I think the point was more that many people don't respect Karin because they admire her character/personality but instead only respect her because they're afraid of the consequences of disrespecting her.
Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- Can't read map
A bit annoyed with this concept of so called "respect".
When Karin (or any other character in other fiction) meets someone... who appears with few dozen guards pointing guns/BFG/crossbows and so on, in some area 100 miles from civilisation to prevent collateral damage...
That is not sign of respect, but trying to intimidate Karin into not doing something stupid... like going one (wo)men army, as character is not respected and neither expected to be able to talk like "civilised peoples"... false hope, but... was it worth a try?
If invited to diner into nice restaurant for businessmen proposal... not disrespecting character, can easily kill him with no outside help, but being polite...
....Now just to break expectations, I hope Karin is NOT that scary, just old lady with stick. Dangerous only to her daughters because they learned to be afraid in their early days. Adventuring days long in past......
----------------------------------
Nah... who are we kidding... every ten written words Earthscorpion throws a D100. If it ever falls on 1, result will be "Karin found out what is going on, nukes fall, fun is over"... Louise was really lucky so far... started story with all attributes at -1 (officially minimum was supposed to be 1), except luck that was 100...
When Karin (or any other character in other fiction) meets someone... who appears with few dozen guards pointing guns/BFG/crossbows and so on, in some area 100 miles from civilisation to prevent collateral damage...
That is not sign of respect, but trying to intimidate Karin into not doing something stupid... like going one (wo)men army, as character is not respected and neither expected to be able to talk like "civilised peoples"... false hope, but... was it worth a try?
If invited to diner into nice restaurant for businessmen proposal... not disrespecting character, can easily kill him with no outside help, but being polite...
....Now just to break expectations, I hope Karin is NOT that scary, just old lady with stick. Dangerous only to her daughters because they learned to be afraid in their early days. Adventuring days long in past......
----------------------------------
Nah... who are we kidding... every ten written words Earthscorpion throws a D100. If it ever falls on 1, result will be "Karin found out what is going on, nukes fall, fun is over"... Louise was really lucky so far... started story with all attributes at -1 (officially minimum was supposed to be 1), except luck that was 100...
- Location
- The Old Dominion
The old ones who seem to not be in the physical prime are the most dangerous, more so than people like Karin, they are the sort that kill you before you even realize your dead and even if you do manage to kill them than you will get killed by their protege or child while all your attempts to stop them utterly fail.
Even assuming that Overlady is a game with such stats, much less ones you get to muck with at the start, I feel like saying all her attributes were that low to start with is a bit hyperbolic.
Speaking of game stuff, did ES scrap the whole Achievements thing or something? Cus I feel like ES should have been earning more achievements.
Achievements show up at the end of an arc.
There's still at least two episodes to this arc.
Realignment
"Them elfies got spies ever'where. I's knows it, I do. They's got it in for the royal family, Foundersavethequeen, yes they do's. It was elves what stole away the crown prince when he was a babe an' that's why that Prin'ess Henrietta was th' 'eir, even though she ain't no better than she should be. They covered it up and pretend there weren't no crown prince, but Ol' Phil hears, yes 'e does. An' they killed the 'eir to the Gallian throne wit' poisoned snails an' they drove his wifey mad an' they killed Pope Obliteratus II back when I was just yay high. Makes you think what the elfies 'ave got in for them, don't it?"
– Ol' Phil, Uneducated Horse Herder
"After it!" Maggat hollered, leaping up onto a wall to chase Ozymandias. The tamarin was fast, curse it, and able to wriggle through small places. It was also entirely aware that minions couldn't swim and its path kept on criss-crossing canals and running over thin ice. It led them on a hazardous path across the city, crashing through closed market stalls and wrecking parks.
"I gotta… I gotta…"
"Keep running, Coddy, or I feed you your own face!"
Ozymandias leapt up over the rim of a small crater and onto a wooden box, dancing around with both middle fingers raised.
Two screams echoed through the night. A wave of evil energy pulsed through Amstelredamme, extinguishing flames and bringing with it a faint smell of sulphur. As one, the minions froze, wincing in pain as the mark on the back of their left hands faded.
Bright yellow light flared in the eyes of the golden lion tamarin, and it seemed to swell up, gaining muscle. Ozymandias grinned, baring fangs that were suddenly rather more prominent.
"Well, um." Maxy swallowed. "I think that mean that the big oversister are now the overlady and the overlady are now the little oversister. What are we gonna do now?"
Ozymandias made a gesture that was lurid, explicit, and boded very poorly for Maxy.
The brown blanched. "When I say I are a famous para-moor," he began.
"We are gonna go help the old overlady," Maggat said firmly, hefting his club.
"Sod that," Coddy disagreed, to an approving chitter from Eleanore's familiar. "The old overlady what are now the little oversister were the one what put you in charge, so you ain't the boss of me. And I'm saying we is gonna do what we always do and we go work for the new overlady." He gave a nervous thumbs up to Ozymandias. "We is on the same side now, so… uh, there ain't no need to do that."
Ozymandias' malicious expression strongly indicated that while he agreed, the only reason for that was because Coddy had used a double negative; something that went entirely unnoticed by the minions.
"Yeah, yeah. That are wicked news," Coddy said. He hefted his sawn-off halberd, nervously polishing the telescope he'd tied to it. "Just tell me what you wanna do, boss, and I'll tell the others. All tacty-cool at the ten-four."
"But…" Maggat began.
"I hope you ain't a traitor, Maggat," Coddy said, playing with his halberd in a way which strongly hinted that he was lying. "'Cause traitors get double-dead. I are Captain Coddy, and I captain the ship and I is way more important than you. Way more important for the new overlady. Got it?"
"… yeah, I is all loyal. You don't wanna have no problem with me or anyone else," Maggat said, sweating despite the cold. An idea struck him. "So I is gonna be super loyal, boss Coddy, and look for any other dead minions with Maxy and Scyl so we can bring them back to serve the new overlady. Then we is gonna conquer an' loot this place, so we need lotsa minions."
"Yeah, yeah, that was a great plan of yours to give us all the hard work," Maxy added quickly. "And there are no need to leave anyone to watch us."
Coddy puffed himself up. "Ha! I see what you is trying. You is sneaky, Maxy. You got some green in you. No, I is leaving Roger and Niner with you to carry out my plan, so you is not doing anything you is not meant to. And you better find me more minions, got it?"
"Oh, no, my plan to be sneaky are ruined," Maxy said, one hand pressed melodramatically to his brow. "If only I are a green. But I are outwitted by how smart Captain Coddy are."
"Get to it, you rats! Rest of you, we is following the new boss," Coddy ordered. Maggat, Maxy and Scyl made desultory attempts to search the area while the others marched off, heading back to where the screams had come from.
"Why you gotta do that?" Maggat hissed, shuffling his feet as he directed a hateful glare back at the two strangers. "There are now Coddy's buddies watching us! I were just gonna go look for her old overlady 'cause I'll be double-dead before I do what Coddy tells me to"
Surprisingly, it was Scyl that answered. "'Cause I ain't seen the oversister yet."
Maggat blinked. "Yes we did. She are now the overlady."
"No, the other one. The one who are the oversister no matter which one are the overlady."
"… wait, she are here?"
Maxy nodded, slapping Scyl on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him. "Yeah. I talk to minions in the dead place what we didn't bring back. The ones that went through the glowy sky portal. An' they say she are cut into lots of bits by the henchess and tossed through in a coffin. We gotta find it. She are probably still dead. But we got Roger and Niner. And I are thinking she are gonna need some life energy." Knives flashed in his hands. "And when a vampy eat your life energy, it make you double-dead."
"That are a thing," Maggat said, hefting his club with the pleased expression of a minion contemplating permanently lethal violence against another minion that tried to steal something that belonged to it. "That certainly are a thing."
Louise opened her eyes, staring up at the speckles of stars visible through the tattered clouds.
She felt… good. Quiet. Peaceful. Like she'd been listening to the background roar of a crowded city for a very long time and for the first time she knew what true silence of the countryside sounded like.
Oh wait. There was the pain. She let out a faint moan as her body tallied up its debts. Back; one solid bruise. Left arm; sprained and battered. Mild concussion from being punched in the head. Very cold. Every muscle aching, including a few she didn't even know she had. A ringing in her ears. It would be so easy to just lay here and close her eyes.
Louise levered herself up into a sitting position despite that, only screaming a few times. Her body didn't get to tell her what to do. She rubbed her cheeks, trying to get her head back into the game. Huh. Rubbing her cheek with her left hand didn't hurt. She wasn't wearing her gauntlet.
She wasn't wearing her gauntlet.
Owlishly, Louise peered around, trying to put the last few hours into order in her head. Which was cold. Because her helmet was missing for some reason. She'd been a fool and tried to use Evil to fight Evil and had succeeded too well. Yes. She'd tricked Athe into fighting Baelogji and Baelogji had won. Then… then she'd basically beaten Baelogji and then Eleanore had shown up and stolen her victory. And then…
"Oh no," Louise whispered hoarsely, staring at her hand. If she'd been lucky, her sister had just taken the gauntlet and was going to take it back to be sealed in the family vault.
She didn't think she was that lucky. In fact, she knew she wasn't that lucky. Because in front of her was a pool of ice on the ground, and Louise could see her star-lit reflection.
Her eyes weren't glowing.
Her de la Valliere heritage raged within her, but Louise paid it no attention. It meant nothing to her. Not compared to the stronger set of instincts now surging to life. Her sister had either been possessed by the Gauntlet or simply embraced the title of overlady. Probably the latter given how much the Old Duke had gone on about how he had been breeding the bloodline for this.
And that couldn't be permitted to stand. With such power, Eleanore would be a de la Vallière of the old school. Louise would not tolerate that. She was going to stop her sister. One way or another.
She screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, ignoring the pounding in her head. Now if she remembered correctly, she'd kicked her sister's wand just about over… there. All the way on the other side of this snowy field. And uphill. She must've rolled down the slope after Eleanore knocked her out.
Louise groaned. Dang it. Okay. Okay. First step was to stand up, then she could take the second step which was to take a first step. Then came the third step which would be her second step.
Unfortunately, by her estimation this was going to be a hundred-step plan. At least.
"Sugar," she muttered.
Well, being rude wasn't going to help get that wand. She just had to stand up. On the count of three. One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, two and five eighths… wait, that was less than three quarters. Tears blurred her eyes. Fine. She had to admit that her legs had gone to sleep, laying here in the cold, and she couldn't stand.
So she'd just have to crawl.
Something silver-white approached her in the night. Louise squinted, until she realised what it was. It was a horse that came to a point. The violence must have smashed open the university stables and released the mounts.
"Oh dear," she whispered. Her luck with equines was non-existent. "Please don't impale me, Monsieur Unicorn."
The unicorn approached her, hooves clattering against the icy cobbles. The beast paused in front of her. Louise tensed herself up, preparing to run. Uh, crawl.
It licked her from chin to hairline.
It was so unexpected that she froze up entirely. Face covered in warm horse saliva, Louise tried to work out what was happening. She somehow felt better, and she could see a faint glow coming from her arms and legs, like they'd been coated with glowing paint. She knew unicorns could lend people their strength, but... "Are… you trying to make my face freeze over?" she tried.
The unicorn rubbed itself against Louise, whinnying faintly. Its bulk was so pleasantly warm in the cold midwinter.
"Ah ha! You're planning to push me in a river! Again!" That had been a very unpleasant seventh birthday.
It turned its head back to her, and directed a horsey glare her way. It quite expressively informed her that she was being silly, and that she needed to stand up before she froze.
Louise blushed. Well, she did fit the technical qualifications for receiving spontaneous aid from a unicorn. She'd just never faced anything less than premeditated malevolence from any kind of horse.
"If this is genuine and not some horse-ish trick… thank you," she said gratefully.
The unicorn lowered its head, and tapped the ice in front of her. An image started to form in the ice, wavering and uncertain. A figure with glowing yellow eyes and her gauntlet was stomping through the university grounds, holding a glowing ball of magic aloft. Where, she couldn't tell. Maybe she might have been able to tell if it had been daylight, but at night and in the snow she had no chance at all.
However, one thing in particular caught Louise's attention.
"She stole my helmet! She even stole my dang helmet!"
Everything around Eleanore was blurred and uncertain. That was not some kind of metaphor; merely a product of the fact her brat of a little sister had destroyed her glasses. But within her heart her one steel-hard rule had broken and now the future was filled with limitless possibilities, if only she could just pick them out.
Holding a magical illuminating orb aloft in her left hand, she trailed her unarmoured hand along the wall. This was the Vanderbough building, where the useless scholars of literature resided. Pointless. Entirely pointless. There was nothing here to benefit her. And the master of the faculty of literature was one of Francoise-Athenais's toadies.
Eleanore paused, tilting her helmeted head. One of Francoise-Athenais's… or one of Baelogji's? An interesting question. A very interesting question. Louise might have been a fool who let evil consume her heart, but she had been right about one thing. The regency council was incontrovertibly corrupt. They hadn't known that Montespan was consorting with demons – or more likely, they had chosen to turn a blind eye. Jean-Jacques was sleeping with her, so Eleanore had to assume that he had been tainted. And Richelieu was ambitious above all else. In the past that had driven him to excel at enforcing the law, but perhaps he'd run out of challenges. He'd sell his soul to a demon if he felt he was coming out on top in the deal.
The very fact they'd tolerated her unlawful and unjust imprisonment for six months – six months – was proof enough of their corruption. So she'd just have to assume all of their servants were likewise tainted by evil. They had whatever was coming to them. And oh my, she had so many spells that she could use to revenge herself on them.
Gritting her teeth, Eleanore forced herself to focus. No, she mustn't get distracted by a rampage destroying everyone who'd dared to imprison her out of petty-minded jealousy of her power. She had her goals. That was what she needed to get done. She too was tainted by evil, but she was aware of what afflicted her. Her magic wasn't working properly – probably because of some wretched curse from Louise! – and she had to draw on the evil power that now afflicted her. She might be damning herself by doing this, but this didn't matter. Everyone said she was evil. Everyone always had. She'd tried so long and so hard to prove them wrong, but all that had ever earned her was more disdain and more whispers behind her back.
Well, damn them all too! If she was always cursed to be afflicted by evil thanks to her tainted heritage – and now she knew how deep that went – then she might as well embrace it and snatch up all the power she could get to serve her own ends!
Footsteps pattered in the snow ahead of her. A whispered spell, and coiling smoky red fire twisted out of her left hand to form a sword. "Stop!" she barked.
An exasperated barking chided her for failing to see who it was.
"Oh, Ozymandias," Eleanore said softly, letting the fire fade. She picked up her familiar and hugged him close to her as she groomed his fur with the fingers of her right hand. "How are you feeling?"
The tamarin chittered, clambering up onto her back.
"You are quite alright?"
He bobbed his head up and down, shaking his left hand at her as if he wanted her to see something.
"I'm sorry if you were hurt by what happened." She paused, looking through his eyes at the gaggle of minions that had trailed behind him. "And you let these things follow you?"
One of them stepped forwards, adjusting the set of his stolen captain's hat and holding a short halberd with a telescope tied to it. "Well, boss-overlady, you is the boss of us now and I are just wanting to say that I, Coddy, are gonna be your most loyal servant. I never liked that shortie overlady. I is sure you are gonna lead us in much more smashy and looty battles. An' on top of that, I is ready to make sure that none of the minions is gonna have any split loyalties or any junk like that. Just tell me what to do an' I'll make it happen."
Eleanore froze in place, her eyes narrowing. Slowly she smiled, or at least she bared her teeth. "I see," she said, tone studiously neutral. She looked down at the minions, in all their eager brain-dead enthusiasm, and her fingers twitched. Ozymandias chattered in her ear, and she smiled a slow, cruel smile. What spell would be best to eradicate these creatures?
Her gauntlet chimed, and a wavering blue magical projection of a wizened old goblin appeared in front of her. "Ah, your maliciousness," it said cheerfully. "May I be the very first to congratulate you on the way you have seized power. I do so like a little usurpation. They're one of my favourite things to do that starts with the letter 'u'."
Eleanore's expression did not change. "You are Gnarl the Gnarled," she said.
"Right in one, your dark majesty," Gnarl agreed.
"When I was younger, I once tried to hunt you down and kill you."
"Is that so? Well, your wickedness, you did not find me – because I was stuck in a cage being used as an advisor by a dreadfully stupid lower-class vampire. I would have loved to have met you. But the previous overlady freed me, and so here I am, ready to advise you?"
"Have you no loyalty?" Eleanore asked, voice harsh.
"Oh, plenty. I am loyal to the position of the overlord – or overlady, whoever can take the power. Thus, for the moment I am loyal to you, as your most trusted advisor." Eleanore snorted at that, but Gnarl chose to ignore her. "Now, the first thing I would advise that you do is to re-perform your familiar ritual. That will – ah ha – prime you for the acceptance of—"
"No."
Gnarl blinked. "What?"
"I don't need another familiar. I have Ozymandias, don't I?" She ran her fingers through his fur, and he hummed to himself. "Yes I do. I don't need a gaggle of moronic goblins. I would call them too stupid to live, but one of their noted traits is also being too stupid to stay dead."
"That are what blues is for," one of the minons contributed happily. "Death are but a gate, an'…"
Eleanore gestured and his head went flying. It landed with a noise like a dropped melon, and started immediately seeing use as a football by the others. "And on top of that, they're not exactly hard to kill. They're not even effective killers; they couldn't even catch my Ozymandias. So, no, I see no conceivable use for minions – and very little for you. I have my own plans, thank you very much."
Ozymandias gestured at the floating blue form of Gnarl with both hands, middle fingers raised.
"Your dark wickedness…"
"My God, you're really trying too hard. Your dark wickedness. Really? Could you be any more unctuous? Go molest some sheep or do whatever minions do when they don't have an overlady. I'm busy."
And with that said, she marched off, guided by her familiar's sight. Gnarl did not break the connection, and stayed there, floating beside her, but she refused to listen. She knew where she was going and wasn't prepared to bow to him – to anyone. The other minions, caught up in unfamiliar feelings of unfamiliarhood, trailed behind her for want of anything better to do.
"Can't you get sound on that… um, horn magic? It would be jolly useful to hear what she's saying," Louise asked the unicorn. It shook its head. "Well, darn. I'm sure you tried your best." She took a deep breath. "I don't suppose you would be so kind to help me over to… uh, about there?" she asked, gesturing to where she thought the wand had landed. "It's up the slope. I would try, but," she winced, "I am in quite a fair bit of pain. In fact, I don't believe I can really walk without your help, and so I think it would be better for you to save your strength."
Bowing its head, the unicorn bent its knees and helped her bonelessly drape herself across its back. It was wonderfully warm compared to the snow all around, and she hugged on tight.
With great care and delicacy, the unicorn trotted across the snowy ground and up the slope. Rather than drop her off, it started poking around in the puddles with its horn, whinnying when it found something. Bending down, it picked up the wand in its teeth and dropped it in the snow.
"Thank you, Monsieur Unicorn," she said, feeling quite overcome with gratitude. This was the nicest unicorn she had ever met. It hadn't tried to kill her once. She slithered back down into the snow, and immediately regretted it. The sun had to rise some time. Though not for hours probably, given that the horizons were still dark. Founder, she hated winter.
Louise's back protested as she stooped and picked up the wand, holding it tight. She'd never been much good with them. She vaguely wondered what had happened to hers. It'd been in the tower somewhere, but she'd stopped using it when she had the gauntlet and her magic staff.
"Flame!" she whispered, calling on the fires of Evil to warm her up.
Nothing happened. The unicorn whinnied.
"... this normally never happens to me. I must just… just be tired." Louise huffed on her hands, trying to warm up her fingers. "Please work. Flame!"
Nothing happened.
Gritting her teeth, Louise tried not to cry. Crying wouldn't solve anything. Even… even if Eleanore had stolen her power or… or something.
"Flame! Fireball! Hellish Incineration! Dark Combustion! Malign Conflagration! Abyssal Firestorm! Wicked Firewhip!" In desperation, she reached for any spell, just trying to get any magic at all to work. She wasn't even getting mis-fires like she should! Like she always used to. "Acid Wall! Lightning Bolt! Bl-"
Kracka-thuum. Blindingly bright blue-white lightning lashed out faster than the eye could see and blew apart one of the surviving walls of the theology department. Rubble thundered down, kicking up a cloud of dust. Louise coughed, waving it away, and sagged, slumping against the unicorn. It wasn't even the will she had put into the magic.
That wasn't her lightning. Her lightning was pink. That had been the bright blue-white of wind magic.
The kind of wind magic that only a few mages a generation could perform and which took a square rank to perform. There were two wind mages she knew of who could conjure lightning from nothing, rather than calling it down from the clouds.
Viscount Wardes was one. Her mother was the other.
Had she swapped magic with Eleanore? But no. Eleanore wasn't a wind mage. She did fire and earth magic. But Louise hadn't been able to call upon the dark magic that… that she had thought was hers. And Eleanore had casually used some kind of evil spell to kill a minion in the vision the unicorn had shown her. So it wasn't that she had Eleanore's magic. Eleanore had her magic.
"I'm… I'm a wind mage," Louise whispered. "When I don't have dark magic getting in the way, I'm a wind mage. And… and I'm a really powerful wind mage."
The unicorn whickered approvingly.
She combed out the unicorn's mane with her fingers, barely able to contain her bittersweet glee. Of all the times to discover that… that whatever evil power she had had been suppressing her natural wind magic since she'd been born. She was her mother's daughter! And all it had taken was being thoroughly beaten by her big sister, who probably had been corrupted by the same evil force that Louise had lived with her entire life.
Really, ruining everything was what Eleanore did best. Why should now be an exception?
"That's not really fair," Louise whispered to herself. "She… she was trying to save me. She's just bad with people. Really bad with people." She found she couldn't hold a grudge. Not like she normally did, at least. Normally she knew her gut would be seething with hate and resentment and anger - the same powerful spite that had driven her to achieve everything she'd achieved.
Now, she just felt a deep sorrow for her sister; a sadness that only fortified her determination.
"Is there a limit to how long you can sustain me, unicorn?" Louise asked it. "I'm thinking there must be one, especially if I start using magic." The unicorn nodded. "Well, in that case, I know where we need to go next. Take me to the Great Hall of the university. Um. If you know where that is. I could probably remember the directions if you need them, but… oh. Stop. We need to find the Madame de Montespan."
The unicorn made a noise that was to all intents and purposes a "Harumph".
"We do!" Louise insisted. "She might have been evil and stupid and… and I might have hated her, but I can't leave her body out here to freeze to death out here in this cold. Even if by some measures she might deserve it." She swallowed. "I'd be a hypocrite if I abandoned one relative to eternal damnation when trying to save another one. Magdalene said she was never quite sane after the Affair of the Poisons. I should pity her, not hate her. And…" she tried to still the shaking in her hands, "all things considered? It's not her fault Wardes took her as his mistress when he should have been mourning me." Louise smiled weakly. "H-having to sleep with that treacherous dog is punishment enough."
Tilting its head, the unicorn nodded approvingly, and gave her another lick from chin to brow.
"Could you please stop doing that?"
'Twas cruel midwinter, and a few minions searched through the snowy landscape.
"I is frozen all the way up to the unmentionables," Scyl grumbled, wading through a waist-high snow drift.
"What is they?" Maxy asked.
"Dunno. No one can mention them."
"Wait, look over there!" Maggat said, gesturing. "It are a wooden box what humies keep dead humies in." He looked around, keeping an eye on Roger and Niner. "It are in a crater, so I is thinking it fell from the sky. So it are pro'bly the oversister."
"Why do you think humies put bodies in boxes?" Scyl wondered. "Maybe they is trying to keep track of them until they find a blue humie. I mean, humies are sort of brown-pink, so there has gotta be some green, blue and red humies out there."
Maxy shook his head confidently. "Nah. They no has got blues like you, Scyl. That are because we is the pen-an'-call of evil lotion."
"I wish Fettid were here," Scyl said sadly. "She like her lotion a lot. Or maybe her knifeys. I always get them mixed up."
"Well, we gotta go dig her out from under that dead angel baby when we cook it," Maggat said. "Now, how we be tricksy like a green and make them go to the box with the oversister in?"
They thought, or at least did the closest equivalent that minions could achieve.
"Oi, Roger, Niner," Maxy yelled out. "There are a box over there."
The other two minions' ears perked up at that.
"Box?"
"What's in the box!?"
Maggat grinned. "Ah well. Greens is overrated," he muttered, as he readied his club.
At least the Great Hall was intact. Louise had been more than a little worried about its fate and whatever Baelogji might have done to it. But there were signs of a commotion, and some of the snow near the doorway was… well, she desperately hoped that someone had spilt red wine there. Desperately, desperately hoped.
"Halt! Who goes there?" The voice which came from inside the vestibule of the Great Hall quavered somewhat. "Halt or we, um, set you on fire! And also unleash our golems on you. And… oh, oh, Elizabet has wind magic so she'll do something too."
That sounded ineffectual. That was probably Magdalene's cult – although, Louise hastened to mentally add, it was a good thing they were so awful at being bad.
The unicorn stopped without Louise having to do a thing. Her claims to be the overlady had the small problem that she was missing the three most distinctive features, namely the helmet, the gauntlet, and the glowing eyes. Moreover, since Eleanore had stolen whatever evil power she'd had, she couldn't just set a tree on fire with pink flames as proof. Not that she felt like doing that anyway. It was pointlessly cruel and more than a little insecure.
"I am but a good-hearted traveller and wandering Hero, looking for respite from this storm," she said. "Alas, I cannot give you my name, but my sword-name is…" sugar, sugar, sugar, she should have thought of this beforehand, "… Centuriona."
Even from this distance, she could hear the loud discussion vis a vis "Can we trust her?" and "What if it's a trick?" and "But she's on a unicorn. Everyone know they hate evil," and "But aren't we…" and "Shh, shh!".
"Lady Magdalene van Delft knows me and can vouch for me," she said, to hurry things along. She knew firsthand how ineffectual the cult was without Magdalene to shout at them, and she was exhausting willpower she would need for magic just to keep going with the pain from her injuries. "Please! This is important!"
"Well, I suppose…"
The unicorn decided to spare Louise the difficulty of working out how to drag Françoise-Athenais behind her by simply walking into the Great Hall, where it was instantly surrounded by small children and women. Louise left it being bribed with sugar lumps and carrots – goodness only knew where they had got them from – and slipped down from its back.
She then fell over in a dead faint as all her borrowed energy departed and left her running on nerves. And while nerves had many useful properties, their capacity to keep one going when one's body was mostly bruises was sadly lacking.
Dark blood pooled on the wooden surface of the coffin, spilling out the life energy of Roger and Niner. It seeped into the wood, creeping down through the gaps in the planks to splash down below.
Red eyes lit up.
A pale hand burst through the surface of the coffin, turning it to matchwood.
Cattleya de la Vallière rose from the grave, moving from prone to standing up in one movement as if there was a pivot attached to her heels. Pale skin was stretched taut over a face which seemed much less rounded and soft. She turned her head nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, to glare back at the minions with predatory eyes.
And then she screwed her face up as if she had bitten into a lemon.
"That tasted just awful," she said, wincing. "Eww! Eww eww eww! What the heck was that sugar-flipping taste? Urgh, I need something to wash out my mouth."
"Uh, that was two minions, your oversisteryness," Maggat said.
"… you taste that bad? Couldn't you find… some animal or something?" Cattleya said, stepping down from the coffin. She fell to her knees, and started trying to scrub her mouth out with snow. "It doesn't help! Nothing helps! I'm tasting this in my soul or something!"
"Oversister, we got a real problem," Maxy said, shuffling forwards.
"Worse than the way you taste?!"
"It are more of a problem than that," Maxy said, to make himself clear.
The minions explained, complete with hand-gestures and occasionally hitting each other when one tried to talk over the top of another.
"I'm not surprised," Cattleya said, in a tone nearly as dead as she was. "Well, perhaps I'm a little surprised that Louise let her do that, but I'm not surprised that Eleanore fell to the forces of darkness. And not the ones on the right side, like us." Unblinking she considered the minions clinically. "Shouldn't you be working for Eleanore now?"
"Don't wanna," Maggat said succinctly.
"Well, that'll do for me!" Cattleya clicked her knuckles, then her neck. "We shall find Louise, then."
"Ah, yeah, so you got a plan to help the overl… oversi… her?" Maxy asked.
"Oh, no," Cattelya said, sounding mildly surprised. "I just don't want her getting in the way. Revenge will be sweet."
Cattleya smiled, and now it wasn't just her canines which were razor sharp.
– Ol' Phil, Uneducated Horse Herder
…
"After it!" Maggat hollered, leaping up onto a wall to chase Ozymandias. The tamarin was fast, curse it, and able to wriggle through small places. It was also entirely aware that minions couldn't swim and its path kept on criss-crossing canals and running over thin ice. It led them on a hazardous path across the city, crashing through closed market stalls and wrecking parks.
"I gotta… I gotta…"
"Keep running, Coddy, or I feed you your own face!"
Ozymandias leapt up over the rim of a small crater and onto a wooden box, dancing around with both middle fingers raised.
Two screams echoed through the night. A wave of evil energy pulsed through Amstelredamme, extinguishing flames and bringing with it a faint smell of sulphur. As one, the minions froze, wincing in pain as the mark on the back of their left hands faded.
Bright yellow light flared in the eyes of the golden lion tamarin, and it seemed to swell up, gaining muscle. Ozymandias grinned, baring fangs that were suddenly rather more prominent.
"Well, um." Maxy swallowed. "I think that mean that the big oversister are now the overlady and the overlady are now the little oversister. What are we gonna do now?"
Ozymandias made a gesture that was lurid, explicit, and boded very poorly for Maxy.
The brown blanched. "When I say I are a famous para-moor," he began.
"We are gonna go help the old overlady," Maggat said firmly, hefting his club.
"Sod that," Coddy disagreed, to an approving chitter from Eleanore's familiar. "The old overlady what are now the little oversister were the one what put you in charge, so you ain't the boss of me. And I'm saying we is gonna do what we always do and we go work for the new overlady." He gave a nervous thumbs up to Ozymandias. "We is on the same side now, so… uh, there ain't no need to do that."
Ozymandias' malicious expression strongly indicated that while he agreed, the only reason for that was because Coddy had used a double negative; something that went entirely unnoticed by the minions.
"Yeah, yeah. That are wicked news," Coddy said. He hefted his sawn-off halberd, nervously polishing the telescope he'd tied to it. "Just tell me what you wanna do, boss, and I'll tell the others. All tacty-cool at the ten-four."
"But…" Maggat began.
"I hope you ain't a traitor, Maggat," Coddy said, playing with his halberd in a way which strongly hinted that he was lying. "'Cause traitors get double-dead. I are Captain Coddy, and I captain the ship and I is way more important than you. Way more important for the new overlady. Got it?"
"… yeah, I is all loyal. You don't wanna have no problem with me or anyone else," Maggat said, sweating despite the cold. An idea struck him. "So I is gonna be super loyal, boss Coddy, and look for any other dead minions with Maxy and Scyl so we can bring them back to serve the new overlady. Then we is gonna conquer an' loot this place, so we need lotsa minions."
"Yeah, yeah, that was a great plan of yours to give us all the hard work," Maxy added quickly. "And there are no need to leave anyone to watch us."
Coddy puffed himself up. "Ha! I see what you is trying. You is sneaky, Maxy. You got some green in you. No, I is leaving Roger and Niner with you to carry out my plan, so you is not doing anything you is not meant to. And you better find me more minions, got it?"
"Oh, no, my plan to be sneaky are ruined," Maxy said, one hand pressed melodramatically to his brow. "If only I are a green. But I are outwitted by how smart Captain Coddy are."
"Get to it, you rats! Rest of you, we is following the new boss," Coddy ordered. Maggat, Maxy and Scyl made desultory attempts to search the area while the others marched off, heading back to where the screams had come from.
"Why you gotta do that?" Maggat hissed, shuffling his feet as he directed a hateful glare back at the two strangers. "There are now Coddy's buddies watching us! I were just gonna go look for her old overlady 'cause I'll be double-dead before I do what Coddy tells me to"
Surprisingly, it was Scyl that answered. "'Cause I ain't seen the oversister yet."
Maggat blinked. "Yes we did. She are now the overlady."
"No, the other one. The one who are the oversister no matter which one are the overlady."
"… wait, she are here?"
Maxy nodded, slapping Scyl on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him. "Yeah. I talk to minions in the dead place what we didn't bring back. The ones that went through the glowy sky portal. An' they say she are cut into lots of bits by the henchess and tossed through in a coffin. We gotta find it. She are probably still dead. But we got Roger and Niner. And I are thinking she are gonna need some life energy." Knives flashed in his hands. "And when a vampy eat your life energy, it make you double-dead."
"That are a thing," Maggat said, hefting his club with the pleased expression of a minion contemplating permanently lethal violence against another minion that tried to steal something that belonged to it. "That certainly are a thing."
...
Louise opened her eyes, staring up at the speckles of stars visible through the tattered clouds.
She felt… good. Quiet. Peaceful. Like she'd been listening to the background roar of a crowded city for a very long time and for the first time she knew what true silence of the countryside sounded like.
Oh wait. There was the pain. She let out a faint moan as her body tallied up its debts. Back; one solid bruise. Left arm; sprained and battered. Mild concussion from being punched in the head. Very cold. Every muscle aching, including a few she didn't even know she had. A ringing in her ears. It would be so easy to just lay here and close her eyes.
Louise levered herself up into a sitting position despite that, only screaming a few times. Her body didn't get to tell her what to do. She rubbed her cheeks, trying to get her head back into the game. Huh. Rubbing her cheek with her left hand didn't hurt. She wasn't wearing her gauntlet.
She wasn't wearing her gauntlet.
Owlishly, Louise peered around, trying to put the last few hours into order in her head. Which was cold. Because her helmet was missing for some reason. She'd been a fool and tried to use Evil to fight Evil and had succeeded too well. Yes. She'd tricked Athe into fighting Baelogji and Baelogji had won. Then… then she'd basically beaten Baelogji and then Eleanore had shown up and stolen her victory. And then…
"Oh no," Louise whispered hoarsely, staring at her hand. If she'd been lucky, her sister had just taken the gauntlet and was going to take it back to be sealed in the family vault.
She didn't think she was that lucky. In fact, she knew she wasn't that lucky. Because in front of her was a pool of ice on the ground, and Louise could see her star-lit reflection.
Her eyes weren't glowing.
Her de la Valliere heritage raged within her, but Louise paid it no attention. It meant nothing to her. Not compared to the stronger set of instincts now surging to life. Her sister had either been possessed by the Gauntlet or simply embraced the title of overlady. Probably the latter given how much the Old Duke had gone on about how he had been breeding the bloodline for this.
And that couldn't be permitted to stand. With such power, Eleanore would be a de la Vallière of the old school. Louise would not tolerate that. She was going to stop her sister. One way or another.
She screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, ignoring the pounding in her head. Now if she remembered correctly, she'd kicked her sister's wand just about over… there. All the way on the other side of this snowy field. And uphill. She must've rolled down the slope after Eleanore knocked her out.
Louise groaned. Dang it. Okay. Okay. First step was to stand up, then she could take the second step which was to take a first step. Then came the third step which would be her second step.
Unfortunately, by her estimation this was going to be a hundred-step plan. At least.
"Sugar," she muttered.
Well, being rude wasn't going to help get that wand. She just had to stand up. On the count of three. One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, two and five eighths… wait, that was less than three quarters. Tears blurred her eyes. Fine. She had to admit that her legs had gone to sleep, laying here in the cold, and she couldn't stand.
So she'd just have to crawl.
Something silver-white approached her in the night. Louise squinted, until she realised what it was. It was a horse that came to a point. The violence must have smashed open the university stables and released the mounts.
"Oh dear," she whispered. Her luck with equines was non-existent. "Please don't impale me, Monsieur Unicorn."
The unicorn approached her, hooves clattering against the icy cobbles. The beast paused in front of her. Louise tensed herself up, preparing to run. Uh, crawl.
It licked her from chin to hairline.
It was so unexpected that she froze up entirely. Face covered in warm horse saliva, Louise tried to work out what was happening. She somehow felt better, and she could see a faint glow coming from her arms and legs, like they'd been coated with glowing paint. She knew unicorns could lend people their strength, but... "Are… you trying to make my face freeze over?" she tried.
The unicorn rubbed itself against Louise, whinnying faintly. Its bulk was so pleasantly warm in the cold midwinter.
"Ah ha! You're planning to push me in a river! Again!" That had been a very unpleasant seventh birthday.
It turned its head back to her, and directed a horsey glare her way. It quite expressively informed her that she was being silly, and that she needed to stand up before she froze.
Louise blushed. Well, she did fit the technical qualifications for receiving spontaneous aid from a unicorn. She'd just never faced anything less than premeditated malevolence from any kind of horse.
"If this is genuine and not some horse-ish trick… thank you," she said gratefully.
The unicorn lowered its head, and tapped the ice in front of her. An image started to form in the ice, wavering and uncertain. A figure with glowing yellow eyes and her gauntlet was stomping through the university grounds, holding a glowing ball of magic aloft. Where, she couldn't tell. Maybe she might have been able to tell if it had been daylight, but at night and in the snow she had no chance at all.
However, one thing in particular caught Louise's attention.
"She stole my helmet! She even stole my dang helmet!"
...
Everything around Eleanore was blurred and uncertain. That was not some kind of metaphor; merely a product of the fact her brat of a little sister had destroyed her glasses. But within her heart her one steel-hard rule had broken and now the future was filled with limitless possibilities, if only she could just pick them out.
Holding a magical illuminating orb aloft in her left hand, she trailed her unarmoured hand along the wall. This was the Vanderbough building, where the useless scholars of literature resided. Pointless. Entirely pointless. There was nothing here to benefit her. And the master of the faculty of literature was one of Francoise-Athenais's toadies.
Eleanore paused, tilting her helmeted head. One of Francoise-Athenais's… or one of Baelogji's? An interesting question. A very interesting question. Louise might have been a fool who let evil consume her heart, but she had been right about one thing. The regency council was incontrovertibly corrupt. They hadn't known that Montespan was consorting with demons – or more likely, they had chosen to turn a blind eye. Jean-Jacques was sleeping with her, so Eleanore had to assume that he had been tainted. And Richelieu was ambitious above all else. In the past that had driven him to excel at enforcing the law, but perhaps he'd run out of challenges. He'd sell his soul to a demon if he felt he was coming out on top in the deal.
The very fact they'd tolerated her unlawful and unjust imprisonment for six months – six months – was proof enough of their corruption. So she'd just have to assume all of their servants were likewise tainted by evil. They had whatever was coming to them. And oh my, she had so many spells that she could use to revenge herself on them.
Gritting her teeth, Eleanore forced herself to focus. No, she mustn't get distracted by a rampage destroying everyone who'd dared to imprison her out of petty-minded jealousy of her power. She had her goals. That was what she needed to get done. She too was tainted by evil, but she was aware of what afflicted her. Her magic wasn't working properly – probably because of some wretched curse from Louise! – and she had to draw on the evil power that now afflicted her. She might be damning herself by doing this, but this didn't matter. Everyone said she was evil. Everyone always had. She'd tried so long and so hard to prove them wrong, but all that had ever earned her was more disdain and more whispers behind her back.
Well, damn them all too! If she was always cursed to be afflicted by evil thanks to her tainted heritage – and now she knew how deep that went – then she might as well embrace it and snatch up all the power she could get to serve her own ends!
Footsteps pattered in the snow ahead of her. A whispered spell, and coiling smoky red fire twisted out of her left hand to form a sword. "Stop!" she barked.
An exasperated barking chided her for failing to see who it was.
"Oh, Ozymandias," Eleanore said softly, letting the fire fade. She picked up her familiar and hugged him close to her as she groomed his fur with the fingers of her right hand. "How are you feeling?"
The tamarin chittered, clambering up onto her back.
"You are quite alright?"
He bobbed his head up and down, shaking his left hand at her as if he wanted her to see something.
"I'm sorry if you were hurt by what happened." She paused, looking through his eyes at the gaggle of minions that had trailed behind him. "And you let these things follow you?"
One of them stepped forwards, adjusting the set of his stolen captain's hat and holding a short halberd with a telescope tied to it. "Well, boss-overlady, you is the boss of us now and I are just wanting to say that I, Coddy, are gonna be your most loyal servant. I never liked that shortie overlady. I is sure you are gonna lead us in much more smashy and looty battles. An' on top of that, I is ready to make sure that none of the minions is gonna have any split loyalties or any junk like that. Just tell me what to do an' I'll make it happen."
Eleanore froze in place, her eyes narrowing. Slowly she smiled, or at least she bared her teeth. "I see," she said, tone studiously neutral. She looked down at the minions, in all their eager brain-dead enthusiasm, and her fingers twitched. Ozymandias chattered in her ear, and she smiled a slow, cruel smile. What spell would be best to eradicate these creatures?
Her gauntlet chimed, and a wavering blue magical projection of a wizened old goblin appeared in front of her. "Ah, your maliciousness," it said cheerfully. "May I be the very first to congratulate you on the way you have seized power. I do so like a little usurpation. They're one of my favourite things to do that starts with the letter 'u'."
Eleanore's expression did not change. "You are Gnarl the Gnarled," she said.
"Right in one, your dark majesty," Gnarl agreed.
"When I was younger, I once tried to hunt you down and kill you."
"Is that so? Well, your wickedness, you did not find me – because I was stuck in a cage being used as an advisor by a dreadfully stupid lower-class vampire. I would have loved to have met you. But the previous overlady freed me, and so here I am, ready to advise you?"
"Have you no loyalty?" Eleanore asked, voice harsh.
"Oh, plenty. I am loyal to the position of the overlord – or overlady, whoever can take the power. Thus, for the moment I am loyal to you, as your most trusted advisor." Eleanore snorted at that, but Gnarl chose to ignore her. "Now, the first thing I would advise that you do is to re-perform your familiar ritual. That will – ah ha – prime you for the acceptance of—"
"No."
Gnarl blinked. "What?"
"I don't need another familiar. I have Ozymandias, don't I?" She ran her fingers through his fur, and he hummed to himself. "Yes I do. I don't need a gaggle of moronic goblins. I would call them too stupid to live, but one of their noted traits is also being too stupid to stay dead."
"That are what blues is for," one of the minons contributed happily. "Death are but a gate, an'…"
Eleanore gestured and his head went flying. It landed with a noise like a dropped melon, and started immediately seeing use as a football by the others. "And on top of that, they're not exactly hard to kill. They're not even effective killers; they couldn't even catch my Ozymandias. So, no, I see no conceivable use for minions – and very little for you. I have my own plans, thank you very much."
Ozymandias gestured at the floating blue form of Gnarl with both hands, middle fingers raised.
"Your dark wickedness…"
"My God, you're really trying too hard. Your dark wickedness. Really? Could you be any more unctuous? Go molest some sheep or do whatever minions do when they don't have an overlady. I'm busy."
And with that said, she marched off, guided by her familiar's sight. Gnarl did not break the connection, and stayed there, floating beside her, but she refused to listen. She knew where she was going and wasn't prepared to bow to him – to anyone. The other minions, caught up in unfamiliar feelings of unfamiliarhood, trailed behind her for want of anything better to do.
...
"Can't you get sound on that… um, horn magic? It would be jolly useful to hear what she's saying," Louise asked the unicorn. It shook its head. "Well, darn. I'm sure you tried your best." She took a deep breath. "I don't suppose you would be so kind to help me over to… uh, about there?" she asked, gesturing to where she thought the wand had landed. "It's up the slope. I would try, but," she winced, "I am in quite a fair bit of pain. In fact, I don't believe I can really walk without your help, and so I think it would be better for you to save your strength."
Bowing its head, the unicorn bent its knees and helped her bonelessly drape herself across its back. It was wonderfully warm compared to the snow all around, and she hugged on tight.
With great care and delicacy, the unicorn trotted across the snowy ground and up the slope. Rather than drop her off, it started poking around in the puddles with its horn, whinnying when it found something. Bending down, it picked up the wand in its teeth and dropped it in the snow.
"Thank you, Monsieur Unicorn," she said, feeling quite overcome with gratitude. This was the nicest unicorn she had ever met. It hadn't tried to kill her once. She slithered back down into the snow, and immediately regretted it. The sun had to rise some time. Though not for hours probably, given that the horizons were still dark. Founder, she hated winter.
Louise's back protested as she stooped and picked up the wand, holding it tight. She'd never been much good with them. She vaguely wondered what had happened to hers. It'd been in the tower somewhere, but she'd stopped using it when she had the gauntlet and her magic staff.
"Flame!" she whispered, calling on the fires of Evil to warm her up.
Nothing happened. The unicorn whinnied.
"... this normally never happens to me. I must just… just be tired." Louise huffed on her hands, trying to warm up her fingers. "Please work. Flame!"
Nothing happened.
Gritting her teeth, Louise tried not to cry. Crying wouldn't solve anything. Even… even if Eleanore had stolen her power or… or something.
"Flame! Fireball! Hellish Incineration! Dark Combustion! Malign Conflagration! Abyssal Firestorm! Wicked Firewhip!" In desperation, she reached for any spell, just trying to get any magic at all to work. She wasn't even getting mis-fires like she should! Like she always used to. "Acid Wall! Lightning Bolt! Bl-"
Kracka-thuum. Blindingly bright blue-white lightning lashed out faster than the eye could see and blew apart one of the surviving walls of the theology department. Rubble thundered down, kicking up a cloud of dust. Louise coughed, waving it away, and sagged, slumping against the unicorn. It wasn't even the will she had put into the magic.
That wasn't her lightning. Her lightning was pink. That had been the bright blue-white of wind magic.
The kind of wind magic that only a few mages a generation could perform and which took a square rank to perform. There were two wind mages she knew of who could conjure lightning from nothing, rather than calling it down from the clouds.
Viscount Wardes was one. Her mother was the other.
Had she swapped magic with Eleanore? But no. Eleanore wasn't a wind mage. She did fire and earth magic. But Louise hadn't been able to call upon the dark magic that… that she had thought was hers. And Eleanore had casually used some kind of evil spell to kill a minion in the vision the unicorn had shown her. So it wasn't that she had Eleanore's magic. Eleanore had her magic.
"I'm… I'm a wind mage," Louise whispered. "When I don't have dark magic getting in the way, I'm a wind mage. And… and I'm a really powerful wind mage."
The unicorn whickered approvingly.
She combed out the unicorn's mane with her fingers, barely able to contain her bittersweet glee. Of all the times to discover that… that whatever evil power she had had been suppressing her natural wind magic since she'd been born. She was her mother's daughter! And all it had taken was being thoroughly beaten by her big sister, who probably had been corrupted by the same evil force that Louise had lived with her entire life.
Really, ruining everything was what Eleanore did best. Why should now be an exception?
"That's not really fair," Louise whispered to herself. "She… she was trying to save me. She's just bad with people. Really bad with people." She found she couldn't hold a grudge. Not like she normally did, at least. Normally she knew her gut would be seething with hate and resentment and anger - the same powerful spite that had driven her to achieve everything she'd achieved.
Now, she just felt a deep sorrow for her sister; a sadness that only fortified her determination.
"Is there a limit to how long you can sustain me, unicorn?" Louise asked it. "I'm thinking there must be one, especially if I start using magic." The unicorn nodded. "Well, in that case, I know where we need to go next. Take me to the Great Hall of the university. Um. If you know where that is. I could probably remember the directions if you need them, but… oh. Stop. We need to find the Madame de Montespan."
The unicorn made a noise that was to all intents and purposes a "Harumph".
"We do!" Louise insisted. "She might have been evil and stupid and… and I might have hated her, but I can't leave her body out here to freeze to death out here in this cold. Even if by some measures she might deserve it." She swallowed. "I'd be a hypocrite if I abandoned one relative to eternal damnation when trying to save another one. Magdalene said she was never quite sane after the Affair of the Poisons. I should pity her, not hate her. And…" she tried to still the shaking in her hands, "all things considered? It's not her fault Wardes took her as his mistress when he should have been mourning me." Louise smiled weakly. "H-having to sleep with that treacherous dog is punishment enough."
Tilting its head, the unicorn nodded approvingly, and gave her another lick from chin to brow.
"Could you please stop doing that?"
...
'Twas cruel midwinter, and a few minions searched through the snowy landscape.
"I is frozen all the way up to the unmentionables," Scyl grumbled, wading through a waist-high snow drift.
"What is they?" Maxy asked.
"Dunno. No one can mention them."
"Wait, look over there!" Maggat said, gesturing. "It are a wooden box what humies keep dead humies in." He looked around, keeping an eye on Roger and Niner. "It are in a crater, so I is thinking it fell from the sky. So it are pro'bly the oversister."
"Why do you think humies put bodies in boxes?" Scyl wondered. "Maybe they is trying to keep track of them until they find a blue humie. I mean, humies are sort of brown-pink, so there has gotta be some green, blue and red humies out there."
Maxy shook his head confidently. "Nah. They no has got blues like you, Scyl. That are because we is the pen-an'-call of evil lotion."
"I wish Fettid were here," Scyl said sadly. "She like her lotion a lot. Or maybe her knifeys. I always get them mixed up."
"Well, we gotta go dig her out from under that dead angel baby when we cook it," Maggat said. "Now, how we be tricksy like a green and make them go to the box with the oversister in?"
They thought, or at least did the closest equivalent that minions could achieve.
"Oi, Roger, Niner," Maxy yelled out. "There are a box over there."
The other two minions' ears perked up at that.
"Box?"
"What's in the box!?"
Maggat grinned. "Ah well. Greens is overrated," he muttered, as he readied his club.
...
At least the Great Hall was intact. Louise had been more than a little worried about its fate and whatever Baelogji might have done to it. But there were signs of a commotion, and some of the snow near the doorway was… well, she desperately hoped that someone had spilt red wine there. Desperately, desperately hoped.
"Halt! Who goes there?" The voice which came from inside the vestibule of the Great Hall quavered somewhat. "Halt or we, um, set you on fire! And also unleash our golems on you. And… oh, oh, Elizabet has wind magic so she'll do something too."
That sounded ineffectual. That was probably Magdalene's cult – although, Louise hastened to mentally add, it was a good thing they were so awful at being bad.
The unicorn stopped without Louise having to do a thing. Her claims to be the overlady had the small problem that she was missing the three most distinctive features, namely the helmet, the gauntlet, and the glowing eyes. Moreover, since Eleanore had stolen whatever evil power she'd had, she couldn't just set a tree on fire with pink flames as proof. Not that she felt like doing that anyway. It was pointlessly cruel and more than a little insecure.
"I am but a good-hearted traveller and wandering Hero, looking for respite from this storm," she said. "Alas, I cannot give you my name, but my sword-name is…" sugar, sugar, sugar, she should have thought of this beforehand, "… Centuriona."
Even from this distance, she could hear the loud discussion vis a vis "Can we trust her?" and "What if it's a trick?" and "But she's on a unicorn. Everyone know they hate evil," and "But aren't we…" and "Shh, shh!".
"Lady Magdalene van Delft knows me and can vouch for me," she said, to hurry things along. She knew firsthand how ineffectual the cult was without Magdalene to shout at them, and she was exhausting willpower she would need for magic just to keep going with the pain from her injuries. "Please! This is important!"
"Well, I suppose…"
The unicorn decided to spare Louise the difficulty of working out how to drag Françoise-Athenais behind her by simply walking into the Great Hall, where it was instantly surrounded by small children and women. Louise left it being bribed with sugar lumps and carrots – goodness only knew where they had got them from – and slipped down from its back.
She then fell over in a dead faint as all her borrowed energy departed and left her running on nerves. And while nerves had many useful properties, their capacity to keep one going when one's body was mostly bruises was sadly lacking.
...
Dark blood pooled on the wooden surface of the coffin, spilling out the life energy of Roger and Niner. It seeped into the wood, creeping down through the gaps in the planks to splash down below.
Red eyes lit up.
A pale hand burst through the surface of the coffin, turning it to matchwood.
Cattleya de la Vallière rose from the grave, moving from prone to standing up in one movement as if there was a pivot attached to her heels. Pale skin was stretched taut over a face which seemed much less rounded and soft. She turned her head nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, to glare back at the minions with predatory eyes.
And then she screwed her face up as if she had bitten into a lemon.
"That tasted just awful," she said, wincing. "Eww! Eww eww eww! What the heck was that sugar-flipping taste? Urgh, I need something to wash out my mouth."
"Uh, that was two minions, your oversisteryness," Maggat said.
"… you taste that bad? Couldn't you find… some animal or something?" Cattleya said, stepping down from the coffin. She fell to her knees, and started trying to scrub her mouth out with snow. "It doesn't help! Nothing helps! I'm tasting this in my soul or something!"
"Oversister, we got a real problem," Maxy said, shuffling forwards.
"Worse than the way you taste?!"
"It are more of a problem than that," Maxy said, to make himself clear.
The minions explained, complete with hand-gestures and occasionally hitting each other when one tried to talk over the top of another.
"I'm not surprised," Cattleya said, in a tone nearly as dead as she was. "Well, perhaps I'm a little surprised that Louise let her do that, but I'm not surprised that Eleanore fell to the forces of darkness. And not the ones on the right side, like us." Unblinking she considered the minions clinically. "Shouldn't you be working for Eleanore now?"
"Don't wanna," Maggat said succinctly.
"Well, that'll do for me!" Cattleya clicked her knuckles, then her neck. "We shall find Louise, then."
"Ah, yeah, so you got a plan to help the overl… oversi… her?" Maxy asked.
"Oh, no," Cattelya said, sounding mildly surprised. "I just don't want her getting in the way. Revenge will be sweet."
Cattleya smiled, and now it wasn't just her canines which were razor sharp.
…
Last edited:
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
oh ya a three way power struggle for the overladyship.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
This ain't gonna have anything to do with this overladyship.
This is some good old fashioned Sibling Revenge, unrestrained by Good Parents or the Sister who could previously and rather easily burn her alive.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
I forgot Cat was properly Evil instead of Delusional Evil like Louise.
She's way too likeable sometimes.
She's way too likeable sometimes.
I think it's less a three way power struggle and more that Cattelya now has an excuse to beat mean sister Elanor into the ground. Louise can be the overlady, but she is not wasting this opportunity to get some delicious revenge in.
That or she is talking about Louise, in which case she may about to become dinner and Cattelyas new vamp sister..... But im fairly certain she justs wants to commit severe violence on Elanor.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
[Someone] wants to commit severe violence on Eleanor is probably the default state of things, yes.
I think it's a bit of a tossup between Catt just wanting to beat up Eleanore and Cat also wanting to become Overlady. I mean Grand times whatever pappy Louis was wrong about how long it would take to breed in Eleanore, so maybe he was wrong about Catt's potential. Regardless, I'm pretty sure this means that now all the sisters are looking at pretty much equal punishment, where before Catt seemed likely to get off being the least punished.
Also the Elite Minions staying loyal is pretty neat, and Eleanore probably made a huge mistake not listening to Gnarl.
Also the Elite Minions staying loyal is pretty neat, and Eleanore probably made a huge mistake not listening to Gnarl.
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Welp. Now the question remains, in this massive struggle for power, which minions will side with which sister? And just how is Henrietta going to react to all of this? XD
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Something occurs to me: will Louise want to go back to her Evil magic at this point?
- Location
- The Old Dominion
Well a unicorn well that does prove that one Louise isn't evil and two that given she is riding one she is hmm 'unspoiled' to anyone that saw her, I remember in one tale the second-born prince was made to ride one around to prove he hadn't crated any little threats to the throne.
On a side note given her already given looking just like her mother at her age... has apparently square class wind magic... is riding a unicorn instead of a manticore which means she's over the top pure good...Has the forces of the Abyss split their time panicking, profiting off those panicking or taking bets yet?
On a side note given her already given looking just like her mother at her age... has apparently square class wind magic... is riding a unicorn instead of a manticore which means she's over the top pure good...Has the forces of the Abyss split their time panicking, profiting off those panicking or taking bets yet?
The Gauntlet, and by extension Evil Magic, is part and parcel of being the Overlady. Being the Overlady is how Louie will end the Council and put Henriette on the throne.
And we all know what people will do for love.
It's taken me entirely too long to realize that "Baelogi" can be pronounced similarly to "biology." I got the hints and parallels to all the weird quirks of biological evolution. I just just thought the 'g' was a hard 'g' like in garage, rather than a soft 'g' like in garage.
(Edit: doh, wrote my sentence inverted.)
(Edit: doh, wrote my sentence inverted.)
Last edited:
Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
So - with the Gauntlet, Louise is one of the premier forces of Evil in Tristian. Without it, she becomes Mini-Karin. The world is doomed either way, long-term. Eleanore being doomed is more short-term.
Selonianth
Writer of Words
Oh no, Catt doesn't want to be Overlady. It's too much work, and she *knows* that. No, this is good old fashioned revenge for Eleanore being the cause of her current situation *and* hurting Louise.
As far as Louise not wanting the Gauntlet... I'd disagree. If she *needs* to she can always remove it temporarily to fight using her own magic. Plus, it gives her motivation to hold onto her own goodness, or try anyway...
Last edited:
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
yes, of course
this is why louise was consistently able to invoke square-rank wind magic for almost a decade before ever finding the gauntlet and putting it on for the first time
because it's clearly the gauntlet suppressing her power, rather than oh wait hang on
*from last chapter*
no, looks like it's because she's a Void mage, and in the Overladyverse Void = Evil, and somehow Eleanore beating the crap out of her and taking the Gauntlet transferred the Void/Evil element to her - presumably because she was another valid potential candidate to be one of the four heirs of the Void all along, just as Louis's breeding program had intended.
(Catt was probably not a valid potential candidate to be one of the four heirs of the Void)
Literally spelled out in the narrative, plz upgrade reading comprehension thx.
Now now. In canon, the elves say that the Void is Evil, too.
I'm just sticking with canon, you see.
Selonianth
Writer of Words
I would instead argue that that proves I'm right, rather than wrong.
The fact that her magic was Evil based before the Gauntlet, and isn't now that she's lost the gauntlet, only says that somehow the gauntlet took that taint with it when it was removed. Not that she can't replicate what happened when it left by removing the gauntlet. So...