Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Yeah I have a personal fondness for this aspect - an enemy who simply will not rout in battle is a terrifying thing.
Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
- Fantasy
A Date of Infamy
"Tch. This is a mess."
— Karina de la Valliere
The Isle of Wights fell from the sky.
Well, that slightly overstates the speed and dynamism of the descent. A fall is a great and tumultuous event. It has theological ramifications, especially if it is compared to lightning from heaven. In more secular contexts, the fall of a big rock that impacts in the ocean sounds like the kind of thing that will end up with a bunch of innocent terrible lizards getting completely devastated, with their surviving kin doomed to emulate the shape of their noble ancestors only as dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. But happily the fall of the Isle of Wights was slow enough that the only casualties were some fish and birds who were in the way of the descending rock, the ecology that had formed on the underside of the island, and a Tristainian fisherman named Francis who saw the sinking island and was so distracted that he was hit in the head by his ship's boon, fell off into the water, and drowned.
The soldiers of the Albionese Commonwealth who got minion'd or murdered by Tifa's children were completely incidental and unrelated to the island's fall. So they did not count in an accounting of the death toll.
The sky island lodged in the soft silt and sedimentary rock of the northern seabed, thus losing the 'sky' descriptor and becoming merely an island. Groaning noises and the sound of grinding stone indicated that perhaps it would shift further in future, as water flooded the lower tunnels and filled the large hole in the centre of it caused by the destruction of the control centre. Perhaps it would hold together, or perhaps it would break apart further in the salt water.
It didn't matter right now, though. For Louise de la Valliere had discovered that there were fine things in life that few had ever thought of before. To gaze upon a great sky island brought down from the heavens by your hand, secure in the knowledge that one of the thrones of the world had fallen by your deeds, and incidentally to have your crush clinging tearfully to you — why, yes, life was good.
She was alive. King Joseph was dead. And Henrietta was in her arms, having come apart in the aftermath of her release from the nothing-space. Between the fear and stress of the past days, thinking that King Joseph was going to kill her, and the apparently-quite-traumatic experience of being directly pulled into the Void outside the world, she needed comforting. And Louise was entirely willing to provide it. If she really had to. Like any good, self-sacrificing friend should.
Admittedly, Henrietta was somewhat snottier and damper than the books had suggested a crying beautiful princess was meant to be, but the overall idea — why, that was fine. That was just fine. She was hurting and had been stabbed and that meant that sitting here with Henrietta was what she had earned. Especially given that Henrietta had been very guilty that Louise had been hurt for her and had insisted on treating her injuries. Which was another thing that the books had correctly said rescued princesses would do.
And so Louise was quite content to sit here under the blue sky with nothing to bother her and enjoy life.
"Yo! Yo!"
Sit here. Nothing to bother her.
"Okay, come on, come on!"
Enjoy. Life.
"Are you ignoring me?"
"Yes," Louise muttered, scowling up at Jessica. "Do you mind? I'm trying to comfort Henrietta. And catch my breath. I was just stabbed. More than once. Again."
"Real talk, Lou; one, you were barely stabbed at all, and my work on your armour means the wound should've already closed. Two, we're on a sky island that isn't floating anymore—"
"We call those islands."
"-- which isn't sounding all that stable. So, like, yeah. I think we gotta get out of here. And three, me and you gotta talk. About stuff. Which Henrietta probably isn't in a state to deal with."
Henrietta made a snotty sound, lifting her face from where she had been clinging to Louise. "It's the w-worst! You got hurt rescuing me and you rescued me again and-and-and- King Joseph was j-just so awful, and…"
"Shh." Louise petted her on the head, feeling warm and good about it. "I was just doing my duty, your highness."
"Suck-up," groused Jessica. "We have work to do. No, stop rudely gesturing at me, boss."
"I am not!"
"Liar. Come on. You can cuddle — in a totally platonic way, nothing more — at home. Right now we need to deal with Tifa and make sure she doesn't get any ideas."
Puffing out her cheeks, Louise looked up at her friend. "I hate it when you're right," she said sullenly.
"So you admit I'm right?"
"Under protest, but yes. There, there, Henrietta. Just close your eyes and try to rest. I'll be back soon. Very soon."
She made sure Henrietta was comfortable and tasked a few minions with keeping her safe, then pulled herself to her aching feet. "Do you know where Tifa is? It better not be too far," she grouched. Running her fingers through her sweaty hair, feeling the clotted blood in it, she shuddered. "Founder, I need to get back to the Tower. Or somewhere with a bath. Anywhere."
"Look on the bright side, Lou. Maybe we'll find one. Or you can send the minions to find you one. Which is better than just sitting around, right?"
"Sitting around?" Louise said, working her stiff shoulders. They always ached after she got a healing. "What do you take me for? I've already sent Maggat to take command of securing all the plunder from this island."
"Eeeeey," Jessica said, patting her on the back. "That's more like it." She stopped. "Actually, like, hold up. Having to tell the minions to loot and steal things? Are they ill?"
"... well, it's more that they were pestering me, but I did technically give the order," Louise said. "And in the end, that's what matters. Now, let's hope that Tifa didn't have the same thoughts."
She found her fellow overlady and Tifa's wards in the island capital of New Port, which would probably have to be rebuilt entirely given the state the children had left it in. Perhaps they would call the replacement town New New Port.
"Oh! Hello!" Tifania said brightly, pausing in where she was trying to clean one of the children's mouths with a handkerchief. "Sorry, a little distracted right now - Annalise and some of her friends found a sweet shop and now they are quite literally bouncing off the walls. They get so excited when they have too much sugar."
"So excited," Louise said numbly. Some of the stones at the other end of the street were glowing a sickly pink. Three soldiers seemed to have somehow been fused with the rock. "Yes! Yes! Well, um… I'm glad that you seem to have recovered from your… um, captivity."
"Oh, it wasn't so bad," Tifannia said. "Yes, King Joseph was a bad man and he was planning to murder me so he could take my power, but that didn't happen so it's water under the bridge!"
"Water under the bridge." Louise couldn't imagine forgiving someone after that. But Tifa's round-faced cheerfulness seemed to be genuine. "Mmm. Mmm. It's good that he didn't hurt you."
"I mean, I didn't like it, but he's dead now. So that's that." She gave a little shrug. "And he was really talkative! We're both heirs to Brimir! And so was he! That's definitely something to consider."
Louise tried not to tense up. Maybe this was when everything fell apart when the mad impulse that even she felt to claim the other parts of the rent power of the Void would take Tifa and—
"Consider how?" Jessica asked as warily as Louise felt.
"Not sure yet! It'll be something for me to think about on the trip back," Tifa continued.
"You're leaving? Already?" Louise asked, secretly feeling incredibly relieved.
"And taking all the children with you?" Jessica added quickly. "Especially, and I want to be clear here, Magda?"
"Yes! No time to waste! Mustn't linger! The children found us a ship! Harry summoned a flock of dire geese to lift it since there isn't any fuel here, and Alice made sure the crew will help us."
Alice was a necromancer. "Oh. Well, I hate to see you go," Louise lied, "but surely all the children will be glad to get back to their homes."
"Oh yes. It'll be good to get back to our own beds, and no doubt Darkcurse Badsuffering is just rushed off his feet trying to look after the ones who were too young to come along. It's unfair to leave him looking after toddlers for too long."
Unfair, and also likely a crime against God, man and specifically elves. "Good thinking."
"And that's not all! Think about it! The King of Gallia was like us, but it was his familiar's magic that was animating the golems. And that means they'll all have shut down! The Commonwealth will be vulnerable! It won't expect us. Or, well, me. It won't expect me, since you're not coming with me. And that means I can change things."
"Ah, of course." Louise leaned on her staff, feeling the ache she was trying not to show. "You're going to stop the foolishness of Albigone. Good… uh, well-thought out move."
"Stop Albigone? No, of course not."
Louise summoned a polite smile to cover her confusion. "That comes as something of a… surprise."
"The people have spoken. They've made their decision."
"Albigone is based on lies, deception, and willful self-harm at a national level. Turning the island into a sky fortress and sailing into the frozen north won't help Albion at all."
"Probably not," conceded Tifa. "But we have to make the best of it."
"Why?"
"Yeah," Jessica agreed, "I don't really pay much attention to, like, surface politics but I don't get why this is a thing."
"Because Albion has spoken. And I can't go against the national will."
A muscle in Louise's cheek twitched. "You recognise it's really, really stupid?"
"Oh, definitely, yes."
"Then why do it?"
"They've made their decision. And even if it hurts them, I owe it to them to make the best of what they've chosen." Tiffania paused. "Also, I want to control a floating sky fortress of death."
Ah, that made much more sense. It was merely callous disregard for all the people who would suffer, in the name of pursuing one's own power. Well, Tifa at least was an evil overlady. She had an excuse for sticking to such a destructive and foolish policy, unlike anyone else supporting that kind of national collective self-harm despite a clear awareness of the downsides. "I wish you good luck in your endeavours."
"Yeah, what the boss said. Give them to Hell."
Tifa smiled sweetly at Jessica. "That is my intent. And now—"
What she was about to say was interrupted by Magda cannonballing into Louise. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, I wanna stay with you and the minnies! I wanna chance to bind Jessica and I wanna go on more adventures with you!"
"She is very fond of you," Tifa explained.
"Oh. Of course." Louise admittedly had certain fond feelings for Magda, who was indeed cute. She was also utterly terrifying, in a way which made Louise want to apologise profusely to her own parents for the terror she had been when she was younger. "I know, Magda, and no doubt we'll see each other again, but," she thought hard, "my tower just isn't a place for a small child. You'll be much happier here with your friends. And your little brother."
"No I won't," Magda said with the monstrosity of a child. "He cries too much. And they're not really my friends. They're rivals to my power."
"Magda!" Tifa said firmly, her tone scandalised. "What have I told you? Just because you're rivals to power doesn't mean you're not friends too!"
"Yes it does!" Magda mumbled into Louise's side.
"It does not! Now apologise!"
"Does too! I wanna leave with the steel maiden and the minnies!"
"Magda, she is a very busy lady and you can't just leave all your friends and your little brother!"
"Can too! And she's on my side!"
No, no she definitely was not. Louise was very certain about that. Maybe — maybe — Louise would let her visit some time, especially if she needed a demonologist on side. But there was no way she was letting this child live with her. For the sake of Jessica, and incidentally everyone else in the blast radius.
And she'd make sure that Magda didn't try to stay behind. Speaking as a former awful small child, Louise was wise to her tricks.
The ship departed into the sky, carried by hideous monstrosities, and both Louise and Jessica breathed a sigh of relief.
"How'd you know she'd summon a shapeshifter to take her place so she could stay behind?"
"Lucky guess," Louise said darkly. She caught Jessica's glance. "Yes. Fine. If you must know, I'd have done that at her age. If I had been able to summon demons."
"Ah, priceless. Well, she's out of the way — and even better, Tifa was distracted and just wanted to get home. So the island's all ours. Let's grab what we can before it sinks."
"Agreed," Louise said. She raised her gauntlet to her mouth. "Maggat? Have you found anything interesting? Which is to say, anything that would interest me, rather than something that is just shiny or usable as an improvised weapon?"
"Overlady! I has been waiting to be telling you the wicked news!" Maggat sounded very satisfied with himself. "Thinking on the double-quick, I made sure that the lads and ladettes stopped something what are exactly what you want from fallin' into the water and gettin' all wet. It would've been super mega annoying to have to make the blues get it out for you but 'cause of me you is gonna get it all dry!"
"Oh? Do tell."
"Overlady, I are very happy to tell you that we have found what are lookin' a lot like the remains of an overlord's tower."
Louise's eyes widened. "As in… a proper tower?"
"Yep, that are what it are lookin' like."
"I'll be right there." Louise exhaled. "Holy sugar."
"Yeah," Jessica agreed, impressed. She worked out her shoulders. "It's probably not in the best shape given… you know, the crash. And hundreds if not thousands of years of neglect. But I reckon you've just hit payday for this op."
"You mean apart from thwarting a rival and rescuing a princess."
"Well, those are really overlady-ish things to be doing, yes, but some filthy lucre, sorcerous gizmos and ancient magical tomes always make you happy."
Louise nodded, defeated by facts and logic. She couldn't deny that.
And indeed, after all the conspiring and directed violence it was nice to get back to having an old-fashioned mystery to look into. What Maggat had found was the basement of an old tower, not dissimilar to how Louise's own lair lay under the ruins of what had once been a grand fortress. Great monolithic architecture, made filthy by the ages, swallowed the light of the torches they took inside. Fallen statues of minions and gold thread which had survived the rotting of the tapestries it had been woven into hinted at once-lavish decor.
"We found this place 'cause some of the younger minions was chasin' some humies and then fell into a crack in the land," Maggat explained. "And they was yellin' up to use about how they wanted to get out so they could kill the humies."
"Of course, they missed their chance," Maxy contributed.
"Yep, it was well funny. But then we found this place. And I was like 'well this is the sort of place what is lookin' all overlady-ish' so I brought the lads and ladettes over to make sure we could give it to you."
The air smelled of wet soil and a hint of rot. And minions, of course. But Louise could feel the Evil of this place; the gentle fading warmth of a discarded jumper. It had known great and terrible deeds, but a long time ago.
"I wonder who built this," Louise wondered out loud. "Given that there was the sky island's command bridge which King Joseph was using…"
"Yeah," Jessica said, touching a wall with her demonic hand and frowning at the texture. She pulled a face, wiping her fingers off. "Soot. There was a fire here, but it wasn't recent. And doesn't look like the king knew about this."
"Not any recent Albionese monarchs, either," Louise agreed.
"This way, this way, overlady!" Maggat marched off ahead. "We just has gotta go past the throne room, ain't much of one honestly, not very impressive compared to some I've seen. Then down these stairs, ooo-er, watch the step there, it's missing. Char fell down and broke his neck. Very funny, excellent comedy, but we no can drag you back from the dead place so I no think you wanna do the same."
"I can fly, but yeah, it'd be bad for Lou's health," Jessica agreed.
"Yeah, she nearly end up in the dead place once today already."
"Only once?"
"Do you mind?" Louise said, carefully trying not to fall down on the broken, filthy stairs. "I am not in the mood for repartee. From either of you."
They gave her some peace and quiet as she made her way down. Then;
"What are rep-ar-tea?"
"I dunno, honestly. You just gotta accept Lou uses weird posh words sometimes."
"Can you drink it?"
"From context? No, I don't think so."
"Shame. I are thirsty."
Unfortunately, Louise was forced to concede that she would have to accept some inanity for a lack of repartee. And why didn't Jessica know that word? Was it just not in common use in Infernal?
The corridors down here had minions scurrying around, excavating dirt and reinforcing the crumbling ceilings with lumber plundered from New Port. Scyl did something that was either scratching his forehead or saluting as she approached.
"Scyl, anything change since I go to get the overlady?" Maggat asked.
"Nah, nah. The crystal didn't go ping or zwip or nothing like that."
"Yeah, Scyl's the minion with the mystic know-how. I are gonna go see to makin' sure the place are secure so I are gonna leave you in his compy-tent," Maggat considered his words, "his hands. I are gonna leave you in his hands."
"Oh, I no touch the overlady without orders. Or unless she need healing. Do you need healing, overlady?"
"No!" Louise blurted out, because unless you were actually actively dying, minionly healing was worse than being run through. "I only got stabbed a bit!"
"Ah, yeah, that is how it be," Scyl agreed. "Now, overlady, I are here to be your tour guide. Now if you come with me, you will see ahead that there are this big chamber what are a heart chamber. Not very big, not half a lick compared to yours. But if you just come this way — oh, watch out for that hole in the floor, a few of the young 'uns fell down there an' died — you can see that this have got quite the fancy fittings."
Louise lifted her hand, conjuring fire to light up the room. Her breath hitched in her throat. Minion hives, the spawning places which fresh minions were born from, connected by strange wires to a shattered crystal sphere. The sphere was dark, but within each fragment a blue light pulsed. A blue light which shaded to pink as she stepped closer. "Goodness," she whispered.
"Oh no, no, overlady, this no are the work of goodness." Scyl gestured over to the dumpy shapes of minion hives. "It are the work of Evil."
The minion hives did not hold her attention. She didn't care much for them. She had her minions who were even starting to learn and communicate in ways that didn't make her want to throttle them. New ones would come out just as stupid as they started, if not stupider. She'd need to take them, of course, so no one else got their hands on them, but she'd just dump them down at the bottom of the dungeon and leave them to moulder.
But the broken tower heart. It gleamed with a fire that called to her. It must have been shattered for a long time, but it felt still fresh. Like it had only just been broken.
Like it had only just been broken…
"I want it!" Louise snapped. "I want that heart. More than anything. I need a second tower heart back at my lair! And take the hives too, if we can." That drew cheers from the minions. Fools. If only they knew what she was planning.
"It's going to be complicated to move it…" Jessica began.
"Trust me. It's important," Louise said, eyes ablaze. "I need it for my long term plans."
That was enough to set the minions to work, with Jessica overseeing them to stop any explosions of the magically catastrophic variety, and Louise emerged out into the sunlight with a sigh of relief.
"Let's go home," she said to the air. She just wanted to be rid of this mess. Rid of Albion. Back in her own bed with Henrietta and— of course she'd meant to add a comma there, because Henrietta would also be in her own bed. Unless she was still upset from being dumped outside of the world, in which Louise would have to comfort her. Actually, Louise just had a gut feeling that she should go back right now to comfort Henrietta…
… who wasn't where she'd left her.
Slow, creeping horror coiled around her. Where was Henrietta? The minions she'd left with her weren't here either? Even a princess couldn't get kidnapped again that quickly, right? Right?
"Sugar," Louise not-cursed. "Where is she?"
The mists which clung to the burial-grounds were not clouds. Instead, they were a fine sea-mist, condensing from the moisture that had filled the air with the fall of the island. And the chill of a place so saturated in death meant that they were perfectly content to lurk here, bringing a certain joie de ne pas vivre to the place.
Princess Henrietta's breath joined the clinging haar. She could taste death upon the air. Her necromantic instincts, while still developing, were already keen enough that she felt the closeness of the underworld from all the casualties of the day. But here, in the ancient graveyard of the kings of Albion, the substrate of ages past overwhelmed even the hot and sharp freshly dead. A place where the melancholy and sombre grasp of those long dead reminded you of the transience of all things. Where—
"This are a well shiny place," one of the minions who Louise had left to guard her said, clearly considering the entrance to one of the nearby tombs with intent to plunder.
"You said that," the group's blue said, twirling a mud-splattered tiara around on one ugly finger. "I am thinking I'm the prettiest princess of all the minions!" she added, hefting up the skull of a long dead king in the other. "Maybe I are gonna marry into royalty if my new squeeze are gonna do right by me."
"You no wanna be saying that where Fettid can hear you. She are vain."
"I are a healer. You no stab the healer."
"She no know that."
Henrietta tuned them out. She had persuaded them that to keep her safe, they had to follow her, and when they proved too stupid for that kind of sophistry she instead raised the prospect of plundering the graves of royalty. She didn't care who they desecrated. Not so long as they left her prince alone.
She retraced her steps from the walks King Joseph had taken her on when he had been rubbing her nose in how he had murdered her love. The impact had overturned memorial markers and torn up yew trees. The fog clung to her, and so did dark thoughts. What had Louise-Francoise done with the king's body? Maybe she could find it and make him suffer. That was a good thought. But for later. The doors to the mausoleum had broken open, as if to welcome her. Her breath caught in her throat. Could he have realised that she was coming for him and risen from the grave himself? Returned to inhabit his mortal remains once more, seeking to claim back a corporeal form to free her from King Joseph's machinations that had seen his spectre banished from this woeful veil of tears? No. Actually the doors had broken open because the shaking of the ground had shattered their hinges. But that didn't matter because that was just proof that nature itself wanted her to be with him and fate would not keep them apart, no matter what wicked men did to conspire against their true and eternal love.
Her inner monologue went on along those lines for quite some time, with a goodly number of italics and generally melodramatic phrasing. In her defence, she was nineteen and a necromancer; two conditions which both left one with a proclivity for this manner of thought.
Her prince's sarcophagus was bare and plain, devoid of the typical ornamentation for one of his status. The Republicans might have wanted to prevent him from rising, but they had no desire to honour the executed prince. Whispering a few words, Henrietta called water from the fog and collapsed it into a cutting line that could saw through the chains holding the lid shut. Then she just had to put her back into it and slide the lid from the top. It fell with a tremendous clatter, and once more Henrietta could see him in the flesh.
Or lack thereof.
It was perhaps for the best that the Albionese had boiled the flesh from his bones before transporting the corpse from Londinium to the Isle of Wights. It meant that there was simply clean bone lying there, rather than the more typical state of a corpse with two-ish years of decomposition under its belt. Henrietta loved her prince dearly, of course she did, but it was definitely preferable to open his coffin and see his melancholy, lonely bones waiting for her. With the thankful absence of what might be charitably called his poor, deceased flesh, but after this long would have instead been categorised as 'organic residue'.
But Henrietta had no eyes for that absence. The mere lack of flesh was no obstacle to her spells. What was a great and tremendous problem was the fact that the body in the tomb had no head.
"They took it," Henrietta growled, voice dripping with malice. "He took it." King Joseph, so proud of having executed her love himself — of course he would have kept the head for his own dark magic. The head was the seat of insight, of wisdom, of knowledge; with just a head a dark wizard could interrogate it for knowledge or call up visions of what they had used in life. And many of those spells damaged the skull; some of them would even consume it.
Without a head, she could not bring him back as easily as she might have wished. She would have to resort to terrible and mighty spells that she did not want to have to use.
"Oh, my love," Henrietta whispered, climbing into the sarcophagus to hold the bare bones close to her. "It doesn't matter. I'll do it anyway. No matter what it costs me. I will have you back."
She'd have the minions carry the sarcophagus to the tower. Her good friend Louise-Francoise would want to help her get her love back from the cold arms of death, after all.
"Henrietta? Where are y— oh."
"Oh, Louise-Francoise! Look who I have with me!"
— Karina de la Valliere
The Isle of Wights fell from the sky.
Well, that slightly overstates the speed and dynamism of the descent. A fall is a great and tumultuous event. It has theological ramifications, especially if it is compared to lightning from heaven. In more secular contexts, the fall of a big rock that impacts in the ocean sounds like the kind of thing that will end up with a bunch of innocent terrible lizards getting completely devastated, with their surviving kin doomed to emulate the shape of their noble ancestors only as dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. But happily the fall of the Isle of Wights was slow enough that the only casualties were some fish and birds who were in the way of the descending rock, the ecology that had formed on the underside of the island, and a Tristainian fisherman named Francis who saw the sinking island and was so distracted that he was hit in the head by his ship's boon, fell off into the water, and drowned.
The soldiers of the Albionese Commonwealth who got minion'd or murdered by Tifa's children were completely incidental and unrelated to the island's fall. So they did not count in an accounting of the death toll.
The sky island lodged in the soft silt and sedimentary rock of the northern seabed, thus losing the 'sky' descriptor and becoming merely an island. Groaning noises and the sound of grinding stone indicated that perhaps it would shift further in future, as water flooded the lower tunnels and filled the large hole in the centre of it caused by the destruction of the control centre. Perhaps it would hold together, or perhaps it would break apart further in the salt water.
It didn't matter right now, though. For Louise de la Valliere had discovered that there were fine things in life that few had ever thought of before. To gaze upon a great sky island brought down from the heavens by your hand, secure in the knowledge that one of the thrones of the world had fallen by your deeds, and incidentally to have your crush clinging tearfully to you — why, yes, life was good.
She was alive. King Joseph was dead. And Henrietta was in her arms, having come apart in the aftermath of her release from the nothing-space. Between the fear and stress of the past days, thinking that King Joseph was going to kill her, and the apparently-quite-traumatic experience of being directly pulled into the Void outside the world, she needed comforting. And Louise was entirely willing to provide it. If she really had to. Like any good, self-sacrificing friend should.
Admittedly, Henrietta was somewhat snottier and damper than the books had suggested a crying beautiful princess was meant to be, but the overall idea — why, that was fine. That was just fine. She was hurting and had been stabbed and that meant that sitting here with Henrietta was what she had earned. Especially given that Henrietta had been very guilty that Louise had been hurt for her and had insisted on treating her injuries. Which was another thing that the books had correctly said rescued princesses would do.
And so Louise was quite content to sit here under the blue sky with nothing to bother her and enjoy life.
"Yo! Yo!"
Sit here. Nothing to bother her.
"Okay, come on, come on!"
Enjoy. Life.
"Are you ignoring me?"
"Yes," Louise muttered, scowling up at Jessica. "Do you mind? I'm trying to comfort Henrietta. And catch my breath. I was just stabbed. More than once. Again."
"Real talk, Lou; one, you were barely stabbed at all, and my work on your armour means the wound should've already closed. Two, we're on a sky island that isn't floating anymore—"
"We call those islands."
"-- which isn't sounding all that stable. So, like, yeah. I think we gotta get out of here. And three, me and you gotta talk. About stuff. Which Henrietta probably isn't in a state to deal with."
Henrietta made a snotty sound, lifting her face from where she had been clinging to Louise. "It's the w-worst! You got hurt rescuing me and you rescued me again and-and-and- King Joseph was j-just so awful, and…"
"Shh." Louise petted her on the head, feeling warm and good about it. "I was just doing my duty, your highness."
"Suck-up," groused Jessica. "We have work to do. No, stop rudely gesturing at me, boss."
"I am not!"
"Liar. Come on. You can cuddle — in a totally platonic way, nothing more — at home. Right now we need to deal with Tifa and make sure she doesn't get any ideas."
Puffing out her cheeks, Louise looked up at her friend. "I hate it when you're right," she said sullenly.
"So you admit I'm right?"
"Under protest, but yes. There, there, Henrietta. Just close your eyes and try to rest. I'll be back soon. Very soon."
She made sure Henrietta was comfortable and tasked a few minions with keeping her safe, then pulled herself to her aching feet. "Do you know where Tifa is? It better not be too far," she grouched. Running her fingers through her sweaty hair, feeling the clotted blood in it, she shuddered. "Founder, I need to get back to the Tower. Or somewhere with a bath. Anywhere."
"Look on the bright side, Lou. Maybe we'll find one. Or you can send the minions to find you one. Which is better than just sitting around, right?"
"Sitting around?" Louise said, working her stiff shoulders. They always ached after she got a healing. "What do you take me for? I've already sent Maggat to take command of securing all the plunder from this island."
"Eeeeey," Jessica said, patting her on the back. "That's more like it." She stopped. "Actually, like, hold up. Having to tell the minions to loot and steal things? Are they ill?"
"... well, it's more that they were pestering me, but I did technically give the order," Louise said. "And in the end, that's what matters. Now, let's hope that Tifa didn't have the same thoughts."
She found her fellow overlady and Tifa's wards in the island capital of New Port, which would probably have to be rebuilt entirely given the state the children had left it in. Perhaps they would call the replacement town New New Port.
"Oh! Hello!" Tifania said brightly, pausing in where she was trying to clean one of the children's mouths with a handkerchief. "Sorry, a little distracted right now - Annalise and some of her friends found a sweet shop and now they are quite literally bouncing off the walls. They get so excited when they have too much sugar."
"So excited," Louise said numbly. Some of the stones at the other end of the street were glowing a sickly pink. Three soldiers seemed to have somehow been fused with the rock. "Yes! Yes! Well, um… I'm glad that you seem to have recovered from your… um, captivity."
"Oh, it wasn't so bad," Tifannia said. "Yes, King Joseph was a bad man and he was planning to murder me so he could take my power, but that didn't happen so it's water under the bridge!"
"Water under the bridge." Louise couldn't imagine forgiving someone after that. But Tifa's round-faced cheerfulness seemed to be genuine. "Mmm. Mmm. It's good that he didn't hurt you."
"I mean, I didn't like it, but he's dead now. So that's that." She gave a little shrug. "And he was really talkative! We're both heirs to Brimir! And so was he! That's definitely something to consider."
Louise tried not to tense up. Maybe this was when everything fell apart when the mad impulse that even she felt to claim the other parts of the rent power of the Void would take Tifa and—
"Consider how?" Jessica asked as warily as Louise felt.
"Not sure yet! It'll be something for me to think about on the trip back," Tifa continued.
"You're leaving? Already?" Louise asked, secretly feeling incredibly relieved.
"And taking all the children with you?" Jessica added quickly. "Especially, and I want to be clear here, Magda?"
"Yes! No time to waste! Mustn't linger! The children found us a ship! Harry summoned a flock of dire geese to lift it since there isn't any fuel here, and Alice made sure the crew will help us."
Alice was a necromancer. "Oh. Well, I hate to see you go," Louise lied, "but surely all the children will be glad to get back to their homes."
"Oh yes. It'll be good to get back to our own beds, and no doubt Darkcurse Badsuffering is just rushed off his feet trying to look after the ones who were too young to come along. It's unfair to leave him looking after toddlers for too long."
Unfair, and also likely a crime against God, man and specifically elves. "Good thinking."
"And that's not all! Think about it! The King of Gallia was like us, but it was his familiar's magic that was animating the golems. And that means they'll all have shut down! The Commonwealth will be vulnerable! It won't expect us. Or, well, me. It won't expect me, since you're not coming with me. And that means I can change things."
"Ah, of course." Louise leaned on her staff, feeling the ache she was trying not to show. "You're going to stop the foolishness of Albigone. Good… uh, well-thought out move."
"Stop Albigone? No, of course not."
Louise summoned a polite smile to cover her confusion. "That comes as something of a… surprise."
"The people have spoken. They've made their decision."
"Albigone is based on lies, deception, and willful self-harm at a national level. Turning the island into a sky fortress and sailing into the frozen north won't help Albion at all."
"Probably not," conceded Tifa. "But we have to make the best of it."
"Why?"
"Yeah," Jessica agreed, "I don't really pay much attention to, like, surface politics but I don't get why this is a thing."
"Because Albion has spoken. And I can't go against the national will."
A muscle in Louise's cheek twitched. "You recognise it's really, really stupid?"
"Oh, definitely, yes."
"Then why do it?"
"They've made their decision. And even if it hurts them, I owe it to them to make the best of what they've chosen." Tiffania paused. "Also, I want to control a floating sky fortress of death."
Ah, that made much more sense. It was merely callous disregard for all the people who would suffer, in the name of pursuing one's own power. Well, Tifa at least was an evil overlady. She had an excuse for sticking to such a destructive and foolish policy, unlike anyone else supporting that kind of national collective self-harm despite a clear awareness of the downsides. "I wish you good luck in your endeavours."
"Yeah, what the boss said. Give them to Hell."
Tifa smiled sweetly at Jessica. "That is my intent. And now—"
What she was about to say was interrupted by Magda cannonballing into Louise. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, I wanna stay with you and the minnies! I wanna chance to bind Jessica and I wanna go on more adventures with you!"
"She is very fond of you," Tifa explained.
"Oh. Of course." Louise admittedly had certain fond feelings for Magda, who was indeed cute. She was also utterly terrifying, in a way which made Louise want to apologise profusely to her own parents for the terror she had been when she was younger. "I know, Magda, and no doubt we'll see each other again, but," she thought hard, "my tower just isn't a place for a small child. You'll be much happier here with your friends. And your little brother."
"No I won't," Magda said with the monstrosity of a child. "He cries too much. And they're not really my friends. They're rivals to my power."
"Magda!" Tifa said firmly, her tone scandalised. "What have I told you? Just because you're rivals to power doesn't mean you're not friends too!"
"Yes it does!" Magda mumbled into Louise's side.
"It does not! Now apologise!"
"Does too! I wanna leave with the steel maiden and the minnies!"
"Magda, she is a very busy lady and you can't just leave all your friends and your little brother!"
"Can too! And she's on my side!"
No, no she definitely was not. Louise was very certain about that. Maybe — maybe — Louise would let her visit some time, especially if she needed a demonologist on side. But there was no way she was letting this child live with her. For the sake of Jessica, and incidentally everyone else in the blast radius.
And she'd make sure that Magda didn't try to stay behind. Speaking as a former awful small child, Louise was wise to her tricks.
The ship departed into the sky, carried by hideous monstrosities, and both Louise and Jessica breathed a sigh of relief.
"How'd you know she'd summon a shapeshifter to take her place so she could stay behind?"
"Lucky guess," Louise said darkly. She caught Jessica's glance. "Yes. Fine. If you must know, I'd have done that at her age. If I had been able to summon demons."
"Ah, priceless. Well, she's out of the way — and even better, Tifa was distracted and just wanted to get home. So the island's all ours. Let's grab what we can before it sinks."
"Agreed," Louise said. She raised her gauntlet to her mouth. "Maggat? Have you found anything interesting? Which is to say, anything that would interest me, rather than something that is just shiny or usable as an improvised weapon?"
"Overlady! I has been waiting to be telling you the wicked news!" Maggat sounded very satisfied with himself. "Thinking on the double-quick, I made sure that the lads and ladettes stopped something what are exactly what you want from fallin' into the water and gettin' all wet. It would've been super mega annoying to have to make the blues get it out for you but 'cause of me you is gonna get it all dry!"
"Oh? Do tell."
"Overlady, I are very happy to tell you that we have found what are lookin' a lot like the remains of an overlord's tower."
Louise's eyes widened. "As in… a proper tower?"
"Yep, that are what it are lookin' like."
"I'll be right there." Louise exhaled. "Holy sugar."
"Yeah," Jessica agreed, impressed. She worked out her shoulders. "It's probably not in the best shape given… you know, the crash. And hundreds if not thousands of years of neglect. But I reckon you've just hit payday for this op."
"You mean apart from thwarting a rival and rescuing a princess."
"Well, those are really overlady-ish things to be doing, yes, but some filthy lucre, sorcerous gizmos and ancient magical tomes always make you happy."
Louise nodded, defeated by facts and logic. She couldn't deny that.
And indeed, after all the conspiring and directed violence it was nice to get back to having an old-fashioned mystery to look into. What Maggat had found was the basement of an old tower, not dissimilar to how Louise's own lair lay under the ruins of what had once been a grand fortress. Great monolithic architecture, made filthy by the ages, swallowed the light of the torches they took inside. Fallen statues of minions and gold thread which had survived the rotting of the tapestries it had been woven into hinted at once-lavish decor.
"We found this place 'cause some of the younger minions was chasin' some humies and then fell into a crack in the land," Maggat explained. "And they was yellin' up to use about how they wanted to get out so they could kill the humies."
"Of course, they missed their chance," Maxy contributed.
"Yep, it was well funny. But then we found this place. And I was like 'well this is the sort of place what is lookin' all overlady-ish' so I brought the lads and ladettes over to make sure we could give it to you."
The air smelled of wet soil and a hint of rot. And minions, of course. But Louise could feel the Evil of this place; the gentle fading warmth of a discarded jumper. It had known great and terrible deeds, but a long time ago.
"I wonder who built this," Louise wondered out loud. "Given that there was the sky island's command bridge which King Joseph was using…"
"Yeah," Jessica said, touching a wall with her demonic hand and frowning at the texture. She pulled a face, wiping her fingers off. "Soot. There was a fire here, but it wasn't recent. And doesn't look like the king knew about this."
"Not any recent Albionese monarchs, either," Louise agreed.
"This way, this way, overlady!" Maggat marched off ahead. "We just has gotta go past the throne room, ain't much of one honestly, not very impressive compared to some I've seen. Then down these stairs, ooo-er, watch the step there, it's missing. Char fell down and broke his neck. Very funny, excellent comedy, but we no can drag you back from the dead place so I no think you wanna do the same."
"I can fly, but yeah, it'd be bad for Lou's health," Jessica agreed.
"Yeah, she nearly end up in the dead place once today already."
"Only once?"
"Do you mind?" Louise said, carefully trying not to fall down on the broken, filthy stairs. "I am not in the mood for repartee. From either of you."
They gave her some peace and quiet as she made her way down. Then;
"What are rep-ar-tea?"
"I dunno, honestly. You just gotta accept Lou uses weird posh words sometimes."
"Can you drink it?"
"From context? No, I don't think so."
"Shame. I are thirsty."
Unfortunately, Louise was forced to concede that she would have to accept some inanity for a lack of repartee. And why didn't Jessica know that word? Was it just not in common use in Infernal?
The corridors down here had minions scurrying around, excavating dirt and reinforcing the crumbling ceilings with lumber plundered from New Port. Scyl did something that was either scratching his forehead or saluting as she approached.
"Scyl, anything change since I go to get the overlady?" Maggat asked.
"Nah, nah. The crystal didn't go ping or zwip or nothing like that."
"Yeah, Scyl's the minion with the mystic know-how. I are gonna go see to makin' sure the place are secure so I are gonna leave you in his compy-tent," Maggat considered his words, "his hands. I are gonna leave you in his hands."
"Oh, I no touch the overlady without orders. Or unless she need healing. Do you need healing, overlady?"
"No!" Louise blurted out, because unless you were actually actively dying, minionly healing was worse than being run through. "I only got stabbed a bit!"
"Ah, yeah, that is how it be," Scyl agreed. "Now, overlady, I are here to be your tour guide. Now if you come with me, you will see ahead that there are this big chamber what are a heart chamber. Not very big, not half a lick compared to yours. But if you just come this way — oh, watch out for that hole in the floor, a few of the young 'uns fell down there an' died — you can see that this have got quite the fancy fittings."
Louise lifted her hand, conjuring fire to light up the room. Her breath hitched in her throat. Minion hives, the spawning places which fresh minions were born from, connected by strange wires to a shattered crystal sphere. The sphere was dark, but within each fragment a blue light pulsed. A blue light which shaded to pink as she stepped closer. "Goodness," she whispered.
"Oh no, no, overlady, this no are the work of goodness." Scyl gestured over to the dumpy shapes of minion hives. "It are the work of Evil."
The minion hives did not hold her attention. She didn't care much for them. She had her minions who were even starting to learn and communicate in ways that didn't make her want to throttle them. New ones would come out just as stupid as they started, if not stupider. She'd need to take them, of course, so no one else got their hands on them, but she'd just dump them down at the bottom of the dungeon and leave them to moulder.
But the broken tower heart. It gleamed with a fire that called to her. It must have been shattered for a long time, but it felt still fresh. Like it had only just been broken.
Like it had only just been broken…
"I want it!" Louise snapped. "I want that heart. More than anything. I need a second tower heart back at my lair! And take the hives too, if we can." That drew cheers from the minions. Fools. If only they knew what she was planning.
"It's going to be complicated to move it…" Jessica began.
"Trust me. It's important," Louise said, eyes ablaze. "I need it for my long term plans."
That was enough to set the minions to work, with Jessica overseeing them to stop any explosions of the magically catastrophic variety, and Louise emerged out into the sunlight with a sigh of relief.
"Let's go home," she said to the air. She just wanted to be rid of this mess. Rid of Albion. Back in her own bed with Henrietta and— of course she'd meant to add a comma there, because Henrietta would also be in her own bed. Unless she was still upset from being dumped outside of the world, in which Louise would have to comfort her. Actually, Louise just had a gut feeling that she should go back right now to comfort Henrietta…
… who wasn't where she'd left her.
Slow, creeping horror coiled around her. Where was Henrietta? The minions she'd left with her weren't here either? Even a princess couldn't get kidnapped again that quickly, right? Right?
"Sugar," Louise not-cursed. "Where is she?"
The mists which clung to the burial-grounds were not clouds. Instead, they were a fine sea-mist, condensing from the moisture that had filled the air with the fall of the island. And the chill of a place so saturated in death meant that they were perfectly content to lurk here, bringing a certain joie de ne pas vivre to the place.
Princess Henrietta's breath joined the clinging haar. She could taste death upon the air. Her necromantic instincts, while still developing, were already keen enough that she felt the closeness of the underworld from all the casualties of the day. But here, in the ancient graveyard of the kings of Albion, the substrate of ages past overwhelmed even the hot and sharp freshly dead. A place where the melancholy and sombre grasp of those long dead reminded you of the transience of all things. Where—
"This are a well shiny place," one of the minions who Louise had left to guard her said, clearly considering the entrance to one of the nearby tombs with intent to plunder.
"You said that," the group's blue said, twirling a mud-splattered tiara around on one ugly finger. "I am thinking I'm the prettiest princess of all the minions!" she added, hefting up the skull of a long dead king in the other. "Maybe I are gonna marry into royalty if my new squeeze are gonna do right by me."
"You no wanna be saying that where Fettid can hear you. She are vain."
"I are a healer. You no stab the healer."
"She no know that."
Henrietta tuned them out. She had persuaded them that to keep her safe, they had to follow her, and when they proved too stupid for that kind of sophistry she instead raised the prospect of plundering the graves of royalty. She didn't care who they desecrated. Not so long as they left her prince alone.
She retraced her steps from the walks King Joseph had taken her on when he had been rubbing her nose in how he had murdered her love. The impact had overturned memorial markers and torn up yew trees. The fog clung to her, and so did dark thoughts. What had Louise-Francoise done with the king's body? Maybe she could find it and make him suffer. That was a good thought. But for later. The doors to the mausoleum had broken open, as if to welcome her. Her breath caught in her throat. Could he have realised that she was coming for him and risen from the grave himself? Returned to inhabit his mortal remains once more, seeking to claim back a corporeal form to free her from King Joseph's machinations that had seen his spectre banished from this woeful veil of tears? No. Actually the doors had broken open because the shaking of the ground had shattered their hinges. But that didn't matter because that was just proof that nature itself wanted her to be with him and fate would not keep them apart, no matter what wicked men did to conspire against their true and eternal love.
Her inner monologue went on along those lines for quite some time, with a goodly number of italics and generally melodramatic phrasing. In her defence, she was nineteen and a necromancer; two conditions which both left one with a proclivity for this manner of thought.
Her prince's sarcophagus was bare and plain, devoid of the typical ornamentation for one of his status. The Republicans might have wanted to prevent him from rising, but they had no desire to honour the executed prince. Whispering a few words, Henrietta called water from the fog and collapsed it into a cutting line that could saw through the chains holding the lid shut. Then she just had to put her back into it and slide the lid from the top. It fell with a tremendous clatter, and once more Henrietta could see him in the flesh.
Or lack thereof.
It was perhaps for the best that the Albionese had boiled the flesh from his bones before transporting the corpse from Londinium to the Isle of Wights. It meant that there was simply clean bone lying there, rather than the more typical state of a corpse with two-ish years of decomposition under its belt. Henrietta loved her prince dearly, of course she did, but it was definitely preferable to open his coffin and see his melancholy, lonely bones waiting for her. With the thankful absence of what might be charitably called his poor, deceased flesh, but after this long would have instead been categorised as 'organic residue'.
But Henrietta had no eyes for that absence. The mere lack of flesh was no obstacle to her spells. What was a great and tremendous problem was the fact that the body in the tomb had no head.
"They took it," Henrietta growled, voice dripping with malice. "He took it." King Joseph, so proud of having executed her love himself — of course he would have kept the head for his own dark magic. The head was the seat of insight, of wisdom, of knowledge; with just a head a dark wizard could interrogate it for knowledge or call up visions of what they had used in life. And many of those spells damaged the skull; some of them would even consume it.
Without a head, she could not bring him back as easily as she might have wished. She would have to resort to terrible and mighty spells that she did not want to have to use.
"Oh, my love," Henrietta whispered, climbing into the sarcophagus to hold the bare bones close to her. "It doesn't matter. I'll do it anyway. No matter what it costs me. I will have you back."
She'd have the minions carry the sarcophagus to the tower. Her good friend Louise-Francoise would want to help her get her love back from the cold arms of death, after all.
"Henrietta? Where are y— oh."
"Oh, Louise-Francoise! Look who I have with me!"
Last edited:
- Location
- Spain
Last edited:
Amused Bystander
Herald of 'She who Umu's' Be Brave!
- Location
- Philippines
It lives! It lives! *Stomp! Stomp!* Our Overlady lives!
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
Yes. Funny, though.
Also, @EarthScorpion, you keep spelling Magda as Madga. I just wanted to point that out. Glad to see this fic continue.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Shud up! Shud up! Shud up! She's my most favorite. Tifa needs to make her ambassador to the overlady in the north as her most experienced subordinate when it comes to contracts.
Let her stay! She is so
Boo! Jessica is lame. All she cares about is fashion, fame, and debauchery. Magda gets you. You two could have so much fun together. Just make her bind Jessica's father first.
If Magda was here you could just have her use the bones in some demon summoning ritual without permission and get rid of him that way, but she's not so your fucked, like you deserve.
- Location
- The Holiest of Cities
What the actual fuck. DIRE geese? Regular geese are already quite dire! How much worse are these?
Is that you, Theresa May? Does that make Magda BoJo?
So good to see this back, great holiday present! Loved this chapter. Also, the hilarious contrast between Louise's optimism at the start and what happens at the end, hahaha.
Wonder what she plans to do with the new tower heart, though
- Location
- in the trash
I have it on good (well, Evil) authority that they are most foul creatures. Waterfowl, even.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- Reader
Sudden thought, but can't Magda just summon a demon to guide her through the infernal plains, pop up somewhere in northern tristan, and just sneak into the tower and hide among the minions to stupid for Louise to want to deal with them?
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Oof. That is some painful dramatic irony, there.
- Location
- Texas
I think the problem is that it reduces the chance of Louise getting fucked, which is the real thumbtack in her pastry.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
As upsetting as it is for her, I think it would be better for Louise to try and move on from her crush.
What will be bad for her mental health is the realization that said "hot half-succubus who wants to date her" is a palette-swapped Kirche.
- Location
- Italy
An amazing chapter that made me so happy. Thank you for your hard work. But I really tought the prince dying two violent deaths would be enough for the poor Princess.
That last line stabbed me in the heart.
That last line stabbed me in the heart.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Louise should move on from romance entirely. It's a poisoned well from which all things good come to torment perfectly evil young ladies. Tifa demonstrates the joy of not feeling romantic towards anyone and subsisting on the affection of orphans she cares for, like Magda.
I'm pretty sure Louise has already had that realization.
I'm pretty sure that Louise is going to end up doing the math on how to feel about the situation should she feel about Isabella. On one hand, she's half von-zerbst. A family her family has a lot of genetic instinct to kill when it's not seducing their black sheep. On the other hand, Isabella is half demon royalty and likely only somewhat distantly related to Henrietta. So either Louise is debating what kind of cancer she likes or what sort of dessert she wants to steal from the kitchens.
Also she already had that realization.
- Location
- Argentina
Worse, those are not even the prince bones; the dead prince is the one wearing the undead ring.
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
Clearly the optimal solution is a loveless political marriage to a certain evil Emperor.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
...you sure? This fic dies and rises again with nigh-Minionly regularity, so my memory of it isn't the best.
I'm pretty sure that would actually be more dramatic and unfun, if the speculation about the Emperor being two siblings with different feelings towards Louise pretending to be one person is true. Also far too permeant for Louise's current goals and general needs.
- Location
- Argentina
Making the prince an undead with the ring is why the ring was stolen to start with, so I say "Maybe".
Wanna bet Louise notices those bones and says "Say, those hip bones are too wide for a man".
Cause of course they would use the headless bones of a woman. 😀
- Pronouns
- Reader
Oh that's hilarious. I hope the shallow necromancers at the awards dig into Henri for not being able to recognize them.
I think it was mentioned he was a wind element, and necromancers tend to be more evil water/evil earthy?
...
This brings up the possibility of Henrietta resorting to terrible and mighty spells and accidentally bringing back Cearl as a princess.
I'm not sure how I'd feel about that as a plot-point; I guess I'll just hope she gets the wrong person entirely?
Is this the version of Louise's plan to eventually stage the demise of the Steel Maiden and her own "rescue" in which she also gets to keep the power?