Chapter 27:
"Uhm...," burbled the Wood Nymph Matriarch? "It's fine," responded the Ice Queen. "She does that..." The Notorious Huntress Wizard had never been a great fan of being spied upon. The fact that it was her mother-in-law doing the spying did little to help the uncomfortable feeling.
Just now, Minerva was down on one knee looking at her feet of all things. She'd literally scanned Emeraude from head to toe and back again, and it was driving the former mercenary straight up the wall.
"Your turn," chuckled Roselinen. That helped not at all, as now a deep emerald blush suffused the wood-nymph's green skin. "How long," she hissed? "She'll get tired in a bit," Rosie responded. "I was able to hold a conversation with her the first day."
"Isn't it impolite to talk about me behind my back, while I'm still here," Minerva rumbled? The wizard-woman didn't reply. She didn't dare.
Rising, the AI burbled, "I suppose I should be getting accustomed to all the sundry creatures in my son's court. He did say that the world moved on after we left. You look like one of the results of the great experiment..."
Emeraude frowned at her. In a voice that spoke more of worry than intimidation, she burbled, "what great experiment...?"
"There was a cabal of madwomen near the middle of the twenty-first century," Minerva chuckled. "They wanted to create a society without men. After spending shit-tons of money, they created a way to genetically alter the human body to create the 'perfect form'."
"What happened to them," Simone murmured? "The war happened," Minerva chuckled. "Records are sketchy of the time after the Mother Bomb. To the best of my knowledge, one of the adherents of the cult had control over a couple of nuclear warheads. She threatened to launch them at the facility that was building the equipment for the arks—basically threatening to doom humanity if she didn't get her way."
"Well, obviously the arks got built," Rosie remarked. "Did she get her way?" "They gave her the results of the scientific research and control over a massive swath of the Carribean Sea." "The Water Nymphs," Simone murmured. "It seems they've been shit-burgers for a while."
Stroking Emeraude's hair in a strange way that almost resembled petting a favored critter, Minerva murmured, "your kind must be an offshoot of the cult. You have features of the research. By any chance are you able to have male children?" Flushing, the nymph responded, "nope. No boys allowed in my womb." "Fascinating," Minerva burbled.
"If we're done ruminating on the past," Simone interrupted. "Oh, yes," Minerva chuckled. "So this is the Red Palace?" "Yeah," Emeraude muttered. "My mom tried to sell me to these guys. Twice."
Simone's face snapped around. "Daddy was a slave, Simone," Emeraude muttered. "Daddy was a drug-addled breeding machine. He was good for keeping up our house, fighting whoever momma decided she was pissed at, and getting ridden like a fucking horse by whoever wanted a turn. I... I let him go."
Shivering as if at ugly memories, the nymph said, "I was supposed to administer the daily dose of the drugs. My sister dumped it on me because she was in a hurry to get out to a client. I didn't. When momma got home to find him gone..." "She turned on you," Rosie murmured.
"We need to focus," Star interrupted. Nodding, Simone declared, "let's get this done. The longer we're out here, the greater the risk."
Turning to Rosie, the Ice Queen said, "I need a pathway through the barrier, just like we discussed. Are you ready?" "Piece of cake," Rosie responded, eliciting a chuckle from Minerva. The plump pillow was certainly 'fitting in' in her son's family.
The trouble announced itself to the bored guards at the edge of the Red Palace's defensive perimeter as the sudden appearance of a field of strange, hood-shaped blue flowers covered in an unaccustomed sunlight. Frowning, their leader rubbed at his eyes and took a good look at the spirit-juice he'd just taken a swig of. While usually a habit like his meant that you were somewhat immune to the worst side-effects, you couldn't be too careful.
"Plokhy," the Lieutenant rumbled, "where is the barrier?" "It's... I can't see it either, Lieutenant," the Starshina responded. The Lieutenant stared at the bottle in his hand once more. And then, as if to drive home the madness, they saw the woman.
Broad-hipped and bosomy, she soared above the open steppe in a long, violet gown, with her long, platinum hair flowing behind her like the mane of a fantasy horse. And that was when the voice sounding like glacial ice grinding on frozen stone called out to them, demanding, "deliver the man named Reverend Blood to me."
As she spoke, the temperature around the soldiers dropped precipitously from a balmy fifty degrees straight down to a bone-chilling negative fifty. The terrifying voice growled, "you have twenty minutes before I raze the Red Palace and slaughter every member of its ruling body."
As if to punctuate those words, glacial ice began to form on every outbuilding, growing precipitously. In short order, many of the structures were sealed from the outside.
Back and forth the Ice Queen passed in seemingly lazy circles, while up on the battlements, the guards of the Red Palace struggled in vain to mount a defense. The moment they had one of their weapons ready, ice sprang into being in the stone of the firing platform, bursting it asunder and hurling the weapon and its crew to the now-frozen ground, a hundred feet below.
Down below, a quintet of female forms strolled along in a strange, preternaturally calm space in the midst of the chaos. Instead of the dozens of feet of snow and ice that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the compound, they walked in a beautiful, sun-dappled meadow, watching the Ice Queen slowly take the place apart.
"I've never seen her like this," Star murmured, as she and the others passed the dying soldiers. "She's pissed," Emeraude responded. "She's got a lot of her father in her," chuckled Betty. "Simon... didn't get angry very often, but when he did it was a fucking sight to behold."
When one of the weapons opened fire, they only managed a pair of shots before the hostile wizard hurled a blazing bolt of fire at them, blasting them asunder. "The Ice Queen uses fire magic," howled Star!
"Something she learned from Billy," Betty remarked. "She's taking the energy she stole out of the air and channeling it into something else. It keeps the crazy at bay." Grinning at Minerva, she added, "my baby girl is a genius!"
You're inordinately proud of someone else's work, thought Minerva. If anything, the Hand of Abadeer is her real father and mother both.
It was as the quintet reached the walls of the great citadel that the massive gate before them opened. The startled soldiers there stared at the strange summer scene before them. Giving them little time to ponder either that or the five women, Roselinen announced, "this isn't as easy as it seems, slick. Is that him?"
Swallowing hard, the lead soldier babbled, "uh, this is Brother Blood." "I thought we were here for Reverend Blood," Betty responded. "Uh, he got canned," the lead soldier responded.
Betty stroked the hapless sadist's cheek as if he was a beloved child. "Where is my stepdaughter, Mireya," she murmured? Offering her a blank look, the sadist burbled, "who?"
Moments later, the terrible creature let out a terrible shriek as his boots disintegrated along with his feet. "Not fucking playing," Emeraude growled. "It hurts," Brother Blood moaned. "It's... How does it hurt so much?"
"The low-level scum get beat on by the upper ranks," Emeraude explained. "He's been tortured before." Glaring at their hapless fool, she said, "we want an answer. I'mma start countin' to ten. This'll get a lot worse when I'm done..."
Patting his cheek, Betty murmured, "here... This'll help..." "Aaah," moaned the sadist. "There was a water-nymph staying in the castle you raided," growled Star. "She was there with her daughter. Where. Are. They."
"Uh... I...," babbled the creature just before another two inches of his legs disappeared in a shower of gore. "Running out of patience," snarled the Huntress Wizard.
When Betty applied the healing magic this time, the awful sadist began to sing, telling them about a mystery woman, who'd come from over the western ocean. Her confederate, a Miss Carmen Gomez, had hired him and his associates to snatch up the nymph from a castle and hand her over to the player from over the sea.
"It's all I know," sobbed the broken creature. The Huntress glanced to Minerva, who nodded, declaring, "telling the truth..."
"Goood," burbled Betty, upon hearing that confirmation. As she stroked his face, a shimmering energy passed from her hand to his body. As the guards looked on in terror, the former Reverend Blood came apart in a shower of gore that sprayed the trio and the grand gate they guarded.
"Message for you from the King of Ooo," Emeraude growled. "You don't want to fuck around anywhere near our family. Ever. Get me?" "I-I-I'll deliver the message," the terrified soldier responded.
Without a further word, the quintet turned and started walking again. Walking backwards, Star waved jauntily at the three guards, just before they disappeared in a shimmer of light.
"And Finn got on me about those men in Sonbong," Roselinen griped. "Moderation, dear," Betty responded, as Simone alit from above. "It loses its sting if we over do it. The grove of men on pikes with their innards cut out was a bit much."
"What're we doing about this Gomez woman," Minerva queried? "I know her," Emeraude responded. "She's..." "...a water-nymph madam out of south district in the capitol," Star finished.
"You got a name," Simone queried? "Got a lot more," Betty responded. "Somebody came from across the Atlantic to snatch up Astartes and Mireya. They were never in the Red Palace. Blood was hired for muscle." "He took liberties with his work," Minerva chuckled. "There's a lesson there, I think."
"Why would the nymphs snatch their savior," Simone burbled? "Maybe they think they can get a better deal with Wells and Gumbald," Star responded. "Based on what Billy figured out, they're the ones who gave Gumbald that second mushroom bomb... the one we couldn't figure out the origin for."
"Now we need to find fucking Tallulah," Emeraude announced. "We know they were behind it. She's got to know something. We go back to the capitol and snatch her out of whatever hole she's been hiding in." "On that, we're all agreed," Simone responded.
Short holiday update. Hope that was entertaining for you all. Updates will resume after the new year.