Dracula: The Prince of Darkness, Demon Lord Dracul.
Once, the man who would be known as Dracula was the Chosen warrior of God, who was destined to save all of Midgard from Evil.
However he was betrayed, by his order and the god that he believed in.
Known as a symbol of fear Dracul rules his castle with a iron fist as lord of the vampires, sharing a deep symbiotic bond with Castle Bernhard his blood flows through the pipes of the castle and seeps into its stone.
Many speculate as to why the Prince of Darkness remains inside of his castle for all time.
Some say that he is still the Chosen one of his God, that his position in Inferno is part of his grand design, others speculate that he's waiting for the one who can kill his god and claim his throne.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
Bernhard Castle's feast hall looked like it was big enough for thousands. It's main attraction was a giant chess board complete with giant Chess pieces, each of them glowing with demonic power, fully capable of moving at the commands of the people who would be sitting at the top of the Life Guard chairs at either end of the Board.
That said Leon's attention was on the far end of the dining hall, on the Lord of the Castle the Self Proclaimed Dragon, Dracula. He was a tall man, though not Leon's match in height, he wore a blood red coat that left his muscular chest exposed and had a wild mane and beard of scraggy black hair.
Angelica and Olivia were with Leon as he walked forward, towards the Lord of the Castle. Both of the girls were armed for battle, if necessary the three of them were ready to fight their way out of here. Though none of the monsters had been hostile all three of them were on edge.
"A gift for the Prince of Darkness, Demon Lord of Shadows, the Dragon Dracul." Leon knelt as he held his offering into the air: three bags of his own mana rich blood.
"You've wasted your time Warlock." The vampire spat as he held his hand out, the three bags of blood flew out of Leon's hands and into the grip of the castle's Lord. "My business with humanity has ended a long time ago, everyone of you I've wanted dead died over a thousand years ago." The Lord of Shadow crushed the bags of blood, their contents soon absorbed into his long coat.
"Closer to Eight hundred years actually, give or take a decade or two." Leon stated with a shrug of his shoulders, Dracula glared in response. "We're off topic. As a member of the Umbran Clan we are able to make contracts with demons and place them under our control to do battle." As Leon explained this he waved over one of Angelica's Salamandra and produced the huge scaly monster the weapon had been named for from seemingly thin air. "I sense you have no contract with this beast boy. The only link I see coming from you-" The Lord of Shadows paused, as if seeing something for the first time, and then he burst out laughing. "Oh this is rich!" Olivia looked at Leon concerned.
"He can sense that I'm part Demon." Leon clarified as he stood up.
"You think you can control this castle Warlock!? You're just another creature of Darkness that it has pulled in, only this time from the Human world instead of Inferno!" Dracula snorted in amusement. "Until a few years ago we thought your kind dead, reduced to so much rubble floating in space! A final indignity left on my family after they sacrificed everything to protect you!"
"Which is why you're trying to invade Paradiso aren't you?" Leon asked as he stood up to look the Demon Lord in the eyes. "My family is quite aware of the exploits of the Belmonts." Suddenly the Monster closed the distance with Leon in a flash of Red, getting into his face with a loud hiss. "They're much better people than you are after all."
"Cute cute. Now you mean to taunt me?" The Vampire licked his lips. "I suppose it's been a while since I taste such a unique bou-"
"Trevor is alive." Finally Leon said something that made the Demon Lord shut up. "Last I heard he was shacked up with my aunt in Akitsumi, what was that called in your time? China?" Leon pulled out a book from the void as he went through the list. Dracula narrowed a glare as Leon flipped through the pages of the family album. "You're son is almost as much of a lady killer as you are from what I heard." The difference of course being that the Ladies 'Trevor' had killed were still alive when he was done with them. "I'm not surprised he was able to seduce Cali." Leon made a light 'ah' sound as he found the page that he had been looking for. Dracula turned the book around, his eyes landing on the night time picture of a woman with one eye dressed in a red and gold dress, making a peace sign with a white haired pale skinned man with yellow eyes like those of a wolf.
"Where. Is. He!?"
"Calm down. Much as you might wanna run off to go see him it'll be bad if control over this place falls into the hands of one of those guys trying to take over, wouldn't it?" Leon asked as he put a friendly arm around the vampire's shoulder. "You gotta clean up your house before you go on Vacation."
"And I suppose this is where you come in boy?" Dracula asked as he returned to his throne in a red flash. "Those accursed creatures are bound to this castle as much as I am: The Lords of Shadow and Acolytes of Satan both! Even when they do die the Castle just brings the accursed wretches back again!" Point of Interest, the Castle wasn't happy that it's Lord wasn't warring with humanity anymore, but it still prefers him and his vast raw power over that of the other candidates the Lords of Shadow and the Accolytes of Satan, whatever the story behind those factions were.
"Well not if we can't cut them off from the Castle." Leon replied as if stating something obvious.
"And you think you can deal with this hell hole? Keep these creatures from running wild? Swallow their sins?" Taking charge of the castle means taking responsibility for those within, each and every one of these creatures was a man eating monster from the depths of hell, the worst nightmares from the depths of humanities darkness. Men and women taken and trapped into the castle and made to commit the most horrific atrocities imaginable, victims and perpetrators in one package.
"Are those your terms?" Leon asked cocking a brow at the Lord of Shadows. Dracula had a passing familiarity with the clan, the demon bonded to the castle arrived in that state as a result of a member of the clan's actions, that was on top of the group of practitioners of the dark arts taking up residence in the castle's underground. Even the most proliferate witch or warlock only has the one soul to sell, the smart ones find what the demons their trying to contract with want instead of their soul, there was also the option of simply binding them by force but that requires that you're head and shoulders above the one that you're aiming for. "If needed I can even swallow your sins Vampire." Leon cockily suggested and with that a magic circle appeared, with words written in the air using magical script, the terms of their contract, and a bet. "Alright looks legit." Leon put his name on the contract, a red light binding him, though not to the Lord of the Castle, rather to the castle itself as signified by the Rook Sigil that appeared on Leon's back in glowing red light.
"Leon, what did you do now?" Angelica asked sounding concerned.
"I made a friend." Leon replied shrugging his shoulders. "I just need to pack him up so that we can move him onto the ship."
"Alright. If there's no more danger we'll go back to the clock tower." Angelica stated as she prepared to leave.
"I'm going to take my fiances back to the ship before I go pick up the Castle's Devil Arm." Leon stated in simple terms to the Lord of the Castle. "Afterwards we'll start discussing these 'sins' I have to answer for."
Castlevania: The engineering of an ancient civilisation meets the materials of the damned.
Castle Bernhard is very much a living thing, subject to a cycle of harvest by the Castle's residents, used for the castle's expansion, and then regeneration as the torn down walls regrow stronger.
The Countless ores and minerals used in the castle's walls have been smelted down and used to create this gauntlet engineered with the knowledge of the Ancient Aghartan people.
This weapon connects to the inside of Castle Bernhard, a theoretically infinite roulette wheel of different monstrosities gathered from the world over, at the wielder's discretion reinforcements can be spat out to aid the wielder in battle, but which of the countless horrors inside are spat out is the sole discretion of Castle Bernhard itself.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
It was a few days before Leon left the Bloody Rock, or rather left Castle Bernhard. The entire floating island disappeared, Leon landing on the Umbra the ship having been waiting underneath the barren island. A massive gauntlet of black stone accented by coagulated blood was strapped to Leon's arm, his new knuckles going past his knee while armour went all the way up to his shoulder. Both the Gauntlet and the pauldron depicted the face of a roaring Dracula, decorated with a castle's crenellations. Angelica and Olivia were waiting for Leon on the deck of the ship, both of them awaiting Leon's return, though far from a warm greeting by his Fiance's both women looked at Leon with clear concern.
"Huu. Whatever it is let's at least wait until after I've put the weapon of mass destruction away." Leon went to the main engineering room of the Ship where he found the Tartarus in a slot. "I want to say that it's been nice knowing you."
Leon replaced the shield-like weapon with that of the Gauntlet. The Changes in the ship were almost immediately apparent. The colour changed to a more grey and crimson scheme, the clock face locked at 11:25 cracked, warped and was eventually replaced by a stained glass window depicting a familiar man in a red coat while the ship's figure head turned into a vampiric monster with her wings spread, the rails that kept people from falling off the ship turned into crenellations. The Ship known as the Umbra was now known as the Bernhard.
As of now Leon was no longer under the thumb of Umbra. That was the good news.
The bad news was currently performing a collective Dogeza performance in the brig of the ship.
"I actually, literally, have no comprehension of the words I can use to describe how utterly pissed I am right now." Leon glared ahead at the five fools and former Saintess who were desperately pressing their heads into the floor of their cell. "Not only did you throw away the one reason we've been keeping you around. But the rest of you then followed that up by going on a rampage in the middle of a temple. What are you even doing here in the first place? Certainly your worthless parents haven't sent you here expecting me to clean up your messes again?" You could see the trembling forms of Julius and company. "Are you telling me that I'm still supposed to be looking after you after Your incompetency got the Armours my brother built destroyed?" Two of them had been lost to the ocean, the other three had been cut to pieces and scattered outside of the capital by the Black Knight. "Alright I know what I'm going to do with you now." The six prisoners gave a collective sigh of relief. "I'll just toss you punks overboard on the way over to Alzer, and then I'll tell the Holfort Embassy that you guys got killed chasing after monsters off the ship."
"Are you Insane!?" The six of them the Six Idiots immediately sprung up and grabbed hold of the bars of the cell. "No one is stupid enough jump off the side of a ship chasing monsters!" Julius shouted with a maddened look in his eyes. Angie and Livia gave the six of them flat dead pan stares, betraying not one hint of confidence in the people that they were looking at. "Right?"
"Leon you shouldn't just kill them for no reason." Olivia pulled her self away from this train wreck and resumed speaking with Leon.
"At this point in time I need a reason not to kill them." Leon answered by way of reply.
"What did I ever do to you!?" Marie squealed as she desperately pleaded for her life.
"Humiliated Angie, Jillian, Sarah and Clarice. Threw the political situation in Holfort into Chaos. Being a pain in the rear in general." Leon covered as many of his grievances as possible in a tone of voice one might recount their shopping list.
"Marie is also the one who took over the Saintess position." Olivia leaned over to Whisper into Leon's ear. "If not for her I would've been hijacked by Ann and I would've been stuck in a relationship with these five if I couldn't meet you in time."
That was reason one.
"You'll be able to milk the Royal Family dry for the rest of their lives at this rate." Angelica leaned over and Whispered into Leon's ear. "Not to mention that the little brat might be able to help deal with whatever situation has been unfolding in Alzer."
Leon has made his opinion about the games clear, if a situation did unfold in Alzer then he will deal with it, if he did get caught up in the chaos then it will be because he was unlucky, not because he decided to insert himself into the plot, thus Marie, who played the game taking place in Alzer, should be able to find the warning signs and help deal with them.
"Fine." Leon Let out a growl that made it clear he was not happy with this arrangement. The Light of hope reappeared in the Six Idiots eyes. "I'll just throw them into a Brothel in Alzer."
"Ah ah ah...!" Leaving Marie and co to their fates Leon walked back out onto the deck, more specifically going to his record player.
The Elves had been divided between men and women, or more accurately criminals and not. The former Rebels, the people who were experimenting on Yumeria in their dungeon and the spies that had been sent into Holfort's mainland at the academy and other noble territories were all working the fields in the former Offrey territory learning and doing agriculture work, those that didn't make the cut were sent to Avalon Forest instead. The Women, the Elven women who had been abused by the Elf men along with their sons and daughters, were learning thread work from Jenna and engineering from Nick. Pure blooded Elves live a long time, and when a half elf and a full elf have a child the end result is another elf, it seems that they were taking the opportunity handed to them to rebuild their culture from the ground up. Having checked in on the progress of the Elf island Leon began making his long term plans with Angie and Livia.
"I remember this!" Livia was currently closely examining the Gramophone that Leon had brought with him on the field trip. "You used it to go back to the bar with all those weapons on the walls during the School trip!"
"Instantaneous long distance transportation magic!" Angie had face palmed, she still couldn't believe it, a revolutionary magic item disguised as a common music box creating a network of secret transportation methods leading all over the world and to every major hub of civilisation known to man. "Is there any other major game breaking magic you know that can casually flip our entire society on its head that you would like to tell us about?"
"If there is, you'll probably learn about them from Mom." Leon admitted casually, not denying Angelica's scenario. "For one thing it's quite a limited magic. Each record only connects to one other record, and to my knowledge all of those 'other records' are in Rodin's jukebox."
"Which means that you can return to the bar at any time you like, and return to your ship in Alzer via the same method." Angelica didn't know what a Jukebox was but she understood the implications of what Leon was saying. "As long as Rodin is in the capital with his records you can come and see us any time you like. Even when he leaves the capital as long as we can convince him to leave us some of these 'records' then we'll be able to meet you at the Bar at convenience." The time difference between Holfort and Alzer was at least several hours, if you took into account that both sides had both eight hours of school and three hours of sleep that left roughly three hours of overlap between them. "I suppose then we'll just have to make do with what we have." Angelica just let out another sigh as she prepared to get to work. "You need to get ready for the Ceremony."
"'Ceremony?'"
There was a massive parade going through the streets of the capital, celebrating the victory of Holfort over the Principality, and the promotion of the hero of the conflict to marquis. Earth mages had to patch the holes so that the parade could walk/drive over them, and clear away enough of the rubble that people could get through the streets. Leon liked absolutely nothing about this. Leon was dressed in his usual Neon orange Armour and black Cloak as Mylene knighted him once more, there by formalising his promotion much to the cheers of the crowd, followed up by Leon climbing onto his new ship as he headed off for Alzer, the crowd cheering for him all along the way.
"He's going to hate this." Colin noted as he and his sister shared a jumbo bucket of popcorn.
"Agreed." Finley seconded the motion as she fed some of the popcorn to the doll she was holding.
"Blackmore." Once outside of the borders of Holfort, The Five fools plus Marie had been gathered on the deck of Leon's ship. "What are we doing?" To give context to Brad's question, their clothes had been replaced by cheap work-shirts, overalls and harnesses with a tether attached to them via locks and they had been given metal putty scrapers.
"On the side of this ship are sky barnacles." A type of mutated animal that clings to the side of ships, they feed off of the magical energy the ships give off, and if they get too numerous there's a risk of them draining the ship dry so they have to be scraped regularly. "You are going to repel down the side of the ship and remove them. Afterwards you'll swab the decks, clean the toilets, and fight off any monsters that get close. Once you've done those things you'll get cheap meals in the form of Gruel prepared by the Jailers and be allowed to sleep in beds of straw wrapped in cloth."
Bernhard's monsters had started to appear on the ship and were playing the part of crewmen, the five fools even had the misfortune of meeting them. Most of the creatures were human-like or had the ability to assume a human-like form, however each of them were a grotesque horror story that would haunt their nightmares for years to come.
"Are you serious!" Julius snapped on the behalf of the rest of his associates.
"Huu." Leon had seen this coming. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Fine then, he needs to only offer his generosity once. "Do the rest of you share his opinion?"
As if he has to ask.
"Do you think any of us want to do this filthy work?" Brad successfully crossed himself off the list of 'passengers.'
"You think I can maintain this Physique with just low quality gravy?" Greg made a show of flexing his muscular physique as he crossed himself off the list.
"I don't have time to be doing these chores I have to train!" Chris lowered the number of Passengers down to two.
"You seriously think the Prince or I will perform work that is beneath our dignity?" And Jilk was the last of the fools taken off this list. Leon turned to Marie, who had obediently taken a mop and was now swabbing the deck.
"You do have good survival instincts." Which would be the highest Praise that Leon would be giving any of his passengers today. "Agares disconnect Marie's tether." Notably Leon didn't say anything about the people he was actually crossed with as one of the grotesquely fat men in crude metal armour the group had seen around the ship unlocked the tether connecting to Marie's harness. "Jilk has water magic, so you won't die of dehydration so long as he gathers and shoots it into your mouths."
"Wait die? Dehydration?" Brad had a bad feeling about this.
"We made sure you ate before you left the capital, so you won't starve to death before we reach Alzer either." Leon continued to explain without addressing anyone's concerns.
"Starve?" Greg looked scared all of a sudden.
"Greg and Brad both have fire magic so you won't freeze to death either."
"What are you talking about all of a sudden?" Chris had taken a step back in fear.
"If any of you attempt to disconnect yourselves or sever the line you'll be left behind to fend for yourselves. In that event, personally, I would just pop the balloon and get it over with."
"What did you do to us you bastard!?" Jilk immediately attempted to pull the cable that was tethering him to the ship off of him.
"If you get attacked by monsters, hope that the Jailers get bored enough that they take to shooting them down in their free time." Personally Leon didn't think there was any monster stupid enough to get close to Bernhard, unlike these Five Fools they would've had to developed good survival instincts living out here in the wild.
"W-W-Wait! Let's talk about this!" Julius looked like he was the one who understood what was about to happen to them.
"I'm sorry do you think I care?" Leon asked in an incredulous tone of voice. "You five aren't noblemen anymore. You're criminals who went on a violent rampage in a densely populated area and are being punished as indentured slaves. Worse yet, despite being given the generous opportunity to repent for your sins You instead bitch and whine about getting unfair treatment, which means you're not even on the level of slaves anymore, you're stowaways now. Legally I have every right to toss you idiots off this ship to fend for yourselves in the void below." With that Leon snapped his fingers and a cargo chute that was hanging off the side of the Bernhard was inflated and released, dragging along five screaming idiots over board by their safety cables, which then pulled taught as they maintained their connection to the ship. Hanging underneath the cargo chute was a single solitary lifeboat, just within range of the hanging idiots so that they wouldn't lose their legs from the circulation getting cut off, presuming they were smart enough to use it that is. "Hopefully this experience will help to rehabilitate you idiots." It would be nice if something positive came about as a result of having to put up with this mess.
Marie looked over to where her five lovers were left screaming and hanging in the void, and sighed with relief as she had narrowly managed to avoid being dragged into hell by them again.
"What about her?" Agares the Jailer growled as he looked to Marie.
"Transfer the other five's workload to her." Of course Leon will make sure that she gets their pay too. "I have business to settle in the Castle, make sure that no one eats her or tries to turn her into a monster while I'm gone." Agares nodded as Leon left for the depths of the ship, meanwhile Marie got the distinct feeling she was just left alone with a horde of starving monsters.
Among the various denizens of the castle The Toy Maker's descent was particularly tragic.
Originally a Craftsman with a love of creating Children's toys, hence his alias, which gave way to a great skill for intricate detail oriented work suitable for his name sake task.
Though his work was impressive it lacked high demand, thus the craftsman lived in poverty.
However one nobleman saw great value in the Toy Maker's creations, Walter Bernhard, and agreed to become the Toy Maker's sponsor. Sadly the Bernhard's were a family of demon summoners.
The moment the Toy Maker stepped foot on the castle grounds he became possessed by a particularly cruel demon who twisted the Toy Maker's crafts in the worst way possible, worse yet, the Toy Maker's will was strong enough that the demon couldn't completely overtake the craftsman, giving him periods of lucidity in which he takes stock of the unceasing cruelty of the demon's actions in his body.
Excerpt on the Inhabitants of Castle Bernard by the Brotherhood of Light
This particular part of the castle reminded Leon of Yamatai or Akitsumi, if he remembered Jeanne's explanation correctly this architectural style was called Oriental. According to Agares the 'Toy Maker's Guest House' was built to entertain visitors from the next region over, from where this style of Architecture came from. The Guest House itself spanned a ravine, built on stone pillars and struts of wood, the twisted imagery of a snarling clown acting as the gate.
"I wonder if Tamamo or Shuten stayed here before?" If so, it raises the question of how they left.
That was neither here nor there though. Leon turned his attention to the 'door' that he used to get here. Some kind of massive twisted creature that now that he was done with it resumed the form of a long dead fossilised creature, along with Leon returning to his actual age.
As Leon understands it this 'Traveler' used to be one being, albeit one lost in dimensions caught onto the castle like a anchor point, and was subsequently torn apart, thus the long dead creature is in multiple places at once and can be used as a means of instantaneous travel. Rodin apparently uses similar principles for his records.
"So I'll be staying at the Toy Maker's place while I'm here?" Leon questioned as Agares continued to escort him.
"It is a guest house after all." The Toy Maker's split personality might make him dangerous on occasion but factually speaking he was the only one suitable for receiving guests, the rest of them were savages, or worse. "Do you disapprove?"
"Not really." Leon pulled a thickly packed notebook from the void. "My brother wanted me to trade notes for him while I was here."
"Excellent. Toy Maker quite enjoys having guests who share his interests." And more importantly: who can restrain his demonic half in the event that he decides to try and seize control.
"Speaking of which." Leon observed a flag at the top of the guest house, midnight black. "I don't suppose that black means 'welcoming to all visitors?'"
"Um no Milord." The Toy Maker had to come up with some way of protecting himself from the myriad of warring factions in the castle. So the Guest House was booby trapped, it's internal mechanisms connected to a flag pole on top of the guest house, and so depending on whether the traps inside were active or not, a Black or White flag would be present.
"That would be the other one Milord." The Jailer performed a specific pattern of waving flags and got no reaction.
The really tricky part was coming up with ways of having visitors identify themselves, depending on which of the myriad factions within the castle were seeking his boons the Human and Demon halves of the Toy Maker would have completely different reactions. At some point in time a proposal to perform these flag dances for each of the various factions went through. It seems that neither side of the Toy Maker was interested in seeing a envoy of Dracula today.
"Great." Leon on the other hand was a newbie, he hadn't even earned the right to be here let alone having an audience with the man of the house.
"Angie said she wanted to explore the castle." His plan of attack established Leon shrunk again as he activated the magic to reanimate the Traveler. It was summer vacation after all, he and his girls would want to spend time together.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: It depends on the events. Front line soldier fighting for my life and country in a world war? No. Participating in the creation of a great work that could help improve the lives of thousands? Yes.
Guest1: Yes but Mylene can take advantage of Roland's infidelity to put a competent individual on the throne.
Guest2: You'll know when you see them. The advantage of Bayonetta's ending is that there're literally thousands of universes that I can draw upon for inspiration that appeared from actual literal thin air.
KadoyaOkami: I Like Leon better like this too. Ah yes Karma, how glorious. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of years ago it happened, turning the Earth into a Asteroid belt and still having it function as a planet demands explanation.
RedRat8: That's still an option at this point. Keep in mind that Leon has canonically (spoilers):
1. Taken over the Principality of Fanoss.
2. The Lespinasse Territory of Alzer if not Alzer itself.
3. Rochelle, in it's entirety.
He literally has enough to build three countries just from his conquests, that flatly ignores what his shoved onto him to deal with in the aftermath of Arcadia, and he's still going strong!
Dakota Bruder: 1. Larger, harder to navigate, overall brittle. 2. Lords of Shadow more specifically. Yes, and they will be used as I deem necessary.
