Fool's Adventures: A Demon's Souls/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Quest

You loom over the vampires. They lay there, groaning in the silence as your mirror images stand over them. It would appear you underestimated them. You had not expected needing to summon your images twice. Directing your false selves to the vampires you pick up Marius, who struggles weakly.

"Damnnnnnnnn it!" He makes a roar of effort before three of your images grab him and force him to the ground struggle with him. The other three poise themselves over three of the vampiresses, leaving the newest harem member where she lies behind the table.

Holding Marius so that he must kneel on his ruined legs, two of your images hold his arms out to either side and the last one forces him to look at you. Walk up to him, you stare at him, keeping an eye on the vampiresses through your other images.

"What do you want?" He growls as he struggles futilely against your grasp. You already know that. To eat him. But you let him stew for a little longer. Frustration will make him answer the questions that come before the eating.

"What do you want!?" He roars again, voice tearing and straining as his demonic face strains against your grasp.

You pull up the oldest vampiress, holding her with one image as he fur coat slides down in her weak struggles. His first "wife". Grasping her head your image conjures a Soul Arrow. The light flares behind her fingers as it burns against the vampiress's blonde hair.

"No no no no no!" The vampiress screams in horror, before her head disappears along with the rest of her body in a puff of dust. All of the vampires stare in horror. The room is entirely silent except for your quiet breathing.

Marius is staring in shock at where his girl was reduced to nothing. You lean forward and grasp his chin with one hand, digging into the skin.

"You will tell me much." You whisper, your voice having no inflection at all.

What you do then will go unmentioned, beyond the screams it elicits from your victims.

Some time later you hover over the wrecked body of Marius. He is in good enough shape to speak. But that is all.

"Tell me why the sewers are constructed strangely." You command him. This is not the first time you have said this exact phrase. Nor the second. Or the third. Or the sixth. But this time he gives you more.

Groaning, the vampire speaks. "I… the sewers are built to help us." He coughs and winces at this point as you lean over his prostrate body, the quiet moans of the two surviving vampiresses providing background sound. He continues speaking. "They provide us shield from the sun and they go everywhere."

You look at him, imitating a questioning eyebrow raise.

"I don't know why!" He says, pleading with you. You watch him, unmoved, and his face crumples.

"There are rumors that this town was built by demons, for demons. Some magistrate," His wounds pull as he talks, making him flinch, before a look from you spurns him on. "Or some other important figure is supposed to have built it more than a century ago!"

"The-there are many rumors as to who! From a human warlock seeking something, to the demon lord Balthazar!" Marius babbles at you. You see "Jeanne", the short blonde vampiress, twitch at that last name.

"What would a human seek?" You ask. A new question for the damaged vampire. He looks around, breathing harshly, before your grip cuts into his chin and makes him focus again.

"I don't know! They seek many things! Power, wealth, women, men and a dozen other stupid things!" He says quickly, wilting under your gaze as blood oozes from a corner of his mouth where he bleeds from a cut made by your nails.

You stare at him. Waiting.

He is silent, breath sawing in and out.

He breaks and continues speaking. "There are… rumors. Less than that. Fearful whispers, fanciful tales. Amongst the oldest vampires, of villages that die. We don't know why, beyond that warlocks are involved."

He shrugs, or at least tries to against the grip you still have him in. "Perhaps this town is like that. I do not know." And this denial of knowledge he utters you know to be true. He is scrabbling inside his own mind, looking for anything to give you for the tiny tiny chance he may live where two of his wives have been turned to dust.

You look at the two who remain. "Jeanne" and the new one, who you learned from their cries of pain was named Emily. Both watch you, their faces overtaken by fear and pain. The images you have near them lean down, and look at them.

From seven mouths you ask a question. "Does he lie?"

This has been a question you have also asked before. The two vampiresses shake their heads frantically. You put pressure on Marius' various injuries then, making him cry out and shudder. They keep shaking their heads. No lies then.

"Tell me about Balthazar." You ask to the room at large. "Jeanne" twitches at the name again. Most of you focuses on her, while a small part channels a small amount of Soul energy into Marius. Animal grunts and smoke burst out from his mouth as you burn him from within.

"Jeanne" shudders before speaking. "Balthazar… Is a demon lord. Some great slug or something! That's what people say." She gulps.

You tilt your head to the left across your seven bodies. You watch her eyes widen in fright, so attuned is the vampiress with your behavior now that she knows it for the threat it really is.

"He hasn't been seen in decades! Nearly a century!" She blurts out at you.

"We don't know much. Some… some say he's lost something of his powers." She says, her mind starting to wander from the pain of her wounds. You increase the pressure of your image's grip on her, reminding her of your presence.

"Um!" She licks her lips, obviously frantically trying to find more information for you before you make a sacrifice out of her like you did the other wives. "Um! Right! He's served by the El Eliminati! These weird duelist vampires!" She says.

She looks at you from beneath her hair, eyes flicking back and forth as she tries to anticipate your response. You straighten and turn to Marius.

"Does she lie?" You ask him, without looking at him. This is another question you have asked before. For one of his responses you killed his third wife, returning her to dust. "Jeanne" looks at the vampire, pleading thoughts clear in her eyes.

Marius looks at you, feigning a look of confidence. But in his eye you can see the truth of his broken will.

He shakes his head slowly.

You nod.

You tilt your head to the right, as if considering your next question. They all know that this is a lie however. They know you are not human, and they know you feel no pity, but the mystery of your true self adds to the morass weighing on the vampires in this room with you.

You turn and stare at Marius.

"I have many items of power, gathered from this town. Give me more." You say to him, letting an imitation of unholy greed leak through. Your hands are claws on his skin as your Soul burns through him.

He screams.

When the screams stop he answers.

"du Lac! There, there is mention of a "du Lac" in the writings of Aurelius. He is supposed to be related to this town. We don't know how! Maybe you might find something in a forgotten crypt or something!" The vampire is writhing in your grasp as you burn at his wounds from the inside.

"There are tales of a book! Somewhere, hidden in the world. It contains dark spells of vampire kind. Hidden lore on vampires. Secrets and special blood rites. I don't know why you might want it, it would do little for you. Anything else eludes me!" He whimpers to you. He tries to twist away from your grip, but when he can't, he slumps further, seeming nearly boneless.

"Darla might know more. Luke would have known more." He whispers as you hold his gaze with yours. You think on that for a moment.

"What of Balthazar then?" You ask the injured vampire, shaking him by the head.

"What?" Marius looks at you, pure confusion eating his expression. After looking at your face he realizes what you want. He then slumps.

"I do not know if Balthazar had an item of any kind." He says, sighing and then coughing in pain as the wounds on his chest stretch again. He laughs, quietly.

"Probably. Most powerful demon bastard lords do." Marius says as his laughter peters out.

Something for you to consider then.

Your silence lingers. The vampires look at each other in confusion, glancing at you or your images out of the corner of their eyes.

Your gaze lands on "Jeanne" again. She can feel the difference this time and she trembles as you approach, too frightened to say anything.
She's dead by the time you have the answers to the rest of your questions. So is the other surviving wife. Marius you saved for last.

As you finish consuming his essence, you consider what else they had to tell you.

For the Anointing and the Order of Aurelius, Marius was a member and wore his ring on a chain around his neck hidden by his clothing. There are five members besides himself and Darla, with the rest of the vampires in town merely hangers on. A much reduced number after the killing you and the Slayer have perpetrated. He was apparently somewhat high up in it, and privy to some of the Master's thoughts on the Anointing because of this.

The Anointing is some kind of event in the coming days which would produce the Anointed One. According to scraps of musings Marius had heard from the Master. The Anointed One is apparently a form of powerful vampire. Unfortunately Marius did not know the purpose of the Anointed One. Most obvious to him was as a weapon against the Slayer, because what else would you do with a super powerful vampire.

Of Darla, Marius knew little. His fellow lieutenant hated him and he could only say she did not sleep below any of the cemeteries the Order frequents, but that she would reside underground. For the Order shun the human world. The traitor he knew more about, he was around only a little before Marius's time. A vampire, still extant upon the earth and hated by the Order and his lesser fellows.

He had a "face like an angel" Marius tells you, and he carried a name in homage to that.

Angelus.

Darla was his sire. Marius told you that they ravaged the Old World for centuries together and were somehow involved. Like how he was involved with his "wives". Marius did not know for sure if he was in this town, but he thought it likely with how he sometimes saw Darla acting. Getting distracted over certain scents and the like.

You stand in the shadows of the crypt and you consider the rather obvious similarity between "Angelus" and another name you know. Angel. It seems likely to you. You will have to ask at some point. And find some way to get his blood without him killing you.

As the last traces of the vampires fade away you dismiss your images and begin to study the crypt. On the floor where you tortured and interrogated the vampires you find nothing of real interest. Moving down the stairs Marius emerged from at the beginning you come into a brightly lit room.

It is open and flat brown stone, arched at the corners. In those four corners are masses of candles on iron stands, dripping white and yellow wax. To your left is a long bookshelf where there sits a variety of mortal books and what you think are diaries of Marius'. To your right is a square table of dark wood with five seats arranged around it. Tapestries hanging on either side of it which depict a brave warrior slaying a fearsome dragon.

Straight ahead is a massive and gaudy bed where you and all your images could comfortably lay down side by side. The sheets are red and the frame black around the massive rectangular object which dominates the room. Beyond it there is an archway. Through there you find a walk in wardrobe of sorts, where lie some of the harem's things.

You search through the purses and other items, tearing down coats and dresses and other things as you pull the room apart. You find more mortal currency and store it in your own purse thing. With that room sufficiently searched you go out and destroy the rest of the room. You find nothing of use or interest to you. It would seem Marius did not actually have many things which he valued.

With the wreckage of its previous owner strewn out around you, you decide that this might make a decent secondary lair once the unified presence of the vampires is dealt with. There is really not much reason for such contingencies here however, your mind merely considering them because of how it is built. You discard the consideration for now.

The walk back up is silent and the air still when you leave the crypt. The spirits and shades are silent. You can taste their dread on the air, sour and sweet. You won't do anything with them yet. But you have projects in mind which could use them.

So, for now, you leave them untouched. The fence around the cemetery is easily hopped over, the power you consumed from Marius pushing you closer to full levitation. A little more now and you won't have to touch the earth unless you require speed. A part of you quietly notes the progress and then goes silent again.

You are not moving aimlessly as you walk however, now you head back towards the Bronze and carefully test the air for any trace of the Mother Mantis. You have no need to encounter her specifically, but you want to know where her nest is. Time to collect on that trap you set.

Soon after crossing the tracks, you find what you were looking for between two looming buildings. A scent trail, muddled and laid over itself again and again as if the creature laying it passed between these two warehouses again and again. Searching.

For you.

You do not head deeper into the Bronze district after it. Instead you search for the older parts and work outwards. It leads you back over the tracks in a different place and into the neighborhoods where people lie sleeping in these dark hours of the night past midnight. Dawn is far away.

The scent winds through the town for a time. Insectile and heavy. She was probably traveling in her true form where she could. The scent disappears down into the sewers then through a disturbed manhole cover in an unremarkable alley. Said metal cover is scratched and bent by what you presume are large scissoring claws like what her daughter possessed.

You drop down, your fall slower than it should be and quite a bit more graceful than all of your previous rather graceful falls. You land silently and with the shadows clinging to you. Best not to lay down too many trails.

Her scent is easy to follow, thick as it is. Sharp, and bitter on the tongue. The tunnels around you are wetter than usual, trails of water and other fluids going down the walls. You pay more attention now on the mystical plane, trying to tease out the magical truth hidden from you. The words of Marius and his harem give you new perspective as to what to look for when before you were entirely blind to the details, beyond knowing that something was amiss.

As you move, quicker than any mortal, you do not find what you seek. Not yet. But ideas are beginning to twirl in your mind as to how you might be able to. Perhaps it could be another long term project like the improvement of your servant which you have been considering when nothing else takes precedent in your thoughts. You are uncertain.

Your thinking on the matter of your servant has your mind alight upon what the Master did to the Rat King and yourself. Such a banishment spell is a threat to you because if it was targeted at you explicitly instead of just grasping you as it passed it might pull you entirely out of this world and into another. You have too much here for such transition to be acceptable to your tasks.

Perhaps another, more urgent, project then could be the design of some form of protection against such spells. An anchor of a kind. And… depending on how you do it, perhaps it could feed into other things. Something to determine when this is done.

Your thoughts have carried you through much of the sewer by now. Hunting around for more of the trail you seek the place she initially descended. Several minutes later, you find it at the top of a worn ladder. This entrance's cover is also violently dislodged. That makes it easy for you to leap up to the surface through it.

Finding yourself in an alley between two houses, you orient on the scent and head south. Out through the closest exit of the alley and onto the side path running along the road. You head east then, up the slight hill and around a curve. The insect scent becomes thicker and thicker. Layered, over the course of days.

You find a small little one story house after another interminable moment of walking. White siding, black and gray roof. A small white fence around it with windows in the front. You can smell her agitation in the air. And something else. Wetter, muskier. And under that the scent of human blood.

You pass into the house, easily forcing the door after checking there was no sort of defense. It splinters and cracks as you enter. You see an elegantly appointed living room, filled leather seating and a fine rug and many other things which you ignore. From the layered scents in here you are pretty sure the Mother Mantis killed whoever lived here and then moved in with her spawn.

But that sort of mortal misfortune has no importance to you, so you follow the wet scent. Through the hall, past the living room and into the back hall of the house you find two doors. The door on your right after entering the hall leads to a stairway down. The door resists your attempt to open it, and can see a thick chain through the gap.

Zhew!

Application of Soul Arrow quickly deals with that and you head downwards. As you do, and feel the tiny nascent Souls in what is almost certainly a nest, you ponder if there are any other uses to the potential offspring you find. Their Souls are more powerful than a mortal's. Perhaps there is some merit to keeping one until you require its Soul.

At the bottom of the stairs you find a basement, strewn about with a variety of mortal devices and abandoned tools. But to your left, you see an iron cage with straw at the bottom. To your right as you come off the stairs, you see the prize you were seeking.

In a hole carved through the stone wall of the basement is a small stone cavern. In it is a clutch of at least thirty eggs. All of them are at least the size of your fist, planted on top of a large grey stone or hanging above it in webbing. There is a weak glow permeating the room from the doorway above and a window by the stairs. This is the nest you were interested in.

You raise a hand and start calling Soul Arrows. They burn through the eggs in the netting with little pop pop crackles and bursts of yellow green fluid. You continue to ponder keeping an egg.


What do you do?

[] You keep one egg to take home and use for something.

[] You do not keep any eggs and destroy the entire nest.


And when you get home. What Long Term Project do you start?

[] Start studying the Gauntlet, the Glove of Mynhegon, for possible improvement and as a potential tool for your servant, Annie.

[] Start devising a method to protect yourself from dimensional banishment spells and rituals.

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Alright it is done! Life decided to mess with my plans yesterday and delayed the chapter. Sorry about that! This marks the end of Episode 5. Next comes Episode 6 "Anointing Problems".

As for the other thing, Long Term Projects are things which will be happening in the background while the story ticks along and provide me a means of reasonably passing time in bigger chunks than I have been. They may also be sources of new things for you to do, like going out and searching for something. They are kinda like sidequests. At times I'll give you the option to switch, so don't worry too much about them.

Vote lock is at 6:00 pm UTC, June 6th. Vote will be tracked by line. Have fun folks!