Vanysa stepped through the gate, moved one pace to her right, and went down to one knee. She bowed her head low before the demoness and waited to be addressed. Her counterpart, seeing this, shuffled to the left and imitated the gesture.
"Another erinyes?" Albedo guessed immediately, at once her senses were on high alert. Her breath caught in her chest, as the implications began to spiral almost out of control in her own mind.
"And what may be a relic of the Supreme Beings." Vanysa said and removed the band of gold. She then explained to Albedo all that she learned, the Mocking Stone's revelations of its own origins, the demoness Curete's origin and purpose, and how it fit with what they'd learned from agents exploring Mict'aratz and other nearby lands.
"If that isn't Lord Peroroncino, then I will buy the hat myself." Albedo said under her breath.*
"That I don't know, My Lady. But may this humble one ask why it matters?" Curete asked with a slightly tilted head gazing upward at the radiant succubus.
Albedo showed no interest in answering questions, saying, "I assume you don't know how long you were in that cave," to which Curete mutely nodded, "but," Albedo went on, "if you can tell me something about the events that went on around you before you were locked away, then we may come up with an approximate date."
"As My Lady wills," Curete answered and looked down at the floor while she clenched her eyes shut in thought, "The beastmen first appeared on our border in my human lifetime… before that we'd never seen anything like them. But there were rumors for a long time before that of wandering tribes led by a pair of gods, who cared nothing for humanity."
"Your parents, they traveled with the god who made the stone?" Albedo asked, and again Curete nodded. "My grandparents and great grandparents remembered the place they came from, but my parents did not."
"And what did they remember?" Albedo asked.
"My father and mother told me about grandfather talking about the first cities rising under the guidance of the god of building and of might, a twin daggers wielder who taught that life is an adventure, but home should always be in one place. He disappeared on the River of Gods…"
"The what?" Albedo asked, furrowing her brow.
"The river I traveled on, the god my family traveled with, he followed the river when he heard the story of our god from farther east doing the same." Curete explained, relaying what lore she could recall, and Albedo nodded in silence, her ruby lips tightly pursed and fingers curled tight into her palms as if to grasp the unexpected clues, ever tighter in her grip.
'Could that be Narberal's creator? Could he have been the first… then the others arrived farther west in Mict'aratz… and then Lord Peroroncino? And then Lord Ulbert… and then Lord Mekongawa and Lord Blue Planet? Each one chasing after the first… what if Lord Nishikienrai went on the river because he was chasing after someone else? What if the pattern of appearance is based not just on time… a hundred years or so, but also on location? If there 'is' a trend for Supreme Beings to arrive farther west each time, then the next should not appear in the Empire. They will arrive over the sea.' Albedo lost herself in thought, the question remained however… 'had' someone arrived farther east before the now earliest known potential Supreme Being?
The question set her pulse to racing, 'If he arrived among the Gold People then that puts him hundreds of miles or more from Mict'aratz, but they occupy a vast land stretching all the way to the sea where the Shadow Demon is consolidating his power and threatening the Tlachopan. We just don't have the people to spare for this… not without Lord Ainz authorizing it, and I would have to…' She snapped her eyes down to Curete and snapped out a pointed finger, "You, give me your opinion on the being your family traveled with."
Curete gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "My family wasted their lives protecting the Mocking Stone because the god they traveled with was aroused by a woman and gave up that priceless treasure to buy one night with her. I hate him. So many lives were ruined because his conscience didn't return until after his pleasure was satisfied…"
Albedo visibly relaxed, "You will tell My Lord what I tell you to say, and nothing more. This will prevent your vanished god from adding one more victim to his tally. You want to prevent that, don't you, Fury?"
The Guardian Overseer's smile was small and clever, relief flooded her mind, luck was on her side. After the creation of Vanysa as an Erinyes, she studied the nature of Furies and learned that despite being demons, they had a sense of justice, of vengeance, they were punishing beings who saw the guilt of others and longed to make things right."
"I do." Curete answered. "I am the Alecto. The Fury of Anger… and I have had a very… very long time to be angry." She closed her eyes and sighed, "May I ask… this place, what is it? It feels like home…?"
"Nazarick. The realm of the Supreme Beings, the great Forty-One." Albedo answered, "And the place of the Great Treason against the One Who Stayed. Here only faithful servants of the One God are permitted… your unexpected sister beside you, is one of those." Albedo answered the Fury, and as she answered, her confidence in the rightness of her actions only grew.
"You are now mine, demoness. You will serve beside the Tisaphone, and after you meet our Lord and swear fealty, you will know why he must be protected at all costs." Albedo hissed the final words, and Curete humbly bowed her head.
"I am free of the cave, but I am bound to the stone, My Lady." Curete replied, and Vanysa reached up, removed the band of gold from her head, and passed it to her counterpart.
"If you wear it, you should be free to wander anywhere, or am I wrong?" The Tisaphone Fury asked, and Curete accepted the crown into her palm, closing her fingers around the band of gold.
"I… I don't know, I was bound to the cave before, I could only follow you because you took it with you…" Curete muttered.
"Magic always has conditions on it, conditions that will strengthen or weaken it in some way… conditions we often can't control or which seem impossible. A spell I once learned of, bound beings of stone into place until their castle rose above the clouds… an impossible condition, until someone moved the castle stone by stone to the top of a mountain and broke the spell. It may be that being given the stone you were supposed to guard, will let you move anywhere as long as you are the one to carry it. You won't know unless you try." Vanysa encouraged her and flashed a fang filled smile at her counterpart.
"I… suppose." Curete looked down at the stone, it sat in silence in its place. "Nobody would ever expect to be 'given' this… so if what you say is true?" She then put the band of gold over her horns and slid it down to sit on her forehead.
"There's only one way to know if that works." Albedo prompted, "Get up and follow me to the Throne of Kings, I will tell you on the way, what you will say… but will the stone contradict any of it?" She asked, and Vanysa spoke up.
"My Lady, it will not. I've already offered a price to protect our Lord from pain." Vanysa answered, and Albedo gave a slow and rare, respectful nod in her direction.
"Good." Albedo said, "Now go and resume your investigation. I will take this matter over, from here."
"As My Lady wills it." Vanysa answered and rose to her feet, waited for the gate to be summoned for her, and stepped through alone to return to the Draconic Kingdom again, pausing only long enough to watch as Curete followed Albedo out the door.
'Good luck, unexpected sister.' Vanysa thought as she abandoned the Guardian Overseer and returned to her own given assignment again.
*Who Endures: Shattered Dreams, Forli expresses doubt over something, saying if it's so that she will eat her hat. When it is pointed out that she has no hat, she states that she will buy a hat, then eat it. When the story is later told, 'buy the hat' becomes a popular expression for belief in something's certainty.