"Dearest diary. Bored. Bored bored bored bored bored. Bored bored... hmm. You have to write 'bored' eight times before it stops looking like a word. These are the depths I am reduced to, to find my own entertainment. The maids visited today, and dearest diary, you would not believe me if I were to tell you what Mary said she did with the stable boys. I rather doubt some of the details myself; perhaps they are just telling tall tales to a poor isolated princess. I don't even see how one could get one's hands on that much butter, although she assures me it would not work without it. But either way, that sounds like rather more fun than having one's hag of a mother have one copy out verses on the duties of an obedient daughter."
–
Princess Henrietta de Tristain
…
It was Voidsday, and a great and terrible evil had descended on Bruxelles. Cloaked in lies, it had walked among the masses in the streets, and now lurked in the most degenerate and wretched place in the city.
Louise was somewhat regretting wearing her long black hooded cloak to the Charming Fairies Inn.
"For the last time," she said, voice rising in pitch, "I am not your contact! The words 'hide your sword in a fish lest the riverman eat the moon' do not mean anything to me! In fact, it doesn't make sense at all! Can't a girl have a drink in peace without a group ofsuspicious unwashed thugs harassing her?"
The aforementioned burly gentlemen and women wearing armour which failed to protect much of their chest stared at her. "I bathed recently," one of the women said, sounding hurt.
"Your companion is splattered with dried blood," Louise said flatly.
"Oh, no, no," said the bulky man with a large hammer on his back, "ah ha, no, I could see how you might think it, but actually, that's beetroot. I was having a sandwich and… well, I dropped it down my front and…"
"No, I think that's blood on your face," the cleaner woman said.
"Oh, that. Well, excuse me for not spending every hour primping over my appearance, my lady," the man said, dripping with sarcasm, "but why would you wait here dressed like our contact if you were not, in fact, our contact!"
Louise looked around. She had to admire Scarron's business sense, in a sort of twisted way. He knew what his clientele wanted and gave it to them. Why else would the room be shaped like a many-pointed star so all the tables around the edge were in shadowed alcoves? She could vaguely see other hooded and cloaked figures lurking in them. "I'm not your contact," she said, grinning – or at least doing something which involved baring her teeth. "But if you'll go away and leave me alone, I'll tell you a rumour I heard."
"Go on," the other woman in the group of thugs, who had a pierced nose. Louise was fairly sure meant she was a homicidal maniac.
"From what I heard," the overlady of dark evilness said, thinking quickly, "there is a sinister dark force behind the Albionese rebellion. They… uh, say the leader of it is not actually Cromwell, but that… um, a dark figure leaves his quarters at night, smelling of the Abyss. And I have heard mention of that name, whispered by… trees. They say the force he consorts with is called… Shafeela."
There was a dramatic silence. Or possibly just a silence.
"And what?" the woman with the nose piercing said.
"Well, they're both really evil," Louise said.
"Oh, no doubt," the man who smelt faintly of blood and beetroot said. "But what's the reward?"
Louise stared, trying very hard to stay calm. "I have heard the Mask of Shafeela makes you invisible and also able to… see things through walls," she said, inventing things on the spot. "And take on other appearances. And it means when you hit something they… uh, catch on fire. Magic fire. You just need to cut off her head to get… uh, the benefits; if she's still alive, it won't work for anyone else."
There was whispering between the armed thugs. "Noble sage!" one of the women with a pierced nose said, "we shall seek out and destroy this 'Shafeela'! For the good of the land, and for Tristain!"
"Wonderful," Louise said, smiling to herself. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk about… uh, mystical signs which have been seen in the south with this young lady."
The mercenaries clattered off, and Jessica sat down at the table, a glass of wine in hand. "Sorry about the delay," she said casually, "but you know how family is. And then I didn't want to interrupt you."
"I could have done with being interrupted," Louise said drily. "How was your cousin?"
"Oh, he's doing fine," Jessica said happily. "He's walking out with a girl from the next village over, and the wedding is planned for the spring." She patted down her pockets. "Oh yeah, and Dad gave me the spring brochure to give to you in advance, 'cause of how you're such a good client and all."
Louise nodded. Yes, her money would probably go rather quickly on outfitting a room for Henrietta and bringing the secondary tower back up to full operations, and this was just another temptation. "Well," she said, dropping her voice. "Are you about ready to go?"
"Just about," Jessica said. "I'll just go get changed, get into something better suited for walking around the docks in, pick up a gun, and we can go. The directions said the place was near where the palace stands in the Overworld, right?"
Louise nodded.
"Okay, that's good enough. I used to play down there a bit when I was a little girl, before it stopped being safe. The whole area's a slum now; the money never came back after the Karinian Crash, and all the high class demons moved out. Uh. You did bring your minions, right?"
"I have thirty ready and waiting to…" Louise felt her honesty compelled her to admit, "… uh, loot and kill."
"Oh, good. They'll fit right in, then."
…
Where in the above world the docks of Bruxelles were a bustling riverport, in the Abyss they were a vast and squalid remnant of industrial splendour. Towering iron cranes stood slowly rusting in the snow, alight with blue fire that radiated cold. The apartment buildings were crumbling and degenerate, suspicious eyes peering out of the windows down at the strangers who walked through the streets, working their way towards the monolith of black basalt which stood where the palace did in the real world.
Despite all this, however, there were traces of renovations, done in a strange style quite unlike the hellish mockery of Tristainian works which dominated. Paper lanterns hung from eaves, decorated in different colours which seemed to be some complicated system of path marking through the narrowed streets. In certain areas, there were market stalls covered in various hellish delicacies; Louise had her work cut out keeping the minions from looting them. Not because she cared about demon storeholders, of course; no, she was just saving her forces for their destination.
Of course, this was a fairly rough area, and it was hard going at times. The latest group of four imps, hefting blades which looked more like machetes than they did swords, grinned maliciously. They were then overrun by thirty minions, who beat the living crap out of them, and then – after the beatings had escalated sufficiently – the dead crap, too.
"Na na nan a na!" sung a brown, holding a pair of severed horns to its head. "Look! I is a red! I throw fire at you!"
"You is not a red," said a red-skinned minion, grinning as it balanced a fireball on its finger. "Look! You is not fireproof!"
Louise sighed as the brown ran around, screaming, before collapsing in a blackened pile. "Maggat," she said as a blue revived the charred minion. "Discipline them both for insubordinate actions."
"She means give them a punish-y hitting," Maxy whispered to him.
"I know that!" Maggat snapped back, "The overlady is using the word 'in-sub-ore-dine-eight' a lot so I is knowing what it is meaning!" To that end, he picked up the two of them by their necks and slammed their foreheads together. He then squinted forensically, and did it four more times. "Right, you sad lot!" he ordered. "The overlady no is liking how more minions is getting dead from after fight than fighties!"
"The overlady is rather wishing she could go more than a few steps without something jumping out on her and dying," Louise said to Jessica drily. "What, is everything around here stupid? Why would four imps try to ambush this lot? And why did they try to line up like that?"
"Oh, they look like immigrants from the Mystic East," Jessica said, carelessly. She was wearing a long black buff jacket, open at the front and made out of some kind of leather – Louise didn't want to ask what kind of creature had contributed its skin – and for some reason was wearing reading glasses made of cursed mirrors which banned the rays of honest sunlight from their presence and reflected only a dark-tinged world lit by strange stars. And whatever she was wearing underneath the coat was alluringly horrific in its black shininess, more like the carapace of some strange insect than anything a decent person might wear. She had a short multi-barrelled musket, elaborately decorated with demonic ingenuity, slung over one shoulder. "It's a cultural thing for them, and you can't just go around insulting their culture. Even if it's pretty fucking stupid."
"'Cause impies are stupider than minions," Igni called out cheerfully, from where he was trying to strap horns to his horns. "They no is knowing that the bestest fight is one where you has three or more buddies for every one they have. That way the killing is done quick-quick, and we can all go onto the funnest bit, which is the looting."
"And the hats!" Fettid added, recovering one of the vicious blades she carried from the split-open skull of a demon, wiping it on the dress she wore. Louise had never liked the dress when it was hers, and the state it was in – she felt – was a suitable punishment for all the times she had been made to wear it. "Oooh! An eyepatch! If I cut a hole in it, I can wear it and see out of it!"
"Yeah," Jessica said, elongating the word, "a lot of demons aren't that bright. Like, at all. Even when they're lords and stuff, they're still pretty dumb." The dark-haired girl fiddled with the stock of her musket. "Like, I heard rumours that… well, the King of the Abyss, my grandfather on my dad's side, might have started off as like an elf or something. Or at least he wasn't pure demon, and that's how he managed to take over. Which, for your information, makes the way people discriminate against me just because I have Hero blood doubly hypocritical, thank you very much!"
Louise hadn't said anything, but nodded along anyway.
"And, well, look at my cousins. Like, Tzserah and Ja'ghneit are stupid self-indulgent bitches, while Isah'belya, say, is a too-clever-by-half arrogant smug stealing-your-slice-of-birthday-cake cow, and she's clearly got more of her human side in her than them, if you just look at her – she even has human skin! And thus she can stop thinking about sex for more than five minutes and instead spends her time thinking about how to draw on your face when you're having a sleepover! Which was totally unprovoked! Drawing a moustache on my face was totally beyond the pale!"
Louise endeavoured to silently convey an impression that while she was deeply sympathetic, and that this was all very interesting, the streets of the Abyss were perhaps not the place to be having this discussion.
"All I did was put a frog in her sleeping bag! She didn't even know it was me! She just went after me because she's mean!"
The overlady tried to hide her sudden revulsion. As far as she was concerned, anyone who put anything as vile as a
frog in a bag related to sleeping deserved what was coming to them. She hated frogs.
"Oh, overlady! Forgemistress!" Maggat shuffled his feet. "When you was talkin', four and then four more impies attacked. They is all dead now."
"Honestly, trying to walk through this area is like a warzone," Louise said, grimacing. "Come on. Do you think we're nearing the Palace, Jessica?
"Well, we're still short of Malebogey Square at the moment," Jessica said confidently. "That means we still need to keep on going around in a loop, so we don't run into the Malebogey and then take another detour so we keep out of the territory controlled by the Ichors, and then… well, yeah, quite a bit to go."
"This is taking forever," Louise grumbled. "The palace is visible from the Charming Fairies, for goodness sake! It's just on the other side of the river!"
Jessica sucked in a breath. "Oh man, the river," she said.
"I'm not a man," Louise said.
"Oh man, the river," the dark-haired girl said, ignoring the interruption. "Let me tell you about the fucking river."
"Go on."
"You don't want to know about the fucking river."
…
"So."
"Yeah."
Louise removed her hands from her flaming cheeks, still blushing scarlet. "I really didn't want to know about the fu… the flipping river. I really, really didn't want to see it. And crossing the… the flipping river was just horrid! That bridge was a trap!"
"Well, duh. Guess what happens when people try to repair it if they don't pay to cross. Yuck." Jessica shot an amused side-glance at Louise. "Although it did quieten down somewhat when you had the minions push that tower over into it, and then set everything on fire. Dad's probably going to get some complaints from the domain it's a citizen of, you know. The Demente has had a thing for the Mortine for ages, and… neither of them are going to be happy. And I didn't even know water could burn like that." She paused. "Well, mostly water."
"It brought it on itself!" Louise exploded. "Rivers shouldn't act like that! At all! Especially not in public!"
"Well, we're over it now, and…" Jessica looked behind her, at the bare riverbed behind the impromptu dam, and the demons swarming over the newly exposed ground looking for the loot the minions had missed. "We probably should find another way back, or otherwise wait a while."
The two girls and the minion horde looked up at the walls of the dark Abyssal reflection of the palace. The white marble of the above world was replaced by cyclopean basalt, and there were what looked like demon corpses ensconced in some kind of biological webbing hanging from the crenulations.
"Oh boy," Maxy said sadly. "Hornie spideys. Hornie spidies are like the worstest. They no is dropping any real good loot. An' I already has better weapons than what you get when you cut off one of their legsies and hit stuff with it."
"Say stuff for you, but not me!" Igni said cheerfully. "They is real handy when cut up! The chunkies of their bodies are useful for stuff. Like the gluey stuff."
"Well," Jessica said, looking around, "anyway, before this area went downhill, I used to play in the gardens here. So we should just be able to get in over the wall down there, by crawling through one of the small drainage vents. The gate's always locked anyway."
There was, however, a small problem. Or rather, a problem caused by a lack of smallness.
"Uh. I think I've grown quite a bit," Jessica said, looking down at the outlet. "How in blazes did I ever fit in through there? I don't think even you'll fit."
Louise pouted.
"Actually, that reminds me," Jessica added. "You're trying to avoid raising your arms too much. Do you need your breastplate letting out?"
"It is getting a bit tight," the overlady admitted. "That's part of the reason I'm not wearing the full set. It was rubbing at the Cabal Awards, too." She perked up. "Yes! Growth! And it's tight in the chest, which is the best news!"
"Well, it's been almost a year. Remind me to look at it when you get back; you're not much of an overlady if you're bleeding from a too-tight outfit." Jessica paused. "Well, no, actually, I'm just lying there," she admitted. "Lots of dark ladies suffer in the name of looking thinner and more graceful than they actually are. But, you know; a) you're not going for that look, and b) you'll make me suffer if you're bleeding from being chafed raw."
"I wouldn't make you suffer," Louise protested.
Jessica gave her a look.
"Much," Louise admitted. "Fine. Well, hmm."
"We could make boomy and blow vent open with blackpowder!" Igni suggested. "If we had blackpowder! I not see why we not allowed it. It so not fair."
Louise felt it was probably better if she did the thinking, being one of only two people qualified to do it in their little group. She looked up. "We don't have enough rope with us to have the minions run inside and throw it down." She massaged her temples. Yes. That should work. "I require an elite team of minions to enter the hell-palace and…" she paused, dramatically, "open the gate from the inside."
"The wheel controlling it is right by the gate," Jessica said, helpfully.
"Right you is, overlady!" Maggat said, saluting sloppily. "We just go in and open gate and kill the stuff what is probably hornie spideys along the way. Remember you suckers, if spidey get you in web, you is not to complain when reds set you on fire to burn off the webbies! And greens, remember, you no is hurt by poison, so you not complain when I has you set off nasty traps!"
"Spidey poison taste nicey-nice," Fettid said cheerfully, darting down the tunnel with a whoop.
Louise sighed, a mix of frustration and amusement in the noise. "Sometimes I wonder what's going on in their heads," she said, "and usually the answer I come up with is 'nothing at all'. But they can be so wretchedly ingenious for idiots."
"You know," Jessica said, "you say that, but… well, Gnarl."
"That is true," Louise admitted.
"You know, I looked him up in the records, and I'm honestly not sure if it's an inherited title or not, because there's references to 'the Gnarl' and 'a gnarled goblin' and 'the twisted advisor of Insert Overlord Name Here' as far back as I could find," the dark-haired girl said. "At least one and a half thousand years, and there's probably some older ones, but I can't read Old Infernal. Also, I stopped when a book tried to eat my hand."
Louise worked her mouth, trying to find the words. "… huh," she managed. "So he's either that old, or it's an inherited title, or possibly that glowing crystal he has supercharges his minionly intellect and any minion who kills him loots it and becomes the new Gnarl."
"Oh, I didn't think of that last one," Jessica said cheerfully. "They are very fond of looting, aren't they?"
There was a cough from the Gauntlet. "
Your Evilness," Gnarl said, "
I have received word from the advance party that they are one quarter of the way to the gates."
"You didn't hear that?" Louise blurted out.
"
Hear what, your darkness?"
Louise was almost certain that he had heard everything, but if he wasn't going to admit it, then neither would she. "Nothing. That is g… bad news, Gnarl. Have they encountered any effective resistance?"
"
No, your overladyness," her advisor said. "
Only a few demonic spiders, some toxin-mindbroken thralls, some mercenaries, some bandits who were trying to sneak into the place when the minions stumbled across them, and some goblins tied up in webs."
"… uh. Well, they have been busy," Louise said.
"
Oh, say no more. How are you doing against the endless waves of enemies which are attacking you while you wait for the minions to open the gate?" he asked.
The overlady looked around. She couldn't see any endless waves of attackers. "Jessica," she asked, "are there any… like, invisible demons who might be attacking us when we aren't noticing them?"
"Nope." Jessica frowned. "Well, I mean, there are plenty of species of invisible demons, like the ones who spread diseases in the world above, but we'd know if they were attacking us. Also, you know, I can see them. Or I could see them if they were here. Which they're not. So I can see them and because I can't see them I know they're not here."
Years as Cattleya's sister had prepared Louise for decoding such convoluted chains of conversational logic, and she nodded agreeably. "No, Gnarl, we are not being attacked by demons. Not even invisible ones, Jessica says," she said.
"
How peculiar." Louise could feel the elderly minion frowning. "
Endless waves of attackers while you wait for minions to open a gate are a favoured tactic of the forces of the Abyss. I do hope they're not sick."
"It really is a wicked tactic," Jessica contributed. "Pin them up against a wall and wipe them out. It's just obvious."
Louise could not help but agree there. It made perfect sense to her. "Well, they're not here," she said. "Gnarl; have you found anything about what might be waiting for us inside the palace?"
"
Very little, your evilness. Sadly, we cannot trust Scarron enough to ask him about this sort of thing, because we cannot risk compromising the integrity of your most dastardly plan – not least because controlling the palace in the Abyss is a condemnable goal in its own right." He paused. "
However, from long experience I can confidently predict that some kind of giant monster, skilled swordman or possibly a demon lord will attack you as soon as you enter the large courtyard – or at the very least the gardens beyond it. Or possibly they might attack you when you try to leave. No, probably they'll attack you when you enter. It is their territory, after all."
"Wonderful. Just wonderful Do you know who controls the palace at the moment?" Louise asked Jessica. "If we're going to be attacked…"
Jessica sucked in a breath. "No, sorry," she said. "A few years ago it was Klavensih the Vile, but I think he died of Heroes, and then I think the favourite was going to be Hearnnargh Iceheart, but she ran into Blitzhert von Zerbst and his eldest son and… well, the journals said that all he said about her fate was 'she just melted at the sight of me and my massive wand! Rrrarrrgh!'. But she was never seen again, regardless of what he did to her."
"Kirche has a brother? She never mentioned that," Louise said, mildly surprised. "I thought she was the heir – the Germanians are very backwards about inheritance in that way. Oh well, that's not important."
She sucked in a breath through her teeth, looking Jessica up and down – seriously, what was that thing she was wearing under the buff jacket? Despite the fact it covered everything up, it was positively indecent! And clearly Jessica was somewhat agitated despite her calm appearance, because Louise was feeling somewhat warm and fizzy at the sight of it. Dratted half-incubus and her aura making her feel things like that. "Jessica," she said, "maybe you should wait outside. If we're going to be attacked by something, then…"
Jessica squared her jaw mulishly. "I'm in this too!" she said firmly. "We got all the way through the streets together, didn't we?"
"Yes, but those were pathetic," Louise said. "I don't… um, want you to be in danger and…"
"Did Dad put you up to this?" Jessica said, hands on hips. "Perhaps by threatening ceaseless and unending agony?"
"… yes."
"Urgh! He always does this! Do you know how many boyfriends get scared off by that routine? It's not like he means… okay, he does mean it; every last word. But still! Well, you can tell him and his overprotectiveness that if you'd had me waiting outside, then I could have been attacked by anything without you to protect me!" she said, smugly.
Drat. That was a good point.
… no, wait, it wasn't. It was a point which meant that she was doomed either way. Louise ground her teeth. This was not how she had seen 'okay, Jessica knows the area, so she can show me where to find the palace and maybe how to get in' going. There had been fewer demons trying to attack them on the way there, fewer detours, and absolutely no f… flipping rivers.
Oh Founder, she was so doomed. Doomed doomity doomed doomed. Time to make the best of a bad situation. Or the worst of a good one, if she was using Gnarl's terminology, which she wasn't. And when she got back, she would leave Jessica so busy that she wouldn't have time to think of going anywhere else. "In that case," she said, trying to sound like a confident young woman in control of her own destiny and not facing an eternity of torment if anything went a little itty bitty wrong, "as you… uh, have a musket, it's your role to keep nice and sa… watchful at the back, with lots of minions around you because… they're short and won't get in the way of your shots."
"All right," Jessica said, nodding. "And if it really does get too bad, I guess I can just fly away."
"You can fly," Louise said flatly. "That would have been useful for getting in, you know."
Jessica winced. "Only when I get really scared or emotional or… you know, stuff like that," she said, in a small voice, "and I don't like doing it. It's bad for my gender identity. Proper wings, not the stubby ones which make demon magic easy… well, they're a long way past the horns and hooves and goatee stage, if you get my drift."
"I don't… but I don't think I want to know," said Louise, trying her best not to think about what the other girl had said.
"
The minions have reached the gate and are opening it," Gnarl informed them.
With a quick phrase, Louise summoned a ball of fire and held it in her free hand. "Let's see how this goes," she said bluntly, because she was trying very hard not to scream from the nerves.
The gates were wide open before them, and cautiously the two women advanced, Louise with fireball at the ready, Jessica with her gun in hand. Carefully, trying not to make any noise, they made their way through the tunnel through the thick walls.
Though it had not been visible from the outside, the palace was a ruined mess. Faintly glowing green webs littered the place. The buildings were eroded and worn, some strange acid eating away at their structure. The gardens were long dead. So were most of the corpses in the webs.
"Well," Jessica said slowly, "that's not a bad sign."
"Not a bad sign?" Louise asked, half-turning to stare at her. "What about this is not b… oh. Oh. Oh… sugar."
Naturally, that was when the gates clanked closed behind them, a jet of luminous thread pulling them shut and sealing it off. With a sinking feeling of horror, Louise's eyes widened when she caught sight of the giant toxic green spider-thing, eight human arms extruding from its fleshy body, its countless arachnid eyes burning violet in a particularly tasteless way. That wasn't how human-spider demonic hybrids were meant to look! Not one bit!
Oh, and it had brought its children with it.
"Drat," Louise breathed.
"Fuck," added Jessica.
"
Oh, that's
where the endless waves of demonic spiders had gotten to!" Gnarl said cheerfully.
…
A great horn sounded up as Louise called upon the magic of her gauntlet to get the attention of her minions. The spiders were coming up quickly, and – urgh, what kind of horrible thing had eight human arms – she didn't want to be overrun.
"Browns! Form a defensive line!" she ordered. "Reds and blues, stay behind them! I want any spider which comes too close to get burnt! Make sure you protect the blues when they recover bodies! Greens! Hide among the reds, and counter-attack when the spiders hit the browns! Hit and retreat!" Beside her, a blackpowder weapon boomed, and Jessica grinned as a spider burst.
Louise, for her part, set fire to the largest group of spiders she could see. They screamed and wailed in inhumanly high voices, but she had no room for satisfaction. There were just so many of them. And any they killed just resulted in more of them scuttling out of the walls of the ruined castle.
"This are lame," she heard Scyl complain over the noise of the battle, dragging a fallen brown back from the front line. "Minions no is meant to be smaller side in fight."
Yes, Louise had to agree. It was very lame.
"Reloading!" Jessica called out, as another wave of spiders barrelled into the minions, tearing several apart before Louise filled the gap with fire.
They were losing and she was doomed and there was no time to think about that. She glared up at the demon-spider with hate-filled eyes. Hundreds of years of de la Vallière blood welled up inside her, demanding to stay inside her body. She was inclined to acquiesce to the demands of her bloodline.
Fighting defensively wasn't working, and the demon-matriarch of the spiders was hanging back. Its mouth was totally and utterly inhuman, but if it had possessed a mouth which didn't look like the sort of thing which gave even grown adults nightmares, it would probably have been grinning. Which meant that it felt it could win by swarming her under.
So the sensible solution was to murder it. And then possibly desecrate its corpse to inspire fear into its younglings, although Louise was not sure if she was going to listen to that particular demand of her bloodline. The wisdom of hundreds of years of wicked, sinful, malevolent, and generally pretty darn terrible ancestors surged through her mind, but it was fundamentally her will which chose the next course of action.
She shot the demon-spider in the face with lightning.
"Charge!" she yelled. "I want that thing's head!"
This order was carried out enthusiastically, because while the minions were familiar with the concept of a defensive action, they much preferred to be gratuitously offensive. A wedge of surging goblinoids punched through the horde of lesser spiders, some of the newer minions already waving around torn-off spider arms as improvised bludgeons, and Louise grabbed Jessica by the arm and yanked her in their path. For good measure, she also set fire to any particularly dense groups she could see. Baring of course the minions, who were usually the densest group in any given space even if it contained clusters of basalt.
A spider the size of her torso leapt at her; Louise battered it with her staff and a minion pounced. She spun, chanting, and a wave of pink flame ignited more of the monsters, the ones around them screeching in the heat and the choking white smoke. Another crack of Jessica's musket and a screech from the spider-queen showed that the half-incubus had got what she was trying to do.
And then things went a little bit utterly horrifically terribly wrong.
The bright green spider matriarch took a step back, and then a flying leap. And landed on top of the minion wedge, with a rather squishy noise. With one hand it grabbed for Louise; the overlady scrambled back, falling backwards and letting loose a panicked concussive blast which did little more than momentarily stun it. It could still flail around, grabbing and crushing anything in range.
"Get back!" Louise screamed at Jessica, fear gripping her heart.
A ballistic Fettid hit the mother of the demonic brood in the face, and as the minion seldom went anywhere without her wickedly long knives, by the time the spider managed to crush the green in one hand it was down three eyes and had a machete stuck through one of its chelicerae.
It screamed in inhuman agony, and Louise was more than happy to add to that by introducing its nearest hand to lightning, which sent it spasming to the ground. The smell was indescribable, but was handily approximated by some mix of burning pork and rotting seafood.
And then it grabbed for Jessica. The girl screamed as its hand closed around her, vast dark wings fighting the grasp and losing. Despite that tenebral aid and the aura of uttermost masculinity which enveloped the captive, Jessica was losing.
Louise levelled her staff at the demon and screamed one single unpronounceable word. She could not say where it came from, nor how she knew what it would do. It almost seemed to flow into her mind from outside, pouring into her from her sinister hand.
And then the demonic spider exploded. Messily. And for good measure, its death made all its offspring detonate too.
There was silence, apart from the drip of ichor off the buildings, and the screaming of the still-on-fire river outside.
"Yes!" Louise shouted, lowering her staff. "I got my arm in front of my face this time! And I knew murdering it was the best plan! And you're not dead! And I'm not going to suffer forever!" She paused. "And I'm covered in spider! Urgh! Why does this manner of thing keep happening?"
Jessica picked herself out of the puddle of goo, spitting. She scraped her fingers through her newly-grown neat goatee, shaking them off. "You're not covered in spider," she said, weakly, shedding her once-black buff jacket. "I am. It's in my mouth and... and everything's ruined and... and I think I'm going to throw up now."
"Pretty," a nearby minion said to Louise cheerfully, over the noise of Jessica's retching. "You is bestest overlady. We see so many more boomies with you around than other boss-ladies. Or boss-men."
Spider demon didn't smell as bad as black minion gloop Louise thought, in a slightly detached manner. Well, she should count her blessings wherever she could or she would go quite, quite mad. And she was still alive and wasn't even facing an eternity of torment and hadn't unleashed an unspeakable evil on the world who would be responsible for aforementioned torment. Gosh. Wasn't she lucky? Being covered in spider was nothing compared to that.
She went to whimper into her fist, but stopped herself because her hands were covered in spider… in spider. She'd need to find somewhere to wipe them. When, you know, she was in a place which wasn't covered in arachnodemon.
"I have spider down my front," Jessica complained. "You'd think a catsuit would manage to stop that. But
no."
"Your suit is made of cats? Well, don't let Cattleya find out," Louise advised her, deliberately forcing herself to focus on the spider-covered world in front of her.
Jessica stared at her, and shrugged. "I hated that bitch in life, and it turns out, it is possible to hate her even more." She paused, and patted her chest. "Oh, oh, yeah. I think I know why it got down my front. Because I went all demony... yeah, that meant it got all loose in the chest. I've probably ruined the neck and shoulders from them bulking out, and at the same time I went all flat and... oh dark malevolent deities! It's oozing! Ick, ick, it's running down my front and... it's slimy!"
"… you knew that thing?" Louise asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, couldn't you tell? That was Iacki. Local ganglord. Once tried to hassle Dad, and found why that wasn't a good idea. I didn't know she'd taken over this place and had pretentions of being a posh lady."
"No. No, I could not tell she was a 'posh' lady, whatever that means."
"Well, she was female," Jessica said with a shrug. "I'm not sure you could really call her a lady. I mean she would have laid her young in our chests and they would have torn their way out eating us in the process. I don't call that ladylike behaviour." She squared her shoulders, and put on a long-suffering expression. "Let's just get this day over and done with, so we can go back and have baths," she said miserably. "I need to invent some kind of anti-ichor ward. The 'blood splattered' look might look wicked in the journals, but I think I've just gone off it."
"That go pretty well, I thinks," the newly resurrected Fettid said. "And look! Overlady! For you!" she added, offering a handful of eyeballs to Louise.
The girl pursed her lips. "You… you can keep them," she said.
The minion nodded. "Yes, overlady! You bestest best overlady!"
"Thank you very…"
"I make earrings from them!"
…
Louise decided it was best to move very swiftly on from discussions of spiderly eyeball-earrings and other things of that ilk. She wanted a bath and to get out of her ichor-drenched robe. She would also rather not spend too long around the sodden Jessica, who was suffering considerably and apparently saw no reason not to spread the misery around.
Most of the upper floors of the Abyssal palace were a degenerate den of spider webs and prey, ruined beyond accessibility. Fortunately, her destination lay in the lower levels, and she still had some surviving reds to burn out the cobwebs. She also found a cleanish bit of wall to wipe her hands and the worst of the gloop off her robes, though Jessica was really unsaveable.
It really was very fortunate that the red-skinned goblinoids could not set themselves on fire, she thought, watching them stick their hands in molten burning web.
She found her destination down in a side room, following the directions from Gnarl. The place was lousy with webs, but the door was small enough that it seemed that only the smaller creatures could get through, and far enough from the exits that none of them had wanted to lair here. Instead, the bloody light of the Abyssal sky filtered down through small shafts, to reveal a dusty room which was fitted out in an archaic style.
It still managed to feel more homey to Louise than the rest of this wretched place.
"Apparently," she said, clearing her throat, "there are two magic mirrors in this place, which are the connection to the palace. Apparently a very wicked and repugnant ancestor or… great uncle or something of the Queen used to consort with the Abyss…"
"Ah, yes," Jessica said knowingly, looking around hopefully for a source of clean water and finding none. "'Consorting'. A lot of men do that. Women too."
"… as part of a wicked plan to reach into the darkness outside reality and call forth horrific reality-eating horrors," Louise continued, refusing to be dissuaded.
"Well, that is what happens if you don't use protection."
"I think hoping that you're protected from the horrors you're summoning is… a worse idea than not summoning them at all," the overlady said firmly. "I mean, a better idea than not… I mean it's stupid to do." She sighed, and looked around the room. "You know, this room actually looks like it used to be really quite pretty. Those paintings on the wall look actually rather nice, from what I can see, and the wood panelling looks expensive. I mean, the fireplace is made of… is that black marble? Well, it looks sort of… tastefully sinister, in a quiet understated way."
"And there's a bed over there; you can see the bones under the webs," Jessica observed. "Next to those things covered in dust sheets."
"Ah! Those might be the mirrors," Louise said enthusiastically. "Now… yes. Apparently there's some kind of magical trap about them, so… we'll just step outside and I need a volunteer to… uh, loot the sheets and only the sheets."
Several minions took a step forward. Maxy, Maggat and Igni took a step back, pulling Scyl and Fettid with them.
"You!" Louise said, now safely behind the cover of the door, pointing at a random, almost-lootless, and therefore highly expendable minion. "Loot the sheets."
She pulled Jessica even further back, and then put her fingers in her ears, waiting for the explosion. Instead, she heard a booming voice declare, "I am the Guardian of the Mirrors! I am your tr
urk," which was cut off rather suddenly. When she poked her head back in, there were two intact mirrors revealed, and minions playing in the broken glass all over the floor. Two had already managed to put their eyes out, which showed that they were being careful.
"I think that went rather well," Louise said smugly. "Now. These are the portals?"
"Hmm," Jessica said. "Well, there are words above the mirrors. One says 'Entrance' and the other 'Exite'."
Louise blinked. "Uh," she said, "Does that say 'entrance' or 'entrance'?"
"… what?"
"Oh, come on, it's simple. Does it say 'entrance' or 'entrance'?"
Jessica twitched her wings in irritation. "I really can't tell a difference between what you're saying."
"If you can't tell a difference between," Louise took a breath, trying to control her temper, "me saying 'en-trants' and 'en-traaaaaaahns', then you should try listening more closely!"
The dark-haired girl looked hurt. "Well, now I can tell the difference. And I still have spider goo in my ears and my head's still ringing from being that close to your exploding spell!"
"And for that matter," Louise continued, "that's not how you spell 'excite'!"
"Are you sure? Well, maybe they're just bad at spelling," Jessica suggested. "Not all of us have expensive spelling-based educations. Heh. Spelling-based. Because, you know, you were learning to be a m…"
"I don't think that's actually 'excite'," Louise said hastily. "I think it might be misspelt 'exit'."
"Or it might be an evil hypnotic mirror designed to trap the mind or arouse you," Jessica said, reasonably. "That's not something you want to make a mistake about. How are we meant to tell without fucking up?"
"
Your wickedness," Gnarl said to her, "
if you can find the real mirror, by touching it we should be able to take control of its portal spell and have the Tower Heart override control of the local network, allowing you to leave this place and return when needed."
There was a pause.
"Minions!" Louise yelled. "Get in here!"
…
Louise cleared her throat. "So," she said. "It turns out that 'Entrance' is in fact 'entraaaahns' and leaves the minion a drooling shell obsessed by its own reflection. But 'Exite' is actually just 'Exit' spelt wrong, and that a minion who tries to punch the other minion looking at them from the other side of the glass sticks their hand through a portal."
"How cunning," Jessica said, shaking her head. "People looking for the secret passage will look in the 'Entrance' one first." She frowned. "But how do we know that's not just the normal reaction of some of the minions to a mirror?"
That was a very good question, Louise had to admit. Well, there was one way to find out.
"Fine, we'll see," she said. "But then we're headed home for baths."
…
"I never thought it was possible for minions to get even more mindless," Louise said, letting her legs float in the water. "But it turns out even that is possible. My hair is still a mess, isn't it? What does it take to get the spider out? It was under the hood and it's still an ichor-covered mess. Next time, I always bring at least my helmet with me."
"Oh, this is so good," said Jessica gratefully, sinking into the steaming water of the bath. "I thought I knew how good a hot bath was after spending a day by a forge. That? That is nothing compared to this. I think I could live perfectly happily if I never saw a spider again in my life."
Louise, similarly ensconced in a mass of protective bubbles, struggled with herself, but chose not to mention that there was one right above her. Admittedly, it was a conventional spider, rather than a giant demonic arachnid monstrosity, but given how tight all their nerves were it was probably best not to say.
"There's one right above you!" said Cattleya, cheerfully lathering up her hair.
Louise sighed as Jessica flailed and then restored to firing beams of hellfire from her eyes to rid the world of that most deadly threat. "Do you mind?" the overlady asked. "Hellfire is bad for the ceiling."
Jessica looked guiltily up at the black scoring. "Ooops," she said.
"You know, that would have been useful when we were being attacked by the spiders," Louise continued, mercilessly.
Jessica chuckled nervously, and massaged the back of her neck. "Yeah, I… uh, haven't really practiced with it. At all. Like, I mostly use it as a bug swatter. Well… a normal-sized-bug swatter. Because it's kind of a bit pathetic. Like, really pathetic. If Dad had done it, he'd have blown a hole in the ceiling, rather than just… uh, scorch it slightly." She folded her arms in front of her. "I'm an artist, not a fighter!"
"Yes," Louise said, meaningfully.
"I wouldn't say I'm a fighter!" Cattleya said helpfully. "People don't really fight back."
"Thank you, Catt."
"They tend to just sort of die or cower in mindless fear, or sometimes stumble towards me with the lights on but no one home when I do the eye thing on them and…"
"Do you mind?" Louise blinked. "And you can hypnotise people? Catt, you have to tell me these things! How can I devise optimal operational plans without full knowledge of the capacities of my subordinates!"
Cattleya giggled. "Now you're sounding even more like Dad! And you look adorable when you pout like that!"
The overlady let out a slow breath. "Jessica," she said, choosing to ignore her big sister, "you saw today that you're not like Catt… no offense meant… and to be honest, you're most useful to me for your brains and your ability to make things. You can do things that the minions and I cannot, and…" she paused, trying to shift into a Jessican frame of reference, "if I wanted a demonic lieutenant who would run out and get herself killed, I could go hire one of your cousins. I need you to do what they can't do – even the red-blonde one just hired someone to make the clothing designs, right?"
Jessica, who had begun to sulk somewhat, nodded as she scrubbed at her skin with a brush. "I suppose that makes a lot more sense," she said. "My talents are a unique selling point!"
"This way you won't have to face any more giant spiders," Louise offered temptingly. And I won't be tortured for all eternity by your father, she added mentally.
"Well… okay." The other girl dunked her head under the waters of the bath, surfacing again blowing bubbles. "So. What's the plan?"
Louise squared her jaw. "Jessica, your first priority will be to help with the repair work of the relay tower. By the time that's done, I will have acquired a smelter and we can begin larger-scale production of equipment and suchlike. We are working to a deadline here; it must be ready by the first day of spring." The overlady sunk down in the water, grinning maliciously. "Because on that day, we kidnap the princess!"
...
