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

I was hanging out on the discord the other day, and someone brought up the idea of the Idol having a cooking hobby. That thought led to me half-assing this together

It had been silent in the mansion for a while now. You knew from your time as a warden that such a silence might have been prelude to sudden outbursts of violence or hysteria. But it wasn't here.

It was simply that neither of the beings living in the mansion had anything to say.

So you'd watched as Annie moved a wardrobe into the sanctum from the master bedroom, in an outwardly peaceful quiet, only interrupted by her grunts of effort as she moved it to sit near your chair. In it she hung the clothing you had purchased.

Your mind spurned this peace, and you stewed internally.

The anger was infantile and undirected, sitting behind your expression and making your thoughts hover around the same topics. Your own insanity, Annie's downcast bearing, the Glove, and the Master.

Paradoxically you had actually made progress on the Glove in the span which had passed so far, while so distracted, and that is where your focus currently lay. The Glove currently sat, quiescent, in your lap as you pondered the energy contained within yourself, and how it flowed around the energy of the Glove. It was not settling you as you had planned, though the failure was not very surprising.

Brushing your hand over the metal, its cool spikes and ridges tugging at your skin and clicking against your nails, you slowly pulled yourself away from the energy. Pushing your feelings, onerous as they were, away. Your sharp gaze passed over all within your sanctum, and noting everything in its place, you wrapped your lower arms around the Glove, and stood. In a flow of rippling cloth you straightened and then slowly moved out of the room. Down the stairs to the second floor you went.

The somewhat stale air was disturbed as you reached the balustrade walling off the balcony. An upper hand trailed along it as you passed, brushing against the dust briefly, before the dust was swept up and fell away. You stopped in the entrance hall, and your keen vision could spot a patch of red through the open door of the garden, in the fading light of sunset.

Gliding through the door you find Annie sitting on the lip of one of the long beds in the garden, running a hand through the dry dirt. She looked up at your approach, and there was that expression on her face, weighing down her entire demeanor under a brave face. There's a moment where you exchange a look, her expression becoming slightly sadder, before you gesture for her to follow you, waving the Glove slightly.

You only make it a step from away from the door before she is at your side. The walk back up to the sanctum you use to kill and eat what of the feelings which are plaguing you that you can. When you come in through the threshold you see the room as it is after your recent changes.

To your immediate right and left it is empty, blank flooring except for the corner anchor circles leading to more mystical objects in the middle and further reaches of the room. There on your right hand is the small white egg in its prison circle, the Soul within quiescent for now, bladed nature sheathed. In the center is your great circle, now far more complicated than the simple thing you had started with.

With your experiments with the Glove, it suited your purposes to modify it. Now there sat two smaller circles, large enough for someone to sit in at most, on the north and south sides, at either "end" of the large double bordered main circle. Glyphs and sigils ran in the space between these two border circles, and ran unbounded around the subsidiary circles. At this point it was highly attuned to the Glove, making some generalist applications more difficult, for the benefit of being able to peer at and touch the magic of the Glove more precisely.

To the left of that were your shelves, your various magical and several of your mundane, possessions laying in certain spots. On the topmost used shelf at waist height, laid your book and scroll, waiting for you to need them again.

Beyond these was your spot in the far left corner where you had your chair and some items resting on the shelf near it, the space held at a distance from everything else in the room. Then behind that was the wardrobe, butted up against the corner. You quickly moved on to the corner on the far side of the room, where the corpse of the rat warrior laid. Which, while strangely slow to decay, would have to be disposed of soon since you had no further use for it.

All of this arranged around the various arches and columns which made this floor five extremely interconnected rooms.
Annie lets out a huff beside you, in the brief moment you use to look over your workspace again. Looking at her briefly, you start walking towards the circle. You've decided that now is the time for your first attempt at fitting the Glove to her.

She follows you, before moving to stand beside the northern sub-circle, then crossing her arms and staring at you.

"How do I help? With this." She says, gesturing towards the circle on the floor, her voice quiet from disuse. Tilting your head right, you enter the circle, walking a careful path through the southern sub-circle and placing the Glove into the center of the main pattern with a small clank.

"...To fit it to you, you must help me by finding and using the cup I made of your Soul." You say in an equally quiet voice. Almost reluctant to break the silence, strangely. Most of your anger has left you now, moved elsewhere in your mind.

She hmms quietly, tilting her head as she looks at the Glove. "Shaping it to whatever you are trying to give me." She says, nodding.

"Yes." You say as you kneel besides the Glove, arranging it so that the hand portion faces the south.

"The Hellmouth is calm tonight," You look up, a new branch of interest flowing into your head as Annie speaks, "For now at least." She says as she looks off into the middle distance, before coming back to the now. You nod, and spread your arms a little as you straighten. It is surprising, but the weight of the silence and your anger have disappeared. The things in your head try to rise up, causing you to pause for a moment longer than you really should as you kill and eat them too.

Though both the feelings and the things always come back.

No matter.

You step back slowly into the southern sub-circle and raise an upper hand as you point to where Annie has to walk, to safely enter the circle. Opening your mouth, you breathe out a low C note, which Annie picks up on instinct, your two voices twirling together. The circles flare to life with a thrum of white Fog light, and a bank of Fog flows out from beneath your dress and mantle to join it.

The sanctum is closed off from the outer world by a Fog Gate as the energy reaches the corner anchor sigils and then flows out from them, up the walls, before dripping back into the room like water. Annie's Soul burns brightly, and here, now, in the seat of your power your own Soul shines, backlighting you in a gracile halo.

The Glove is a dark lump in the midst of the glow. Then glow fades and the energy suffusing the room settles into a subtle rumble. You do not have your book with you for this, having found and modified the ritual you will need before this.

Staring at the Glove, measuring and peeling apart the energies of the device, you begin to speak. Your voice has a rhythmic cadence.

"This device, is as you know, a weapon meant to harness the storm while worn by a bearer. Such a bearer is simply anyone willing to put it on and accept the spines puncturing their flesh, in a permanent fusion."

Annie's expression clearly conveys that she knows you're making the grounds for another point. And you do, your voice bouncing off the magic in the air and echoing oddly.

"But my most blessed servant shall not be burdened so. I intend to change three things about this weapon," You gesture with your lower hands, soothing the energy of the Glove as it reacts with the ambient magic you have conjured, twining some of it around your fingers, "First, is that it must be hidden in a false seeming similar to my own construction. This must be forged onto your Soul. The second is to "open" the structure of the device, so that I may add to it as I so wish. And the third is to let it be removable if I deem necessary."

You look up at her as you finish outlining what you want out of this. Annie's expression is interested, but cautious, and there are deeper shadows lingering behind it. You see her about to offer something, but then she holds back. That is the sign you use to begin pulling the magic towards you. Before you start chanting you exchange one last glance and warning with Annie.

"If something goes wrong as you put it on, stay still." Your voice is sharp, your suddenly bubbling morass of feelings making your voice a faint growl of shearing metal on those last two words. She nods, almost speaking, before stopping again.

You reach out then, your four arms extending and magic thrumming in your throat as you begin to chant.

"Multiplex; fulgur, ostende te ante nos.
Tonitruo levaret vento, ostende te ante nos.
Tune Alphere regna aqua, ostende te ante nos.
Glove of Myhnegon, redde nobis.

Beatus servus, et dux, ut de hac domina.
Dico tibi obligabit Glove of Myhnegon tenere proposito.

Erit enim magnus mutatio hac nocte.
Ad turrem Ananehel Regina iubes ut faciam illud.
Sic fiat semper."

The magic glows furiously as you finish the first part of your chant, washing out the colors in the room and burning away the shadows. Following the gestures of your upper arms, as your lower ones float across flows of Soul magic, Annie walks with slow and intent steps towards the Glove. Then, she kneels before it and reaches out with her right hand. The next part of the chant rises from both of your throats, Annie only a fraction of a moment behind your inhuman tones.

"Ultima Ratio Regum ex idolo sapientia enim mandatum est, qui Sua.
Admiranda tibi Arcem Regina.

Hac nocte debes mutare.
Quam te fieri.
Et invenies in novam viam.
Glove of Myhnegon, redde nobis."

Annie slips her hand into the Glove as the last words rise into the air. The energy reaches the first of three peaks you are aiming for. The structure of the Glove is laid bare before you both now, and you can see Annie's gaze focused on the first piece of it you must change.

That piece is a burning coil of magic. Reaching down you pluck it up and begin to unspool it, weaving Soul magic into it as it becomes a burning wire. Annie bows her head, and the cup of her Soul matches the first peak, moving into your reach.

Carefully you weave the wire along the rim of the cup in a pattern of filigree. Then in the physical world you see Annie's eyes widen in alarm, and feel the pressure of a disturbance from a corner of the room. It surges down a path to the device and Annie.

With a lurch of blurred movement through the wards, sending magic scattering and howling all around your robes and body, your fingers fly forward and pinch onto the magic and one of the spines. Locking it in place with inhuman strength as you grimace, your mask broken. Annie is breathing harshly, half her arm still in the Glove, and her heart beating hard enough for you to hear over the howling wind.

Then the spines jerk, nearly tearing out of your fingers as the lightning reservoir discharges. Annie is already moving, to your horror, her other hand jamming downwards onto the Glove, pushing it aside. You smell the ozone just before a bright flash and craack-boom fills your senses. In the moment after you can still feel the Glove, now quiescent, and see Annie's Soul, lit by the lightning.

Then the moment passes, and you see the trail in the air of the diverted bolt before you blink. Annie fills your gaze as you are suddenly across the circle and hovering above her, your hands spread around her as you try to ascertain if she is injured.

That fraction of an instant breaks when she sighs, rocking up onto her heels.

"...shit." Her voice is tiny as she winces, shaking a hand. You then note the low rumbling of gears and brass coming from your throat. Your mind is utter chaos and barely contained screeching, as she looks up and blanches, pupils going to pinpricks.

"Fuck, fuck, Latria I'm fine!" Annie blurts out as she shoots to her feet and raises her hands. Your growl just escalates in pitch as you feel your face trying to completely lose it. Your hands are claws in your vision, framing her face.

"I knew it would work the moment I saw it." She says urgently as her hands get between yours and grab your shoulders. Looking up at you from her lesser height, she searches your expression intently. That focus guides you back on track as your hands hover closer, almost making a cage around the both of you as you lean down to make your head equal to her.

You stare at her, unblinking, face twisted into an wretched grimace.

"I have spent too much time on you, for you to risk yourself like that!" Your voice is a lash aimed at you, her and everything in the room. But most especially it bites at that damned Glove. Then your burst of speech is eaten and overwhelmed as you clamp your mouth shut. Slowly the mask returns as you beat the screeching morass into submission and shove it angrily away.

She's fine, and she knew what she was doing. Is the thought you use to achieve that submission.

Annie's face slowly regains color as she watches you calm, outwardly, and her grip on your shoulders relaxes. Lowering your hands you stand straight again, and Annie takes the silent direction, releasing you.

Your gaze flickers over the sanctum, making sure nothing is damaged. That's when you spot it. A massive black burn on the stone in the wall to your left, near the door. It is ridged and partially oblong, stretching as the bolt obviously danced across the wall. From the glinting spread out through the mark, and the shiny center in the darkest part, it was apparent it converted part of the stone into glass.

Turning away from it after verifying nothing else was damaged, you saw that Annie was looking at it too with a somewhat stunned expression. Then you were looking past her, and quickly found something out of place on the other side of the room.

"Come. We have something to dispose of." You say in a monotone. Your eyes are locked on the rat warrior corpse.

You were stupid to try that while it was there…

Hissing internally you kill that thought in the crib and make your way out of the depowered circle, Annie close enough to almost be touching. When you both get to the rat you take a moment to stare at it.

She sighs just as you come to a conclusion on what happened.

"You see it, I presume." You say blankly.

"I do." She responds, mildly disgusted.

What you are commenting on is a bit of lingering magic, being generated by the slow breakdown of the warrior. That breakdown was exacerbated by the ritual you were performing and released a bubble of sorts, which interrupted what you were doing by producing that disturbance you felt. The thing is more skeleton than skin and tissue now and a faint rank smell is permeating the air.

A paranoid suspicion it might have been intentional is quickly considered and then discarded when you detect no controlling force, or any lingering traces of such.

"I'll go get the shovel and gas." Annie says as she turns to leave. You have a flickering impulse to do something for an instant, but it dies before being fully realized. You watch her as she treks to the door, carefully avoiding the slightly smoking central array. She pauses for a moment at the door.

"I'll be back." Her voice is confident and full of renewed purpose.


As you leave Latria, and head down the spiral stair to find the shovel, your mind is whirring.

You were a rather honest girl. Never found much need to lie, and the sight made you understand the truth from a perspective others might not have. You had also concluded early on in your life that lying wasn't worth your time, most of the time.

This was important, because you were quite honestly fed up with lying to yourself. You had been sitting in the Manor, moping, for the past several days since that disastrous trip to Maple Court.

Even before then, I've been an idiot! You snarl in your head as you try not to crush the bannister.

There was a way you could help Latria. It was obvious really. You smirk very briefly at that thought, sardonically. And it really was. You had been too caught up in your own depression to realize it. But that look on her face, the naked confusion and horror and hurt, that horrible look which churned your guts and made you want to puke in sympathy, knocked you upside the head and made you see reality.

So, as you held her, you'd grabbed that sadness with both hands and strangled it till it croaked. But that wouldn't be enough on its own, you knew. As you looked in the cupboards of the kitchen, grabbing what you wanted, you reached for that nascent resolve rising in you, that feeling grabbing your spine and straightening it without your direction.

And with your tools in hand, when you returned and stood in the doorway to the Sanctum, feeling the eyes of your Lady on you, you stamped a vow onto your Soul.

I will be her Protector.


Annie returned shortly, holding a short shovel in her right hand, leaned over her shoulder, and a bright red can in her left. Hip cocked as she stood in the doorway, she was looking at you as you held up the headless corpse, and the rat skull, carefully comparing them.

She left you too it for a moment. As you poured over them, out of the corner of your vision you noted that the downcast shadow was gone, and the firmness and stability which had disappeared from her bearing, had returned. It, calmed you, the tide of screeching losing volume.

Indeed, when you ceased your examinations with the conclusion that the skull was clean, you could see that not only had her stability returned. It had increased. Turning, you nodded at her, then crossed the room and put the skull back in its place before approaching the doorway.

"I think the front yard would be good for… this." You say, your voice becoming a quiet hiss on the last word. Annie's faced scrunched in sympathetic disgust, hefted her items and started down the stairs.

Your little parade of two was quick, and soon you were in the front yard, standing in your seeming beside Annie as she worked the ground and made a small pit. Your physical eyes watched her, while your mystical senses watched the Hellmouth. It was different than you usually saw, and the faint impression of an important clash was lingering on your tongue.

Then Annie was done and with a imperious flick, you dumped the corpse into the pit. Annie then picked up the bright red gas can beside her and, unscrewing the lid, dumped the entire contents of the thing onto the corpse. You found that the smell of the gas nicely covered the faint stench of the rat. Such things might have to be investigated at a later date.

Then it was empty and the can set aside, as Annie reached into her jeans and retrieved a pack of matches. Pulling one out, she quickly struck it, and then dropped the flaming thing onto the rat. The instant it hit the fire whumphed to life and quickly spread to consume the corpse. With the fire crackling merrily in front of you and lighting up the night, you pondered what to do now.

You'd have to try again with the Glove at some point, but for now you were going to reconsider the problem. The Glove was a rather more stubborn creation than you had first believed.

That was the point where you heard a quiet clang from the street. Turning quickly, you found Annie standing to your left and almost in front of you, hands rising as a scraaaaape and thud emanated from out of sight on the other side of the wall. You saw a Soul then, wrapped in faint energies, and your mind careened off its current track as someone very familiar appeared.

With a groan of pain Angel lurched into view and collapsed part way onto the hood of your convertible, staring at the both of you through the gate. Barely supporting himself on his bloody right hand, the handle of a knife jutting from his chest, he looked at you and chuckled faintly.
"Think… ah, you ladies could give a guy some help?" He said in a thready and despair filled voice.

Your mind whirred, quickly realizing that helping him would be a perfect in to whatever storm of woe was descending upon your lands. And, there was a chance here to ingratiate him strongly to you, but to have the most effect you would have to be open with him about what you knew and prey on his personality.

Or you could work more slowly and follow the fiction he had created that he was a human man. Treat him as a human, and feed into that part of his emotions. Either way, he'd be staying for a little while, you decided.


Angel has been stabbed and shown up on your door.

[] Surprise him, with your knowledge that he is a vampire, and that you have known for some time. Use his shock to ingratiate yourself with him.

[] Keep silent, and simply take him in, keeping with the fiction that he is a human man. Prey on his emotions.

---

Weeeeee! It's done, that actually got written pretty quick once I sorted some of my ideas for it out. Annie and the Idol have a strong heart to clockwork hole and a vow is made. The main cast has also officially crossed your path again. Have fun!

Vote will close on Saturday September 15th, 6:00 pm UTC. I want to get my next chapter out on my birthday to give as a gift to you guys, buuuut we'll see.



So ends Episode 6, "Anointing Problems". And so begins Episode 7, "Wandering Squire".