Parahuman powers came into existence shortly before the arrival of the great golden man, but even before that there had been, rumors, legends, of even greater powers.
The wild hunt.
The Faerie courts.
The great slumbering cities.
The Dreaming.
Skinwalkers.
Black Dogs.
Banshee.
The list of legends goes on and on, but most of them have become corrupted with the passing of time, their names and shapes being claimed and corrupted by new men and women taking up their titles and ignoring their new found responsibilities.
But this story is not about them, oh no, this is the story of one small city, rotting from the inside out, writhing with crime and debauchery, like maggots through a decaying corpse. And like any rotting corpse, it is about to be purged by fire."
Chapter one, an attack
The day of the attack there was almost no warning. It was a normal day at the pier, stalls and street vendors were conducting a brisk and swift business while tourists hemmed and hawed. The first anyone noticed something was wrong was when a small child pointed far out to sea, and, tugging on her mother's skirt, asked in innocent tones asked,
"Hey mom, what's that thing?"
The child's mother turned around with an exasperated smile on her face that morphed into a whimper. There was a massive wall of fog rolling in, an absolutely humongous wall of grey fog with crackling, glowing green lights that floated and shot through the fog.
As it rolled closer the men, women and children on the pier could smell the burning air. From out of the mist came a massive three masted ship, its sails were the color of yellowing bone, and its wood was painted white, with dirty black edges, as though the white had been painted to hide something so much worse.
From its rigging hung figures who crawled and moved through ropes at speeds, and in such a manner, that shivers ran down the backs of those watching, as the ship sailed closer, the figures became clearer, each one was a skeleton, all bare bone and leering skull, each skull also sported light glowing red and bloody from inside their skulls, casting their ship in a dull red light even in the rapidly dying light of the evening.
Finally, the damn broke and someone screamed, no one would ever know who it was, but it was the signal to break open the damn to hell. As though it had been waiting for just that excuse, the ship smoothly, and sharply turned presenting its side towards the docks, and as those who had any sense began running, 13 slots on the side of the ship opened and the black iron of cannons peaked out. Finally, there was one more moment of terrified silence, as though the world itself was unable to comprehend what was about to happen.
Then the cannons fired, thirteen screaming, flaming balls of iron impacted the boardwalk, exploding in sprays of shrapnel, then, as more cannon fire began to sound out in repetitive sequence, everyone ran.
After a long while, the cannons stopped, and the ship made landfall, its crew coming ashore, they carefully picked up the more intact remains before rejoining their ship, and sailing back into the fog.