"Steps what?"
"Ah, nothin'," you say, rolling her head around in your hands for the sake of being annoying. "Just some nostalgia. Now, what am I ta do with ye?"
"You could start by re-attaching Our head and leaving. We present no threat and you can't get anything of value out of Cainhurst without the help we are, for obvious reasons, no longer willing to provide without compensation. You gain nothing from leaving Us like this."
"I get some entertainment," you reply. You start to juggle her, but your wrists immediately veto the idea. "It's not like I got any out o' that fight. Ye're a real disappointin' vampire, ye know that? Freaky disembodied talkin' head thing aside, o' course; even the Crimson Fucker didn't manage ta pull that one off."
"Oh, We're sorry," she says, sarcasm flowing unabated through the iron shell, "would you have preferred We politely ask Logarius not to screw half a tonne of metal to Our skull?"
You shrug. "Would it've helped? I mean, I didn't know the guy save for our little disagreement outside and, between you and me, I don't think 'e was quite in his proper state o' mind."
She's silent for a moment. When she speaks, it's with a voice somewhere between stages four and five of grief. "You are a uniquely irritating individual, Father Anderson."
"So I've been told. Alright, in ye go."
"Wait wha-"
You pull your sleeves back up and march outside. Man, if you can talk and/or bribe Simon into giving you your bust privileges back, you could do some real damage with Little Miss Chrome-Dome here.
With a flutter of paper, you leave Cainhurst and its sins against both God and architecture behind. You ride the heavy winds along the coastline and, with only a few run-ins with hungry bass, touch down among Byrgenwerth's partially-reclaimed tiles. Simon, feet dangling over the water, waves you over.
"How did it go?" he says, offering you a pear from the supplies you brought them. "Did she give you a medal?"
"By certain definition o' 'give' and 'medal', yeah." You drop the pear in your sleeves, reach in, and produce the head.
"-impertinent blasphemous ignorant whoreson-"
You dump her back in and replace her with the pear before she can get a real head of steam going. Simon looks at you oddly as you wipe it on your coat and take a bite. Not bad for something grown in the middle of a horrific burning nightmare hole.
"What?"
"What was that?" he asks.
"Severed head o' Cainhurst's Queen. Still figurin' out what ta do with her." When his expression doesn't change, you wave a hand. "Don't worry, she's evil."
"What, objectively?"
"Yep!"
"Oooookay then. Look, we're going to have to deal with that at some point, but for now, the women said they only had a couple more tests to do."
"Aight. I'll give ye the scoop while we wait."
You only manage a small scoop rather than a proper waffle-cone-filler, as it's not long before Ebrietas swoops in from somewhere around the lake's center with Yurie in tow.
Hello, Father Anderson! How was Cainhurst?
"Enlightenin'. More importantly, what's the verdict? Ye manage ta get in touch with Rom?"
Ebrietas droops a little.
No. I think Yurie can explain it better.
"My hypothesis was correct," says the woman in question. "Rom is entirely devoid of rational thought and entirely impossible to circumvent. Ebrietas and I tried every frequency, every cipher, everything that could possibly be used to convey a message. No response." She sighs. "If you want to get past her, you're going to have to kill her."
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