Irritant
The Odd
- Location
- Climbing the Tower
That sounds like a challenge for Blizhart von Zerbst! I would bet on him succeeding though.
Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
- Fantasy
That sounds like a challenge for Blizhart von Zerbst! I would bet on him succeeding though.
"Not with that attitude! Rrrawwrr!"
Blizhart von Zerbst just before attempting to seduce a banshee.
- Location
- The Moon
- Location
- Germany
ah, the dialog got so close to Louise, but still neighter mentions her.
And they could have talked about how cute Lou is XD maybe even "share" her
Scarron steals every scene he is on, Papa Wolf Daemon Prince, now doubling as the embrassing Uncle
And they could have talked about how cute Lou is XD maybe even "share" her
Scarron steals every scene he is on, Papa Wolf Daemon Prince, now doubling as the embrassing Uncle
seriously Kirche? I thought you of all people would know better than to use that line!
And this is why I just love stoic Kuudere characters, lines of great importance delivered in deadpan monotone or perfectly calm voice
- Location
- The Holiest of Cities
I was going to say how it was obvious, but @EarthScorpion beat me to it... then again, given only demons have internet, Wikipedia can be seen as a sort of demon trick...
Foreshadowing! But hey, she'll have the great memories of killing her half brother in this dress for the next time she wears it! Unless, you know, she's so thoroughly ruined it she can't wear it again.
Cockblocked by an Albionese invasion fleet? Perfidious Albion!
Although on second thought, Tabitha was the one who cockblocked them by telling them about the fleet. And the fleet is invading because of King Joseph. So... Perfidious Gallia?
Speaking of which, there's something very ironic in that King Joseph, the leader of Gallia, is the one who orchestrated the Albigone movement in order to strengthen his dominion over Halkeginia. Clearly this is a sign that Brexit is actually a cunningly evil plan by the leaders of the continent to weaken Britain.
In any case, I really enjoyed this chapter. Guiche interrupting the wedding and the orc scene were pure gold, and I really enjoyed the scene between Kirche, Scarron and Isabella, it was absolutely amazing. I would love to see the epic clash between heroes and villains that may result from this, but I actually doubt it will happen - Louise, Tiffania and Henrietta have their hands full dealing with Joseph, Shafeela and the New Model Army, and the heroes (with a weakened Kirche, which is significant) will have their hands full trying to defeat the Albionese fleet. I think it more likely that Louise will end the attack from Joseph before the heroes attain aerial mastery allowing them to fly to Albion. Even if they do, however, it's in Isabella's interest that Louise, Tiffania and Jessica (her potential girlfriend, client and cousin) not meet with the heroes, especially given the threats levied by Scarron against Kirche - if he was that protective over his niece, how much worse would it be for his daughter? So I think it more likely that the meeting will be averted/delayed for a time.
Whatever happens, though, I know I can't wait for the next chapter.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Does anybody have an idea of Isabella was going to say here? The only thing I can come up is "take", and while that makes sense for a succubus, it's enough out of character I don't think it makes sense.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
- Pronouns
- she/her
I thought she was going to say 'talk' as in have a normal non-sexual conversation with a blood related family member.
ReaperofInterest
Herald of Disaster
Maybe "talk"? Most of what I've read indicates people have trouble conducting conversations when they're terrified.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That makes sense. There's so much emphasis by Isabella and Kirche on improving their relationship, I never considered such a neutral choice.
Actually, Blizhart hasn't managed to impregnate all of Halkegenia's non human races.
That honor goes to his Bard half brother and his army of half breed bastard daughters.
Well I think its probable though I am not sure if Louise would be able to absorb it in anyway after figuring out that she is dating Kirche's Half-sister. I expect much hilarity.
I feel like she'd be more burnt out from having dealt with Scarron first. Also it's not like she isn't aware that she's attracted to the Zerbst body type. Either way, I have to wonder if Kirche is actually capable of following through with such a threat. Natural selection only gets you so far after all, even if your bloodline has been selecting for surviving and boning Valleries.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
There would be so much for Louise to unpack when she finds out Isabella's half-sister is Kirche.
"Oh heavens, I really am attracted to Kirche".
"Oh heavens, I don't want to be Kirche's in-law." (Because you know Louise still expects courtship to end up somewhere).
"She's friends with my bully!"
"If she's related to and friends with Kirche, then she must be like Kirche."
"And she's a demon."
"Oh no! All my fears are true! This is a lie and a trap!"
As for Kirche? She'd be shocked and hurt that Louise "faked her death" to become a villain. But, mostly she'd be jealous (of Jessica).
"Oh heavens, I really am attracted to Kirche".
"Oh heavens, I don't want to be Kirche's in-law." (Because you know Louise still expects courtship to end up somewhere).
"She's friends with my bully!"
"If she's related to and friends with Kirche, then she must be like Kirche."
"And she's a demon."
"Oh no! All my fears are true! This is a lie and a trap!"
As for Kirche? She'd be shocked and hurt that Louise "faked her death" to become a villain. But, mostly she'd be jealous (of Jessica).
Great chapter!
I don't think that I'll ever get tired of people interrupting weddings at times other the "asking for objections" part.
I don't think that I'll ever get tired of people interrupting weddings at times other the "asking for objections" part.
I suspect that she, or at least someone on the hero team, would feel bad that they didn't anticipate the chance that Louise wasn't actually dead.
I would also add "Damn it! Am I really Gay or is this my De Valliere blood again!" and maybe "Oh my god! people from my class are already getting married!... congratulations by the way" if she finds out about what just happened last Chapter.
Probably also be very pissed about them judging her for being evil when they treated her like shit back in school.
I'm pretty sure Valliere blood just affects the bloodlines and statuses that are seen as attractive, whilst complying to the sexuality of the Valliere. Also I suspect that Louise might learn of such things via Isabella.
As far as judgements go; Tabitha won't give a fuck, Guiche is gonna be all dramatic and Hero-like, Danny will probably copy him more or less, Kirche is probably going to be very conflicted, and I actually have no clue what Monmon will think.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Loiuse: I can pay you to keep silent about this
Monmon: I am surprisingly ok with this.
- Location
- Uru isle
Please forgive me for resurecting an old thread, But I was wondering if anybody knows if this story is dead? or will it be continued to updated in the future? I only ask cause its been like 9 months, and Overlady is proably my favourite fanfic to exisit, and I am hoping it will continue one day.
According to the authors profile. And while necro-ing a thread isn't forbidden I think it is generally a better idea to write the author directly rather than post in the thread for questions like this.
- Location
- Uru isle
Ah, thanks for the info. Ill definitely try that next time!
An Interlude at the Door of Battle - War
An Interlude at the Door of Battle - War
It was a bright and sunny late afternoon, though with what looked like rain on the northern horizon. The weather recently had simply not been cooperating in the provision of the appropriate melodrama. The marsh was deep browns and bright greens, as nature blossomed in the summer warmth.
The woman in the midst of the mire was completely unable to appreciate its stark, barren beauty.
Agnès leant against the thorn-covered hillock, and gasped for breath as she fumbled with her powderhorn. She was bleeding from her forehead from where a musket ball had cracked past her face, hit a tree and showered her with splinters. Her lungs burned, her muscles ached, and cold swampy water was creeping up her legs.
Her hands were shaking from adrenaline so much she spilt her first attempt to prime her rifle. Then came the powder and – damn it, the rifling was fouled by her previous shots. She had to ram the ball hard to get it down the soot-coated barrel. This would be her last shot before she'd have to clean it out.
The birds were singing. Here she was, fighting for her life, and the birds were singing.
Agnès crawled on her belly through the thorn thicket, resting her rifle on a branch. Two of the black-coated men with lobster-pot helmets were left. One of them had a pair of semaphore flags out and was gesturing up at the windship in the sky. From his motions, she didn't think he had drawn their attention yet. The other had his own musket out, and was hunting for her.
Five minutes ago, there had been six of them. Six Albionese soldiers, in her country, with windship support. They'd shot at her first, so she'd shot back – and her hunting rifle was a better weapon than their smoothbore muskets. They had to be looking for something. Maybe they were even looking for the same thing she was.
Because Agnès had tracked down the abominable servant of Evil who had kidnapped her princess. Tracked her down to this miserable swamp. Oh, she was clever, the Steel Maiden. She didn't build some looming, over-compensatory tower with a fortified tip that rose up over the landscape. She kept her dark secrets concealed within her deep, hidden dungeon.
But Agnès wasn't some blundering mage who couldn't solve problems if she couldn't point a wand at it. She'd put months into this. And now some idiotic Albionese soldiers were trying to kill her!
Which one? She glanced between the two of them. The man with the loaded musket, or the man with the flags? If she shot the flagman, her smoke would give away her position. But if she shot the musketeer, the ship overhead would probably see the flags when they heard her shot. And of course, nothing would stop the flagman snatching up the musket of his comrade.
Flagman it was, then.
She cocked her weapon, and aimed at the flagman. He was helpfully standing nicely upright, gesturing to try to draw the ship's attention. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
First the flash of the primer, then the roar of her rifle. The flagman went down, the spray of blood the same crimson as the flags he dropped, and she rolled away from her weapon. A musket ball zipped through the foliage, tearing through her cloud of smoke, and then she was up and charging, bleeding from the thorns. The musketeer had wasted his shot and as he saw her charge, he paused in his reloading drill. She could see the calculation run through his head, before he threw aside his musket and snatched up a pistol from the fallen flagman.
She threw herself to the left as he levelled it, and the ball whipped past her, soaking her back with a spray of mud and water. But he was only ten paces away and she had a sword in her hand and…
Two barrels.
Time seemed to crawl. His thumb was on the second hammer, cocking it with too much force, and she was moving too slowly, far too slowly, like the air was the shin-high swamp water and the water was lead.
A roar. Red-hot pain. A spray of blood.
His throat was a scarlet smile. And her side wept crimson.
The Albionese soldier fell. Agnès stumbled, but jammed her sword into the ground, gasping for breath in great wheezes. It was all she could do to stand. She had been shot before, but this was fierce and pressing and above all there were no water mages nearby. It had hit her left side, on the lower part of her ribcage, and she could feel the stabbing icepick-feeling of a broken rib or two.
Each breath gurgled.
"Come on," she whispered to herself, clutching her left arm to her side. "Stay up." If she fell in this mire, she wouldn't be getting up again.
Face greying, side a hot throbbing mess, each breath coming shallow and short, Agnès turned and lurched towards the cover of the nearest trees. Her bag. Yes. Her bag was somewhere in the muck. She'd dropped it. Somewhere. But there was a healing potion in it. She needed it.
One step after another. That's all she had to do.
But she was feeling very light-headed, and she had to grab at the first tree and cling to it with her right arm. She needed to get her breath back. Except each breath was more pain. A reminder that she was still alive. Even if things were hurting so much that each inhalation wasn't spiking in the same way.
Slowly she slid down the tree.
Her vision was growing dark. She… she must have lost more blood than she thought. Sinking down into the muck. Into greyness. Hot, grey pain.
She felt hot, but she was shivering. Trembling. She couldn't stop it.
"Sorry. Henrietta," Agnès whispered. She'd failed her. Hadn't been able to rescue her, despite all her efforts to track down the wicked overlady who had stolen her away. And she had failed to prove that the Council had betrayed her. What use was a musketeer when threats came with weapons she couldn't fight? And now a weapon she could fight had killed her.
Female voices dragged her out of her painful reverie. Agnès opened her eyes, squinting through a teary, blurred world. Black and white figures. More Albionese soldiers.
Wait. No. Those weren't soldiers.
Those were maids. In black and white. Looking like magpies. It didn't make sense. Crows were the ones who came for the dead. Maybe magpies were just better at hiding it. Or… ah! It hurt to breathe, but in her light-headed state, Agnès finally understood. Of course the Lord would send maids to clean up lost souls. Otherwise, they would lie around all over the place, being messy. That wouldn't do.
"There she is! I think!"
"Oh no, she's bleeding. What do we do?"
"Well, if she doesn't look like she'll get better, she can be a meal for the lady."
"I'm not sure. Does she have enough blood left in her?"
The other woman said something, but the words were lost in the greyness that consumed Agnès's world.
The afterlife was a comfortable bed and an overstuffed pillow. Agnès stared up at the ceiling, and wondered why it had been painted crudely white. The coating didn't suit it. The underlying architecture looked like it should be described with words like 'doom' and 'gloom'. And other things ending in '-oom'. And if she twisted her head, she could see that there was a white cat resting on the pillow next to her.
As that was not theologically accurate as to the nature of heaven, Agnès came to the preliminary conclusion that she was not dead.
The cat noticed she was awake, and mewled at her.
"Where am I?" Agnès croaked. Her throat felt raw, and there was a cold tingling sensation in her limbs. And more than that, she was terribly weak; her muscles felt like limp, wilting flowers and some mischievous spirit had snuck in and replaced all her bones with lead.
The cat mewed again, and patted her in the face with its paw.
"Stop that."
It did it again.
"I said, stop that!"
That only produced another mew, as the cat sat up, and walked over to stand on top of her. Agnès could feel its claws through the sheets. She gritted her teeth and tolerated it – a toleration which came to an abrupt end when it decided to sit on her face.
Her bone-tired attempts to flail drew attention, and thankfully a figure in black and white lifted the cat off her face.
"Bad Pallas," said the maid, a pale – almost anaemic – girl with red hair who scooped the cat up to her shoulder. She sounded perpetually bored. "Don't bully the prisoner."
"Mraaa."
"My lady, I'm sorry for the behaviour of this cat. She's usually much better behaved."
That matched Agnès' understanding of cats and their tendency to misbehave. Cats were theologically suspect, as they were not mentioned directly by Brimir. "Where… where am I?" she said, trying to sit up. She had no time to sit around and-
The maid placed her hand on her chest and held her down firmly. "You have lost a lot of blood," she told her, as if that was an entirely unexciting announcement, "and the mistress would not want you to hurt yourself."
There was something vaguely familiar about this woman. She had seen her face before somewhere. "Do I know you?"
"I've never seen you before. I am a maid in the service of my lady. Just a maid. And you have not been a guest here before."
"Where is my pistol? My sword?" Agnès demanded, trying to squirm out from under the hand. "I… fetch your mistress! She will understand! I cannot be in bed!"
"You must. The mistress has ordered that you rest and recover your strength."
"I cannot!" Agnès scowled up at the maid, addressing her as she would a recalcitrant trainee on the other side of a parade ground. "Fetch your mistress! I will explain to her that this is a matter of great importance to the crown!" Such a command took more lung capacity than apparently was available to her, and she broke down into spluttering wheezing, tasting iron in her mouth. Scarlet sprayed across the sheets as she hacked.
The maid helped wipe her mouth with a handkerchief. "You are too-" she began, and then paused, staring into nothingness for a few seconds. "The mistress is coming," she said, in the same bored tone.
"G-good," Agnès said weakly. "Now l-let me-"
"No. The mistress does not want you hurting yourself. And she is used to people too stubborn to stay in bed when ordered."
It only took a little while for the mistress of the house to sweep in, dressed all soft morning rose with a skull-like half-mask covering the upper part of her face. Her pink hair had been elegantly curled, and the wide square neck of the dress teased generous amounts of décolletage. Evil had many wicked ways to trick those who were not certain in their righteousness, and the temptations of wickedness were right before Agnès's eyes in the here and now. However, evil might have considered if perhaps it would be better to show less pale bloodless flesh and perhaps to cover up hands which had more than a certain hint of claw about their nails. Oh, and very pointy canines.
"Vampire!"
"Oh, what gave it away?" The woman tilted her head. "Was it the fangs? It was probably the fangs. It's actually jolly hard to hide them. I mean, my little sister didn't notice for ten years, but in all honesty she is sometimes not the brightest candle."
"Get your blood-slave to let go of me!" Agnès demanded.
"Excuse me, she is not my blood-slave," the vampire said, sounding hurt. "She's my blood-maid. She gets a rather generous salary, Sundays plus one other day off a week and a third day on alternating weeks, and prolonged youth through drinking my blood."
"It's the best job I've ever had, my lady," the bored maid said, still holding down the thrashing Anges with one hand. "No one else ever gave me two days off a week when I was in service before. Let alone a third day off on alternating weeks."
"See!" the vampire said happily, taking the bloodied handkerchief from her maid. "Now, Agnès - you don't mind that I call you that, yes?"
Her blood ran cold. "How do you know my name?"
The vampire laughed. "You are Agnès, the chevalier of Milan, former commander of the Princess's Musketeers. And I don't forget a handsome face like yours."
"Oh," Agnès said with dawning horror, "and that means you are the Countess of Blood, Carmine."
"Some call me that," the vampiress Carmine said affably.
"And I am a captive of the Steel Maiden."
For some reason, Carmine pulled a face. "This is her tower," she said.
Agnès' churning feelings escaped between her teeth in a pained hiss. So close! She must have been so close to the hidden, secret place of the overlady. Only to fall at the last hurdle because of the interference of those Albionese soldiers. "I will find Princess Henrietta and I will free her," she said weakly.
"I'm sorry, my dear chevalier, but your princess is not here."
"You are keeping her in another tower?"
"I'm not going to tell you that. So," Carmine said firmly, "I will let you see her when she's back. But only if you're a good girl and you don't open up any of your wounds. Or do anything to get yourself killed." She leaned in slightly. "Are you going to be a good girl? Or will I have to take more… extreme measures?"
"Is that a threat?" Agnès hissed, trying to ignore the unwanted stirrings at being called a good girl by a vampire. The vile imprecations of the undead were something she had to fear, for they were after her blood and her soul.
"No. It's a warning for you. You have quite a bit of my blood in your veins, because it was that or you would have been crippled for life even if you had survived. Enough that if you should perish before it passes through you, you will rise as one of my kind." From behind the mask, the red eyes of the vampire stared mercilessly down at Agnès. "So I am going to ensure you don't put yourself in any peril until you are quite recovered."
Once again, Agnès felt her blood run cold and this time it was joined by the horror that it wasn't just her blood in there. "Monster!" she growled.
"Excuse me very much," the vampire said. "I didn't go looking for this, thank you very much! You were the one who decided to bleed out very nearly on my front door. I saved your life, and also your arm. I'm not looking for thanks, but some might be appreciated. You know, if you feel like giving it."
"I will never fall for the wiles of a wicked creature such as yourself and-" A wet noise came from the vampire, and Agnès found herself entirely derailed from her condemnation. "… are you crying?" she enquired.
"As a matter of fact, I am!" the vampire said, eyes glistening and face slightly blotchy. "You're being really mean, you know that! You're welcome that I saved your life!" She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I don't want anyone else to have to live like this! And Princess Henrietta would have been sad if you'd died! But maybe I should've let you die!"
Agnès cursed inside her head, then winced slightly at her blasphemy. But damnation! She had sworn an oath that she would not make pretty girls cry, albeit in a rather different context. But still, an oath was an oath. "I'm… sorry, you heartless bloodsucking fiend," she said.
"Apology accepted!" Carmine declared, and stormed out with her maid.
Lying back in the bed, Agnès decided that maybe it would be best to rest for a while after all. If the vampire was telling the truth, damnation awaited Agnès if she perished. Such a cruel thing to do - and yet she couldn't hate her for it. Princess Henrietta needed her help. Even if she would have seen Heaven, there were things she had to resolve here on earth before she passed on. She had her duty to the princess, and the oath she had sworn for her murdered family. And-
"By the way," the vampire announced, sticking her head in the door with something of a flounce, "you're invited to breakfast. Which is probably dinner for you. I'll send some maids to help you dress!"
"Am I to be the main course?" Agnès demanded, narrowing her eyes. She couldn't let her guard down.
"Were you not paying attention? Of course not!" With that said, Carmine departed again.
More trickery from the undead. And worse, Agnès considered pensively, the risk of having to dine formally. She hated official dinners.
The vampire Cattleya strode through the looming hallways of her little sister's dark fortress. Behind her followed the maid Helene.
"She was very disrespectful. No wonder she hurt your feelings."
Cattleya smiled, showing more than a little fang. "My dear," she said, running her fingers through Helene's red hair, "I have a very, very mean older sister."
"What do you mean?"
"I learned at a young age to cry on demand." She giggled. "Eleanore never could persuade father that it was a talent of mine, though she tried and tried."
"So you weren't…"
"Really upset? Of course I was. A pretty girl was being mean to me just because of my…" she waved her hand in the air, "condition. That's hurtful. But girls like that tend to stumble in the face of a crying girl." She spun, her dress flaring around her, and continued down the hallways.
"I am worried that she might have recognised me from old wanted posters," Helene said, but Cattleya paid her no heed.
In truth, she was rather glad that she had a new guest. It was a distraction from the current situation with Maria, who had taken Cattleya's lack of a desire to take up residence with her poorly. Very poorly. And there had been tears and… well, the next cult meeting was going to be very, very awkward. It wasn't her fault! She was a free-spirited nigh-immortal vampire with a lot going on right now! She couldn't just move in with a girl she barely knew and who kept on asking her to drain all her blood and embrace her into the immortal aristocracy of the night as partners for eternity. It was like Maria wanted her for her body, and specifically the undying blood within it, rather than for who she was! She wasn't just a bloodsucking fiend eternally tethered to the mortal world! She had a lovely personality as well!
"Ah, your haemophagaciousness," Gnarl said, as she passed his shuffling form. "I see we have a new guest. A repugnant little heroine, of all things. Shall I tell the reds to start heating up the boiling oil? Or are we feeling in more of a racking mood?"
"Neither. I will be having her for dinner."
"Ah, of course, you do need to think about your diet." The wizened figure tapped his walking stick against the stone floor. "In truth, I had already told them to start heating up the oil, so I suppose we'll be having deep-fried rats for dinner tonight down in the minion halls. Waste not, want not, after all."
Cattleya bit her lower lip. "Any word from my sister?"
"Nothing since the last time you asked. According to the charts, though, Albion should be on the ascent and that tends to create a great deal of noise in the lower magical spectrum. I should be able to reach her again in a few hours." Those gimlet little eyes looked up at her knowingly. "Shall I tell her wickedness that her sister is enquiring after her?"
"Hmph! No! Just tell me when you hear from her." Cattleya shook her head. "It worries me that we had Albionese soldiers and a light frigate over our swamp. Our prisoner was being chased by them. It'd be jolly annoying if something is going on. Maybe… maybe some of the darlings should go out on a ride on my puppies and see if something is going on in the swamp," she suggested, weighing the pros and cons of sending murderous goblinoids riding man-eating ghoulish wolves out to hunt down and slaughter any intruders.
"A most malicious idea, my gore-drenched lady, and I will send them out straight away." Gnarl tugged his forelock, or something in or about its vicinity, and ambled off.
"He is a strange one, my lady," Helene murmured to Cattleya when she thought he was out of earshot.
"That he is. But come on! I need to dress up properly for this evening's meal, and that means I'll need your help picking out what to wear and getting changed. And maybe Anne's too. She deserves something nice. And, my Helene," Cattleya added, reaching over to stroke her maid's cheek, "I'll need to have a little snack beforehand so I'm not hungry in front of our guest."
"As my lady wishes," Helene said, a note of eagerness entering her bored voice.
The grand dining hall showed many of the latter-day attempts which sat atop the base structure like a layer of concealer atop a sucking gut wound. A painting of a kitten done in the style of Yantes somehow managed to be more sinister than the faded fresco of Abyssal revelry it was trying to cover up. The nature of the tower and the ambient evil had sunk into everything here, and as a result any attempt to moderate its influence was inevitably corrupted into the general aesthetic.
Agnès knew nothing of it, and just assumed that there had been a deliberate choice to hang tasteless pictures of red-eyed, fanged kittens on the walls. There were other matters which were much more concerning to her than the decor.
She did not have a face like thunder, because thunder would have been much louder than the silent cold disdain which she radiated. And, likewise, if her face had been like thunder, her clear and obvious contempt would have been a loud but brief rumbling discontent. No, she was clearly in this for the long run.
This dress. This dress. This dress.
She was a chevalier, sworn to her highness! Not some courtly lady only good to primp and preen! She had dispensation to wear manly formal dress to court, so if trouble arose she was ready to fight and wouldn't trip over the train of some frippery. The deep red dress was a ballgown and didn't even have a place to belt a sword or a pistol. Which she didn't have because she was a prisoner, but it was the principle of the thing! And the low cut of the dress revealed the ugly burn scars to her chest she had suffered as a child. She hated to show those ugly scars to anyone.
Agnès tried to think on the brighter side of things. At least if this was a dinner, she'd be given cutlery. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be silver and thus she couldn't use it against a vampire. Maybe they'd serve steak. She could try to drive a steak through the vampire's heart in desperation, hoping that the homonym might have some effect, but the effects would likely be minimal unless the meat was served on the bone. And odds are there wouldn't be any garlic in the meal, so it would be both ineffectual against vampires and also bland and flavourless.
Someone cleared their throat in the shadows of the room. "The lady makes her approach," a soft female voice announced. Agnès started in shock. There was one of the maids standing in the dark, her black uniform blending nearly perfectly into the shadows and the white breaking up her shape. Had she been there all along, unseen, or had she just appeared there with the uncanny powers that the thralls of the most potent vampires possessed?
"What do you-" Her words were cut off by the ominous creak of the grand doors, grating against themselves. In strode the vampire, in spectral, ethereal white.
"Oof. That's a trifle loud, isn't it?" the vampire Carmine said, pulling a face as she glanced at the hinges. "I know the overlady took most of the minions with her, but that kind of noise just isn't acceptable! It's like fingers on a blackboard! It makes my teeth hurt, and trust me, Agnès, that's a lot worse for me than you."
Agnès took in the soft curves and generous figure revealed by the finery, but decided there and then that she would not fall for the seductive wiles of this queen of the night. For one, the undead cared not for the order of things laid out by God, and the fact that Carmine looked like she could not even run a kilometre without falling to the ground wheezing meant nothing. It was all lies and deception wrapped around a wicked and corrupt core, just like that beauty and grace was the grace of a predator. "What vile schemes do you have planned for me?" she demanded.
"Well, I thought we'd start with something hearty, nourishing, and rich in iron," the vampire said. One of her maids went to close the door, but was stopped by a raised hand. "For the sake of your health, of course."
The first course was a thick, hearty broth; the sort of thing might give a reculpirating invalid. Agnès was the only one who was served a portion.
"So you have poisoned it?" she demanded.
"I don't eat soup." The vampire tilted her head. "Well, no, that's not true. But I'm awfully sad to say that the kind of soup I like would probably make you throw up given that it is essentially mildly flavoured blood. And it's not like the soup is going to waste! My maids will be having anything you don't eat."
"So don't feel too obliged to ask for seconds. Or finish everything," the redheaded maid who had poured her soup murmured in her ear. There was definitely something suspicious about her.
"Don't be like that, Helene," the vampire chided. "She needs to build up her strength. And replace all that blood she bled all over the swamp. So Agnès will be well behaved and think of her health and eat up, won't you, my dear?"
Agnès hated that this was not wrong. And she cursed herself for the sin of pride. Her duty here was to serve Princess Henrietta, who was the captive of the dark mistress who commanded this vampire's loyalty. She could not do that if she was starving herself. Therefore, she should eat this… actually good pork broth. She realised just how ravenous she was, and so her food had her full attention.
Unfortunately, the same may have been true of the vampire. "Do you like it?" she asked, those red lips twisting up to reveal hints of fangs.
"Yes." Agnès placed her spoon down in her empty bowl. "And through what manner of wickedness did you come into possession of this?"
"I beg your pardon."
"This is a miserable swamp. Where did the ingredients, the herbs, the spices come from?"
"Oh!" That earned her an even wider smile. "We plundered them from people loyal to the Regency Council. I don't eat such things, but my maids assure me that they dine very well here. Don't you, my darlings?"
"Of course, milady," said the nearest too-pale maid. "It is one of the perks of the job."
Agnès considered this. On one hand, she could not condone acts of Evil. On the other hand, she was unsure if stealing from the venal, corrupt Regency Council was an act of Evil. Additionally, if she dropped the things she had previously been holding in that first hand, it was very good broth and she was very hungry. And now when she checked the contents of her hands, it would seem all things were morally acceptable. "That is fine enough." She scowled. "Unlike this dress."
"What is the matter with it?"
At length, Agnès expounded on its flaws. At such length, in fact, that the next course had arrived by the time she was done.
"Oh dear," the vampire asked, pale hand going to her mouth. "I'm awfully sorry. This was really the only thing we had in your size. None of us are shaped like you, you see, and it was honestly rather a miracle that I was able to find something in Jessica's collection that could fit you. And even then, it's not meant to be quite as figure-hugging as it is." She looked Agnès up and down, her eyes lingering. "You have quite a fetching amount of muscle on you."
Ah, clearly the vampire was only interested in the blood that fuelled her body. "I will not fall for your wicked wiles, oh servant of evil. Your beauty hides not the wickedness in your heart."
Carmine pulled a face. "Well, I think you're being somewhat - rather! - rude. And a little bit old fashioned in your choice of words."
"I was born on the northern coast, in a little village. That is how we spoke. And the older way of phrasing things avoids more modern corruptions. Just like one can tell the truth of the Brimiric texts by going back to their roots, rather than relying on the false interpretations of the church."
"My goodness. You're a protestant?" asked the vampire.
"That is true, yes."
"Goodness. I haven't spoken to an anticlericalist before." Carmine rested her chin on her hands, tilting her head. "Imagine the conversations we might be able to have on the topic. They might well last well into the night."
Ah ha! Even a vampire could come to understand the wickedness of the Romalian church! Agnès perked up. To prosthelytise unto the spawn of evil was a worthy cause, for Brimir himself had done it and so brought them into the service of righteousness. And the arc of Carmine's pale neck was very pretty. It would look wonderful bowed in prayer. "You want to speak on the matter? Well, you should have said!"
It was at that point that Cattleya should have realised that she had stumbled onto one of the great mistakes of hosting a dinner that her father had always warned her against. One should never bring up religion at the dinner table. It was just awfully impolite to find one's guest was secretly a heretic and then manners would demand that they be called out to a duel and, well, it'd only end in blood.
But then again, it was a dinner party, so blood might have been an acceptable part of her evening plans.
It went on. And on. And on.
"... of course, the unearned wealth of monasteries are a sign only of the sin of greed..."
The fire had burned low. And Agnès was still talking, in between bites of her meal.
"... the wickedness of the popes are well known to all! How can they be said to have any moral authority!"
From a certain point of view, this was her own fault. Cattleya was mature enough to concede that she could make little oopsies. One of those had been forgetting that Agnès had lost a lot of blood, and the blood that Cattleya had replaced it with was the rich, intoxicating liquid that dwelt in her veins.
"And the less that is said about the way that the Church uses holy crusades for secular means rather than only in times of crises of the faith, the better!"
To put it another way, Agnès got tipsy very quickly off not much wine, which only built on the existing blood-drunkenness which the transfusion had filled her with. And it turned out that she was neither a morose drunk, or a happy drunk. No, she was an argumentative one. And also a Protestant.
"... which is far from the only example of the unjust interference of the Romalian popes in the proper exercise of the faith," Agnès declared. "Monasteries and nunneries isolate the faithful away rather than letting them share their faith with others! But the papacy just so happened," her voice was thick with contempt, "to find justification for it. Do you know what wickedness occurs in those places?"
"No," lied Cattleya whose lack of interest in monasteries was only matched by her tremendous interest in nunneries, which resembled a gourmet's appreciation for fine restaurants.
"Count yourself lucky! In fact, they are used so often as prisons for girls who have done nothing wrong! As if it was wrong to love other women!"
Cattleya blinked, jolted from her theology-induced haze. "I'm sorry?"
"Oh, you buy into the deception that they impose upon us?" Agnès' brow wrinkled. "You should discard the foolish, wicked catechisms of the papal lineage. Brimir never meant us to listen to the self-appointed tyrants of Romalia! For, you see," she lectured, eyes ablaze with religious devotion, "the legacy of the popes who have led the church have been corrupted by evil! It is only for each of us to read the texts and the writing of Brimir and his children, and from them to understand Brimir's will and the will of the Lord!"
"I am awfully sorry, but I do not see how that follows," Cattleya conceded. "It is in-"
"In the sayings of Helreginn, second son of Brimir," Agnès said, crossing her arms. "And the lying popes of Romalia have long said that Helreginn's law states that the love between two men or two women is a sin! A wicked deception forced to feed the coffers of Romalia with guilt-wracked indulgences!"
Cattleya nodded, waiting for her to get to the point.
Agnès folded her hands in front of her, with the attitude of one calling forth a well-memorised line, meaning she missed Cattleya's eyeroll. She cleared her throat. "'Know that it is not right that a man should lie with another man as he would a woman, nor that a woman should lie with another woman as she would a man.'" Agnès opened her eyes with a triumphant smile. "So easily are the lies of the papacy made clear!"
"I… don't understand."
"Helreginn didn't forbid the love between two women, or two men! He forbade you or I to lie with another woman as I would a man. And to lie with a man is to accept his manhood within your body! And so as a faithful follower of Brimir, I have always been careful to ensure that I never accepted a woman's manhood within my body. The same would apply to two men, though I'm not entirely sure what happens there as that field of activity interests me none."
Cattleya tilted her head slowly, parsing the ideas that her own religious instructions were telling her were clearly heretical. "I'm… reasonably sure that is not the intended reading," she said.
"By scripture alone, we shall know the thoughts of righteousness," Agnès insisted. "It is for that reason the Romalian church hates what they call 'sola scriptura' for it opens understanding and wisdom to the faithful, rather than having to rely on the corrupt hierarchy of the church. But as can be clearly seen, Helreginn's original intent was quite different!"
The word 'clearly' was doing a lot of work there, in Cattleya's quite firm opinion. She didn't actually care all that much, because when one was an undead blood-sucking queen of the night a little thing like one's fondness for one's own sex was a minor foible in the eyes of the church. But she was pretty sure that Agnès was taking what might be generously called a dubious reading.
Goodness! Was this how her know-it-all sisters felt all the time?
However, unlike them, Cattleya was able to keep a clear view of the things that mattered. In this case, what mattered was that a handsome and muscular woman who looked just gorgeous with her short hair and battle scars had reasoned herself into the behaviour that spending the night in the arms of another woman was no sin.
"How jolly interesting," Cattleya said, giving her best and closed-mouthed interested smile. "Please, do tell me more." This evening ought, if there was any justice in the world, to have a payoff.
However, she wasn't exactly displeased when Gnarl interrupted with a "Your sanguinosity! A message for you at the tower heart!"
"I'm awfully sorry," she told Agnès, who had been recounting her tragic backstory with her small village being persecuted and burned and that being the origin of her scars - and how this was all the fault of the church hierarchy, "but I really must take this. Please, do eat up. And perhaps after you're finished, we can discuss matters further over drinks?"
"Wine?"
"Oh, no, I don't drink wine," Cattleya said. She licked her lips. "I'm sure I can find something, though."
"You're more of a brandy girl. I can respect that," Agnès said, nodding wisely.
"Perhaps. Perhaps." And with a swirl of ghostly skirts, Cattleya was away.
Cattleya's shoes clicked on the bare stone of the looming central chamber of the tower. The tower heart glowed a soft, pearlescent white, casting long shadows in this empty space. An array of magic mirrors had been set up for communications purposes and scrying. One of the mirrors reflected the empty void, a burning rune in the dark tongue floating on its surface.
"Now… how were you meant to use this?" Cattleya mumbled to herself, checking the notes that Henrietta had left for herself. One of Louise's many flaws was that she didn't understand how some people might not find it easy to pick up how to use Jessica's complicated magical contraptions. "Touch the ruby at the bottom, and… ah ha!"
"Oh, thank God someone answered." Magdalene's face appeared in the enchanted mirror, hunched over her own enchanted locket. Her fringe was singed, her cheeks were flushed, and there was soot on her face. Her glasses still reflected all the light that hit them because some things never changed. "I can't see anyone, so I have to assume that this is you, Cattleya?"
"Yes," Cattleya said, blinking. "But you shouldn't be using my real-"
"Shut up and listen," Magdalene snapped. "Amstelredamme is under attack! By air! It's an Albionese invasion!"
"They're attacking you?" Cattleya's mind whirred. That meant that the Albionese ships that had been after that pretty girl Agnès had been part of that - maybe a scouting fleet. But if they had been scouts, why had they been in this swamp of all places? If they wanted to land an army, they would probably want somewhere drier. That meant they had to be looking for something else. Like the tower.
"No, they're just a bunch of over-eager merchants of course they're attacking!" Magdalene irritably tucked back a lock of dark hair. "Where's the overlady?"
"In Albion."
"Crap," she swore in a most unladylike manner. Something exploded off in the distance, and Magdalene flinched. "Well, can you get in contact with her? Maybe this is a chance. If she can destroy the supply lines…"
"Understood," Cattleya said, nodding. She chewed on her lower lip. "Okay. Well, I think… yes, we may not have many minions here, but I can probably get you to a safe place if I go on my own. How long can you hold out?"
"No. Don't. I'm trying to get our useless generals to hold out as long as they can, while I've sent my familiar off to Aunt Karina's." Magdalene took a deep breath. "Reports from the docks are that they're using war-golems of some strange sophistication. We pushed back the first landing attempt, but the dragoons took heavy losses. We need a hero like her. People will rally behind her. And it is my duty to organise an honourable surrender if we can't hold out against this kind of force."
"Oh." Cattleya understood that perfectly. Appealing for help from the Regency Council would likely be pointless, given what Louise had heard about possible ties between them and the Albionese. Her mother, on the other hand, was not what an aerial invasion wanted to meet. There were so many breakable things in the area. Sails. Ships. Dragons. Nearby towns. Natural landmarks. "I'll try to reach my sister. We saw Albionese scouts over the swamp earlier today. Maybe she's seen something."
"I understand. Pass along anything you get from her. This has come completely out of the blue. And-" Her image started to waver, her voice breaking up.
"Hello? Hello? Did I do something wrong?" Cattleya enquired. "I'm having problems seeing you. Are you having problems too?"
Magdalene said something, but Cattleya couldn't pick out anything from it. The magic mirror cut off, showing the solid blue of a cloudless sky. A rune in the dark tongue floated in the upper left colour.
"Blue, blue, blue," Cattleya muttered to herself, leafing through the notes. Henrietta had not written any notes about what to do if your magic mirror turned sky blue, which was awfully inconsiderate.
The mirror turned black again, and Cattleya started to worry that she had accidentally broken it. Such a worry was swiftly proven to be ungrounded, when the tower heart started to glow purple and thus there were brand new things to worry about. The mirror turned back on, showing a black-robed masked woman, who had a purple sigil glowing atop her brow.
A woman Cattleya knew from the Cabal Awards. The one known as Shafeela the Marked. And she remembered that there had been something about her having a lot of influence in the Albionese government.
"There is nothing there, master," she heard the woman say in heavily accented Gallian. "I traced their communication sorcery, but there is no one on the other end. Shall I proceed?" There was a pause, and Cattleya's keen ears could hear the mouse-squeaking of a voice too quiet and distant to make out words. "As you command. My servants will proceed to capture the tower of the Steel Maiden in her absence."
The faint thrum of the tower heart intensified, increasing in both pitch and volume. The invasive purple light that saturated it grew brighter and brighter. With a wet sound, Cattleya tore herself apart into a flock of bats and vanished up to the upper levels, reforming up on one of the looming gargoyles.
She saw and heard the tower's own transportation magics activating. That was how Louise could travel so quickly between this place and lesser towers, but she had said - and Jessica had agreed - that even another overlord couldn't make use of them without first claiming this central tower and its heart. But that was exactly what was happening, as the air opened in slits and armoured figures entered this space.
Perhaps a human would have been fooled by the newcomers, especially in the poor light. But Cattleya was not deceived. Her eyes picked out the painted features, the stiff motions, the unblinking glass eyes. And more than that, she heard only the whirring of gears and the whistle of steam within them; no heartbeat, none of the little noises of life. Each had a glowing sigil on their brow; the same purple mark that Shafeela herself bore.
"Intrusion successful, commander," one of the golems stated, to the mirror. "No signs of hostile opposition."
"Warning. Hostile opposition could be invisible," stated a second one, scanning the room with its arcane weapon which looked like a musket connected by copper wiring to an airstone.
"No indication of invisibility magic in use according to airstone augurs," said the first one, sounding irritable.
"Question. Could invisibility magic be invisible?"
"Commander, ignore this rusthead. Location can accept a second wave of capture forces."
Golems, and more than that, golems of an incredibly sophisticated design - enough that they were capable of artificial stupidity. Golems which had been gated in using the tower's own systems, using the same means that Louise commanded for her own travel between the nodes of the ancient network of the dark lords. Which told Cattleya two things; firstly, their foe was an unseen villain with power comparable to her sister, and secondly, with this level of control over the tower, this enemy would be able to send in as many reinforcements as they liked.
And that simply would not do! It was quite unacceptable! Cattleya's lips peeled back all the way, baring a mouthful of fangs that had stopped pretending that they were anything like human teeth. How dare they! How dare they treat her like this! This was her lair, and they thought they could just intrude on it just because her little sister was absent?
Why did no one ever take her seriously!
The heart's whine built up in intensity again, another portal marking the second wave of mechanical soldiers joining the first group who were already moving to secure the entrance to the tower chamber. Cattleya saw the gleam of firestones in the arcane brass weapons they carried. Fire was bad. She could feel her skin crawling back just at the thought of it.
There was no time to waste. She couldn't kill that many automata on her own when they had firelocks. The tower heart was letting Shafeela portal more soldiers in. The tower heart was the problem.
So in the spirit of the best traditions of the de la Valliere, she would have to rip out the heart with her bare hands.
Dissolving into a mist, Cattleya let herself fall and flowered through the space, keeping the purple-glowing orb between her and the war-golems. She let herself reform, feeling the bulk of the immense crystal orb up against her hands. It felt like Louise's magic to her flesh, that edge of barely contained danger and power far too close to her. It had taken many minions to get it into position in the first place, and the little darlings were incredibly strong for their size. No single man could possibly dislodge the tower's heart from its cradle.
Unfortunately for the invaders, Cattleya was a woman. Also, much more pertinently she was an undead bloodsucking queen of the night fuelled by stolen life drawn from the veins of the living.
Straining, muttering bowdlerised swears under her breath, Cattleya drew on the unnatural strength deep within her, and pushed. She had to dislodge it from its cradle. Unlink it from the tower. It felt like she was shoving against a wall, except of course she could punch through most walls.
A brightening and thrum told her of the arrival of a third wave of automata.
She could feel her blood within her moving to obey her will, so much stronger than her flesh and her bones. A flare of hot pain told her that tendons in her left shoulder had given way, followed quickly by a matching flare in her right. Her knees were screaming at her. So was her spine. She ignored them. They didn't get a say. Her veins could be seen moving under the surface of her skin, as black as tar, and bruises blossomed around her joints.
"Come on," she hissed through bared teeth, revealed under curled back lips. "Come on."
Stone grated. And the light in the tower heart flickered. Pure evil surged out, venting from momentarily disrupted connection. It scorched the walls and tore apart two of the nearby automata-soldiers in a lightning flash, leaving only molten metal behind.
With a shriek of fury, blood exploded out of Cattleya's back, shaping itself into things that were nearly limbs. Limbs without bones or flesh or skin or muscles; nothing but a tracery of blood-like vessel shapes in the air sketching the shape of wings tipped with clawed hands. But they were still limbs that could push and strain without the weakness of undead flesh holding them back.
Shafeela shouted something, but with one final exertion Cattleya lifted the colossal mass of crystal out of its cradle. All the magical lights in the tower died, and the purple glow cut off. Ponderously it crushed the nearest automata under its bulk, before the stone walkway shattered and dropped the tower heart down into the abyss.
The surviving golems turned, weapons raised - but before they could even finish the motion, something hulking and batlike with terrible blood red eyes leapt across the broken walkway. With a blood-splattered fist tipped with sword-like talons, it tore an arm off the nearest soldier and in a heartbeat was out the door.
"Target not identified," said the automata which was now missing an arm. "Extrapolated species; vampire."
"Question. What evidence is that based on?" asked another one, who had not been looking in the right direction.
"Target 'Overlady of the North' employees target vampire 'Carmine the Countess of Blood'. Unknown target was winged, and had glowing eyes and lethal talons."
"That is not definitive. Require further identification," interjected a third one. "Inaccurate target information could lead to fundamental errors in anti-target elimination methods. Which other targets could potentially have taken that form?"
The second one's glass eyes swivelled. "Question. Could it have been target incubus 'J'eszika Moraudat D'aemonstrelle Obfuscata Xystene Elee'ze Imoegene Malevola Ebony Invi-"
"Target is getting away, you defective ironworks!" snapped the first one. "Seek and destroy!"
Agnès was in the dark as to what was going on. But only in a figurative way, because the room was somehow not not as dim as it should have been despite the fact that all the lights had turned off.
Oh, and she could see the maids who had been lurking in the corners of the room. Their eyes glowed a dull red. And when she caught sight of her own reflection in a polished metal winecup, her eyes were glowing too.
"What is going on?" she demanded. "Why are-"
"The glowing eyes are a purely natural consequence of having my lady's blood in your veins," said the maid Helene, who contrived to sound even more bored than she had before. "It is very convenient. It saves on candles."
"I don't know why the lights turned out though," one of the other ones said.
"Yes, Anne, that is a bit of a mystery," Helene agreed. "And-" she paused, as if listening to an invisible voice.
A voice that Agnès could hear too. Carmine was speaking, inside of her head. It sounded very weak. "My darlings, there are… there are invaders in the tower. Very nasty golems. Shafeela… working with the Albionese and maybe Gallians too. I'm… coming, I'm… I'm going to keep you safe. But you're going to need to g-get the weapons and-"
The two Cathayan-looking maids nodded, and vanished in a blur of motion.
"I can hear her voice," Agnès said, balling her hands into fists. She shouldn't be able to hear that. But if the Albionese who had invaded her princess's land and also not irrelevantly shot here were attacking this place…
The urge hit her like a hammer that she had to get to the door, that she had to help… someone. She fought it down, but the maids moved as one and caught the vampire as she staggered through. She was draped in just a torn-down curtain, utterly covered in blood, and trembled uncontrollably.
"Who did you kill?" Agnès demanded.
"It's all mine," the vampire said with a weakly toothy grin. "Sorry, my darlings. I think I overdid it j-just a tiny amount. There's someone attacking. Shafeela the Marked. She took over the tower heart. And sent through golems."
"Ah ha, that must be why you just disconnected this tower," an elderly voice said from behind Agnès. She whirled, seeing a greying creature which carried a glowing crystal as a light.
"By all that is sacred, where did that goblin come from!"
"Minion," the wizened old creature said meaningfully. "Gnarl the Gnarled, advisor and vizier to overlords and overladies. Displeased to make your acquaintance. The minions will not be able to easily get the tower heart back into position. It will take several days, at the least. It would be faster, but there are very few of them here as most of them are off with the overlady. This tower is, I am sad to say, off the network until then."
"Sad to say?" Cattleya groaned, as one of her maids wrapped her apron around her for the sake of more modesty. "Also, we're still under attack."
"Why, yes! That was an exquisitely cunning plan from the rival overperson! To make use of the Mind of Evil to override control of the tower heart, and then use our very own portal system to send their own killer automata in to seize the location! Delightfully evil! Why, I'd serve a mind like that without a second hesitation." Gnarl's wrinkled brow furrowed. "My only concern is that overlords who build killer automata tend to not really respect some good old fashioned club-armed minions. Tsk tsk! Automata are expensive, and have to be repaired when broken. And-" He paused, finding himself at the wrong end of a steak knife.
"Such treason from the vizier of the overlady!" Agnès said, horror in her voice. "To betray her to an outside force like that is unforgivable!"
"No, no," Cattleya said. She coughed up blood. "That's just his way."
"But he was saying he was going to betray your-"
"Yes, yes, but it's Gnarl. As father would say, it's b-better to have a reliably treacherous backstabbing bar stool than someone who you don't know their levers. Gnarl will only betray us if someone stronger and more evil than L… than the overlady comes along and beats her." She paused, breath rasping in a death rattle. "Well, father w-wouldn't say 'bar stool', but there's such things as standards for a young lady like myself."
"When you say father… do you mean your father-in-darkness, your sire, your vile progenitor?"
"I killed the one who made me like this. No, I mean my actual father."
"... how old must he be then?"
"I'm twenty three," Cattleya explained.
"Oh!" Agnès' eyes widened. "That… that feels vaguely disappointing. I thought you were some ancient immortal queen of the night."
"Don't worry," Cattleya said, slumped in her maid's arms. "I can be one for you."
Agnès nodded thoughtfully. And nodded again. "I find it is my duty to help you defend against these attackers."
"But you're a hero," Cattleya said. "Not that I object, but…"
"Yes. But I have three important reasons why I must help. Firstly, you said they are linked to the Albionese, and they shot me earlier today. I must pay them back in kind. Secondly, you have my princess as a hostage, and if I do not help you here, you might harm her."
Cattleya broke down into bloody coughing. "Of course. And the third?"
"You just propositioned me. And you are an attractive woman with a pretty smile. It would be even prettier if it was not for the fangs, but even with them it is still substantially above average."
"... that… that is very blunt."
"I am a blunt woman," Agnès said. "I find it saves time."
A clatter of weaponry announced the arrival back of the Cathayan maids, who dumped on the table a collection of evil cursed weapons, wicked demonic contraptions, and other things that Jessica had made as momentary curiosities and left lying around her workshop. Technically speaking no one else was meant to know about them, but Jessica refused to do her own dusting and thus the maids had permission to touch them for the purposes of cleaning. Plus, Jessica had a tendency to over-explain how things worked and appreciated the maids as an audience who would nod along as she expounded upon her designs.
"That is quite an assortment," Agnès said, admiring the infernal weaponry. She picked up one of Jessica's repeating pistols, and loaded the oversized weapon with leaden bullets which glowed a dull hellish red. "Vampire. Lend me your servants. I was the commander of the princess's musketeers. I-"
"Go ahead. Don't get my darlings killed," Cattleya said weakly. "And how do you know how to do that?"
"I have fought villains who use such weapons before. The knowledge of righteousness defeats the dark!" said Agnès, her eyes glowing a dull red as she took up a sinister tarnished copper blade etched with burning runes and with great satisfaction hacked off most of the train of her dress, turning the cut fabric into a sash. "And I have defeated the golem products of dark Gallian sorcery on several occasions." She glanced over at the maids. "Are you aware of how to use these weapons?"
They were already quite conversationally brandishing an assortment of hellish weapons. "I was a… mercenary before I came into the service of my lady," Helene said as she loaded bullets into a six-barreled pistol. She didn't sound bored for once. "I have made sure that the others know how to fight."
"A heroine?" Agnès asked, looking the other woman up and down.
"Yes," lied the former highwaywoman, bandit, and general malfeasor.
"Quite excellent. You can be my second in command. Well, then," Agnès told her newly acquired squad of ghoul maids armed with demonic weapons. "Let us clean house."
It was a bright and sunny late afternoon, though with what looked like rain on the northern horizon. The weather recently had simply not been cooperating in the provision of the appropriate melodrama. The marsh was deep browns and bright greens, as nature blossomed in the summer warmth.
The woman in the midst of the mire was completely unable to appreciate its stark, barren beauty.
Agnès leant against the thorn-covered hillock, and gasped for breath as she fumbled with her powderhorn. She was bleeding from her forehead from where a musket ball had cracked past her face, hit a tree and showered her with splinters. Her lungs burned, her muscles ached, and cold swampy water was creeping up her legs.
Her hands were shaking from adrenaline so much she spilt her first attempt to prime her rifle. Then came the powder and – damn it, the rifling was fouled by her previous shots. She had to ram the ball hard to get it down the soot-coated barrel. This would be her last shot before she'd have to clean it out.
The birds were singing. Here she was, fighting for her life, and the birds were singing.
Agnès crawled on her belly through the thorn thicket, resting her rifle on a branch. Two of the black-coated men with lobster-pot helmets were left. One of them had a pair of semaphore flags out and was gesturing up at the windship in the sky. From his motions, she didn't think he had drawn their attention yet. The other had his own musket out, and was hunting for her.
Five minutes ago, there had been six of them. Six Albionese soldiers, in her country, with windship support. They'd shot at her first, so she'd shot back – and her hunting rifle was a better weapon than their smoothbore muskets. They had to be looking for something. Maybe they were even looking for the same thing she was.
Because Agnès had tracked down the abominable servant of Evil who had kidnapped her princess. Tracked her down to this miserable swamp. Oh, she was clever, the Steel Maiden. She didn't build some looming, over-compensatory tower with a fortified tip that rose up over the landscape. She kept her dark secrets concealed within her deep, hidden dungeon.
But Agnès wasn't some blundering mage who couldn't solve problems if she couldn't point a wand at it. She'd put months into this. And now some idiotic Albionese soldiers were trying to kill her!
Which one? She glanced between the two of them. The man with the loaded musket, or the man with the flags? If she shot the flagman, her smoke would give away her position. But if she shot the musketeer, the ship overhead would probably see the flags when they heard her shot. And of course, nothing would stop the flagman snatching up the musket of his comrade.
Flagman it was, then.
She cocked her weapon, and aimed at the flagman. He was helpfully standing nicely upright, gesturing to try to draw the ship's attention. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
First the flash of the primer, then the roar of her rifle. The flagman went down, the spray of blood the same crimson as the flags he dropped, and she rolled away from her weapon. A musket ball zipped through the foliage, tearing through her cloud of smoke, and then she was up and charging, bleeding from the thorns. The musketeer had wasted his shot and as he saw her charge, he paused in his reloading drill. She could see the calculation run through his head, before he threw aside his musket and snatched up a pistol from the fallen flagman.
She threw herself to the left as he levelled it, and the ball whipped past her, soaking her back with a spray of mud and water. But he was only ten paces away and she had a sword in her hand and…
Two barrels.
Time seemed to crawl. His thumb was on the second hammer, cocking it with too much force, and she was moving too slowly, far too slowly, like the air was the shin-high swamp water and the water was lead.
A roar. Red-hot pain. A spray of blood.
His throat was a scarlet smile. And her side wept crimson.
The Albionese soldier fell. Agnès stumbled, but jammed her sword into the ground, gasping for breath in great wheezes. It was all she could do to stand. She had been shot before, but this was fierce and pressing and above all there were no water mages nearby. It had hit her left side, on the lower part of her ribcage, and she could feel the stabbing icepick-feeling of a broken rib or two.
Each breath gurgled.
"Come on," she whispered to herself, clutching her left arm to her side. "Stay up." If she fell in this mire, she wouldn't be getting up again.
Face greying, side a hot throbbing mess, each breath coming shallow and short, Agnès turned and lurched towards the cover of the nearest trees. Her bag. Yes. Her bag was somewhere in the muck. She'd dropped it. Somewhere. But there was a healing potion in it. She needed it.
One step after another. That's all she had to do.
But she was feeling very light-headed, and she had to grab at the first tree and cling to it with her right arm. She needed to get her breath back. Except each breath was more pain. A reminder that she was still alive. Even if things were hurting so much that each inhalation wasn't spiking in the same way.
Slowly she slid down the tree.
Her vision was growing dark. She… she must have lost more blood than she thought. Sinking down into the muck. Into greyness. Hot, grey pain.
She felt hot, but she was shivering. Trembling. She couldn't stop it.
"Sorry. Henrietta," Agnès whispered. She'd failed her. Hadn't been able to rescue her, despite all her efforts to track down the wicked overlady who had stolen her away. And she had failed to prove that the Council had betrayed her. What use was a musketeer when threats came with weapons she couldn't fight? And now a weapon she could fight had killed her.
Female voices dragged her out of her painful reverie. Agnès opened her eyes, squinting through a teary, blurred world. Black and white figures. More Albionese soldiers.
Wait. No. Those weren't soldiers.
Those were maids. In black and white. Looking like magpies. It didn't make sense. Crows were the ones who came for the dead. Maybe magpies were just better at hiding it. Or… ah! It hurt to breathe, but in her light-headed state, Agnès finally understood. Of course the Lord would send maids to clean up lost souls. Otherwise, they would lie around all over the place, being messy. That wouldn't do.
"There she is! I think!"
"Oh no, she's bleeding. What do we do?"
"Well, if she doesn't look like she'll get better, she can be a meal for the lady."
"I'm not sure. Does she have enough blood left in her?"
The other woman said something, but the words were lost in the greyness that consumed Agnès's world.
The afterlife was a comfortable bed and an overstuffed pillow. Agnès stared up at the ceiling, and wondered why it had been painted crudely white. The coating didn't suit it. The underlying architecture looked like it should be described with words like 'doom' and 'gloom'. And other things ending in '-oom'. And if she twisted her head, she could see that there was a white cat resting on the pillow next to her.
As that was not theologically accurate as to the nature of heaven, Agnès came to the preliminary conclusion that she was not dead.
The cat noticed she was awake, and mewled at her.
"Where am I?" Agnès croaked. Her throat felt raw, and there was a cold tingling sensation in her limbs. And more than that, she was terribly weak; her muscles felt like limp, wilting flowers and some mischievous spirit had snuck in and replaced all her bones with lead.
The cat mewed again, and patted her in the face with its paw.
"Stop that."
It did it again.
"I said, stop that!"
That only produced another mew, as the cat sat up, and walked over to stand on top of her. Agnès could feel its claws through the sheets. She gritted her teeth and tolerated it – a toleration which came to an abrupt end when it decided to sit on her face.
Her bone-tired attempts to flail drew attention, and thankfully a figure in black and white lifted the cat off her face.
"Bad Pallas," said the maid, a pale – almost anaemic – girl with red hair who scooped the cat up to her shoulder. She sounded perpetually bored. "Don't bully the prisoner."
"Mraaa."
"My lady, I'm sorry for the behaviour of this cat. She's usually much better behaved."
That matched Agnès' understanding of cats and their tendency to misbehave. Cats were theologically suspect, as they were not mentioned directly by Brimir. "Where… where am I?" she said, trying to sit up. She had no time to sit around and-
The maid placed her hand on her chest and held her down firmly. "You have lost a lot of blood," she told her, as if that was an entirely unexciting announcement, "and the mistress would not want you to hurt yourself."
There was something vaguely familiar about this woman. She had seen her face before somewhere. "Do I know you?"
"I've never seen you before. I am a maid in the service of my lady. Just a maid. And you have not been a guest here before."
"Where is my pistol? My sword?" Agnès demanded, trying to squirm out from under the hand. "I… fetch your mistress! She will understand! I cannot be in bed!"
"You must. The mistress has ordered that you rest and recover your strength."
"I cannot!" Agnès scowled up at the maid, addressing her as she would a recalcitrant trainee on the other side of a parade ground. "Fetch your mistress! I will explain to her that this is a matter of great importance to the crown!" Such a command took more lung capacity than apparently was available to her, and she broke down into spluttering wheezing, tasting iron in her mouth. Scarlet sprayed across the sheets as she hacked.
The maid helped wipe her mouth with a handkerchief. "You are too-" she began, and then paused, staring into nothingness for a few seconds. "The mistress is coming," she said, in the same bored tone.
"G-good," Agnès said weakly. "Now l-let me-"
"No. The mistress does not want you hurting yourself. And she is used to people too stubborn to stay in bed when ordered."
It only took a little while for the mistress of the house to sweep in, dressed all soft morning rose with a skull-like half-mask covering the upper part of her face. Her pink hair had been elegantly curled, and the wide square neck of the dress teased generous amounts of décolletage. Evil had many wicked ways to trick those who were not certain in their righteousness, and the temptations of wickedness were right before Agnès's eyes in the here and now. However, evil might have considered if perhaps it would be better to show less pale bloodless flesh and perhaps to cover up hands which had more than a certain hint of claw about their nails. Oh, and very pointy canines.
"Vampire!"
"Oh, what gave it away?" The woman tilted her head. "Was it the fangs? It was probably the fangs. It's actually jolly hard to hide them. I mean, my little sister didn't notice for ten years, but in all honesty she is sometimes not the brightest candle."
"Get your blood-slave to let go of me!" Agnès demanded.
"Excuse me, she is not my blood-slave," the vampire said, sounding hurt. "She's my blood-maid. She gets a rather generous salary, Sundays plus one other day off a week and a third day on alternating weeks, and prolonged youth through drinking my blood."
"It's the best job I've ever had, my lady," the bored maid said, still holding down the thrashing Anges with one hand. "No one else ever gave me two days off a week when I was in service before. Let alone a third day off on alternating weeks."
"See!" the vampire said happily, taking the bloodied handkerchief from her maid. "Now, Agnès - you don't mind that I call you that, yes?"
Her blood ran cold. "How do you know my name?"
The vampire laughed. "You are Agnès, the chevalier of Milan, former commander of the Princess's Musketeers. And I don't forget a handsome face like yours."
"Oh," Agnès said with dawning horror, "and that means you are the Countess of Blood, Carmine."
"Some call me that," the vampiress Carmine said affably.
"And I am a captive of the Steel Maiden."
For some reason, Carmine pulled a face. "This is her tower," she said.
Agnès' churning feelings escaped between her teeth in a pained hiss. So close! She must have been so close to the hidden, secret place of the overlady. Only to fall at the last hurdle because of the interference of those Albionese soldiers. "I will find Princess Henrietta and I will free her," she said weakly.
"I'm sorry, my dear chevalier, but your princess is not here."
"You are keeping her in another tower?"
"I'm not going to tell you that. So," Carmine said firmly, "I will let you see her when she's back. But only if you're a good girl and you don't open up any of your wounds. Or do anything to get yourself killed." She leaned in slightly. "Are you going to be a good girl? Or will I have to take more… extreme measures?"
"Is that a threat?" Agnès hissed, trying to ignore the unwanted stirrings at being called a good girl by a vampire. The vile imprecations of the undead were something she had to fear, for they were after her blood and her soul.
"No. It's a warning for you. You have quite a bit of my blood in your veins, because it was that or you would have been crippled for life even if you had survived. Enough that if you should perish before it passes through you, you will rise as one of my kind." From behind the mask, the red eyes of the vampire stared mercilessly down at Agnès. "So I am going to ensure you don't put yourself in any peril until you are quite recovered."
Once again, Agnès felt her blood run cold and this time it was joined by the horror that it wasn't just her blood in there. "Monster!" she growled.
"Excuse me very much," the vampire said. "I didn't go looking for this, thank you very much! You were the one who decided to bleed out very nearly on my front door. I saved your life, and also your arm. I'm not looking for thanks, but some might be appreciated. You know, if you feel like giving it."
"I will never fall for the wiles of a wicked creature such as yourself and-" A wet noise came from the vampire, and Agnès found herself entirely derailed from her condemnation. "… are you crying?" she enquired.
"As a matter of fact, I am!" the vampire said, eyes glistening and face slightly blotchy. "You're being really mean, you know that! You're welcome that I saved your life!" She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I don't want anyone else to have to live like this! And Princess Henrietta would have been sad if you'd died! But maybe I should've let you die!"
Agnès cursed inside her head, then winced slightly at her blasphemy. But damnation! She had sworn an oath that she would not make pretty girls cry, albeit in a rather different context. But still, an oath was an oath. "I'm… sorry, you heartless bloodsucking fiend," she said.
"Apology accepted!" Carmine declared, and stormed out with her maid.
Lying back in the bed, Agnès decided that maybe it would be best to rest for a while after all. If the vampire was telling the truth, damnation awaited Agnès if she perished. Such a cruel thing to do - and yet she couldn't hate her for it. Princess Henrietta needed her help. Even if she would have seen Heaven, there were things she had to resolve here on earth before she passed on. She had her duty to the princess, and the oath she had sworn for her murdered family. And-
"By the way," the vampire announced, sticking her head in the door with something of a flounce, "you're invited to breakfast. Which is probably dinner for you. I'll send some maids to help you dress!"
"Am I to be the main course?" Agnès demanded, narrowing her eyes. She couldn't let her guard down.
"Were you not paying attention? Of course not!" With that said, Carmine departed again.
More trickery from the undead. And worse, Agnès considered pensively, the risk of having to dine formally. She hated official dinners.
The vampire Cattleya strode through the looming hallways of her little sister's dark fortress. Behind her followed the maid Helene.
"She was very disrespectful. No wonder she hurt your feelings."
Cattleya smiled, showing more than a little fang. "My dear," she said, running her fingers through Helene's red hair, "I have a very, very mean older sister."
"What do you mean?"
"I learned at a young age to cry on demand." She giggled. "Eleanore never could persuade father that it was a talent of mine, though she tried and tried."
"So you weren't…"
"Really upset? Of course I was. A pretty girl was being mean to me just because of my…" she waved her hand in the air, "condition. That's hurtful. But girls like that tend to stumble in the face of a crying girl." She spun, her dress flaring around her, and continued down the hallways.
"I am worried that she might have recognised me from old wanted posters," Helene said, but Cattleya paid her no heed.
In truth, she was rather glad that she had a new guest. It was a distraction from the current situation with Maria, who had taken Cattleya's lack of a desire to take up residence with her poorly. Very poorly. And there had been tears and… well, the next cult meeting was going to be very, very awkward. It wasn't her fault! She was a free-spirited nigh-immortal vampire with a lot going on right now! She couldn't just move in with a girl she barely knew and who kept on asking her to drain all her blood and embrace her into the immortal aristocracy of the night as partners for eternity. It was like Maria wanted her for her body, and specifically the undying blood within it, rather than for who she was! She wasn't just a bloodsucking fiend eternally tethered to the mortal world! She had a lovely personality as well!
"Ah, your haemophagaciousness," Gnarl said, as she passed his shuffling form. "I see we have a new guest. A repugnant little heroine, of all things. Shall I tell the reds to start heating up the boiling oil? Or are we feeling in more of a racking mood?"
"Neither. I will be having her for dinner."
"Ah, of course, you do need to think about your diet." The wizened figure tapped his walking stick against the stone floor. "In truth, I had already told them to start heating up the oil, so I suppose we'll be having deep-fried rats for dinner tonight down in the minion halls. Waste not, want not, after all."
Cattleya bit her lower lip. "Any word from my sister?"
"Nothing since the last time you asked. According to the charts, though, Albion should be on the ascent and that tends to create a great deal of noise in the lower magical spectrum. I should be able to reach her again in a few hours." Those gimlet little eyes looked up at her knowingly. "Shall I tell her wickedness that her sister is enquiring after her?"
"Hmph! No! Just tell me when you hear from her." Cattleya shook her head. "It worries me that we had Albionese soldiers and a light frigate over our swamp. Our prisoner was being chased by them. It'd be jolly annoying if something is going on. Maybe… maybe some of the darlings should go out on a ride on my puppies and see if something is going on in the swamp," she suggested, weighing the pros and cons of sending murderous goblinoids riding man-eating ghoulish wolves out to hunt down and slaughter any intruders.
"A most malicious idea, my gore-drenched lady, and I will send them out straight away." Gnarl tugged his forelock, or something in or about its vicinity, and ambled off.
"He is a strange one, my lady," Helene murmured to Cattleya when she thought he was out of earshot.
"That he is. But come on! I need to dress up properly for this evening's meal, and that means I'll need your help picking out what to wear and getting changed. And maybe Anne's too. She deserves something nice. And, my Helene," Cattleya added, reaching over to stroke her maid's cheek, "I'll need to have a little snack beforehand so I'm not hungry in front of our guest."
"As my lady wishes," Helene said, a note of eagerness entering her bored voice.
The grand dining hall showed many of the latter-day attempts which sat atop the base structure like a layer of concealer atop a sucking gut wound. A painting of a kitten done in the style of Yantes somehow managed to be more sinister than the faded fresco of Abyssal revelry it was trying to cover up. The nature of the tower and the ambient evil had sunk into everything here, and as a result any attempt to moderate its influence was inevitably corrupted into the general aesthetic.
Agnès knew nothing of it, and just assumed that there had been a deliberate choice to hang tasteless pictures of red-eyed, fanged kittens on the walls. There were other matters which were much more concerning to her than the decor.
She did not have a face like thunder, because thunder would have been much louder than the silent cold disdain which she radiated. And, likewise, if her face had been like thunder, her clear and obvious contempt would have been a loud but brief rumbling discontent. No, she was clearly in this for the long run.
This dress. This dress. This dress.
She was a chevalier, sworn to her highness! Not some courtly lady only good to primp and preen! She had dispensation to wear manly formal dress to court, so if trouble arose she was ready to fight and wouldn't trip over the train of some frippery. The deep red dress was a ballgown and didn't even have a place to belt a sword or a pistol. Which she didn't have because she was a prisoner, but it was the principle of the thing! And the low cut of the dress revealed the ugly burn scars to her chest she had suffered as a child. She hated to show those ugly scars to anyone.
Agnès tried to think on the brighter side of things. At least if this was a dinner, she'd be given cutlery. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be silver and thus she couldn't use it against a vampire. Maybe they'd serve steak. She could try to drive a steak through the vampire's heart in desperation, hoping that the homonym might have some effect, but the effects would likely be minimal unless the meat was served on the bone. And odds are there wouldn't be any garlic in the meal, so it would be both ineffectual against vampires and also bland and flavourless.
Someone cleared their throat in the shadows of the room. "The lady makes her approach," a soft female voice announced. Agnès started in shock. There was one of the maids standing in the dark, her black uniform blending nearly perfectly into the shadows and the white breaking up her shape. Had she been there all along, unseen, or had she just appeared there with the uncanny powers that the thralls of the most potent vampires possessed?
"What do you-" Her words were cut off by the ominous creak of the grand doors, grating against themselves. In strode the vampire, in spectral, ethereal white.
"Oof. That's a trifle loud, isn't it?" the vampire Carmine said, pulling a face as she glanced at the hinges. "I know the overlady took most of the minions with her, but that kind of noise just isn't acceptable! It's like fingers on a blackboard! It makes my teeth hurt, and trust me, Agnès, that's a lot worse for me than you."
Agnès took in the soft curves and generous figure revealed by the finery, but decided there and then that she would not fall for the seductive wiles of this queen of the night. For one, the undead cared not for the order of things laid out by God, and the fact that Carmine looked like she could not even run a kilometre without falling to the ground wheezing meant nothing. It was all lies and deception wrapped around a wicked and corrupt core, just like that beauty and grace was the grace of a predator. "What vile schemes do you have planned for me?" she demanded.
"Well, I thought we'd start with something hearty, nourishing, and rich in iron," the vampire said. One of her maids went to close the door, but was stopped by a raised hand. "For the sake of your health, of course."
The first course was a thick, hearty broth; the sort of thing might give a reculpirating invalid. Agnès was the only one who was served a portion.
"So you have poisoned it?" she demanded.
"I don't eat soup." The vampire tilted her head. "Well, no, that's not true. But I'm awfully sad to say that the kind of soup I like would probably make you throw up given that it is essentially mildly flavoured blood. And it's not like the soup is going to waste! My maids will be having anything you don't eat."
"So don't feel too obliged to ask for seconds. Or finish everything," the redheaded maid who had poured her soup murmured in her ear. There was definitely something suspicious about her.
"Don't be like that, Helene," the vampire chided. "She needs to build up her strength. And replace all that blood she bled all over the swamp. So Agnès will be well behaved and think of her health and eat up, won't you, my dear?"
Agnès hated that this was not wrong. And she cursed herself for the sin of pride. Her duty here was to serve Princess Henrietta, who was the captive of the dark mistress who commanded this vampire's loyalty. She could not do that if she was starving herself. Therefore, she should eat this… actually good pork broth. She realised just how ravenous she was, and so her food had her full attention.
Unfortunately, the same may have been true of the vampire. "Do you like it?" she asked, those red lips twisting up to reveal hints of fangs.
"Yes." Agnès placed her spoon down in her empty bowl. "And through what manner of wickedness did you come into possession of this?"
"I beg your pardon."
"This is a miserable swamp. Where did the ingredients, the herbs, the spices come from?"
"Oh!" That earned her an even wider smile. "We plundered them from people loyal to the Regency Council. I don't eat such things, but my maids assure me that they dine very well here. Don't you, my darlings?"
"Of course, milady," said the nearest too-pale maid. "It is one of the perks of the job."
Agnès considered this. On one hand, she could not condone acts of Evil. On the other hand, she was unsure if stealing from the venal, corrupt Regency Council was an act of Evil. Additionally, if she dropped the things she had previously been holding in that first hand, it was very good broth and she was very hungry. And now when she checked the contents of her hands, it would seem all things were morally acceptable. "That is fine enough." She scowled. "Unlike this dress."
"What is the matter with it?"
At length, Agnès expounded on its flaws. At such length, in fact, that the next course had arrived by the time she was done.
"Oh dear," the vampire asked, pale hand going to her mouth. "I'm awfully sorry. This was really the only thing we had in your size. None of us are shaped like you, you see, and it was honestly rather a miracle that I was able to find something in Jessica's collection that could fit you. And even then, it's not meant to be quite as figure-hugging as it is." She looked Agnès up and down, her eyes lingering. "You have quite a fetching amount of muscle on you."
Ah, clearly the vampire was only interested in the blood that fuelled her body. "I will not fall for your wicked wiles, oh servant of evil. Your beauty hides not the wickedness in your heart."
Carmine pulled a face. "Well, I think you're being somewhat - rather! - rude. And a little bit old fashioned in your choice of words."
"I was born on the northern coast, in a little village. That is how we spoke. And the older way of phrasing things avoids more modern corruptions. Just like one can tell the truth of the Brimiric texts by going back to their roots, rather than relying on the false interpretations of the church."
"My goodness. You're a protestant?" asked the vampire.
"That is true, yes."
"Goodness. I haven't spoken to an anticlericalist before." Carmine rested her chin on her hands, tilting her head. "Imagine the conversations we might be able to have on the topic. They might well last well into the night."
Ah ha! Even a vampire could come to understand the wickedness of the Romalian church! Agnès perked up. To prosthelytise unto the spawn of evil was a worthy cause, for Brimir himself had done it and so brought them into the service of righteousness. And the arc of Carmine's pale neck was very pretty. It would look wonderful bowed in prayer. "You want to speak on the matter? Well, you should have said!"
It was at that point that Cattleya should have realised that she had stumbled onto one of the great mistakes of hosting a dinner that her father had always warned her against. One should never bring up religion at the dinner table. It was just awfully impolite to find one's guest was secretly a heretic and then manners would demand that they be called out to a duel and, well, it'd only end in blood.
But then again, it was a dinner party, so blood might have been an acceptable part of her evening plans.
It went on. And on. And on.
"... of course, the unearned wealth of monasteries are a sign only of the sin of greed..."
The fire had burned low. And Agnès was still talking, in between bites of her meal.
"... the wickedness of the popes are well known to all! How can they be said to have any moral authority!"
From a certain point of view, this was her own fault. Cattleya was mature enough to concede that she could make little oopsies. One of those had been forgetting that Agnès had lost a lot of blood, and the blood that Cattleya had replaced it with was the rich, intoxicating liquid that dwelt in her veins.
"And the less that is said about the way that the Church uses holy crusades for secular means rather than only in times of crises of the faith, the better!"
To put it another way, Agnès got tipsy very quickly off not much wine, which only built on the existing blood-drunkenness which the transfusion had filled her with. And it turned out that she was neither a morose drunk, or a happy drunk. No, she was an argumentative one. And also a Protestant.
"... which is far from the only example of the unjust interference of the Romalian popes in the proper exercise of the faith," Agnès declared. "Monasteries and nunneries isolate the faithful away rather than letting them share their faith with others! But the papacy just so happened," her voice was thick with contempt, "to find justification for it. Do you know what wickedness occurs in those places?"
"No," lied Cattleya whose lack of interest in monasteries was only matched by her tremendous interest in nunneries, which resembled a gourmet's appreciation for fine restaurants.
"Count yourself lucky! In fact, they are used so often as prisons for girls who have done nothing wrong! As if it was wrong to love other women!"
Cattleya blinked, jolted from her theology-induced haze. "I'm sorry?"
"Oh, you buy into the deception that they impose upon us?" Agnès' brow wrinkled. "You should discard the foolish, wicked catechisms of the papal lineage. Brimir never meant us to listen to the self-appointed tyrants of Romalia! For, you see," she lectured, eyes ablaze with religious devotion, "the legacy of the popes who have led the church have been corrupted by evil! It is only for each of us to read the texts and the writing of Brimir and his children, and from them to understand Brimir's will and the will of the Lord!"
"I am awfully sorry, but I do not see how that follows," Cattleya conceded. "It is in-"
"In the sayings of Helreginn, second son of Brimir," Agnès said, crossing her arms. "And the lying popes of Romalia have long said that Helreginn's law states that the love between two men or two women is a sin! A wicked deception forced to feed the coffers of Romalia with guilt-wracked indulgences!"
Cattleya nodded, waiting for her to get to the point.
Agnès folded her hands in front of her, with the attitude of one calling forth a well-memorised line, meaning she missed Cattleya's eyeroll. She cleared her throat. "'Know that it is not right that a man should lie with another man as he would a woman, nor that a woman should lie with another woman as she would a man.'" Agnès opened her eyes with a triumphant smile. "So easily are the lies of the papacy made clear!"
"I… don't understand."
"Helreginn didn't forbid the love between two women, or two men! He forbade you or I to lie with another woman as I would a man. And to lie with a man is to accept his manhood within your body! And so as a faithful follower of Brimir, I have always been careful to ensure that I never accepted a woman's manhood within my body. The same would apply to two men, though I'm not entirely sure what happens there as that field of activity interests me none."
Cattleya tilted her head slowly, parsing the ideas that her own religious instructions were telling her were clearly heretical. "I'm… reasonably sure that is not the intended reading," she said.
"By scripture alone, we shall know the thoughts of righteousness," Agnès insisted. "It is for that reason the Romalian church hates what they call 'sola scriptura' for it opens understanding and wisdom to the faithful, rather than having to rely on the corrupt hierarchy of the church. But as can be clearly seen, Helreginn's original intent was quite different!"
The word 'clearly' was doing a lot of work there, in Cattleya's quite firm opinion. She didn't actually care all that much, because when one was an undead blood-sucking queen of the night a little thing like one's fondness for one's own sex was a minor foible in the eyes of the church. But she was pretty sure that Agnès was taking what might be generously called a dubious reading.
Goodness! Was this how her know-it-all sisters felt all the time?
However, unlike them, Cattleya was able to keep a clear view of the things that mattered. In this case, what mattered was that a handsome and muscular woman who looked just gorgeous with her short hair and battle scars had reasoned herself into the behaviour that spending the night in the arms of another woman was no sin.
"How jolly interesting," Cattleya said, giving her best and closed-mouthed interested smile. "Please, do tell me more." This evening ought, if there was any justice in the world, to have a payoff.
However, she wasn't exactly displeased when Gnarl interrupted with a "Your sanguinosity! A message for you at the tower heart!"
"I'm awfully sorry," she told Agnès, who had been recounting her tragic backstory with her small village being persecuted and burned and that being the origin of her scars - and how this was all the fault of the church hierarchy, "but I really must take this. Please, do eat up. And perhaps after you're finished, we can discuss matters further over drinks?"
"Wine?"
"Oh, no, I don't drink wine," Cattleya said. She licked her lips. "I'm sure I can find something, though."
"You're more of a brandy girl. I can respect that," Agnès said, nodding wisely.
"Perhaps. Perhaps." And with a swirl of ghostly skirts, Cattleya was away.
Cattleya's shoes clicked on the bare stone of the looming central chamber of the tower. The tower heart glowed a soft, pearlescent white, casting long shadows in this empty space. An array of magic mirrors had been set up for communications purposes and scrying. One of the mirrors reflected the empty void, a burning rune in the dark tongue floating on its surface.
"Now… how were you meant to use this?" Cattleya mumbled to herself, checking the notes that Henrietta had left for herself. One of Louise's many flaws was that she didn't understand how some people might not find it easy to pick up how to use Jessica's complicated magical contraptions. "Touch the ruby at the bottom, and… ah ha!"
"Oh, thank God someone answered." Magdalene's face appeared in the enchanted mirror, hunched over her own enchanted locket. Her fringe was singed, her cheeks were flushed, and there was soot on her face. Her glasses still reflected all the light that hit them because some things never changed. "I can't see anyone, so I have to assume that this is you, Cattleya?"
"Yes," Cattleya said, blinking. "But you shouldn't be using my real-"
"Shut up and listen," Magdalene snapped. "Amstelredamme is under attack! By air! It's an Albionese invasion!"
"They're attacking you?" Cattleya's mind whirred. That meant that the Albionese ships that had been after that pretty girl Agnès had been part of that - maybe a scouting fleet. But if they had been scouts, why had they been in this swamp of all places? If they wanted to land an army, they would probably want somewhere drier. That meant they had to be looking for something else. Like the tower.
"No, they're just a bunch of over-eager merchants of course they're attacking!" Magdalene irritably tucked back a lock of dark hair. "Where's the overlady?"
"In Albion."
"Crap," she swore in a most unladylike manner. Something exploded off in the distance, and Magdalene flinched. "Well, can you get in contact with her? Maybe this is a chance. If she can destroy the supply lines…"
"Understood," Cattleya said, nodding. She chewed on her lower lip. "Okay. Well, I think… yes, we may not have many minions here, but I can probably get you to a safe place if I go on my own. How long can you hold out?"
"No. Don't. I'm trying to get our useless generals to hold out as long as they can, while I've sent my familiar off to Aunt Karina's." Magdalene took a deep breath. "Reports from the docks are that they're using war-golems of some strange sophistication. We pushed back the first landing attempt, but the dragoons took heavy losses. We need a hero like her. People will rally behind her. And it is my duty to organise an honourable surrender if we can't hold out against this kind of force."
"Oh." Cattleya understood that perfectly. Appealing for help from the Regency Council would likely be pointless, given what Louise had heard about possible ties between them and the Albionese. Her mother, on the other hand, was not what an aerial invasion wanted to meet. There were so many breakable things in the area. Sails. Ships. Dragons. Nearby towns. Natural landmarks. "I'll try to reach my sister. We saw Albionese scouts over the swamp earlier today. Maybe she's seen something."
"I understand. Pass along anything you get from her. This has come completely out of the blue. And-" Her image started to waver, her voice breaking up.
"Hello? Hello? Did I do something wrong?" Cattleya enquired. "I'm having problems seeing you. Are you having problems too?"
Magdalene said something, but Cattleya couldn't pick out anything from it. The magic mirror cut off, showing the solid blue of a cloudless sky. A rune in the dark tongue floated in the upper left colour.
"Blue, blue, blue," Cattleya muttered to herself, leafing through the notes. Henrietta had not written any notes about what to do if your magic mirror turned sky blue, which was awfully inconsiderate.
The mirror turned black again, and Cattleya started to worry that she had accidentally broken it. Such a worry was swiftly proven to be ungrounded, when the tower heart started to glow purple and thus there were brand new things to worry about. The mirror turned back on, showing a black-robed masked woman, who had a purple sigil glowing atop her brow.
A woman Cattleya knew from the Cabal Awards. The one known as Shafeela the Marked. And she remembered that there had been something about her having a lot of influence in the Albionese government.
"There is nothing there, master," she heard the woman say in heavily accented Gallian. "I traced their communication sorcery, but there is no one on the other end. Shall I proceed?" There was a pause, and Cattleya's keen ears could hear the mouse-squeaking of a voice too quiet and distant to make out words. "As you command. My servants will proceed to capture the tower of the Steel Maiden in her absence."
The faint thrum of the tower heart intensified, increasing in both pitch and volume. The invasive purple light that saturated it grew brighter and brighter. With a wet sound, Cattleya tore herself apart into a flock of bats and vanished up to the upper levels, reforming up on one of the looming gargoyles.
She saw and heard the tower's own transportation magics activating. That was how Louise could travel so quickly between this place and lesser towers, but she had said - and Jessica had agreed - that even another overlord couldn't make use of them without first claiming this central tower and its heart. But that was exactly what was happening, as the air opened in slits and armoured figures entered this space.
Perhaps a human would have been fooled by the newcomers, especially in the poor light. But Cattleya was not deceived. Her eyes picked out the painted features, the stiff motions, the unblinking glass eyes. And more than that, she heard only the whirring of gears and the whistle of steam within them; no heartbeat, none of the little noises of life. Each had a glowing sigil on their brow; the same purple mark that Shafeela herself bore.
"Intrusion successful, commander," one of the golems stated, to the mirror. "No signs of hostile opposition."
"Warning. Hostile opposition could be invisible," stated a second one, scanning the room with its arcane weapon which looked like a musket connected by copper wiring to an airstone.
"No indication of invisibility magic in use according to airstone augurs," said the first one, sounding irritable.
"Question. Could invisibility magic be invisible?"
"Commander, ignore this rusthead. Location can accept a second wave of capture forces."
Golems, and more than that, golems of an incredibly sophisticated design - enough that they were capable of artificial stupidity. Golems which had been gated in using the tower's own systems, using the same means that Louise commanded for her own travel between the nodes of the ancient network of the dark lords. Which told Cattleya two things; firstly, their foe was an unseen villain with power comparable to her sister, and secondly, with this level of control over the tower, this enemy would be able to send in as many reinforcements as they liked.
And that simply would not do! It was quite unacceptable! Cattleya's lips peeled back all the way, baring a mouthful of fangs that had stopped pretending that they were anything like human teeth. How dare they! How dare they treat her like this! This was her lair, and they thought they could just intrude on it just because her little sister was absent?
Why did no one ever take her seriously!
The heart's whine built up in intensity again, another portal marking the second wave of mechanical soldiers joining the first group who were already moving to secure the entrance to the tower chamber. Cattleya saw the gleam of firestones in the arcane brass weapons they carried. Fire was bad. She could feel her skin crawling back just at the thought of it.
There was no time to waste. She couldn't kill that many automata on her own when they had firelocks. The tower heart was letting Shafeela portal more soldiers in. The tower heart was the problem.
So in the spirit of the best traditions of the de la Valliere, she would have to rip out the heart with her bare hands.
Dissolving into a mist, Cattleya let herself fall and flowered through the space, keeping the purple-glowing orb between her and the war-golems. She let herself reform, feeling the bulk of the immense crystal orb up against her hands. It felt like Louise's magic to her flesh, that edge of barely contained danger and power far too close to her. It had taken many minions to get it into position in the first place, and the little darlings were incredibly strong for their size. No single man could possibly dislodge the tower's heart from its cradle.
Unfortunately for the invaders, Cattleya was a woman. Also, much more pertinently she was an undead bloodsucking queen of the night fuelled by stolen life drawn from the veins of the living.
Straining, muttering bowdlerised swears under her breath, Cattleya drew on the unnatural strength deep within her, and pushed. She had to dislodge it from its cradle. Unlink it from the tower. It felt like she was shoving against a wall, except of course she could punch through most walls.
A brightening and thrum told her of the arrival of a third wave of automata.
She could feel her blood within her moving to obey her will, so much stronger than her flesh and her bones. A flare of hot pain told her that tendons in her left shoulder had given way, followed quickly by a matching flare in her right. Her knees were screaming at her. So was her spine. She ignored them. They didn't get a say. Her veins could be seen moving under the surface of her skin, as black as tar, and bruises blossomed around her joints.
"Come on," she hissed through bared teeth, revealed under curled back lips. "Come on."
Stone grated. And the light in the tower heart flickered. Pure evil surged out, venting from momentarily disrupted connection. It scorched the walls and tore apart two of the nearby automata-soldiers in a lightning flash, leaving only molten metal behind.
With a shriek of fury, blood exploded out of Cattleya's back, shaping itself into things that were nearly limbs. Limbs without bones or flesh or skin or muscles; nothing but a tracery of blood-like vessel shapes in the air sketching the shape of wings tipped with clawed hands. But they were still limbs that could push and strain without the weakness of undead flesh holding them back.
Shafeela shouted something, but with one final exertion Cattleya lifted the colossal mass of crystal out of its cradle. All the magical lights in the tower died, and the purple glow cut off. Ponderously it crushed the nearest automata under its bulk, before the stone walkway shattered and dropped the tower heart down into the abyss.
The surviving golems turned, weapons raised - but before they could even finish the motion, something hulking and batlike with terrible blood red eyes leapt across the broken walkway. With a blood-splattered fist tipped with sword-like talons, it tore an arm off the nearest soldier and in a heartbeat was out the door.
"Target not identified," said the automata which was now missing an arm. "Extrapolated species; vampire."
"Question. What evidence is that based on?" asked another one, who had not been looking in the right direction.
"Target 'Overlady of the North' employees target vampire 'Carmine the Countess of Blood'. Unknown target was winged, and had glowing eyes and lethal talons."
"That is not definitive. Require further identification," interjected a third one. "Inaccurate target information could lead to fundamental errors in anti-target elimination methods. Which other targets could potentially have taken that form?"
The second one's glass eyes swivelled. "Question. Could it have been target incubus 'J'eszika Moraudat D'aemonstrelle Obfuscata Xystene Elee'ze Imoegene Malevola Ebony Invi-"
"Target is getting away, you defective ironworks!" snapped the first one. "Seek and destroy!"
Agnès was in the dark as to what was going on. But only in a figurative way, because the room was somehow not not as dim as it should have been despite the fact that all the lights had turned off.
Oh, and she could see the maids who had been lurking in the corners of the room. Their eyes glowed a dull red. And when she caught sight of her own reflection in a polished metal winecup, her eyes were glowing too.
"What is going on?" she demanded. "Why are-"
"The glowing eyes are a purely natural consequence of having my lady's blood in your veins," said the maid Helene, who contrived to sound even more bored than she had before. "It is very convenient. It saves on candles."
"I don't know why the lights turned out though," one of the other ones said.
"Yes, Anne, that is a bit of a mystery," Helene agreed. "And-" she paused, as if listening to an invisible voice.
A voice that Agnès could hear too. Carmine was speaking, inside of her head. It sounded very weak. "My darlings, there are… there are invaders in the tower. Very nasty golems. Shafeela… working with the Albionese and maybe Gallians too. I'm… coming, I'm… I'm going to keep you safe. But you're going to need to g-get the weapons and-"
The two Cathayan-looking maids nodded, and vanished in a blur of motion.
"I can hear her voice," Agnès said, balling her hands into fists. She shouldn't be able to hear that. But if the Albionese who had invaded her princess's land and also not irrelevantly shot here were attacking this place…
The urge hit her like a hammer that she had to get to the door, that she had to help… someone. She fought it down, but the maids moved as one and caught the vampire as she staggered through. She was draped in just a torn-down curtain, utterly covered in blood, and trembled uncontrollably.
"Who did you kill?" Agnès demanded.
"It's all mine," the vampire said with a weakly toothy grin. "Sorry, my darlings. I think I overdid it j-just a tiny amount. There's someone attacking. Shafeela the Marked. She took over the tower heart. And sent through golems."
"Ah ha, that must be why you just disconnected this tower," an elderly voice said from behind Agnès. She whirled, seeing a greying creature which carried a glowing crystal as a light.
"By all that is sacred, where did that goblin come from!"
"Minion," the wizened old creature said meaningfully. "Gnarl the Gnarled, advisor and vizier to overlords and overladies. Displeased to make your acquaintance. The minions will not be able to easily get the tower heart back into position. It will take several days, at the least. It would be faster, but there are very few of them here as most of them are off with the overlady. This tower is, I am sad to say, off the network until then."
"Sad to say?" Cattleya groaned, as one of her maids wrapped her apron around her for the sake of more modesty. "Also, we're still under attack."
"Why, yes! That was an exquisitely cunning plan from the rival overperson! To make use of the Mind of Evil to override control of the tower heart, and then use our very own portal system to send their own killer automata in to seize the location! Delightfully evil! Why, I'd serve a mind like that without a second hesitation." Gnarl's wrinkled brow furrowed. "My only concern is that overlords who build killer automata tend to not really respect some good old fashioned club-armed minions. Tsk tsk! Automata are expensive, and have to be repaired when broken. And-" He paused, finding himself at the wrong end of a steak knife.
"Such treason from the vizier of the overlady!" Agnès said, horror in her voice. "To betray her to an outside force like that is unforgivable!"
"No, no," Cattleya said. She coughed up blood. "That's just his way."
"But he was saying he was going to betray your-"
"Yes, yes, but it's Gnarl. As father would say, it's b-better to have a reliably treacherous backstabbing bar stool than someone who you don't know their levers. Gnarl will only betray us if someone stronger and more evil than L… than the overlady comes along and beats her." She paused, breath rasping in a death rattle. "Well, father w-wouldn't say 'bar stool', but there's such things as standards for a young lady like myself."
"When you say father… do you mean your father-in-darkness, your sire, your vile progenitor?"
"I killed the one who made me like this. No, I mean my actual father."
"... how old must he be then?"
"I'm twenty three," Cattleya explained.
"Oh!" Agnès' eyes widened. "That… that feels vaguely disappointing. I thought you were some ancient immortal queen of the night."
"Don't worry," Cattleya said, slumped in her maid's arms. "I can be one for you."
Agnès nodded thoughtfully. And nodded again. "I find it is my duty to help you defend against these attackers."
"But you're a hero," Cattleya said. "Not that I object, but…"
"Yes. But I have three important reasons why I must help. Firstly, you said they are linked to the Albionese, and they shot me earlier today. I must pay them back in kind. Secondly, you have my princess as a hostage, and if I do not help you here, you might harm her."
Cattleya broke down into bloody coughing. "Of course. And the third?"
"You just propositioned me. And you are an attractive woman with a pretty smile. It would be even prettier if it was not for the fangs, but even with them it is still substantially above average."
"... that… that is very blunt."
"I am a blunt woman," Agnès said. "I find it saves time."
A clatter of weaponry announced the arrival back of the Cathayan maids, who dumped on the table a collection of evil cursed weapons, wicked demonic contraptions, and other things that Jessica had made as momentary curiosities and left lying around her workshop. Technically speaking no one else was meant to know about them, but Jessica refused to do her own dusting and thus the maids had permission to touch them for the purposes of cleaning. Plus, Jessica had a tendency to over-explain how things worked and appreciated the maids as an audience who would nod along as she expounded upon her designs.
"That is quite an assortment," Agnès said, admiring the infernal weaponry. She picked up one of Jessica's repeating pistols, and loaded the oversized weapon with leaden bullets which glowed a dull hellish red. "Vampire. Lend me your servants. I was the commander of the princess's musketeers. I-"
"Go ahead. Don't get my darlings killed," Cattleya said weakly. "And how do you know how to do that?"
"I have fought villains who use such weapons before. The knowledge of righteousness defeats the dark!" said Agnès, her eyes glowing a dull red as she took up a sinister tarnished copper blade etched with burning runes and with great satisfaction hacked off most of the train of her dress, turning the cut fabric into a sash. "And I have defeated the golem products of dark Gallian sorcery on several occasions." She glanced over at the maids. "Are you aware of how to use these weapons?"
They were already quite conversationally brandishing an assortment of hellish weapons. "I was a… mercenary before I came into the service of my lady," Helene said as she loaded bullets into a six-barreled pistol. She didn't sound bored for once. "I have made sure that the others know how to fight."
"A heroine?" Agnès asked, looking the other woman up and down.
"Yes," lied the former highwaywoman, bandit, and general malfeasor.
"Quite excellent. You can be my second in command. Well, then," Agnès told her newly acquired squad of ghoul maids armed with demonic weapons. "Let us clean house."
End of Arc 13 Status Update
Something of a status update, I suppose.
Overlady is being worked on, in what I suppose can be called dribs and drabs. I have planned out the conclusion, and do intend to reach it. There are in fact multiple chapters ahead of this one which have already been written.
But I have decided that I will only release arcs when the entire arc has been written. This will ensure that each arc can be read in a format that essentially makes it a satisfying novella, rather than just unreliably producing work as and when it is written.
As this interlude is part of the previous arc (technically speaking), I do not feel that I am breaking this decision by releasing it here and now as an early Christmas present.
(and you're getting it as an early Christmas present because I have another fic that I will be releasing a chapter of on the 25th and I don't want them competing with one another)
Overlady is being worked on, in what I suppose can be called dribs and drabs. I have planned out the conclusion, and do intend to reach it. There are in fact multiple chapters ahead of this one which have already been written.
But I have decided that I will only release arcs when the entire arc has been written. This will ensure that each arc can be read in a format that essentially makes it a satisfying novella, rather than just unreliably producing work as and when it is written.
As this interlude is part of the previous arc (technically speaking), I do not feel that I am breaking this decision by releasing it here and now as an early Christmas present.
(and you're getting it as an early Christmas present because I have another fic that I will be releasing a chapter of on the 25th and I don't want them competing with one another)