Hunter's Curse

Part I.

Celena Schezar briefly stopped to admire the entrance of the building which her scribbled directions had led her to. A stone arch that looked ready to crack framed the front door, and the once pink walls were marred by black streaks of mould. The dirty panes of the windows and verandas were visible behind sturdy metal bars, artistically arranged in curved motifs but topped by vicious spikes that were as capable of causing injury to a trespasser as the day they had been made. Everything about the house screamed that it had long gone uninhabited.

That did not surprise her, as it was located in one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Palas, where the air smelled of rotting fish and the fish-eaters were either poorer than dogs, diseased or both. Any who might have once lived there had probably either moved on to better houses or died.

The young blonde did not find it odd that the directions she had been given had led her there, though. Her gait as she approached the building was bold and determined.

The portal-like double doors of her destination creaked open more easily than she had expected, revealing a grey, badly lit corridor as devoid of people as the street outside. Further along, she reached a mirrored hall that provided central access to the ground-floor rooms and two once majestic, but now rotting, wooden staircases that led to the floors above and below. The black and white mosaic floor was coated in dust and pieces of cracked paint that had fallen from the mouldy walls.

Unfazed by all the cobwebs, the girl fisted her letter and set out to follow the last of the instructions. She proceeded down the stairs until she got to a corridor ending on a metallic door without handle or lock. She almost missed it at first and thought she had gone the wrong way since it did not catch the gleam of her flashlight, rust blending it in with the brown of the adjacent walls.

Looking one last time over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she tapped on it the sequence indicated on the letter.

A peeking hole opened and a lash-less brown eye inspected her. The blonde stared at it unflinching, until the hole closed and the lock clicked open. The door slid into the wall, revealing a skinny man with a creepy grin and an orange scarf wrapped around his head.

"Hey there, missy!" he whispered, almost as if daring the ghost of past inhabitants to come out and witness his dare-devil insanity.

Celena did not say a word as she followed him deep into the bowels of the building and neither did he after that. The air further down smelled of must and was even staler than on the ground floor of the house, despite the now apparent signs of regular human presence. There were no windows here to provide ventilation.

They did not have to walk long to reach another thick metallic door. This one was better kept and as the teen looked up, she saw a camera perched atop it at an angle, blinking discreetly as it captured their images and probably ran them through a database for comparison and identification. Her guide slapped a switch on the wall and, like before, this door also slid open more fluidly than one would have expected.

The room that met her looked nothing like the decrepit house she had just crossed. It was massive, but well lit and filled with rows upon rows of bookshelves. Some of the tomes within them looked ancient and were adequately protected from the elements by glass doors. There were also numerous tables where several people sat quietly, studying.

"Celena Schezar. Welcome," a tall green-eyed man with scruffy black hair and a bad shave greeted her and led her to a counter to register her arrival. "My name is Gaddes. Do you have your authorization slip?"

Celena wordlessly presented the crumpled paper she had been holding all night and the man turned on an instrument that made a blue light shine. Under the glow, a hidden mark slowly formed on the paper before their eyes: the seal of the Royal House of Asturia.

"Good, you're all clear," the man said and Celena's mind idly pondered what would have happened if she had not brought the letter, or worse, if it had been a forgery. "Welcome to the Asturian National Archive of Supernatural Activity or, as we like to call it, Annie."

He wrote down her information on a log. After the name and time of arrival, he came to the field where the specifics of the subject she intended to study were to go. Before he could ask, Celena gave him the answer.

"Draconians," she said. "I want to know how to track and kill draconians."


Disclaimer: Vision of Escaflowne isn't mine, nor would I have it any other way. This story and its plot, however, are.