| Sorry for the delay. Computer crash. A thousand apologies.
A sudden burst of wind aroused Jack's senses and he looked about him. For a moment that hung within eternity he had allowed himself to drift away, into the water of the well, and then beyond that to a world only he knew deep within the chasms of his mind. But that place had faded in the wake of the wind and the oncoming whistle that rang through his mind caused him to look around.
There, a good one-hundred feet from him, Jack saw a figure slowly descending from the darkness. He watched as the silver just began to splash over thi new entity giving life to its aged form. It was an old man, but what Jack more immediatly recognized was the weapon this old man gripped in his hand.
A devilish grin suddenly flashed upon the face of Jack, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." He had a cold raspy voice that stung at the ears of most people, but Jack saw that the old man hardly reacted.
Jack reached his right hand into his pocket and the sound of metal scratching against metal filled the air, it was as if Jack had a ring of keys in his pocket. Of course he did not, what he did have were small metal stingers which he grabbed about five of. Jack had decided the instant he saw the sword that the old man would have to be dealt with, and even without that weapon in hand Jack detected a strange sort of malice almost familiar. Almost familiar but he couldn't quite grasp where the familiarity came from. None the less, the next move Jack made would no doubt turn the situation into a battle; Jack sensed this man would not fall easy.
He waited for a single moment and when it came he uttered, "99 feet, welcome to the eighth circle, old timer." He abruptly whipped his hand out of his pocket and sent the five steel stingers soaring through the air. The flowed through the breeze like fish in a stream and rapidly coursed for the old man. Jack either had some superhuman aim or some other secret for the trajectory of these five darts were deadly. Jugglar, heart, arteries in each wrist, and forehead. They cut through the air in silver streaks much like the rays of the moon, coming closer, closer, twenty five feet now. |