"
"Spirito maligno!"
The thief remained statuesque as the crowd scattered into the night, her gaze fixed upon the silhouette as it leaped from the Palazzo della Signoria, seemingly gliding down to the smaller buildings below, somersaulting and landing deftly upon a tiled rooftop; with continued cackling, the 'demon' chased his prey.
The fleeing nobleman struggled to keep the pace against the more athletic acrobat and his movements became more frantic as the laughter drew closer; in a moment of sheer desperation, he threw himself from the rooftops, landing in what could only be described as a conveniently-placed mound of hay. However, before he even had time to brush the straw from his expensive robes, there was a blur of blue and green and the cackling 'demon' was upon him.
The two assassins fought with one another, with the prosthetic arm of the noble clattering against the sleek stiletto blades of the harlequin; while his attacker had the advantage in athleticism, the nobleman had physical strength and adrenaline in his favour, and it eventually showed as the harlequin was thrown to the ground with brute force. In mere seconds, the noble had grabbed his assailant by the neck with his prosthetic appendage, a trio of claw-like blades puncturing the harlequin's throat and killing him instantly.
The crowd emerged from the darkness once more, simply milling around at first but slowly gathering around the fallen arlecchino and the exhausted nobleman; the thief pushed her way through the massing numbers, certain that she had found her own target and eager to seal his fate while he was recovering, particularly given his physical strength in comparison to her own.
Upon the ground, the noble snapped back to reality, aware that this was no time to revel in his victory as there would always be more assassins; still feeling weak from his ordeal, he stumbled to his feet and began to stagger through the crowd in search of the nearest darkened corner, anywhere away from prying eyes.
Behind him, the thief's fingers clasped tightly around the looped handle of her own weapon; a single half of a pair of scissors, the blades separated in a pact long broken with a person long dead. In a single fluid movement, she flipped the blade around so that her fingers had a delicate hold of the sharpened edges, before throwing the scissor blade through the crowd and into the hunched back of the hobbling nobleman.
The crowd descended into panic once more, with plenty of pushing and shoving as everyone tried to flee the scene of two murders; the nimble thief found herself being pushed this way and that, her own chances of escaping in a low-profile manner seemingly slim as the nearest exit from the Piazza della Signoria was obstructed by the city guard.
The thief could hear increasingly heavy breathing behind her; struggling to turn back around in the crowd, her gaze eventually fixed upon a bone-white, avian-like mask with large blackened eyes... she failed to see the raised syringe until it was too late, the needle slamming into her neck, it's toxic contents seeping into her bloodstream and ending her life within seconds.
-Simulation Concluded-
Do try better next time, Subject #93!
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Originally Posted by Romanic
But I did read it, afterwards.
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