Photo by Nik Owens on Unsplash
Photo by Pablo Pacheco on Unsplash
Links to the original post and the story so far (in order) can be found in the Tale of Two Pizza's Collection Post
Tale of Two Pizza's seems to be growing more intense this week with 
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Winners delivery pics
Bucephalus circled Grove slowly, trying to gauge the positions and strength of the demonic creatures within. Rachel was tough, tougher than any human should be. Throughout their long friendship the only help Rachel had ever needed from her was a ride. This time Bucephalus wasn't so sure. Two of the entities she could sense were close in strength, the third was much weaker but more than a match for any average human. The strongest of the three appeared to be alone somewhere in the east wing of the mansion. The other two were close together somewhere in the center of the building. The great hall perhaps. Barry seemed to be there with the two of them.
She moved closer to the walls to get a better sense of everything. She dared not communicate with Rachel, or Barry. Casting her mind towards the demons would surely make them aware of her. She could, however, track Rachel's movements through the settlement and knew that she was approaching the pair of demons. If the third remained unaware and didn't get involved Rachel would probably be able to take care of the situation herself. She was decidedly not an average human...
Rachel stood frozen, momentarily in shock at the sight of Barry in such agony. A writhing tendril of mist extended from a decrepit old woman and played across Barry's tortured form. A door slammed shut, out of Rachel's view, but it was enough to shake her out of her horror. Ducking down beneath the window she thought furiously about everything that Bucephalus had told her about these creatures. Unfortunately, she had not told her much beyond that they were evil and powerful...
"Demons... You had to get captured didn't you Barry... and this time it's damn DEMONS," She muttered under her breath. Steeling herself, she dared to peek into the window once more. Barry's screams were dwindling to groans, but the old woman seemed preoccupied. Rachel jumped in through the window and immediate leaped to the left, wriggling under a large ornate table with high backed chairs that had been pushed back against the wall. She lay there a moment, holding her breath to be sure she had not been seen. Bucephalus had said there were three of them... Where are the others? She couldn't risk facing all of them.
She repositioned herself under the table to survey the rest of the room. Much of it had not been visible from the window and everything had been pushed back out of the center. There were no occupants other than Barry and the woman. The tendril of mist seemed to be thicker now, and Barry's groans of pain were growing louder once more. His tortured twisting seemed to be growing weaker as he dangled there. Rachel could see small cuts everywhere, covering his whole body and oozing small rivulets of coagulating blood. There was no way he would be in any condition to escape.
Despite the rage steadily rising in her as she took in his flayed body she kept calm and resisted reaching for the pistol that would so easily dispatch of this monster but ruin her chance of escape at the same time. The demon had not looked away from Barry at all. She was entirely engrossed in her captive and whatever that mist was. She doesn't know I'm here. I could walk right up to her and she would never notice. I'll kill her with my bare hands for what she is doing to Barry!
With that thought she was galvanized into action, she carefully extracted herself from beneath the heavy table and cautiously approached. She held her breath as the distance between them closed. Her hands took on a life of their own and reached towards the old woman, fingers twitching to close around her neck. She was inches away when she realized Barry's groaning had fallen silent. She glanced up and saw that he was hanging limp, he might have been dead.
Her hands closed around the scrawny old woman's neck and she felt her windpipe collapse as she throttled her. Her hands plucked feebly at Rachel's fingers, but her grip was strong. The two of them wrestled for a moment, but Rachel was much stronger and filled with a terrible rage. She shook the woman violently, never releasing her grip, feeling the crunch and crack of her vertebrae as she wrenched her this way and that. Finally she let her body fall. She did not even look down at it and hurried to cut Barry loose. The rope extended overhead to the rafter and then down to a sconce in the wall.
"Don't worry Barry, I'll get you home, brother." She could see his chest rise, he still lived. She moved towards the sconce to cut the rope and was so preoccupied she did not notice the mist that spread slowly from the fallen woman. It oozed and pooled across the floor, eddying strangely towards her. She reached the sconce and began to slice through the rope. It parted easily and Barry fell to the floor in a heap. Rachel rushed towards him and stepped directly into a puddle of the strange mist.
Instantly pain spiked and jackknifed through her entire body and she collapsed to the floor with a scream.
The mist rolled over her in sudden waves and great gouts, coalescing over her whole body. She couldn't move, couldn't even think, the pain was too great. All she could do was scream. They eventually grew muffled as the flowing mist began to fill her mouth and nostrils until the hall rang with nothing but echoes and finally, silence.
The rules for this week remain the same as previous weeks!
I'd like to continue building on the story of the Pizza Baron and his post apocalyptic world. Each week I'll pick a winner that becomes the next piece of the story and wins 20 $PIZZA and a 2 SBI sponsorship from me. I may award additional prizes if I feel multiple entries expand the story well.
Each week I'll write a post announcing the winner and then I will write another chunk of the story and open it up again for the next weeks competition. I'll compile the winning entry for each week. If we reach a conclusion of the epic tale of the Pizza Baron I'll divide another TBD amount of PIZZA among all the winning entries throughout the whole story and publish the finished story here on Hive with all the contributors as beneficiaries. If this goes well we might have the first open source blockchain novella on our hands! 😂
The first weeks contest established a secondary storyline that may be tied back into the main plot if you so wish!
Bear in mind this is an experiment as well as a competition so we will see how many entries I get and how well it goes!
Rules:
Entries must be more than 200.
Entries must use the hivepizza and scholarandscribe tags.
Entries must comment on this post with the link to their entry
Entries must fit in the world/scenario that has developed from the previous weeks contest(s). You are free to develop characters, introduce new ones, invite aliens to the feast, I don't care as long it makes some kind of sense in the context! The Pizza Baron should remain relevant to the plot!
(I've named it a Tale of TWO Pizza's for a reason HINT HINT)