Chapter 10:
Madness Returns
“Into the hole again, we hurried along our way,
into a once-glorious garden now steeped in dark decay.”
– Alice, American McGee's Alice
– ▲▲▲▲▲ –
When Athena logged back inside Untold Tales, she immediately noticed a low inconstant growl in the background. If the game hadn’t been essentially medieval, she would have sworn it was the sound of a congested highway, but as it was she felt the need to investigate.
Then, a merry melodious voice covered the unknown rumble, singing with a bad imitation of a French accent. <1>
“Les poi~sons… les poisons!
♩ How I love les poisons.
How they choke when they're served in a dish.”
Intrigued, Athena rose from the bed she had been “sleeping” on and made her way out of the room. Her body felt light both from the prolonged rest and the absence of the armour she had removed to avoid suffocating while laying down. Yet her mind was heavy from her new resolutions.
“Vicky, I-”
She stepped into the main room, and froze.
The scene before her made little sense. She was pretty confident that last time she bad been in this place, the room had been dusty but orderly. Now the situation had somehow reversed. Everything was essentially spotless, except for a few burn marks here and there, however complete chaos reigned everywhere.
In a corner sat a pile of metal scraps, some molten beyond recognition, some still vaguely identifiable as the remains of cooking devices, mainly frying pans for some reason. Another corner was occupied by roughly pilled parchments covered in abstruse scribbles and geometric patterns. The plush hellhound laid in sleeping position atop the pile and the Soulbound felt a weird sensation as her eyes glanced over the immobile toy.
Other incongruous items were scattered around, but the most eye-catching oddity was the heteroclite assortment overrunning the table, collection of bottles filled with bubbling and fuming multicolour liquids, bowls and mortars containing mysterious powders, and diverse ingredients which seemed to actively disagree with their presence in this place.
“First they melt down your nerves, ♫
Then they corrode your lungs!
Ah mais oui, ♫ ça c'est toujours délice…”
And, in the middle of this mayhem, a dancing lady in a stained dress covered by a once-white lab coat was happily juggling with a pair of vials, one filled with identifiable red fluid and the other regularly flashing a suspicious green light. Caressing the vials with hands covered in blood-red jewellery, the lady mixed their content together with an expectant look on her face.
“Les poisons, les poisons!
Hee hee hee, ♩ haw haw haw…
What a clever way to kill you. ♪
It destroys what's inside,
And then leave it all fried! ♩
♪ Damn, I love these recipes, that's true.”
*ting*
Temporary Buff: +20 INT
What? How… Is that a bard skill?
Victoria didn’t appear to notice the Shieldbearer’s arrival, herself in trance and mostly facing away from the door of Martha’s bedroom. The mixture she held began to bubble and whistle ominously and she quickly added a blue pebble to it, which immediately stopped the reaction.
“Here's something for tempting the palate,
Prepared in the classic technique. ♩
First you pound the scorpion with a mallet,
♫ Then you slash through the skin,
And give the glands a slice,
Then you rub some salt in
'Cause that makes it taste nice~ ♩”
After preciously clasping her hands together and bending a leg up backwards with a broad smile, the mad princess stuck her forefinger inside the bluish arachnid she had just smashed. A suction sound later, she pensively licked her appendage covered in thick purple mucus and shivered with an appreciative nod.
Victoria’s gaze then fell onto something in the back of an opened cupboard.
“Zut alors, I have missed one!”
She waltzed across the room and reached out inside the piece of furniture, taking out a little glowing item.
“Sacre bleu, ♩ what is this?
How on earth could I miss…
Such a sweet little suspicious flask? ♫
Quel Domage, what a loss!
Here we go, in the sauce… ♪
Now some cyanide I think will do the task.
♩ Now I stuff it in bread.
It won't hurt, ♪ you'll be dead!
And you're certainly lucky you are…
'Cause your brain's gonna rot,
In your big skully pot! ♪”
She amorously grabbed one of the largest bottles, sniffed the fumes coming out of it and staggered, a hand on her head, as she smiled drunkenly. Then she performed a jumpy axel turn, finally facing the still stunned Athena.
C'est pour vous, ♩ bon poison
Au revoir... ♫
“Oh…”
The singing princess stayed stunned for approximately half a quarter of a centisecond before a bright mischievous smile bloomed on her face. She dropped the bottle off on the table and readjusted the discreet ruby tiara on her head, before rushing to the tall woman and giving her a quick hug.
“Thena! It's good you're late, I was too! Are you hungry?”
Thankful for a question it could actually apprehend, Athena’s brain clicked back on track. Her first reaction was to reply she’d just eaten, but then a quick look at her satiety bar reminded her that her last in-game meal had been the turtle soup of four days ago.
“Actually, yes.”
“Great! I made crêpes.”
A dubious amber glance flew over the fuming vials that covered the table. Victoria followed her companion’s line of sight and chuckled.
“No no. I left them in the bedroom. Let me go fetch them.”
A couple twirls later, she was back with a pile of flat pancakes piled up on a huge frying pan. Whistling, she then produced a pair of plates out of her inventory and sat on the ground. She divided the pile between the two plates and gestured for the Shielbearer to join her.
“Vicky...” Athena hesitated.
The dhampir girl was weird and cheerful by nature, but somehow her jolly mood felt forced today. Her smile also wasn’t right, thought it took a few seconds for Athena to pinpoint what was wrong exactly.
Then it hit her. It was the same smile she had seen countless times on her own face, when she trained in front of the mirror, trying to pretend everything was fine, when it really was not.
“Vicky, I-” she tried again.
"Oh! Of course!" Victoria exclaimed as she jumped up.
She waltzed up to the table and picked up a small glass bottle filled with a thick amber fluid. No marks distinguished it from the dozen of similar containers scattered all around, yet the mad chemist satisfyingly nodded.
“This one is quite mild. Perfect to train [Immunity]. I finally managed to get that skill back. No real effects beside a small burning sensation on the tong and in the stomach. And the best part? It tastes like maple syrup!” she said as she turned back again. “Excellent on crê-”
She was cut off mid-sentence when Athena caught her in a bear hug.
- 5 HP
The act had been impulsive, and the tall woman had no idea what to do next. Saying something might have been a good follow-up, but she was all too familiar with the platitudes people usually spouted to believe such things could bring any actual comfort. And she couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just stayed awkwardly silent.
Strange as it may be, Victoria too was silent. There was surprise at first, then her bright grin flattered a little, her lips quivered before settling back in a more natural and peaceful half-smile. She closed her eyes and let herself rest against Athena’s chest.
People were so used to see her act all weird and merry than nobody usually noticed when she felt down. Ironically, it was when she was the most serene that she would often be asked if it was alright. She didn’t know what gave her away to the tall woman, but she thought it felt nice to be hugged like that… even if it hurt… or maybe because it hurt?
After a while, Victoria finally broke the silence:
“Thank you. But I’m fine.”
Athena shot her a doubtful downcast glance.
“Really, I’m fine,” she repeated. “Or better at least. I meant it when I said I couldn’t stay sad for long. It’s just... I just need time to set back in my usual pace. She was already dead anyway, so that was just a matter of time I guess. As soon as my positive thinking is back on track, I’ll just remember the fun times we had together. So really, I’m fine. And she was just a NPC in the end, I probably shouldn’t be too emotional."
Tightening her grip on the pale girl’s shoulders, Athena shook her head.
“I doesn’t matter what she was. Losing someone hurts. That’s all.”
At least that was something Athena understood.
“Yeah... and people die when they are killed,” Victoria mumbled.
“That's obvious.”
“Not for everybody apparently,” Victoria half-sighed half-chuckled, then added with a more sincere mischievous smile: “Now, Shielder-chan, it's not that I don't like snuggling against your chest without you wearing an armour for once, but the crêpes will get cold.”
“Oh,” Athena soberly murmured before releasing the Princess.
The latter couldn’t resist teasing her awkward Soulbound:
“Mmmh~ It was hard to tell with all that metal on, but I thought you above all others would stick more to correct anatomy with your avatar. Are muscular woman supposed to be this big?”
Victoria half-expected a punch, but all she got was a scold-ish pat on the head as said muscular woman shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.
“A woman can dream.”
“A very whimsical answer, coming from you.”
“I don’t want that kind of remark from someone with that kind of looks.”
Ow… Touché. Hard.
“Hahaha,” Victoria laughed awkwardly. “So… maple syrup?”
– *** –
The duo ate the poisoned crêpes in relative silent. Victoria was still cheerful, but she had dropped the Miss Sunshine act. And Athena was her usual serious self.
“Delicious,” Athena honestly praised.
For someone whose daily diet was take-outs and microwavable food, homemade patisseries, even seasoned with experimental poison, tasted like heaven with extra bliss. Plus the weird fluid actually tasted like maple syrup, albeit a little spicy.
“My, your welcome,” the other followed. “Speaking of delicious... I was wondering?” - Puppy Dog Eyes no Jutsu.
“... Isn't it a bit too soon?”
“Apparently it depletes faster if I use my magic a lot. And there are other circumstances...” she trailed off.
“Such as?”
“Well, I tend to be random when I need to take my mind off things. So first I made some poisons. Apparently Martha was in charge of interrogations and assassinations back when she was in the army. Can’t say I'm surprised, but she kept a fuckton of dangerous stuff in here… Even though she had the ability to turn even normal food into deadly poisons. I’m impressed by her dedication. Anyway… after I got bored with poisons, I tried to use my Runic magic for a while.”
She picked up the frying pan and showed it to Athena. Now that she paid attention to it, various patterns were engraved into the metal.
“What are those for?”
The cooking tool danced in Victoria's hands as she explained.
"Well, at first I tried a simple fire glyph, since a frying pan that can fry without fire seemed like a good idea. But I didn’t factor in the power of the glyph so the first prototype kind of... melted.”
“First prototype?”
“Yeah...”
With a grimace, the dhampir pointed towards the heap of distorted metal scraps.
“Then I added a control glyph, but the metal couldn’t handle me engraving two symbols with my current reduced skills. So it broke. Then I had the idea of adding a strengthening rune beforehand, and it worked! It took a couple… okay, a couple of couple tries, but it worked. But by then I had gone through most of the pans in the house, so I was left with this one I could barely lift. So I also added a minor lightweight glyph. It doesn't compare to the gravity reduction I used in the past, but it's the best I can do right now. Plus, it reduced the weight, not the mass, so mass times acceleration times fire-in-your-face equals awesome weapon too!”
“...a frying pan?”
“Who knew, right?! Strengthened one-handed blunt weapon with extra magic fire damages.”
If one accepted the fact that the item in question was a freaking cooking device, such features were actually high specs, as far as weapon went. Athena’s sentiment right now oscillated between awe and consternation.
“I called it... Fred,” Victoria nodded proudly.
“...why?”
“Dunno. Maybe because it sounded like ‘fried’? Anyway, after that-”
“What?! There’s more?”
“Of course. And this one is pretty cool… although…”
The mad princess made a complicated expression, then brought two fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly.
Athena was about to ask what this was about, when she heard soft footsteps behind her. Before she could turn around though, a black and white form sprinted past her thigh and jumped on Victoria. The latter smiled and opened her arms, but the blur lightly changed its trajectory. It collided with her left forearm and revealed itself at the stuffed puppy, growling and biting angrily in Victoria’s sleeve.
She didn’t seemed to mind much and only chuckled. In the end, Toto was a toy meant for kids, so his teeth weren’t really sharp, and stuffing wasn’t famous for its muscle power.
“Aaaaw~ That’s adorable,” the dhampir commented.
The diminutive fluffy hellhound narrowed his eyes with hatred, still hanging from above her wrist.
“…”
Athena wasn’t sure what to ask about first, so she waited for Victoria to talk. She had noticed the Princess liked the sound of her own voice, both figuratively and literally.
“Rii~iight. You are fiii~ierce. Good boy. See Thena, isn’t he cute?”
“Yeah…” she couldn’t deny it. “How… What is he? He wasn’t alive yesterday, was he?”
“No, he wasn’t. I found some ingredients for soul magic in another house, so I tried a few things. Plus I had this old grimoire, and there was this spell to create a soul golem… It’s kind of like a normal golem, but with a mind of its own… although what with that trend of just adding ‘soul’ before everything? What am I? Batman? Or Soulman? Do I have to get a soulmobile? A soulcave? But I digress… Anyway. Normally, the mage would create a stronger body, but I can’t do that now and I didn’t want a big pile of dirt following me around… So I used Toto! Wasn’t sure it would work, but it did! And then I used the [Bloodsoul Contract] to bind him.”
“He doesn’t seem that obedient though…”
“Yeah,” Victoria pouted. “Seems the level gap really is a thing. But I had no other soul ready to be used. And, hey, I managed to level up my [Taming] skill.”
Athena pondered a couple seconds, before wandering to ask:
“…You had the soul of a dog?”
“Uh, Dog? Ah… No.”
The dhampir grabbed the plush by its neck, gently ripping him off her arm, and raised him to face Athena.
“See?”
“See wha-”
“ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAR!!!”
Toto, visibly annoyed to be handled like this, opened its stuffed jaws and let out a thundering roar which shook the house. Outside, the low rumble stopped briefly before resuming.
Athena glanced warily at the window, before returning her gaze towards the smiling Bloodsoul Mage. The not-puppy was cutely struggling for freedom in the Princess’ weak grasp, but his gaze would have killed a troll with a single look… which in Athena’s opinion made him even cuter.
The Shieldbearer considered the situation for a second, then her eyes widened and she stated in disbelief:
“…You didn’t.”
“Oh… I sure did,” the reply was accompanied by a scary laughing grin. “It was a bit difficult to fit the gem inside, but do not underestimate my intermediate [Doll Making] and [Sewing] skills!”
“And can he?”
“Yeah… That’s part of the problem in fact.”
With a scolding pout, Victoria turned Toto around to face her, and immediately a torrent of blinding blue flames escaped the puppy’s mouth and washed over her head. Before Athena could intervene though, the fire stopped, revealing an uninjured Princess and a sulking plushy.
“Spirit flames. I’m like… totally immune, but it drains my thirst at an insane pace.”
“…I see.”
Athena could feel her headache come back.
“Well… It’s actually a good thing I made that doll with materials from the Demon Realm. Highly fire resistant… unlike my clothes. *sigh* Take out your shield by the way.”
Rapidly catching on, Athena equipped her Gorgon Shield, and just in time, as a bundle of charred white cloth was already flying towards her. The projectile was immediately swallowed by the snake-haired skull ornament with a satisfied gulp, and she confirmed the satiety of the cursed item had slightly restored.
“Vicky. I appreciate the sacrifice, but could you stop feeding it with your underwear? I have the vague feeling it will develop bad habits.”
“I’m not responsible for his education, Thena. Jelly is your son, not mine. I’m the doting aunty who gives treats.”
“Who is whose son!?”
“Anyway… About that snack?” she asked as she put Toto back on the ground.
The puppy immediately went back to sleeping on the parchments. He seemed to like resting on runic diagrams, even incomplete and inactive ones.
“Aaaah… Alright.”
Athena sighed loudly and put her shield back in her inventory before denuding her forearm. After all she had promised herself to be more useful, both to her family and to Victoria. If a blood bag was what the Progenitor needed, she could endure the discomfort.
To her surprise though, Victoria gave her a knife and a bowl.
“You said it felt… weird. So maybe I don’t need to feed directly on you? If my previous experiments with my own blood are correct, the magical capital do not deplete that fast, so it wouldn’t work if we wait too long, but freshly bled blood could work. Now, if you prefer me to…”
“Oh…” Athena blushed, to which Victoria flashed a roguish smirk. “No, I’ll take the bowl. Thank you.”
– *** –
As it turned out, the indirect feeding worked. Victoria was a little sad that she had been right, but cheered up by promising herself to inadvertently lose that damn bowl.
After that honourable resolution, she started to stand up.
“We should probably leave. Since yesterday, there has bee-”
*BAM*
A loud shock echoed through the village, and the background growl abruptly raised in volume.
“The fuck was that?!” Athena shouted.
“What the fuck was that~ ♪ … Indeed.”
Cryptic, Victoria finished to get up and dusted the cloth covering her butt. Then she waltzed up to the table and, in a single swoop, all the random vials disappeared into her inventory. They were soon joined by Fred the Frying Pan, a couple crêpe-less plates and a very uncooperative Toto the Second.
“He can still be stored?” Athena asked for confirmation.
“Seems like it.” She shrugged. “Apparently, he is classified as a sentient item.”
A sentient stuffed doggy with a dragon soul and a frying pan that comes close to a lesser holy sword. And God knows what was in those flasks… Actually, that’s the scary part. I’m sure that god knows… It’s the last time I leave her logged in alone for so long.
With a thoughtful nod, Athena added yet another resolution to her recently expanding list. Meanwhile, Victoria had disappeared in the room that used to be Martha’s.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Vicky?” she called.
“I’m coming! Two seconds.” The voice came from beyond the doorframe. “I just need to change clothes. White dresses are cool and all for light treks through the woods, but we’ve got Resident Evil twenty-four waiting outside. Can’t go around wearing no armour at all. Well… I can’t really wear all that much when it comes to armour anyway, but I noticed that leather set in the wardrobe a couple hours ago when I came in to check on you and… ah! There it is. Haha. I can sooo see Martha wearing this. Ah… I hope it’s my size… No. It fits… weird. I’d have thought I would have needed a few adjustments. Well, she was more fit than muscular. And I guess her aura of Grimm Reaper made her look taller… Why would ghosts keep changes of clothes anyway? I can’t really ge- … Thena?”
Victoria had come out of the bedroom, mumbling to herself, but then stopped when she saw Athena’s opened mouth and blank stare.
“Thena… you’re drooling.”
“Me? Wha… No!”
The Shieldbearer wasn’t actually drooling, but the Princess thought it was both funny and cute to see her flusteredly wipe her mouth. Smirking with all her fangs, she twirled on herself.
“So, like it?”
Entirely made of dark red leather with appropriately disposed laces and straps, the set Victoria was wearing covered her body completely from the middle of her neck to her feet, leaving only her hands unprotected. It wasn’t intrinsically indecent… but still stuck too much to the skin to leave anything to the imagination.
Imagination had never been Athena’s forte anyway, but she had far enough material not to need it right now.
While the pure immaculate dress had given the dhampir a ghastly air by highlighting her pale skin and white hair, this garb instead made her eyes stood out, with their irises of blood circled with jagged sapphire and their pupil twitching slowly between round orbs and vertical slits. Her fangs too looked more noticeable when she smiled. In fact, all her attitude seemed to have switched to fit closer to the vampire than to the princess part of her character.
The pale lady’s gaze fell upon the still sitting Shieldbearer, and the latter fell a shivery excitement rush through her body. She attempted, and failed, to swallow discreetly, and Victoria’s grin turned even more ferocious.
“That… eeeh… That changes the image, I guess,” Athena answered safely.
“Mmmh… I still feel there’s something missing though…”
Victoria adopted her usual thinking pose, her right elbow resting in her left hand as she caressed her chin between her thumb and forefinger. Then she tapped her fist in her open palm and waltzed up to sit down on the nearest chair.
“Thena, can you make my hair into a braid, pretty please?”
At that moment, something died inside of her, but she barely noticed. The feeling had become too recurrent to be pertinent anymore.
Athena’s sense of aesthetic was a bit messed up, but even she admitted that the silky white hairs floating freely belonged more to the maidenly princess than the vampire huntress. She still couldn’t picture Victoria as the latter though. All the other girl had done until now was running around and play with young goblins, not once suggesting she had a dangerous or predatory side to her beside her hungry smiles.
When they first met, Victoria had claimed she used to be a Deep Explorer, before the curse trapped her and left her with a body unable to run two kilometres without panting. And, if the Shieldbearer had come to accept the survival knowledge of the Princess, she still wasn’t fully convinced Victoria could actually fight.
“I’m not exactly good at… hair-stuff.”
In real life, Eva kept her hairs a little above shoulder-length with long bangs, and had never really changed her style in the past five years. And she felt somewhat reluctant to slip her fingers in this long smooth mane, not trusting herself to stop with Victoria’s hairs.
“No prob. Just do your best. It’ll get messed up soon enough.”
Athena choked.
– *** –
Fifteen minutes later, Victoria was looking at herself in a hand-mirror.
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”
To be honest, Athena’s handy-work was passable at best. Like she had said, she wasn’t expert at it, and trying to focus on anything but what she was doing hadn’t help much. In fact, now she had trouble not to focus on the background growl that had been growing louder and louder since she logged in.
“Okey dokey!”
With a clap, Victoria enthusiastically twirled around and Athena ducked under the red hair-ring that enclosed the end of the dhampir’s braid. Earlier, seeing the tiara melt through the hairs and reform as the new hairpiece had been both fascinating and creepy.
The mirror also disappeared inside Victoria’s inventory.
Incidentally, this was the [Mirror of Truth], a high-tier artefact which only reflected the true appearance of things, seeing through even the strongest illusion spells, but it worked just as well to check on makeovers.
Priorities.
Satisfied, Victoria walked out of the house. The door had been left open since they entered four days ago. Athena followed with a resigned shrug. As soon as they stepped out, the growl became twice as loud. Instead of a distant highway, it sounded now like hundreds of inarticulate voices, and Athena suddenly recalled a movie her sister had forced her to watch.
The Shieldbearer looked around, but saw nothing beside deserted houses and unkempt gardens. She shot an inquisitive glance towards Victoria but the dhampir had turned back and was looking at the blue-tiled house with sad eyes and a small derisive smile. Athena frowned and awkwardly came to stand next to her friend.
Without averting her sight, Victoria let herself tilt to the side and rested her head against the shoulder of the tall woman.
Then a thought crossed Athena’s mind. Something she had forgotten to ask.
“Vicky… Can I call you a friend?”
Victoria jerked away from her and gave Athena a stupefied stare.
Ah… Of course, I’m no good. I shouldn’t have ask-
“Pffffft! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
The dhampir suddenly bent in two, hands on her stomach. For nearly two minutes, she was shaken by irrepressible laughter. She made several attempts to raise her head and say something, but each time she choked and went back to laughing uncontrollably.
“T-Thena… hahaha… That was so… hahahaha… Ooooh~ That was soooo cute. Hahaha. You really know how to cheer me up, you know that?” she eventually said, her face red and her breath short, with the expression of someone looking at a clumsy kitten.
Athena in turn felt her cheek getting hotter and she reflexively threw a blind punch.
“W-Who are you calling cute?! I was serious you know!”
*bam*
“Ouch… Hahaha… *cough* Haha… Tsundere Athena is so tsundere… *cough* Argh…”
She had struck something.
What’s with that tsundere thing, really?
The Shieldbearer reopened her eyes and discovered a coughing dhampir laying on the ground. She was about to melt in apologies when the fallen girl suddenly bent her legs and jerkily threw her head up, raising from the dirt and landing crouching on her feet. She then stood up calmly and dusted herself with a smile.
Victoria waltzed up to Athena as if nothing had happened, and closed her Soulbound’s gaping mouth with a scolding finger on her chin.
“Dummy. Of course we’re friend. I don’t dabble in half measures. As far as I’m concerned, the world is divided between friends and family, and the others. I don’t care about the others. Do I look like I don’t care about you?”
Still with the shorter girl’s forefinger on her chin, Athena shook her head in silence.
“Good. Now stop pretending you’re stupider than you are, and let’s go kill something. I’m in a mood to kill something. Several somethings in fact. BEWARE SOMETHINGS!!”
Victoria smiled again, and Athena shivered. In the dhampir’s eyes, the sparkles of madness were being swallowed by a dark void, the light in them becoming dimmer but at the same time more focused.
*BAM* *BAM* *BAM*
Another series of loud shocks echoed through the silent village. Without leaving the time for Athena to ask any question, Victoria twirled around, her weaponised braid nearly hitting the Shieldbearer again, and started to skip merrily in the direction of the noise.
“♫ What the fuck was that? ♪” <3>
Athena followed, armour on and shield up, keeping a watchful eyes on her surroundings and especially on the humming girl in front of her, and tentatively trusting Victoria to react in case something jumped out to eat her.
She would react if something tried to eat her… right?
The growls were becoming clearer as they neared what the Shielbearer recognised as the village gates. Both the wooden panels and the tall fences next to them were shaking under the repeated assaults of something outside.
Unconcerned, Victoria did a couple axel turns and continued to sing:
“♩ What daaaaaarkness lurks beyond this wooden sanctum? ♫ ♫ ♫”
Will she really be alright? Now she’s changing her voice… Is she trying to sing a duet? And who’s Linda? … I feel stupid to be the only one on guard here… No. I can’t get swept in her pace. She trusts me to keep an eye out.
In fact, Victoria did trust Athena unquestionably, but wasn’t expecting anything specific from her. She felt like singing, so she sung. The Shieldbearer was free to play the ukulele for all she cared. She already knew where and what the enemy was, so she had no reason to be on her guard, instead she was so exited to finally test her new powers in a fighting situation that she had completely forgot to fill Athena in on said situation.
“♫ What the fuck was that? ♩ Now I put an end to this vacation. ♫ What the fuck was that? ♪”
Without slowing down, she shifted her skipping towards a ladder leading to an observation platform. The platform was just large enough for two persons to stand on so, after a short hesitation, Athena put her shield on her back and climbed the ladder in her turn.
As she reached the top, Athena was greeted by Victoria’s broad smile… the kind of smile you showed a child right before telling him today was the day for their visit to the dentist.
“♫ What the fuck was that? ♫” she sang teasingly.
Then she turned around with an emphatic gesture towards the other side of the fence.
“♪ It’s the evil dead! ♪♪ ♩ ♫”
And she concluded with a little solo of air-guitar.
Athena didn’t pay attention to her friend’s antics, too occupied she was to take in the sight before her.
The clearing was literally swarming with undead. [Lesser Zombies] mostly, but also drooling [Ghouls], unfriendly [Dullahans] and others… even what appeared to be an eviscerated wild boar. However she only briefly glimpsed at the last one and ruled it out as a mistake on her part, because it was a known fact that common animals couldn’t be raised as undead.
She still hadn’t totally incorporated the concept that “known fact” didn’t mean much in a radius of ten kilometres around the Reckless Imbecile.
“Where did those come from?”
“Oh? A bit everywhere I suppose,” Victoria shrugged. “The illusion barrier of mist collapsed with the rest and I think they can sense living beings, which I still count as I suppose… So they have been gathering for the past four days. Good thing there are a few permanent enchants on that fence, but they won’t last much longer, so we better leave before they break through. I would like to avoid filthy parasites in my village.”
You won’t step in my sister’s home, you decaying bastards.
Athena watched carefully as a dark grin spread on the dhampir’s face. Before meeting Victoria, she had had no idea there existed so many different ways to smile, ranging from genuine joy to merciless promise of destructive violence and traumatizing gore.
Feeling a shiver down her spine, the Shieldbearer returned her attention towards the encircling horde and began to evaluate the success chances of various escape plans.
“So, how do you propose we do th-”
“Fear the loud wrath of the sky, the white lights that burn and fry! [Lightning Strike]!!”
From the mage’s open palm, a flurry of electric arcs jumped out towards the bottom of the fence. There was an explosion, and every [Zombie] in a radius of three metres were annihilated. Immediately after, ten darts of frozen blood flew from Victoria’s hands, where her red rings suddenly had disappeared. The short spikes stabbed themselves in the wood below the platform at regular intervals.
“Wai-”
“TATA YOYO!!” <4>
Before Athena could finish her sentence, the Princess had jumped.
She was weak and had no endurance, but her Agility now boasted fifty points, which was nothing to scoff at and even near impossible for a normal level twenty-eight mage. Thus, reaching the bottom of her improvised ladder did not pose any problem at all.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, the Bloodsoul Mage sent her used rungs through the brains of ten incoming corpses and took care of another three with a single spell.
“Cut the flesh in a sole breath, the sharp wind that carries death. [Wind Blade]!”
The basic [Zombies]’ strength were in numbers, but individually they were ridiculously weak, even without the help of her previous Sun magic. And using those beginner spells actually felt kind of refreshing.
She still couldn’t jump through the battlefield with the ease she used to have as Elric, but weirdly enough, [Formal Dancing] helped her move around, even if it probably made her moves a bit predictable and wouldn’t work against smart opponents.
She ducked under a lousy grab and severed her assailant’s arm with one of her drone-knifes, before taking a step back to avoid another strike. Another limb went flying. And repeat. She had figured out she could either control every knife individually, or set them on partial auto-pilot with an instruction like “cut anything that comes too close”. Right now she had chosen the latter and was waltzing at the centre of a little storm of blades, magic and monster blood, a broad grin unconsciously plastered on her face.
Despite her barrier of knifes, a [Ghoul] managed to creep a little too close for comfort. But with a “kyaaaa~” for good measure, Victoria suddenly equipped her new teammate Fred and cooked the ugly face of her attacker.
All to her fun, she was finally feeling her anger and sadness from Dorothy’s death recede. Athena’s support had helped, but nothing beat the cathartic effect of mindless bloodshed.
Victoria merrily slaughtered another four dozen undead without breaking a sweat, alternating between spells, blood knifes and Frying Fred, and moving the least possible to spare her stamina. But then a tall [Dullahan] approached, easily deflecting her knifes, and slashed at her with a long rusty sword. She didn’t even try to dodge though, instead believing in the slight nudge at her soul that indicated reinforcement was on its way down.
With a loud bang, a mightily pissed armoured giantess crashed into the ground beside the mad Princess, creating a small crater, and the blade of the monster broke against her shield. With a precise movement, Athena then grabbed the arm of the same headless warrior and used its owner as a club to repel the closest assailants before throwing it away.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!!”
“Hahaha. I call it ‘frontal assault’. I’m quite proud of it myself.”
“Remember me to break both your arms as soon as we get out of this mess.”
“I might forget, but I’ll try. Turn you back towards here.”
The Shielbearer didn’t question the order. As much as the dhampir’s approach made no apparent sense, her fighting abilities were no longer in question. The reason Athena had taken so long to jump in was that she had been staring amazed at the chaotic massacre. And hesitation in the middle of the battlefield was often synonym of death. Athena just hoped Victoria at least had a vague idea of what to do next.
As soon as she turned around, she felt a weight on her back and reflexively brought her arm that wasn’t holding her shield to catch whatever had jumped her. She could guess what it was though, and thus wasn’t overly surprised when her hand grasped a soft leathery bump along with a cute startled moan.
What did surprise her however, was the deluge of blue fire that suddenly gushed from over her shoulder, reducing her foes to inoffensive ashes.
Toto was out, and he wasn’t happy to see those vermin invade his territory… His territory meaning everything in his sight. Toto was a very proud puppy-dragon. A very pissed puppy-dragon too.
“ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAR!!!”
“Now! Giddy up, Thena! Follow the Yellow Brick Road! I’ll give you a little boost.”
Athena was about to ask more detailed explanations, when the first lyrics of a familiar song floated to her ears over the wails of the army of rotting doom.
“From tales untold,
♫ Rose the Black Raven,
Legends unfold, ♪
Lend your ears, children. ♫”
Temporary Buff: +20 STR
Carried by the song, surrounded by a flock of ruby blades, a dark knight in cursed armour cleaved through the moving mass of hungry corpses, one arm supporting a silently giggling shield and the other biggybacking a singing maiden in bondage-worthy leather armour, who herself was holding in her right hand a glowing frying pan named Fred and in her left Toto the roaring stuffed puppy hellhound drowning their enemies with blue flames.
Without slowing down, they darted towards the forest, leaving devastation in their wake.
– *** –
As the group disappeared into the dark woods, somewhere else in a place feared by even the gods, a smiling entity put down his cup of tea, and slowly clapped his hands.
– ***** –
<1> Having listened to it at least once gives a better impact.
Spoiler :
<2> Imagine a Mord Sith from The Sword of Truth.
Spoiler :
https%3a%2f%2fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2f736...4432dc.jpg [https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b4/35/b1/b435b15583ea5260e31c9ecbca4432dc.jpg]
<3> Ever watched Highschool of the Dead?
Spoiler :
<4> Muuuusic:
Spoiler :
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And here’s the new chapter, hope you liked it.
I have a sad announcement to make. I’m going on a trip… without my computer. So there won’t be any other chapter this month. But I will continue to write so that I can release a few faster as soon as I come back.
So, thank you for reading and see you next month.