Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"Trish?" Sean fairly jogged into the sitting room. Thick glass shattering had caught his attention while he had been admiring the skyline. Amid the lush wine red furniture and inviting fireplace, the summoner was standing there with two broken orbs laying around her. Just chunks all over the place... "Wait... did you break those?!"
The idea of breaking a priceless relic caused a rock to sink into his stomach as he looked at the chestnut brown haired woman. Her expression was one of mild annoyance, with both of her hands on her hips as she stared down at those shattered orbs. Trish looked more like a pair of naughty house pets had an accident on the kitchen floor than she had broken an arcane relic.
"We have people fighting back in the castle, and they broke the other orbs, that's what happened," Trish explained in irritation.
"Fighting back? How? The castle brought only sheeple I thought," Sean replied as he inched into the room while studying the thick carpet for smaller shards.
"I don't know, they can't be from town, we put them all to sleep. But somehow the castle now has people who can fight." She sighed in annoyance as she raked the room with her gaze. "I guess I need to tell the superiors." The castle was everything their superiors had promised! She could feel the gentle pulse of power even in the stonework. The undead servants weren't the least bit threatening and the accessibility to obtain demons from hell for her pets was easily a thousand times simpler.
But orders were orders.
"Well if you're going to see Francine she's found a parlor and spending time in there last I saw her." Sean offered as he returned to the door and began checking the outer hallway for any servants. "Down the hall to the right..."
Trish thanked her fellow cultist as she left and made her way down the hallway. The massive windows revealed a great deal of the distant landscape. A romantic view of mountains sky and forest out in the distance. Such an entrancing view that it distracted her the whole walk as her mind went over what she would do with her room. Free from needing a job or paying taxes or bills, all her needs met! "Oh..."
She could see Mother Superior walking out of a room, her pristine, dark business suit still looked as crisp as it had when they finally entered the castle. Her long sable colored hair was bound up in braids that led up to a bun behind her head. The inch high heels clicked sharp yet discreet as she walked along the stone floor. "Mother Superior!" Trish called out before jogging to catch up to the woman.
The shorter woman started slightly before turning to face Trish, her expression serenely patient as Trish stopped in front of her. "Yes, daughter?"
"Well you instructed us to let you know if there were any problems." Trish answered before giving a slight weak shrug. "So I have to report in."
Francine didn't say anything, instead her posture shifted to give Trish her full attention.
"Well the Sheeple we caged up for Milford...were freed. Most are dead but a few got away since there are strangers in the castle. Strangers who can actually 'fight' demons..." Trish explained, earning a visibly raised eyebrow and the slight shimmer that came from the woman's own power stirring at this.
"The castle allowed humans inside it? Have you been able to discern their strength?" Francine asked, 'the only humans I can imagine allowed in are the hunters. The hunters that protect the Lord of the Castle. If they're here... we may not have all the time we thought we had to get the Master Chambers open.' she thought.
"Well, they broke the orbs I was using, and are holding their own rather well against Milly." Trish began only to receive a slight frown of disappointment. "Milford, sorry, just... Oh come on..." Trish briefly argued, noting the small frown on the Superiors' face. "Who names their kid 'Milford' in this day or age?"
"Well, keep me informed, I need to talk to Father Superior about this matter now." Francine answered, smoothing out her frown. 'The castle is not obeying us... apparently we can't treat this as a vacation anymore.'
She watched as Trish recognized the dismissal and retreated back down from the way she had come from. Freed up, Francine turned in the direction she had been going before, but this time to observe the hallway. Instead of the casual stroll she had sought to have.
Along the long hallway there were servants cleaning various states of destruction from the Awakening. Several maids were rolling out a new carpet and their presence gave Francine a direction to go in. Walking along, she couldn't see a visible cause of death. But by now it was pretty obvious that any undead in the castle was in the castle because of murder.
Perhaps the injury was underneath the clothes?
"Excuse me? If I may ask a question?" She called out before hurrying her steps over to the undead french maid dressed servants.
The pair looked up before righting themselves from unrolling the cleaned carpet, vague awareness in their eye. "Yes?"
"I'm looking for Father Superior, would you happen to know where he is?" She asked, and patiently awaited a response. Experience, brief though it had been, had been showing that the servants could take a bit when asked to search for something.
"He was ejected from the Library for noise violations. He's currently wandering down the hallway outside of its door." The maid on the right answered emotionless in tone as her eyes slowly focusing on Francine.
There was just enough of a tugging action to the movement that it made Francine ponder that the eyes weren't being lubricated. Thus stuck in place until forced to move, not that she was into dissecting a zombie to find out. But there was a strong 'theme' regarding how the Castle seemed to have manifested both itself, and its staff.
"Well, Dracula is a young man now, I suppose this was the Castles attempt to entice him back," Father Superior had suggested with a patient, if amused, half smile on his face.
"Thank you," she answered before summoning a portal. Passing through it brought her to the desired location, a long elegant hallway far different from the outer parts of the Castle. While the walls were still made of stone, there was no raging damage that needed cleaning. Along the ground were clean carpets to protect the legs from the chill of the stone floor. The walls held a mixture of covered paintings and skeletal renditions of biblical scenes.
Facing the lone side door down the hallway was a man of middling age. What with hair care products that hid the gray. He fairly towered over Francine, and had a slender build to his frame, while his hands rested folded in the long sleeves of his robes.
"Really? A portal? My dear, I know that you're excited with the blossoming of your magics but really..." He light heartedly chided as he turned to watch her approach, his gaze going over her head just enough to watch the dark energies she had use dissipate. Yet he could see something was on her mind when she didn't react with the same humility.
"I'm afraid I have a reason for coming here quickly. It appears that the Lord of the Castle has returned," she explained. "Did you make any headway into learning how to open the Master Chambers?" She asked, turning so that she could see both sides of the hallway clearly.
"He has? Well that makes this all the more difficult," he agreed with a frown bringing his originally calm, almost jovial expression down.
"Did he come alone? We expected his arrival given the method we used to summon him here. But I thought that the seal that the Vatican used on him, would make him too tired to travel up into the Castle proper so soon." Father replied, watching as Francine nodded.
"Or even summon any of his servants down to gather him. The Hunters who now serve as his Guardians have arrived with him. But with him here the castle is bound to open the Chamber for him. I was always under the impression that he didn't want the throne back, but if he gets there he's bound to turn the castle against us." Francine noted, as a skeleton in a painting suddenly developed a human ear.
"You're right, we should notify everyone so that they can be on guard for guests..." Father replied nodding quietly. "I guess yelling at that deaf old Librarian has ruined my chances to check the books.." Father ruefully sighed.
"Father..." Francine also sighed, though less ruefully and more 'what am I to do with you'.
And while Grant wasn't willing to lean any further through the wall to check on what was going on. Instead he floated fairly in the wall with a thoughtful expression on his own face. 'Sounds to be the leaders of these groups... So wait. They consider our clans 'humans'?' Grant folded his arms across his chest as he was left to ponder that.
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"Remember the stories of Achilles and Balder don't you Sam?" Alex asked out of the blue.
The kind of questions one could trust a teacher of myth and legend to ask... But Achilles and Balder where from two different regions. More over their stories had nothing in common save one particular thread.
Invulnerability.
The logic was sound and this guy... because they had uniformly refused to address this guy by the name he wanted. Did show that insane level of near complete invulnerability. So while Achilles was vulnerable only at his heel and Balder to mistletoe the quartet now had to figure out what this guy's weakness 'was'. Clearly his eyes could be melted, and Max was flinging enough weapons at him to supply all the Vikings going to Ragnarok.
Yet nothing pierced, cut, cleaved, slashed, whip was a turn on, stab, drill, or anything else managed to wound this guy.
He was weird too.. He was clearly aware of the cults, and the castle, but when engaged in conversation.. Well he made it sound more like 'he' was a Monster hunter, not a cultist or whatever. A mindset that was far more dangerous than just his new powers, if that mindset was what caused him to get his human form back.
'He should be a monster, mindless as we found him. Those that 'have' been liberated wanted out, or to lash out against Dracula for what he did. Not want to move into the castle!' Alexis thought to herself as she edged the blades and points of Max's weapons with cold. 'Who even is he? He figured out I was undercover, but I can't... well...' It occurred to her then, that she might 'have' recognized him. But she never saw what he looked like before he went monster. It was very likely that he looked like someone else, something less Adonis in build. In which case she wouldn't know him from Adam as they said.
"You think he'd like to deep throat a spiky billy club?" Max asked out of the clear blue.
"Ah wah, what?" Alexis sputtered in alarm as she watched Max begin to craft such a 'thing'.
"Well the only thing I can think of is invulnerability. So it occurred to me that his eyes are inside his head, behind his eyelids... What if his insides are still soft and squishy," Max explained.
"You're talking about sodomizing him from the mouth?" Alexis tried to keep her discomfort from her voice before just giving in and sounding ill. "Max, please..."
Alex and Sam had both simultaneously whipped their heads around to stare at Max before backing up. European sensibilities be damned, Max was through playing nice.
"I'm going to try!" Max resolutely announced before she summoned a series of weapons to pin the man to the wall.
'Why did we agree to leave Sam with Max?' Alexis thought to herself. She watched as Max thoughtlessly charged ahead with her 'weapon of choice'. While both Alex and Sam were giving Alexis 'the look'. That stupid 'you're a girl, she's a girl talk sense into her' look. An expression that she could only see thanks to the enchanted flames that Max had been willing to provide the group. Encased in ice, it reflected through out the room, with just enough light that if their summoner 'friend' started opening portals again. They would be able to tell by the improved lighting.
It also meant that they could see as the guy push back against the handles and whips that were being used. Alex looked around the room, a needed distraction, and could see the fallen cage, a melted lumpy puddle on the floor. Within his hand, the Alucarde spear rested, not close enough to the man to absorb any darkness from him. With the feeding rate was so slow it wasn't going to power up soon.
"GET IN THERE!"
Sam walked past Alex lightly, thumping Undead Killer against his side while Max began yelling obscenities at the stranger. Giving Alex space to think on the hunting lodge and this guy, "Sister?" He called, watching as she turned and floated her way to his side. "You wouldn't know if he was really a spy in the cults would you? I mean... Could he just be saying that?"
"I'm afraid not, we didn't do a lot of socializing at my rank. It was mostly the upper ranks who interacted with each other until shortly before that false church started being built." She explained quietly her voice drowned out by the gagging yelling.
"Hey! Check this out! He can feel this!" Max called out with a raucous grin attached to her face. 'I can't hear Sam talk you bastard! I don't know what you did yet, but you did something.' she thought savagely as she mercilessly twisted the billy club down further into his throat. He was gagging and trying to get words out, but there was no pain just frustration.
Solid wooden handles were being snapped like twigs, even metal ones were being bent in his frustration to get Max to back off. But blood was spilling out of his mouth, chunks of flesh were being churned out the deeper she grinded. The handle was still sticking out of his mouth, but he wasn't able to swallow it like those old circus show acts.
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Meanwhile Elizabetha looked about the makeshift room with quiet concern. Despite being dead she could feel the unease in the living as they stared at the undead servants among them. There were two zombie maids, both holding candle holders and lit candles. Which would normally have been fine, but even the warm small flames couldn't hide the undead qualities of the maids.
Made all the worse by Elizabetha having floated down from the ceiling to enter the room. Unaware that the living would see her arrival, due to her calmer Lord Husband in the castle.
"Why are you here?" She asked a maid who was trying to shoo the living to the door leading upwards. Yet upon closer inspection she realized the maid couldn't speak, the throat behind the lovely lacy collar had been slit open. 'If my Lord Husband reassumed the thrown he could fix that...' she thought even as she looked to the other maid for information.
"The Lord of the Castle was asked to dispatch us here...my Lady," The second maid answered instead. "A battle is taking place over there..." She pointed down further beyond the cave towards the exit and into the darkness.
'I should have appeared further above and pretended to be alive...' Elizabetha realized belatedly before turning her attention to the people around her. "I realize the maids appear rather alarming. But I assure you they mean no harm..."
"Harm? There were more of us, they got burned alive!" one woman noted her voice cracking with the remembered horror. "And you're a ghost! I saw you drop in from the ceiling... Where are we?!" The woman, lost to the darkness, was a willowy tall, soft brunette. Her clothes were loose fitting and hinted that for her, it had been near bed time before her abduction.
'People were murdered? Then they should be in the castle, being sorted into their afterlife bound here...' Elizabetha realized. "You're in a castle... a very special one. However; allow me to guide you above ground..."