The Burning Years

Chapter 1: Prologue

Long ago in a land forgotten to the whim of time, three men found a way to attain enlightenment. It was through this act that an age called the burning years. This age was cruel and miserable and from this was birthed a creature of such horrendous power and cruelty that even Satan himself quivered at the sound of his name, Strigiformes, his name was lost to time as he wiped out civilization after civilization in the hopes that one day he would put even god at his mercy. The day that even god would be put at the mercy of this creature with swept wings and evil in its mind would come in due time.

As the years of this age neared the hundreds the creature vanished suddenly and without notice. The people of this miserable age rejoiced as the creature was thought to have been slain by gallant knights who set out to extinguish the flame in its evil heart. Yet none of the knights returned.

It would be years later that these knights would return home from their noble crusade but they were not the same as when they left, as pieces of flesh dangled from their body and it almost seemed as though their armour had been bolted into their bodies.

These knights were more creature than man and as they returned to their humble villages and towns none of the villagers could recognize them by their faces because they were almost practically gone. The knights were only identifiable by the coat of arms that adorned their shields. While the villagers rejoiced in the fact that their soldiers had returned home this would not last for long.

A plague swept across the land in a black cloud of death and despair and in the midst of this cloud was the creature even Death despised. It screeched as it swept down with its piercing red eyes and talons made of the sharpest steel, it decapitated a man in one fell chop. The villagers watched in horror as their knights turned against one another until only one remained, and this knight whose name was lost to history began to recite the book of revelation, and as he finished he drew his sword one last time and plunged it into his own chest.

The village was overrun by creatures that came from this cloud, they were not living, and it seemed as though they roamed the cloud in packs and would attack anyone who was drawn into the cloud. And as the years rolled onwards this cloud would shrink and grow and the inhabitants of the cloud fought against the forces that surrounded it.

Years passed and the cloud slowly shrunk until it was nothing more than the size of a mountain. And with the defeat of the swept wing creature in hand he retreated to his cloud situated on a active volcano. Here he resided until the end of the burning years. And in the last days of the age a fierce fire swept across all the land that was once covered by the cloud. Many villagers and peasants lost everything that they owned and for some even their lives. This age was surpassed by what we call the renaissance period in history. This age brought many wonders to man and saw the reclamation of a family name that had been lost since the last of the knights were killed.

Chapter 2

Letter one: December the twenty-second Twelve-hundred and eighty-nine

While the name William Wadsworth may not mean anything to you, you may have heard of what my ancestor's surname, Cooper, a name lost to the ages and recently found to be my legitimate last name. My occupation is consistent with that of my father, an assassin. I recently was found to have been adopted at a very young age by a group of men hired by the king of England to rid the world of the nasty creatures who I so very much despise. And surely thus I have become part of an order of assassins who trace their history back to the age of Persian kings. I have thus become part a breakaway group that diverged from the initial group after it split and one group went to Italy and formed an alliance with a military. We have no such quarrels with them, yet we have no such desire to retrieve a friendship with them.

I myself have retracted my membership from the order so that I may pursue the knowledge of my true father and retrieve lost knowledge from the age called the Burning years. this requires me to form an allegiance with nobility in the area so that I may procure passage to the area I was found as a child. I will also need to find survivors of the village to see if they know anything.

Chapter 3

Present date: Paris, France.

"When are you going to repair the Time machine?" A young man dressed in a blue shirt asked.

"When I get to it, it's not the most important thing going on at the moment you know, I mean I've got to finish with the creation of a quantum flux regulator for the computer that's going into the van." Said the turtle in a nasally voice.

"Well I feel it should be your number one priority" said the young raccoon as he trampled over some of the turtles fine-tuned equipment.

"Hey, it's not my problem that you broke the time machine when WE tried to get you home from that desert in Egypt, and you know it wasn't easy to get you home either, it took almost a whole month to even find the date you were stuck in let alone where you were located at, and that took some pretty complex calculations and trigonometry on my part. " squawked Bentley as he walked himself out of the room on his legs which he had built braces for, but still needed a cane until he got the hang of walking again.

Sly looked around the room and saw little interest in the scientific instruments that adorned Bentley's shelves and workspace. Sly pondered what to do for a short time before deciding on what he would do. He was recently had planned out an elaborate heist that would require him to find a car, (which he still hadn't learned to drive) and get it parked behind the bank in the loading area with him inside the trunk.

Sly set the plan in motion by first going to buy a car. He walked along the streets until he reached a used car dealership. He walked around the lot for a while until he saw a 1972 Mercedes-Benz 550 diesel V8 he was in love at the very sight of the slick black car with white-wall tires and a red velvet interior with black leather seats. This car was the very epitomy of every liberal who drives a Prius. He wanted it bad and the price agreed with him very well.

He bought the car and began to drive down the street, and he thought to himself, "Hey this isn't so hard to do at all."

He pulled the car into a parking garage not far from where the safe-house was, he parked up and began to take the elevator to the bottom of the garage. The door opened and as he walked out a portal opened in front of him as he stepped through the doorway. He was now immersed in a village that was small but still had activity going on at various places around the quaint town.

Sly walked a few paces from the portal and it suddenly closed, he was trapped again in another time period. He walked on the road and decided it was best if he walked out of town and not cause any disturbances. Sly carried himself well and saw a shopkeep who looked as though he was in need of help. The old man was about seventy and was having trouble lifting a barrel of fish through the doorway. Sly rushed over to help the old man, he lifted the barrel up into the shop.

"Oh I thank you kindly sir", he said with a very distinct cockney accent.

"Much obliged", said Sly with his best accent he could muster up.

"I've got some work that could be done around me shop if you're looking for some extra coin", said the old man.

"I'd very much so like that", said Sly.

The two retreated into the house as the sun set on the land sly had yet to identify.

Chapter 4

The lord's fire

Day broke on the second day of Sly's stay in this land. He had earned 100 pieces of gold and silver after helping the shopkeep maintain his establishment the shopkeep told sly of evil creatures that wondered the land no longer in packs but singular entities alone and adrift in the world. Sly left the store and began to walk the lonely road that had lied before him since the morning.

He began walking with an upbeat pace and surely thus he saw a creature. It looked like a man a fox to be specific; he wore the armour of a knight without the helmet. He dragged behind him a sword and shield. As Sly neared him he saw on the ground what looked to be a dead knight, it appeared they had just fought due to the blood on the ground and on the creatures armour. But as Sly grew ever and evermore close to the creature he saw its eyes were pitch black with no white at all and blood dripped from its open mouth and flesh dangled from its teeth.

The creature was feeding upon the dead knight. The creature began to walk towards Sly, Sly wound up his cane and cracked the creature on the head and it fell to the ground, it lied there for a moment before its head exploded in a fury of blood and flesh, the pieces fell around the creature. He began to walk away from the scene and continue his journey when an ear piercing shriek attacked Sly's ears. Sly turned to see the other knight ripping its helmet off and darting after the young raccoon.

This creature had tremendous strength and agility to be running that fast at the raccoon. Sly wound up again to crack the creature, as it neared Sly it hunkered down close to the ground and pounced on him. The creatures eyes were pitch black and it snapped its teeth at Sly as he struggled to keep the creature from biting him. It thrashed and clawed as it tried to feed on the young raccoon. Sly cooked his fist back and punched the creature right in the throat, the creature spasmed and began to vomit blood and guts onto the young raccoon's face. He cocked back again and this time he punched through its throat and dismembered its head as it flopped to one side. The blood and guts it vomited up quickly dissolved into nothing and sly watched as the dead creature reanimated and walked away disappearing into the distance.

Sly once again set out on his journey to find a way back home, he passed more creatures in the open fields that spanned across the land. Sly hadn't recalled ever seeing any trees or bushes at all it was as though they had all been burned up. While there were no trees there was brown grass that covered the entire expanse of the world, the sky was gray and overcast the sun was only visible in the morning and in the evening. He finally arrived at the next town and looked around to find it completely deserted, no life resided in the town. He decided it was best for him to occupy one of the houses for the night and get some rest.

Sly built a fire in the hearth of the home and gathered wood from a rack behind the house. He looked though the house for food and found fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. This was strange as it looked like the entire village was abandoned for some time. He looked through other houses and found similar things, and upon looking in the window of a shop he saw a group of three men standing and waiting for something to arrive behind the counter of the store. It looked like these people were stocking the town with foods and other necessities for people to live in them. They must be the last of the townsfolk. Sly entered the shop and was greeted with enthusiasm as the shopkeep cut vegetables behind the counter, Sly decided he would tell them the situation he was in.

After listening to his story the three men saw that the sun was going down and advised him to return to the home he was staying at. The sun set as sly entered the home, he went up to the second floor of the house and watched through the window as creatures began to enter the town from all sides. They congregated near the center of town. It was midnight before they stopped coming in. the town was litered with them, there was at least two-hundred of them waiting for something to happen. Sly went to bed and when he awoke sly peered out the window to see a massive pile of bodies littering the center of town. They were all clad in armour and all of their heads were missing they were systematically decapitated so that they wouldn't reanimate.