Author's Note: Day 2
Most dangerous and influential among the 'Villainess' Fiancee's is Angelica Rapha Redgrave, Daughter of the Bloody Duke Vincent Rapha Redgrave. Until the unceremonious dismissal of his daughter the Duke was the crown's number one supporter. Angelica's relationship with Julius is best described as a mixture of Stockholm Syndrome, Social Brainwashing and Sunk Fallacy Cost. Ever since Angelica was five years old everyone around her have been telling her that she was in love with the prince, as she grew older and the two's relationship strained she was convinced that she needed to maintain it for the sake of the kingdom. Five years of swallowing her negative feelings towards the prince paired with three years of watching this war-avoiding-relationship fall apart drove Angelica to desperation and a nervous break down, resulting in the infamous duel between Julius, whatever other capture targets the Protagonist has seduced, and the Knight of House Redgrave. It was also the catalyst for Angelica's return in the 3rd game as the most absurd difficulty hike in the series since the Black Knight when her completed mental breakdown led her to awaken as the most absurdly powerful mage in the country's history since the first game's protagonist. Angelica will be a valuable asset if her considerable Managerial Acumen can survive her mental breakdown, better yet if said breakdown can be avoided entirely, for which scenario Angelica's relationship with Julius will have to be raised at least to 'neutral,' not a particularly easy feat. I've never seen two people who are supposed to have so much in common hate each other so much.
Notes on reoccurring characters throughout the series.
"I apologise for having you put on such a display lord Blackmore." Angelica bowed her head in repentance to Leon.
"Don't sweat it." Leon waved off Angelica's concerns as he rifled through his duffel bag pulling out the items he had been looking for.
"Um..." Olivia wanted to ask about what was happening but was afraid to do so.
"I am attempting to salvage my relationship with the prince." Angelica informed bluntly before she slumped with her entire body. "A Feat I find grows increasingly difficult with every attempt." And not just because Marie was progressing in her own relationships.
"By slapping him?" Olivia was only getting more and more confused as this conversation went on.
"It worked for Lafan." Angelica stated her hand on her forehead, already she could feel the headache swirling.
"And telling him off?" Olivia followed up with increasing concern.
"If he is not made aware of his negative behaviour then he will not correct it." Angelica sat down as she legitimately wondered where the highly intelligent prince with excellent charisma and outstanding leadership and management abilities that she was supposed to marry has been for all these years. "And if he is not subjected to an appropriate amount of peer pressure he will see no need to act on the information given to him."
"There you are!" Leon's exclamation was followed up by holding what suspiciously looked like a dog's skull wrapped around the loading chamber of a shot gun, jeweled eyes were visible through the eye sockets and hanging off the stock like a key chain was a small dog figurine.
"Leon. What is with this grotesque weapon?" Angelica stated as Leon gave a grin in response, he soon had pulled out three more of the weapons which he holstered on both his legs and on his back, along with a belt with a similar dog skull buckle.
"I've already introduced you to Left and Right Correct?" Which based on their tendency to disappear into shadow's Angelica was already coming to the conclusion that they weren't the normal Demi-human maids that they acted like. "This is Coyote, Wolf, Dingo, Jackal-" Leon showed each of his guns off as he named them. "-and this is Baskerville." Ending with his belt buckle. As the two girls were wondering what he was getting at the guns started to act... funny. Magical energy appeared to break down the guns and converge on the accessories, trailing off of Leon's body and manifesting beside him, as five black furred hounds with a mane of wild red hair.
The Hell Hounds: Four shotguns, and an ammo belt, channelling demonic energy into hellish explosive rounds. Each gun contains the soul of a Basilisk, an experimental Artificial Demon that was created when a dog's soul was infused with a large portion of demonic power and fused together with a gun, each gun shot shoots a dog head of fire into what ever enemy is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. Each weapon is sturdy enough to be used as a blunt instrument in melee, or can be thrown and manipulated via Umbran magic to act as remote controlled turrets while the wielder attacks other targets in melee.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
The Hounds of Baskerville: The Basilisk is an artificial demon that was created as an experiment using demonic magic to combine animal souls with weapons, the Basilisks are Hybrid's of Dogs and Fire arms. Under normal circumstances these terrifying creatures resemble black dog skeletons composed of demonic metals with fire wreathing the bones in place of muscle and fur, when they want to attack they launch their own flaming skulls at their enemies in a explosive attack, or bite down on them and then explode, their heads regenerate so they can do this as many times as they please. The pack consists of an Alpha male and his mates, each of the hounds fights with the savagery of their namesakes working together in order to systematically take apart the enemies of their master. If their master so chooses the hounds can take a less conspicuous form through the accessories on their weapon form.
Excerpt from the Lemegeton Guidebook of Demons
"Awww~!" Olivia made a cute cry as she looked at the animals before her.
"You have magic that lets you summon dogs?" Angelica looked more confused than she did anything else.
"You have magic that lets you summon doggies~!" Olivia echoed the question as she dived into the pile of dogs determined to hug and snuggle to her heart's content.
"Demons are flexible creatures, you'd be surprised at what forms they can take." Leon stated though the look on Angelica's face indicated that she was less surprised than he might be expecting. Which made sense to a degree if she's spent enough time around Left and Right.
"There's a spell that lets you summon Doggies~!" Olivia looked the happiest she's been the entire school year. Then she paused, her eyes going wide as enlightenment dawned on her. "You can summon Puppies..."
"I'm not sure that's how that works Olivia." Angelica looked at her friend awkwardly.
"You can summon puppies!" Olivia looked at Leon, while Leon can theoretically do what she said and turn the Hounds of Baskerville into puppies Olivia was doing a pretty good job of turning herself into a puppy with the look in her eyes.
"Three questions." Leon stated holding up the same number of fingers. "If, and only if, you can answer all three you can have one of the Baskerville's to play with until the end of the delve."
"Deal!" Olivia fist pumped to Leon's conditions.
"If myself or Angelica are taken down and need to be healed but the monster is still threatening the three of us what do you do?"
"Only one of you have been taken down in this scenario?"
"Yes."
"Separate and push the monster back with a barrier then pop one of the moon shaped lolipops and heal the injured while the other one fights the monster." Olivia looked confident as to her answer.
"Correct." And another fist pump from Olivia.
The Moon shaped Sucker was a candied barrier potion, the potion originally being a umbran recipe with the candying being an innovation from Rodin.
"If you start feeling tired from spell casting which one of the suckers do you take?"
"The small butterfly shaped one." Olivia stated simply. "That will restore about half of my mana which if I'm feeling tired is what I lost, and if I feel sick up from casting I need to take one of the large ones which should fully restore my mana."
"Correct. Lastly if you feel tired but haven't cast a large number of spells?"
"Then we need to take a break, and maybe eat, because then it's not my magic that's depleted it's my stamina." Olivia was objectively in the worst shape of the three of them, thus they could only move as fast and as far as she could.
Light surrounded one of the hounds, the faint outline of a clock's hands moving in the wrong direction could be seen and the beast was soon replaced by the most adorable little puppy in the world!
""Awww!"" And this time Angelica couldn't help but join in on fawning over the creature as well.
"This is gonna be a long trip." Leon stated letting out a sigh.
The group travelled through the dungeon, at one point in time Olivia found what she was pretending was a stick and was using it to play fetch with the Puppy Leon gave her to play with. The group fought monsters a few times already, nothing that the hounds couldn't handle though, weak demons such as scythe wielding Hideous mostly. They did have the good fortune of finding a chest though.
"Who do you think put this chest here?" Olivia asked as she gave Leon a potion to confirm the contents of.
"Perhaps it belongs to the Hideous Demons." Leon uncorked the bottle and gave it a sniff, confirming the health potion before adding it to their stash. "They're clearly intelligent enough to make the weapons that they keep trying to kill us with."
"Leon!" Olivia rounded on Leon and glared at him angrily. "I know the Demons aren't the best looking but that's no reason to insult them!"
Leon blinked stupidly for a few moments before the answer clicked.
"You guys don't know where monsters come from?" Leon looked at Olivia who blinked owlishly in confusion, looking over Leon also saw that Angelica was the same. For all the time spent in the library helping Olivia to study neither Leon nor his two demonic maids have found references to the Umbran or Lumen clans or how monsters are born. Leon's family on the other hand deals in the birthing, raising, empowering and training of such creatures. "You guys got time for a lecture?"
Q: Where do Monsters come from?
A: Monsters are broadly divided into two types of creatures, Demons and Angels. Most of them are born when human emotions bond with magical power, when the emotion is negative the creature born is a demon and when the emotions are positive they become angels. There are other kinds but to my knowledge Demons and Angels are the most common. To use these poor sods as examples Hideous are born from the feeling of someone or something being unfamiliar to us, this induces a minor feeling of repulsiveness, hence the name Hideous. If we go to the other end of the dungeon we'll probably encounter Affinities, angels born from feelings of familiarity and closeness to someone or something, hence people say that you have an Affinity for something.
Q: Does this mean Demons are Evil and Angels are good?
A: It's incorrect to assign terms like good and evil to most Demons or Angels. A Joy for instance is a shape shifting Angel able to alter their own form at will, they are also made entirely out of Joy itself without any negative emotions thrown in. What this means is that a Joy could look at an orphanage burning down to the ground and at best note that the flames look pretty. This isn't to suggest that such creatures are completely beyond humanity either, like any other living being it's only necessary that they be given time and motivation in order to learn.
Q: What other kinds of Demons and Angels are there other than the ones born from emotion?
A: Lots of them. Demons and Angels of all kind naturally produce Demonic and Holy power, when lots of this power is gathered in one place and allowed to bond with stuff it produces stronger more intelligent demons and angels. There were even experiments to do this intentionally, which resulted in our fiery friends the Basilisks among others, it can occur with people, animals and even objects resulting in a wide variety of creatures both familiar looking and strange.
Q: Why do they drop things when they die? Even the ones that aren't carrying anything with them?
A: Angels and demons are cut from the same cloth, that being humanities thoughts, feelings and desires. Humans kill things to get things out of them, when you kill a cow you want meat, hide, we even find uses for their organs and their bones. Our desires shape this aspect into the Monsters, and they take advantage of it. Most of the time they drop minor items, halo's for angels and orbs for demons, to us these are magic catalysts that help us to trigger unique effects, for them it's material to help them get stronger. The stronger they become the more powerful the items they produce gets, as we move up the hierarchy we get Demon Arms and Angel Arms, weapons that lack in durability but makes up for it with offensive power. At the top Are Devil Arms and Seraphim Arms, the sum total of the being in question turned into a weapon after the death of their physical body, in this form they can skim off resources in battle and use them to slowly heal themselves and regain their former power, at the same time they provide additional means of power to what they hope are their allies, but usually ends up being the one who killed them.
Q: Why are they in the Dungeons?
A: It's not like dungeons are the only places that they appear, there's plenty of 'wild' monsters out there in the world too. As for what they're doing down here though? The answer is actually very simple if you ask me. Dungeon is apparently a term that used to refer to prisons, they're trapped down here. Given what they're like when they do meet people I'm personally grateful that these ones aren't able to run around freely.
Leon Kun's Lecture on Dungeon Monsters
As Leon finished his lecture a new problem started to make itself known. All of the demons in the area were running, not towards them, intruders, but rather they ignored them and the small hovel they confiscated from the Hideous and instead continued on their way in their mad dash.
"These bastards are pack predators." Leon informed bluntly. "If they are ignoring prey when they have them out-numbered..."
"Something serious has entered the area." Angelica summarised bluntly. "An area boss?"
"D-d-do we have to fight it?" Olivia asked looking concerned.
"That depends on what it is." Angelica stated as she held her chin in thought. "If it's something that one of us has the ability to use then I'd like to take it's Drop item. It would certainly be a better souvenir than these." Angelica indicated the row of Hideous Scythes neatly lined up on the ground in a row. "The question here is can we kill it?"
"What do yah say Baskerville? Feel like going hunting?" Angelica could swear she saw the beast smiling at Leon's question.
Marie both had unfinished business and low hanging fruit to pluck. Memorising the route to the collapsed section of the tunnels that Blackmore brought down on a bunch of Angels in theory all Marie and her boys had to do to get their hands on the precious loot items buried beneath was to dig them up. Brad made short work of the damaged tunnel, earth magic tossing away stone or fusing it together so that it wouldn't collapse on them. Already a pile of loot items had been stacked to the side in the form of staves, musical instruments, and a set of claws perpetually wreathed in flames. In the mean time the others were finishing off whatever angel was still buried under the rubble, needing neither food, drink or air made them quite difficult to kill beyond shooting/stabbing them in the face repeatedly.
"Another one bites the dust!" Greg shouted/bragged as he pulled his spear out of the head of one of the weaker angels to force their way out of the rubble.
They were actually making good time too. As soon as they cleared this area and brought the drops back out of the dungeon Marie would actually have enough money to sustain herself for a little while, provided she can keep her parents from stealing it again. She can't wait until she gets her hands on the Bracelet and can prove her status as the saint, let's see if her parents have the balls to borrow money from the Church!
"Careful with this one Greg." Brad had already shaped several of the rubble chunks into spikes to ram into the larger of the Angels buried underneath the rubble. Greg's spear wouldn't do much good against the kind of creatures people invented Knight Armour to kill after all. "It's a lot bigger than the rest."
"Good! Keep it locked into place while I ram my spear through it's-"
"GREG! GET AWAY RIGHT NOW!" The rubble that the group was facing turned red hot and exploded in a shower of molten rock and ashes, then a huge lizard head like a dragon attempted to reach through and bite at them. Greg got the worst of it, his back was soon a patter of burn marks even as he rolled out of the way of the creature's bite.
It was a Salamander, one of the area Bosses of the Dungeon, Marie would know better than most, she's had nightmares about these abominations ever since she remembered what game world she reincarnated into. This thing was above and beyond what their newbie party was capable of handling, and more importantly even if Greg wasn't injured they can't outrun it! What's this bastard- A pause as Marie clued in on the situation. Of course! It was lured up here by the cave in that Jerk caused!
"Marie take care of Greg!" Julius called out already with his sword and shield ready to go on the offensive! "Brad get ready with the Defensive magic! Jilk Draw it's fire away from Marie and Greg!"
Jilk pulled out a shot gun that he had been carrying and unloaded it's full clip at the lizard's eyes doing little more than pissing it off, so mission accomplished then. The overgrown gecko pushed itself out through the rubble and slid along the ground like a penguin, only instead of sliding on ice this creature was leaving behind a trail of lava in it's wake. Brad's Stone wall appeared too early, the gecko abruptly changing directions by sinking it's claws into the stone, turning around and slashing through the wall, and almost Jilk thank Christ that he ducked in time, with it's fiery hot tail.
"I got this!" Brad fired his stone spears through the air the creature's face, it responded by releasing a breath so hot it melted stone before biting through the magma spears like a hot knife through butter.
"Chris! With me!" Julius and Chris ran forward, the creature responded with a swiping claw attack that Julius responded with a shield block, his entire body lighting up with magic circles as he strengthened himself to block the attack, Chris on the other hand charged forward and stabbed his blade into the soft tissue of the Salamander's armpit. With a loud hiss the creature backed away, unfortunately still with most of Chris's melted blade in its arm pit.
"Chris!" Marie called out before indicating the loot pile. Chris gave a thumbs up as he went looking for a replacement weapon, in time for Greg to finish healing.
"Alright you big ugly gecko!" Greg charged forward spear in hand before he abruptly threw the weapon, every muscle in his body receiving the enhancement magic. The Spear flew through the air, before making a loud chink and bounced off of the Salamander's eye lid, leaving a notable and distinct crack in the process.
"Greg's created a crack in its armour!" Julius shouted, Jilk had already reloaded his rifle and was preparing a second round of fire, Greg and Chris had traded spots with Greg looking for a replacement for his spear and Chris running over with several golden blades strapped to his belt. "Get the right Eye Jilk!" With another round of gunfire the Salamander had snapped around again, turning it's blind spot to Chris and Julius, the latter used his shield as a stepping stone so that Chris could get into the air and ram his blade through the crack in the eyelid.
"HAIISSSKKK!" The monster screamed, its flaming hot tail smashed through the loot item pile and hit Julius hard enough to send him flying. Chris's body was burned as the monster's blood sprayed on him before it finally died, falling over and disappearing into a burst of light as it's corpse transformed into another loot item, a Chain saw.
Marie ended up casting healing magic until she puked. Course considering that ninety percent of their profits had been melted into molten scrap by that stupid lizard she really did want to puke! What's worse is that her boy toys are all going to be covered in these burn scars as reminders to her, Mocking her whenever they sleep together!
"Don't cry Marie!" Jilk attempted to come over and console the crying Marie.
"All of the money we made on this trip is molten slag!" Marie really was crying. "I don't even have enough money to afford a dress for the ball!"
"Leave that to me!" Brad went over to the pile of molten metals, soon forming a pit mold that he dumped the material inside using his earth magic. "Once this metal cools and Julius, Chris and Greg all wake up we'll be able to carry this outside the Dungeon!"
Salamander: A particularly vicious breed of infernal Dragon, a Salamander is a creature whose entire body produces flame, each of it's bodies sweat glands produces a potent chemical concoction that ignites upon coming into contact with the air, and burns hot enough to melt stone. Each of it's scales are hard as diamond while it uses its fire as fuel for a simple heat into Kinetics magic that allows it to slide along the slippery magma it leaves in it's wake. Bad tempered and territorial one must be careful when dealing with this highly mobile chemical furnace!
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
Salamandra: A Chainsaw that resourcefully utilises every inch of the infernal dragon Salamander. Its sharp scales were forged into the weapons' teeth, and its heart supplies the engine. At full throttle, their teeth easily rip apart even the hardest of iron skin and ravage deep through into flesh below, or alternatively it can be ridden, leaving behind a trail of molten earth and ripped ground below much like the demon whose parts make up it's form.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
Leon recalled from Rodin's stories just how nasty this overgrown lizard was to deal with when he hunted one directly back in the day. It's fast, it's hard, it breathes fire and it doesn't fight fair. So they didn't give it an inch. Just cause it can swim through lava that doesn't mean it likes to, especially when it's already chasing prey, so instead it slid through the Hideous camp, where it slammed face first into Olivia's barrier and gave itself an concussion. Before the creature knew it it was pinned down, each of its limbs, including its tail was grabbed hold of by flaming skull headed hounds. Just as the Salamander was about to released another gout of flame another barrier slammed down on its jaws, and the fire exploded in its throat. Angelica walked up to the creature slowly, one of the Hideous scythes on her shoulder and one of the flintlock shotguns in her other hand as she approached the creature.
"This is a lot easier than what I imagined my first boss would be like." Angelica explained as she held up the Shotgun.
With a loud bang the gun was fired at point blank range directly into the eye of the Salamander, which closed its eyelid covered in diamond hard scales in time but said eye shield was now shattered. Tossing the one shot weapon away Angelica rammed the scythe blade into the eye of the creature, swishing the weapon around as it was rammed into and through the brain leaving behind a liquid soup before pulling the blade back out. Light swirled around the creature as it broke down and reformed into a much smaller form, it over all resembled the true Salamander, a small lizard like body and a long tail, but it wasn't a creature, it was a machine as made clear by the long blade of a chainsaw that was sticking out the front. Angelica picked it up and the tail wrapped itself around her arm and her hand gripped the handle inside, weapon lightly buzzing like a cat purring in it's owner's arms.
"Now I'm satisfied." Angelica lowered the weapon to her waist and watched it wrap it's tail around her.
"We should probably grab our items and leave." Leon stated before he turned to Olivia. "Unless you want to grab something too?" Olivia shoot her head in the negative. "Good, because we have more work to do yet."
The trek back was mostly uneventful, they ran into the group of Hideous that the Salamander scared off earlier but Olivia's barrier's and Angelica's fire wiped them out.
Marie and her boy toys ultimately got back first, bringing with them a big block of refined angelic Uru alongside a Salamandra weapon and some red orbs, all of which were then traded in for cash. Conversely Angelica's group brought back a massive amount of Red Orbs, which were being hoarded by Leon, a armoury worth of Hideous weapons, which were also traded in for cash and another Salamandra weapon, which Angelica of course kept. Even with a third of the materials taken as taxes Angelica's group still made a pretty penny.
"Um excuse me." Olivia approached the counter with the clerk who looked up from his reports with suspicion. "Is that for sale?" Olivia indicated the second Salamandra weapon that she's seen in one day, in the pile of items that were waiting to be shipped off to the factories where it would be broken down for parts. Instead Angelica walked away with a second of the Salamandra Chainsaws.
"I can't believe you bought it for me." Angelica was more stunned by Olivia basically taking all of the money she earned by selling off the Hideous's weapons and used it to buy a second of the same loot drop she already had.
"I figured that they wanted to be together." Olivia had once again convinced Leon to let her cuddle with and carry around one of the hounds in puppy form.
"You figured they wanted to be together?" Angelica asked looking at Olivia incredulously.
"Well yeah, Leon's guns have a will of their own." Olivia petted the puppy in her arms just to emphasise her point.
"But what am I going to do with two of them?" Angelica countered making her confusion known. "I need at least one hand in order to cast magic Olivia."
"I do have a suggestion." Leon interrupted the pair's debate by sticking his finger between them.
A few moments later Angelica was awkwardly walking forward on the Chainsaw's after she attached the two lizard like weapons to her feet as if she was just learning how to skate.
"Where do you get these bad ideas from?" Angelica asked looking down awkwardly at the two weapons that had made themselves comfortable on the ends of her legs.
"Send them some magical energy." Leon stated a big grin on his face.
"Why would I want to activate chain saws while they are latched onto my legs?"
A few moments later Leon was skating across the training yard using Angelica's chainsaws as roller skates.
"He's mad, there's no other word for it other than mad!" Leon made a twirl comparable to a pro figure skater as he swept past the two girls, despite Angelica's concerns.
"He looks like he's having fun to me." Olivia stated as Leon stopped in front of the two girls, handing Angelica her weapons.
"And like that, it's easy!" Leon stated with a shrug of his shoulders. "Loot drops only work for people with compatible elements how did you do that?" Angelica levelled a glare at Leon suspiciously.
"Shadow magic's main attribute is the ability to absorb and break down magical power, I merely absorb instead of breaking down, with the weapon siphoning it's own magic power back from me I get to feed it a little extra in the process." Leon illustrated his point by forming a circle with its own magical power leading into the weapon. "I can essentially hack the requirements to my benefit." Leon held out the weapon again for emphasis. "You try." While Angelica reluctantly tried riding around with the chainsaws again a mop of green hair was watching the group have their fun at Angelica's expense.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Thanksgiving was over a month ago. If I told you that they wouldn't be twists now would they?
guest09: Glad you Like it.
Rodvek97: Complicated. Angelica is currently using Leon to make Julius jealous, to mild success, true romantic feelings will follow once Julius is done taking a hatchet to Angie's feelings for him. Julius will probably feel relieved though, as while he isn't sure about how he should feel about Angie he knows how he feels about Marie.
KadoyaOkami: I'm taking heavily from Iwasbored's Trapped on the Drawing Board prompts if that's what you mean. I wouldn't worry about Marie and her boy toys, well that's not true, if a person in real life ever got into as much trouble as they do I would be deeply concerned about them. I'm not sure that I can accurately convey Bayonetta/DMC style combat in writing, I have tried before.
Guest: Canonically? The Kingdom has been actively sabotaging itself for at least two generations. After Fanoss separated they set up the Forest of Ladies to drive the low ranking nobles into Bankruptcy while making the middle ranking Nobility so blatantly corrupt that they could justify wiping them out. I understand that Democracy is objectively the best governmental system possible, but that does not justify running your own Kingdom into the ground to get there. So yeah, their internal structure is that bad.