April 13th, 1798 21:00

Natasha came upon a strange sight, in the dim light of the living room, she sees, her uncle, Lazar Barnes standing above Rory holding a knife. She is shocked, Rory is sleeping soundly and Lazar is slowly approaching Rory. Out of pure instinct, Natasha screams, Rory wakes up and at this point, Lazar tries desperately to stab Rory with the knife. He barely dodges a lethal blow and instead, the knife makes a small cut in Rory's side. His experience as a monster hunter helps him at this moment to recover from the blow and sweep Lazar's legs with a kick. Lazar drops on the ground and the knife leaves his hands. Natasha opens the lights and Rory picks up the knife with one hand and applies some pressure on his wound with the other. He now points the knife at Lazar who is on his knees in front of him. Natasha rushes over to see what is going on.

"What's happening? Uncle?"

Lazar looks at the ground, his gaze is full of uncertainty and sadness. He takes a look at Natasha and with tears in his eyes he says,

"I am sorry, Natasha. I have failed. I have failed this town, I have failed my sister and your father. I have failed you."

Rory kicks Lazar in the stomach and prompts him to stand up while still threatening him with the knife. Natasha looks at that scene and goes over to Rory,

"What are you doing?"

Rory turns to face her but still keeps eye contact with Lazar.

"What am I doing? Your uncle tried to kill me."

At this point, he shifts his attention to Lazar,

"What was the meaning of this, Mr.Barnes?"

Lazar's gaze drops to the floor and he takes a deep breath, he slowly lifts his eyes and tries to give an explanation.

"I...I tried to kill you, Mr.Grant. I didn't want it to come into this, you were supposed to fail at the job like everybody else and then..."

Rory and Natasha were confused, they both wanted to ask the same question but Natasha took the lead.

"What do you mean? Fail at the job? Uncle? What are you trying to say?"

Lazar was shaking at this point, it was clear that he couldn't handle the pressure of the situation, he tried his best though to reveal his intentions.

"Father Lucian said it would be fine, he said that we could pull this off till the end...He said that no one would find out

Rory was already furious and at this point, he yelled at Lazar who seemed to have completely lost his sense.

"I don't understand you! Explain, I want to know everything!"

Lazar averted his eyes from Rory momentarily out of fear and as soon as he took a couple of short breaths to catch up, he explained more,

"It's...It's Magnus."

Natasha was confused by the mention of the town's founder, she had to ask.

"What? What does the founder have to do here?"

Lazar's eyes were full with tears of regret as he told them everything,

"It's Magnus, the founder of this town. He is the one behind the attacks of the Shades."

Rory and Natasha were shocked, at this point, they demanded a fulfilling answer from Lazar.

"I told you to explain everything to me!"

Once again, scared and covered with tears, Lazar tries to explain to Rory what has been happening,

"The founder of this town, Magnus. Word has it that he was a man of faith, he loved God. A conservative and righteous man. He wasn't always like that though. Before the birth of this town, Magnus was a fisherman, he never had the fortune he desired, his wife took their kids and abandoned him. There he stood, at the edge of a forest when he met a powerful witch. She told him that he could get anything he wanted. The greed in his heart asked for his own town to rule, a town that would flourish economically. He didn't know the consequences of his actions. The witch gave him what he asked for, the lake had more fish than water, at last, e had a way to achieve the wealth he dreamed of, he built a small town at the edge of the lake, soon other fishermen heard of the thriving lake near Magnus' place. The town grew bigger and bigger with more people willing to stay there, the town grew rapidly and the economy flourished. Magnus ruled over the town for years, but then, the witch came back to claim her prize. She asked for 10 children of the village as compensation, Magnus refused her so instead she cursed him to become a shadow in a week's time."

Lazar began to tell the story of the founder, both Rory and Natasha stood there listening carefully and tried not to interrupt him just to see where he was going with this.

"Magnus was desperate, he was cursed to become a shadow creature in 7 days. That's when he accepted the love of the Lord, he devoted his life to him, he asked the men of the town to build a church in town. He thought that if he tried hard enough to be a righteous man, God would help him. Without any more time, Magnys instructed the church to finish construction and then he vanished from the town. The next mayor carried on his wishes and the church was built. The town once again thrived economically thanks to the fishing. It wasn't long before the town grew too much and other kinds of businesses opened up shop in town. Soon, taverns, inns, brothels and cabarets opened up in town. The growing population of the town and the constant travelers kept such businesses rich with coins. It all seemed to work out until the town fell on my shoulders. Soon after I became mayor, we held a council with the three heads of the town, me, Father Lucian and Diego Pearson. We discussed how the town was doing economically and we were very pleased to see it flourish. During our meeting though, we had a special guest. We were visited by a shadow creature, it was Magnus. He appeared before us in a weird form that left us all in shock. He claimed that we should close down every unholy and lustful place in town. He told us that it was immoral to have such establishments in town and exploit them for financial gain. Both Pearson and Father Lucian declined that, they had their reasoning tainted by greed. That was one year ago, the founder said we would suffer consequences. The next night, we had an attack by the Shades. It was the founder, he came to us again and said that he would continue to send more and more creatures to eradicate all the people of this town. With all three of us blinded by greed though, we continued to ignore him, we tried to come up with a plan to defend the town. Magnus said that the lake would stop producing, that's when it all began."

Rory was tired with the whole storytelling and hit Lazar again, Natasha tried to hold him back but after being threatened for his life, Rory wouldn't just keep very calm.

"Get to the point!"

Lazar fell on his knees once again and continued.

"That's when our greed exceeded even that of actual demons. We tried to exploit the situation to make ourselves even wealthier. I raised the taxes with the excuse of strengthening our defenses against the Shades. Some of the money went to Pearson and I kept the rest. Pearson would hire inexperienced men to look like he was doing his job, he dispatched several of such men into the forest with the false image of trying to solve things. All he did was send men to their death. The money we took from the taxes was beginning to pile up and Father Lucian also got a lot from the funerals of the soldiers that were supposed to be covered by the town. With such a convenient excuse that fell on our laps, we could do a lot of money laundering and move gold around to each of our pockets from the taxes. When some of the sharp people in town complained about the lack of results we came up with another idea. We offered rewards to monster hunters, we gave them very little information about their tasks and promised a good reward to attract monster hunters. All of them were also excited about the reward and rushed to the forest where they met their deaths. That made it look like I was doing my best to offer safety to the citizens and also gave me another excuse to increase the taxes."

Rory and Natasha were shocked by Lazar's words. They couldn't believe what they heard. The town's council was covering the whole thing up and exploited the citizens to make themselves richer.

"You are a disgusting man, Lazar Barnes."

Said Rory with clear pity in his voice. Natasha was just overwhelmed by the whole thing and had to sit down, she couldn't even look Lazar in the face.

"I wanted to stop, I wanted to make it all right from the start. It was Father Lucian who talked us into continuing the whole charade, he brought the cabaret owners in it as well. He extorted more money from them so that they could keep their businesses and when they heard about the situation, we used some of the tax money to fortify the establishments. In return, they stayed quiet about the whole thing and they also made more money. It was a win-win situation for all of us. I wanted to stop, believe me, Natasha. I didn't want to do any of this."

Rory then remembered what happened earlier,

"Is that why Pearson went after Victor?"

Lazar had no choice at this point to sincerely answer,

"Yes, when you and Hill managed to make such progress with the whole thing, Father Lucian thought that you might pose a problem to our plan, he talked Pearson into assaulting Victor Hill. Despite his failure though, we managed to capture him and order his execution."

Rory placed the knife at Lazar's throat, despite the fact that Natasha tried to stop Rory up to this point from torturing Lazar, she didn't have the emotional stability at the moment to do so.

"You are going to let Victor out right now. Do you hear me?"

Said Rory. Lazar replied with bad news though.

"I would if I could, I never wanted any of this to happen. With your latest accomplishment though, the founder that still lies in the forest isn't able to send more of his creatures to attack. Father Lucian went for Hill earlier today."

Rory's mind filled with anger, he pressed the knife a little bit into his neck, just enough to leave a scratch.

"What do you mean he went for him!?"

Lazar's trembling voice revealed the last piece of their plan.

"Father Lucian broke Hill out of his cell earlier with the promise of leading him to the source of the attacks and letting him free, as we speak, they should already be in the forest."

Rory punched Lazar on the ground,

"That son of a bitch!"

Natasha's eyes were also filled with tears up to this point, she had no idea about the execution and Victor tried not to let her know when she went earlier that day to see him.

"You won't make it in time, Father Lucian will kill him."

Rory punched Lazar unconscious on the floor as he mumbled,

"Victor is going to be fine, worry about yourself."

Meanwhile, April 13th, 1798 21:05

Victor and Father Lucian are walking in the forest looking for the source of the attacks, Father Lucian has told Victor that the one responsible for the attacks is Magnus himself, he is now a shadow creature and the only way to defeat him is a secret plan he has. He revealed a crimson red stake as he explained his plan to Victor.

"This is a stake made from ancient acacia wood and blessed by 12 priests, it has enough power to send every spawn of darkness back to hell."

Victor was intrigued by the weapon that Father Lucian had with him,

"I see..."

It wasn't for long until they found what they were looking for, while deep in the forest, they saw a shadowy figure, a humanoid figure with a dark robe floating slightly above the ground, it stopped right in front of them as it began talking to them,

"Ah...Your will is very strong."

Said the shadow as it pointed towards Victor with a boney black finger. With his eyes focused on the figure and it's movements, VIctor was too late to notice Father Lucian lifting the stake up until it was too late, he tried to stab Victor in the chest with the stake but with Victor's reflexes, he managed to place his arm in the way of the thrust. The stake pierced clean to the other side of his forearm as he turned to face Father Lucian who at this point was scared for whatever was coming his way.

"I...I can explain, Mr.Hill..."

Victor placed both his hands on Father Lucian's head and without a single word, he snapped his neck with a swift twist of his head killing him instantly. The stake was still embedded in Victor's forearm. The shadow then slowly approached VIctor who stood above the lifeless body of Father Lucian.

"You...You are strong...Wise...You will save the town and lead it...To become what it was supposed to be..."

Victor answered to that statement with a low subtle voice,

"I am not a hero, nor a leader. I am a monster hunter."

The shadow talked to Victor as he turned to face it, he looked at the shadow for a single moment before removing the stake from his forearm and with a swift move stab the shadow in what seemed to be its head. With a loud scream and a massive amount of smoke, the shadow vanished from that place, clearly, the stake had done what it was supposed to do and Victor began to walk back to the town after using a piece of clothing he ripped from the priest's attire to dress up his wound.

April 14, 1798 00:04

After returning to the Barnes mansion, Victor met up with Rory at the entrance and he informed him of the situation. Victor went to the bathroom and with Natasha's help, he properly tended to his wound from the stake. Rory escorted Lazar to the prison and put him in a cell. Needless to say, he didn't resist at all to his arrest and willingly walked inside the cell after signing a document that surrendered the title of the town mayor to his niece, Natasha. When Rory returned to the mansion to get some rest, he figured that Victor and Natasha went to bed together so he just lied to the sofa and fell to sleep. Natasha after tending to Victor's wound invited him to a bath with her. After that they lied on the bed. Once again, Victor and Natasha made passionate love for the rest of the night...

April 14, 1798 06:17

Victor and Rory are walking towards the gate of the town, they have packed all their things and are ready to make their way out of the town. That's when Rory turns to face Victor,

"You are a cold bastard, Victor. I can't believe you just left her like that."

Victor sighed...

"You could have stayed and ruled the town, you could have everything and even start a family, I wouldn't mind staying here and opening up an engineering shop. We could both settle down here, with the sorcerer dead, every creature created by his magic would also vanish. The lake would start to thrive again, we could build a life here."

Victor answered to Rory,

"We did our job, the town is safe and in good hands. Besides, I am not a family man, I am not a leader. I am a monster hunter."