Slayer Chronicles part 1

Dramula continent, outside of Souer (free suburb town)

Aezel woke up in bed. It was a bright morning, which he liked. He loved the sun-light. It suited his happy demeanor. Across from his room, was Amya still in her bed, asleep. She had her blankets drawn over her head to stave off the light, so she could hide in her gloom and shadow. This perfectly suited her demeanor as well.
Aezel and Amya share a rented three-story building near the slayer's HQ. It saves on rent... or at least it would if Amya payed her half. Aezel get's most of the pay for jobs though, so he doesn't mind having a squatter. Just so long as she does her chores.
She didn't do those either.
The building had two bedrooms, one of which was occupied by the landlady, and the other by our two heroes. The landlady never showed herself, and only Amya claims to have seen her. She said she was a grotesque old ogresome hag with gnarled fingers and teeth. Aezel wouldn't believe a word of it. The building also had a dining room and kitchen on the first floor, upstairs and downstairs hallway, a bathroom on each floor, and an attic used for storage. The second floor bathroom was in the landladies room though, so neither Aezel nor Amya were allowed to use it. They weren't allowed to go into the landlady's room at all. The had to deal with the first floor one.
Aezel got up, walked to the closet and changed into a short leaved long necked shirt, a long vest, and pants. He didn't wear shoes, because they were uncomfortable, and he hated hats because they messed up his hair. Sometimes he'd wear fingerless gloves though if it was cold. He thought they were the perfect mix of warmth, and usability. Regular gloves cause too much sweat, and prevent delicate work.
Aezel walked out of the room quietly and slammed his door loudly, being sure to wait for the startled Amya to shriek loudly, and throw something at the door in return.
"AAAGGH!!! Stop doing that you little twerp! Every Morning! Jeeze!!"
Hmmm.... nothing was thrown today... maybe there weren't any shoes nearby.
Satisfied with himself for waking his partner, Aezel walked down the stairs to the kitchen for some breakfast. Leftover potatoes, chicken, and carrots. Just what a growing boy needs to start off the day. Literally so for Aezel. He loved eating dinner for breakfast, and breakfast for dinner. Lunch stayed lunch though.
A few minutes into his meal Amya came down the stares as well. She was dressed in a tight fitting shirt with very loose long sleeves. Over it was an open jacket vest. Today she was wearing pants as well. Good thing. Sometimes she was too tired to remember to change out of her pajamas.
"Why do eat like that? It's weird."
She said this almost every morning, looking at Aezel's meal.
"Because it's good. What do you care anyway. I'm cleaning up after your messes. Speaking of which, your half of the room is a mess again, and I'm not going to clean it myself. Not this time."
Amya just stuck out her tongue and poured some milk into a bowl of berries.
What a usual morning, for what was going to be a very unusual day.

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After breakfast Aezel and Amya bickered a little, and did some work. The bickering sounded a lot like this.
"You go clean the room, and I'll do the yard work."
"I don't have to, it's my room."
"It's my room too."
"Not my half."
"But I still have to look at your half."
"No you don't. Go buy a curtain."
"I did! You lit it on fire!"
"That was an accident!"
"Doesn't matter."
"...*sticks out tongue*..."
The work went much smoother. Aezel went to the front yard. Each side had a tall stone wall with the left angling somewhat into the front of the yard as well. The right side's wall was not a long as the left's either. On the left side of the yard was a well, though no one used it, and on the right, a large tree almost as tall as the building itself. The tree was close to the building so it's branches kept growing into the windows, and scraping them. Often Aezel would climb the tree to get some solitude. Today, he was going to trim it. He whipped his long tail as close to the lowest branch and jumped off the ground. His tail grabbed the branch and carried him the rest of way till he could grab on with his hands. Climbing higher and higher he reached the branches that were becoming a nuisance. It would be great if he could cut Amya down to size when she was becoming a nuisance too.
Inside the house Amya had stacked the dishes near the sink, instead of letting them soak. She went up the stairs just in time to see Aezel out the window trimming the tree. He didn't notice her, so she ignored him. She went back to her room and reluctantly set to the tiresome task of cleaning up her squalor. Dirty clothes, torn pages from her journal, and dust littered her half of the room. Aezel's side on the other hand was clean and tidy. She wished she could just shove all of her crap into his half.
"*sigh...* why do I have do all the work around here? All he has to do it stick of few sticks with his knife. I have to clean up all this!""
The kind of thing Aezel would say if he were there would be "if you cleaned more regularly, it wouldn't become such a big mess in the end." But he wasn't there, so Amya just kept sulking abut her misfortune.
By the time Amya was done procrastinating, and taking breaks, she had cleaned her room. It looked better, but still wasn't great. Aezel had already finished the tree, cut down the weeds, (he didn't know they needed to be pulled by the roots), and wondered why they kept growing back.
Now that they'd eaten and made their home easier to look at, the pair set out find work. They set out for the bulletin board next to the fountain at the center of town. Town was about half a mile away, with only a few neighbors between. It was peaceful and quiet walk. Nothing like the big city. That's why Aezel chose to work out here.
On the walk over Aezel and Amya talked about what kind of gig they were hoping to pick up. Naturally Amya wanted something easy, and worth a lot of money. Aezel wanted something adventurous. He hadn't done anything like that in a long time, and the bigger and better the challenge, the faster he'd be an A rank slayer.

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By the time the pair had arrived in Souer Amya had been complaining for the past 10 minutes. Aezel started ignoring her after half of the first... something about his hygiene nd how he was to uptight about it. He certainly was stricter when it came to cleanliness. After all, "cleanliness is next to godliness, and slovenliness is next to disease, bugs, dying a horrible and gruesome death." Perhaps he could overstep what it means to be clean, but at least he wasn't obsessive about it. It's not like he brushes his tail every half hour... just three times a day is all.
"...and that's why you should quit being so stubborn about it. You'll die."
"Hm? Oh right, no. That's stupid. If I didn't keep a clean environment I'd open up myself and you to horrible viruses that would swell your throat and strangle you in your sleep."
"And I keep saying that's impossible! There's no such thing!"
They argued a little longer as they walked toward the town square, as was their usual morning ritual. Along the way, Aezel again started to ignore Amya and instead focused on his surroundings. It's a quaint town, about 4 miles big, populated largely by demon kind. Aezel likes to say it's so much more peaceful than big cities. "Here you have space to breathe between buildings!" Even for a short guy like Aezel, big cities were cramped. But out here in the suburbs, you could find free range animals, friendly people, and sweet aromas wafting from bakery displays. The town was not without trouble though. As wonderful a place as it was, their was a thief's den somewhere on a nearby mountain to the north east called Aorscale Mt. It plagued many of the surrounding towns, and no one has been able to find the mass group of them. People who try only end up killed and found a few days after they set off, or coming back with nothing but terror stricken faces. There are two theories going around about the thieves. The first more popular with logical adults, was that the thieves had lookouts, and moved camp whenever anyone came near. The mountain is dangerous to scale, so they would always have time to pack up and move before anyone got close. The second theory more popular with children was that the entire mountain is haunted by the ghosts of thieves that bury kidnapped children there so they can appease their 'dead munching snatch god.' Aezel thinks it's kind of cute how the children made songs about it, but most of the parents around here don't like hearing them. They think it provokes the thieves.

'Aorscale mountain won't get me'
'spooks and thievers out till three'    {{12:00 - 3:00 AM is known as 'the witching hour.'}}
'Ghostly snatch grabbers steal my soul'
'Stray outside snatcher gonna snatch me'
'Hide and let their god starve next day'
'Don't go out or else you'll pay'
'ghost and gods with hearts like coal'
'the dead munching snatch god can't take me away'

As usual the children were singing around the fountain and bulletin board in the square, and as usual there were a few jobs about the thieves. 'Stolen items'... not like anyone will find those... 'get the thieves'... riiiight. that's helpful... 'find my son!'
"Oh no...."
"what?"
"Look at this."

'Last night Teril met the reaper'
'Aorscale mountain's 6 feet deeper'
'snatch grabbers snatched him, he's a keeper'
'now Teril's a long time sleeper'

The song was suddenly a lot less cute...

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As calm and pleasant as it may seem, Souer has always been a suspicious place. For one thing, even though it's a free town, the population is 80% demons. Nearby towns have rumors about how Souer is secretly an army base for the demon nation. It's just the same that Sour has rumors about the surrounding towns, which are much more true. They believe that the surrounding towns are biased against Souer. Particularly Dixton. That's where Amya would head off to start the search, should Aezel be able to convince her to.
"Ok, so there's another kidnapping. It's been so long since the last one that I suppose the kids stopped thinking they were real. Just songs to sing."
"But they know it's real, they're singing about Teril now."
"Yah, that's what worries me. They're still not scared. They think it's some kind of game, or joke."
"What!?"
Amya, just a little more enthusiastic about this mission than normal (Aezel presumed it was because of her maternal instinct) walked over to the children.
"Hey, Germlins!"
So much for maternal instinct.
"What do you know about Teril?"
"Teril went out at night, and got lost."
"No he was kidnapped!"
"That's not true, it's just a song."
"But mom said that h-"
"No ones cares about your mom. She's a drunk."
"Take it back!"
The drunk mother's child struck the other i the face with his forehead, causing a bloody nose and a lot of yelling. The two started fighting and the other children were cheering on their favorite.
"Hey, knock it off! You want me to get both of your mother's down here?"
"But he starte--"
"SHUT up!!!"
"Easy... calm down"
Amya was getting upset quickly. She claims to hate pointless arguing. How Ironic.
"Listen, we don't know what happened to Teril, but it obviously isn't good. We're going to go look for him, so any information you have would be helpful. Got it!?"
The children were quiet now. Perhaps being scolded by the only two Slayers nearby had scared them into backing up and looking at their feet. Except for one child. A timid but obviously worried little girl.
"I heard that Dixton was planning something to get back at us for something... do you think maybe they took Teril?"
"I doubt it, but it's worth looking into. Thank you. What's your name?"
"Floret."
"Well Floret, you can be sure that we'll find Teril."
She smiled, and withdrew into the crowd of silenced children.
"Ok, so what? We hike all the way to Dixton?"
"No, you do."
"Why me?"
"Because it's not likely they're up to something, it'll be easy for you, and you need to do something this time."
"... Fine!"
"I'm glad you'll help."
"Only because I can get away from you. Besides... Dixton is having a bizarre this week, and I want to buy myself something nice."
"That's great. See you in four days then."
"Four days? Why that long?"
"Because I'm going to Aorscale Mt."

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(to be continued)