Louise stood in the field, the western vestri court to be exact, she'd just completed her summoning ritual and was awaiting the results, the one thing that would prove she could use magic properly.
A pink magical circle stood where her familiar would appear, and suddenly without any warning an explosion came out of the circle. This explosion was much stronger than her usual miss-cast's.
First both of her ear drums where blasted out, blood spurting down out of her ears. Hopefully the students that stood further away had faired better. Next the blast hit her, she knew for certain that she would die. The last thing she saw was a odd lamp hanging of a stick, blue-ish smoke coming off it, standing where her summon should have been.
She was dead before she hit the ground.
A groan, she awoke lying on her back, she felt good, better than she had in a while.
Sitting up she dropped herself off the cold surgical table, taking a breath in she started walking, she needed to find someone who could tell her where she was.
She took her first step and looked around her fiendish surroundings, odd metal table's. often only found in a sanitarium, odd metal stands with bags of red liquid in them. She walked on the next room had a corpse in it, blood splattered against the wall with its head gone.
Her eye's widen in shock and she took a step back, but she wasn't afraid, no familiar rise of heartbeat in her chest whenever she read one of her favored horror novels.
She gulped, more nervous than afraid and continued on. Eager the get away from the rotting corpse.
She walked in the next room, still thinking about the corpse she didn't register this room.
Then she noticed the giant man-sized blood covered wolf being gnawing at some poor corpse.
She gasped, now fear filled her chest, apparently the wolf took note of this and lunged at her, Louise barely registered him gnawing at her throat. Then she died for the second time.
This time, she woke up standing, as If she had spaced out for a while instead of dying, and suddenly found herself standing in a completely different place.
The sky was filled with a not quite fog, White flower bushes where scattered around the place, further on the path there was a human sized doll, it lied limply.
"just where am I" she spoke to herself, no choice but to move on she walked towards the entrance of the fairly small house on top of the hill.
Then as she approached the stair's something odd happened, a bubbly mess of foam? Something came out of the floor in a pool and three little grey –things- half crawled out.
One they noticed her the began dragging handle's out of the pool, and then the rest of the weapons they held.
For some odd reason she knew the weapons by name, as if they where as common as a regular musket, though their odd shape was not.
The first had a heavy axe, the hilt wrapped in white cloth, this was the Hunters Axe, a weapon often used by the stronger hunters.
What was a hunter anyway? These where not the tools of trade used by the ordinary game hunter.
The next was a gruesome fusion between a flip blade and a grim looking cleaver, with a serrated edge. The saw cleaver, a macabre weapon.
she could only imagine the horrendous wounds inflicted by such a weapon.
And finaly the last weapon, -a canewhip- though she knew not where the 'whip' part was from. It was something that looked for all reasons like a ordinary walking stick, though upon closer inspection she noticed the staff of the walking stick had 6 edges, and the end had a small pike, like a iron fence, or an ash poker.
Or the baton's used by the feared and infamous Romanian Inquisition, though the baton's where a lot thicker, and where attached to a cross rather than a walking stick.
She looked at the eyeless grey creatues, -take one- she could almost hear them say.
She picked up the cane -it wasn't as heavy as she thought- and walked on.
Not two steps later, another patch of grey came up from the ground, these little –messengers- held up two much more familiar shapes, both some sort of musket, one pistol and the other a short rifle, perhaps even usable in one hand, there was something a little of about them both though, the outer mechanics seemed only half familiar, despite the fact mother taught her from young how to maintain a sword and gun.
Again –take one- she picked the pistol, prefer a somewhat more familiar form over the odd short musket/blunderbuss.
This too wasn't as heavy as the guns her mother thought her to use, the soft oaken grip felt good In her hand.
She walked on and into the house.
Inside was an odd workshop, saw's and other lade's hung from the ceiling, a desk cluttered with designes and a small rack of half finished weapons, and in the corner was a sleeping man, his face hidden under the hat.
She walked forewards, shaking him softly. The old man woke up "wha-oh, a new hunter" he blinked the sleep out of his eye's and used his hands to sit up straight.
"where am I old man" she asked taking a small step back and gazing, he looked at louise
"you don't know? Never mind, my name is Gehrman and my job is to teach new hunter's whatever they need.
"Huh? A hunter?"
"hm you really don't know, well I suppose you'll find it out for yourself. Just remember: you must stop the scourge at the source in order to rise the sun, and survive"
Louise frowned, gherman remained impassive "what do you mean old man?"
He grinned, just a little "oh you'll know soon enough, come now young hunter ill show you how to use those weapons"
Louise pretentiously rose her chin "I already know how to use a sword and a gun"
"yeah a regular one maybe, but not a hunter's weaponry"
Her frown deepened "what is a hunter anyway"
He grinned a little more "all in good town, and you shouldn't frown so much" a little more youth creeped into his voice.
He grabbed an identical gun from his pocket, it was hidden in his wheelchair.
"a gun is fairly simple, simply aim and shoot. a hunter's pistol however is a bit different, though aiming and shooting is still there, reloading go's a bit differently, see this trigger underneath the finger guard. It should be underneath your middle finger"
She looked down at her gun, indeed there was a small trigger underneath the finger guard, like the front letter of the R, with the handle being the spine of the letter and the finger guard the upper loop.
"if you pull it, the reloading process starts. Hunter's use quicksilver bullets shaped by magic. Not only does what you're hunting have a weakness to mercury, but each bullet has been magically tuned to the gun, the bullet hardens in the gun, and goes through the enemy, and then it slowly dissolves into the air, before returning to the gun. Go ahead try it"
she pulled the reload trigger, nothing happened.
"you'll have to fire it first, out the door please"
She aimed out the open door and pulled the trigger, the knock back wasn't as strong as she thought it would be.
"good, you line up you're arm and gun well, a natural born hunter if I ever saw one, but talent wont get you everywhere."
He grinned a little more to himself, by now he looked like a big happy kid. At least if nor for the wrinkles.
"go ahead reload"
Louise held the gun in front of her and pulled the reload trigger. The gun snapped open revealing the inner side of the barrel, some silver gas escaped out and the gun snapped shut on its own.
A short sound of a wiring gear was heard, and with a click the gun finished it's little routine.
Her frown disappeared her eyebrows lifting "amazing" she spoke breathlessly.
She looked over to the man his smile was bigger than ever, "for some reason you bring the life out of me little missy," he would have grinned some more if he could "go practice outside, bullets here dissolve extra fast, come back when you've got a decent guess for the remaining bullets"
She nodded eagerly, not completely registering the words as she went out to practice.
After a while she got a feel for the gun, having practiced shooting the top of the odd little lamppole's that stood around the place.
A number appeared in her mind -twenty- she walked back inside, "so can you guess how many bullets the gun has"
She frowned, again "twenty?" she guessed, his grin came back, seemingly permanently etched on his face.
"good you've made the bond, hunter's pistols tune themselves to their users, as a result the hunter can more easily tell how many bullets are in the gun."
he looked at the canewhip in her right hand. "as for the canwhip, well there's not much i can teach you, try pulling that small trigger on the handle later, and experiment.
His grin diminished a bit "but enough of that, you should go out, and remember: To live you must destroy the source of the infection, oh and it takes a bullet about 5 minute's to dissolve in the real world, so conserve ammo."
"what?" she managed to ask before she felt her consciousness getting sucked backwards.
So yeah, this was inspired by another story, however I was disappointed that it wasn't louise centric.
So I tried my hand at writing one myself.
