ARC V: ENDLESS PRISON

“Why is it that now I’m appointed to head you, that the seats of Rignon are down to a quarter? I tell you why—when Ygeia bleeds, the traitors flee.”

- Countess Aurelia Foscarini of the Ygeian Imperial Council

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Fort Elmo

AUG 29, 1538 CE

“Well, it just gets worse and worse,” Hans said, as the group eyed the distant star fort—now reduced to ashes. Its wall and bastions were completely wrecked, smoke rising from its interior. Beside him, Adelyn was deliriously looking at the corpses of people who must have tried to escape it on the road at the south side of the bastion fort using her binoculars. Hans just tapped her. “Alright, stow it away. There’s no point in that.”

“Goddess…”

“You know,” Hans turned around to Laura. “One of the reports I have heard about the Calamity of Desire is that she ‘presents herself as a teenage girl’,” Hans chuckled. “I mean, I’ve already said that I have no doubts about your words, but I don’t understand why—”

“It’s a trick of hers,” Laura said plainly. “That’s how she gets inside of major cities and fortresses. Like that. Perhaps it’s how she’s moving so fast. So…unspotted. She’s not like the other demons who appear as these massive monsters at all times. No…she’s closer to a human. That’s how she controls them.”

“And how do you know that?” Hans asked.

“Three months ago, we survived Preci,” Laura said, her eyes devoid of warmth. “I saw her there, while we were hiding. She arrived in the city as just another refugee. Then…then…wouldn’t you know it, some crazy woman was slaughtering the entire city with her oversized staff.”

“That’s…well, concerning,” Hans said. He pulled out his binoculars momentarily. “I can definitely see heavy blast damage on those stone walls. Most likely caused by those energetic explosion things that your magic creates.”

“We need to continue our recce,” Adelyn said, shaking her head. “I’m thinking if we take one of the routes that the 4th might pass through, somewhere near Lotagne…”

“Lotagne?”

“Another town just twenty-eight kilometers from here, westward,” Adelyn said. “It’s got a major road toward Rignon. Currently, that road runs through there.”

Adelyn pointed at the road running at the northern side of the fortress. It was of course worrying—since the demon must have come from the north. Which means that the place is a danger zone.

“We have to get the 4th and the other reinforcements to divert away from an uncoordinated direct engagement with it. If Laura here is correct, and that the demon isn’t going to be fighting in the open—but that she prefers infiltration, we’d have to check the cities nearby for any attack.”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Hans said. “If she presents herself as a vulnerable young girl, she’d be able to just hop into the most vulnerable population centers.”

“Or fortified ones, in that case over there.”

“Yeah, exactly. I think I’m seeing the patterns clearly to support Laura’s story. The attacks she has been doing for the past few months have been against cities and towns and have this pattern of…, wait, can you give me the map?”

“Sure,” Adelyn handed him the massive map. Hans immediately placed it on his mech’s front, grabbing a red marker pen. “Give me the list of recorded attacks.”

“Sure,” Adelyn pulled out her notepad, and she began listing the towns and cities that the demon attacked. Hans, on the other hand, marked them one by one with an X mark on the map, until they created an image of the distribution of her attacks.

“Look at that,” Hans showed it to them. “Notice how the attacks are almost random in a sense. There’s no set place or territory that she’s expanding. She’s just attacking any place she wants without order.”

“There’s a trend for the last ones though,” Adelyn said. “She’s targeting cities closer and closer to Rignon.”

“Which can only mean one thing. Our search will actually turn easier this time. This is a gamble, but assuming that her only goal is to maximize casualties and chaos—” he promptly marked Rignon, the biggest Ygeian city, with a massive X mark. “I said it already at Rousselot. Their preparations for a siege won’t work if they are the target. And they are literally fish stuck in a barrel.”

“So we shall head out to Rignon?” Laura asked. “That’s…where the Empire rules Ygeia…”

“And where the IYC headquarters is,” Hans said. “Hence why, if the attacks are random because she’s just infiltrating places…then that means, to maximize damage—Rignon is the only place that makes sense for her attack.”

Hans folded the map and handed it to Adelyn.

“Alright, let’s do this in a simpler way. Since it’s unlikely for the Calamity of Desire to still be here, we’ll use this as a meeting point. Laura, you and you three shall check Rignon if it’s still alive. Be quick and be back here by tomorrow. And don't you dare fight it.”

Laura nodded.

“We’ll be swift in our mission then.”

“Then, us?” Adelyn asked.

“We’ll grab the scattered armies,” Hans said. “Get them here, and get them moving quickly to Rignon. If she’ll attack there, then we better have everyone moving quickly to that city at once.”

Adelyn sighed.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Alright…guess it’s time to talk to people now.”

“Let’s move out.”

Laura’s group immediately dashed to their horses, mounted it, and rode away. Adelyn on the other hand went straight for her mech, while Hans mounted the Peacemaker. However, before he entered his mech, he saw something on the side of one of the trees. It was…a strange fleshy thing.

Why does that look like a human being?

It was utterly revulsing, but…

A fleshy…doll?

He looked back at the destroyed fortress, and then to the strange thing on the ground. It was bloody too, almost as if it was just flesh stitched together into a macabre horror.

Goddess…

He shook his head and dropped down into his mech.

That’s absolutely disgusting.

+++

Lotagne

“Hello?” The speakers from Adelyn’s mech boomed through the desolate ruins of the Ygeian city. Hans felt himself sickened as he looked around. It was a site of…absolute massacre. Bodies were strewn throughout the city, with deaths of all kinds that he wanted to just look away from. “Is anyone alive?”

Their two mechs drove slowly through the streets, trying their best to avoid the mountains of corpses left by the Calamity of Desire. It was almost as if it was turned into a warzone, with entire crowds of bodies just lying around, rotting slowly. Strangely enough, many of them didn’t seem to die from any magical attacks.

“It’s like they stabbed each other,” Hans said. “Or….or they killed each other…”

“Yeah…I can see something on the side,” Adelyn said, her voice clearly quivering in fear. “His head has an axe…just…there….”

“What the hell happened to this place?”

“Whatever that thing is, it’s madness.”

The two continued driving toward the city center. The horrors that this “Calamity” seemed to create were astounding. Perhaps the rumors about its capabilities weren't far off. It certainly seemed that whatever power it had, it drove people mad. Very mad. And that was what worried Hans and Adelyn greatly.

Do we even have any countermeasures to her magic?

“I don’t know, but…”

The two of them stopped in front of the city center’s square. A scream came out of Adelyn, as Hans’ eyes widened. It was…

“Fleshy dolls?!”

“Goddess…what the hell is that?!”

“I don’t wanna see it! I’m out of here!”

Adelyn promptly drove her mech away, while Hans stared at the mountain of “dolls” near the fountain. What kind of a sadist would create something like this? He couldn’t believe it. They were small. But they were stacked together like a fleshy mountain…of disgusting things. He felt his hair rise just by looking at it. Certainly, whatever it was, it emanated evil. But a worse kind of evil. It almost seemed childish.

He could almost imagine that “young woman”, sadistically laughing as she magically turned people into these things. Almost as if she desires nothing but creating toys…twisted toys. He backed away instinctively, his mech driving in reverse, following Adelyn’s panicked retreat.

“Okay, okay…that’s…well, now we have an idea what it does.”

“Why is it like that?! Why?! Why?!”

“Calm down!” Hans snapped. “We should keep going. Maybe the 4th is already nearby. This city is lost, but we can still stop this from happening to other places. We just…we just need to muster everyone to Rignon and kill that thing there.”

“Why would it do something like this? Turning people into that—”

“It’s a demon!” Hans shouted. “Now get back to your controls as we need to keep moving.”

“I…I’m sorry,” he heard her try to breathe in and out. “Okay…it’s just…this was quite the different horror than I’m used to. I get gunned down people or what else, but that…that’s just different. I can’t…I just…”

“Now, now, don’t puke out of nowhere.”

“I’m not going to puke! I just…sorry, it just got through my skin,” she breathed in deeply. “Okay…I’m good now. I think.”

“Did she see it?”

“No, of course not, I’m keeping her blindfolds on. She’s kinda pissed about it already though.”

“Why do I have to always wear this?”

“Hey, shh…”

“Okay, just turn off your internal speakers, please,” Hans said. “She doesn’t need to hear any of this.”

“I did, she only hears me.”

“Yeah, but I know something bad is happening, Lady Adelyn!”

Hans just sighed.

“Okay…okay,” Hans turned his mech back to the…“art piece” in front of them. “Bleugh, that just, ehh…man, okay…damn it…okay, yeah, you’re right, it’s straight up yuck. I don’t wanna be turned into that.”

“Me neither.”

“Okay…holy…goodness…yeah, um…do you have any ADI MPAT with you?”

“Of course, I keep some of them with me.”

“I don’t know…can you like, fire it at them? Start an inferno or something? Geez, those exposed rotting things are a goddamned biohazard in the making.

“Sure, on it.”

Hans drove his mech to the side to make a path for Adelyn’s Wanderadler, as she turned her main gun straight into the direction of the mountain of fleshy dolls. In one shot—a massive inferno appeared, burning the fleshy mass into blackened, crispy things. The two soon looked away, driving out of the area.

There was a brief silence between the two as they continued driving, as they observed the bodies around the streets. None of them were seemingly converted into that fleshy mass, which was strange. Why would she turn some of them into that but not everyone else? Hans found the behavior of this thing both fascinating and terrifying.

It’s like a twisted game of some sort…maybe to that thing, it is. She turns some people mad to make them…I don’t know, kill each other? Others…she turns them into her toys. I wonder then what purpose those dolls serve…

He wanted to ask Laura why her mother would turn into this strange monster. It didn’t make any sense to him.

“We really need to kill that thing.”

“Quite frankly, I’m having second thoughts about trying to challenge it now but screw it. I’d rather die fighting it than die like that while running.”

“Yeah, you got a point.”

Hans breathed out…looking at another corpse on the side of the streets. For some reason, his mind imagined an imagery—a young demonic woman, giggling at her sick, sadistic creations.

Someone that must be silenced…before more of this could happen.

There would be no backing out.