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Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Thankfully, with some more application of violence, the injured beast stayed down. Still, whoever had created the abominable creatures had certainly known what they were doing, even after all this time. Once this entire episode was over, she would have to convene with the other vampire lords to deal with whoever or whatever was behind the creation of these beasts. Normally, she would have dealt with this herself –or via her subordinates—but clearly that would not be viable at this junction.

With a brief gesture, she made to repair her ripped dress, the fabric quickly rebuilding itself with thin strings of her blood before reforming into proper thread, closing up the damaged garment as if it had never been ripped in the first place. She knelt down to examine the corpses in closer detail, but not without a tinge of annoyance as she directed another flick towards the gorebat that had now returned atop her head and was making a right mess of it.

Well, it had helped her some in the battle, so she wouldn’t do much more than flick at it. She would tolerate it… for now.
Giselle’s after-action inspection was interrupted, however, by an explosion in the direction of the river. Hadn’t that been in the direction that Akyasha had headed when they split up? She certainly didn’t remember pyrotechnics being in her skillset. Frowning, she stood up, and after a moment’s thought, decided to render the cleric some aid.

The scene that she came upon was no less chaotic that the sounds of explosion had implied. It reminded her of the all too vivid scenes of the end of the Era, with a building rapidly aflame, agents of terror and undead on the streets –although this time the undead were hardly on the side of the vampire cause. More importantly, there was some particularly monstrous undead creature locked in combat with the red-haired cleric… armed with a cannon. Giselle would normally have dismissed it as harmless, but she too could feel the magic potential of the weapon.

Without hesitating, she broke out her firearm once more –now fully reloaded—and with six sharp reports, emptied the entirety of the revolver’s chambers into the creature even as she closed the distance, switching the revolver for her silver sword as she watched Akyasha maneuver around it.

She flicked the gorebat once more, nonverbally urging it to go help its mistress. Once the immediate danger was over, though, she turned to the cleric. “What’s going on here? Anybody in the building?” Depending on her answer, she’d move next to enter the building, too.

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Somehow, they all made it out intact, and not missing any limbs, extremities, or other human body parts. Conveniently, the same could not be said of any of the demons that might have otherwise still been in pursuit of Polina and the other two maids. It certainly had been a close call, though, and even she had to let out a breath of relief as she stopped to catch her breath once they were a safe distance from the still collapsing theater. What a waste of a grand old building.

“You got lucky,” she shrugged. Really, the pink-haired maid should have bailed long before her rescuers showed up.

Polina produced yet another silk bag of macarons and passed it over to the injured maid after she checked to see how her young charge was doing. Had she never eaten her own bag of sweets? “Here. Don’t eat it all at once or you’ll get a stomach ache,” she advised.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

In hindsight, Giselle thought, perhaps she should have waited until her powers were significantly restored until she started trying out the high risk maneuvers. All in all, it was still a fairly good move as she’d put down the bucking antlered beast, but she’d been slightly remiss in managing it before it died, as she wasn’t able to simultaneously finish off the creature from earlier… which came right back to bite her in the back, figuratively.

She winced as the beast made contact with her, piercing into her pale flesh and tearing into her delicate black dress, revealing much of her stomach as she immediately pulled back to avoid a follow-up blow from the foul monster. With a grimace, she repositioned; the injury was very minor in the grand scheme of things, but beasts such as these tended to always smell blood in the water. As she did so, she fired twice more at it with her firearm before closing the distance again, this time on her terms as she thrust out her sword again to stab it, before moving to finish it off with another downwards blow.

Unfortunate about the dress, but she could easily fix it after the little skirmish.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

“Right. I think we’re on the same team, after all.”

Lissa’s thoughts were confirmed the moment that the man made his case, which was a succinct summary of what she herself had learned thus far. Still, it was interesting that another one of the caravan had made it out of the siege. The fact that they intended to break the siege by bringing down the rest of the Oni clans was news in itself, although she suspected it wasn’t nearly as simple as that.

“Right. Well… I’m pretty sure this relatively minor affair might actually precipitate a region-wide mass casualty event, if you’ll excuse my clinical phrasing of the picture I’m getting,” Lissa started, tapping the side of her chin with an index finger as she made herself comfortable in the Yaga necromancer’s home, despite her little display of abusing her onion bulb.

“You see, the village of Dawn was a major settlement that’s not too far from here, if you’re not already aware of it. Recently, it’s been… hit with a small series of disasters, to the point where they’re relying on critical aid in the form of goods, medicine, and supplies from Mie’s caravan,” she explained. “Without the trade route being clear, in the absence of another source of external help, Dawn itself may cease to exist, together with its inhabitants and any tertiary hamlets that rely on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do send a force of their own to preclude such an event, as counterproductive as it might be.”

She glanced over at Novak. “And if what my fellow petitioner says is true, then the village will truly be in trouble if armed conflict does come to the region—it’d be even worse than not having access to caravans. To summarize, if we allow this to go on… you would be staring down the face of an entire region that’s decimated and depopulated, from famine, war, and probably pestilence too… and as a humanist, that’s really not something I want to see pass.”

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Surprisingly, the pink-haired maid was still capable of fighting despite her severe injuries, but it was obvious that she wouldn’t be able to fight her way out of this alone now. Thankfully, Lucrecia was able to come to her aid, even as the girl was nearly overcome with fits of laughter. If Polina had to guess, the maid was high on stimulants, and she said as much. “Next time, relax on the pervatin,” she dryly advised, even if she wasn’t entirely serious.

Quickly turning her attention back to the immediate environment, she noted their situation wasn’t very good, even as she sprinted to the entrance with her small charge on her back. The theater at this point was simply just falling apart—too many load bearing walls and columns had been smashed apart in the fight that the bigger portion of what remained was sagging and destined for catastrophic failure between now and the very near future.

“That will have to wait until next time,” she muttered, before widening her eyes as the theater seemed to take the side of ‘now’ rather than ‘later’ in coming apart. Jumping to the side, Polina just narrowly avoided a section of wall from turning her into a maid pancake… but coming down with it was also the entire bloody ceiling! Polina immediately broke into a mad sprint to the entrance before they were buried in the rubble. With not even seconds to spare, she immediately evaluated the ceiling and her own ability to keep it propped up with her powers… and concluded that she probably could, but it would take all of her energy. Unless she could try to keep up just part of the ceiling? It was a matter of life or death, but she chanced it.

“Run! It’s all coming down!” Shifting the rescued girl back from her back into her arms to give her some more protection, she directed her attention to the crumbling ceiling, keeping the bits most likely to flatten them either up or deflecting them away from their path out. There wasn’t anything that she could really do about what was on [i]top[i/] of that, but if it gave them enough time to get the hell out, then that was fine.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

Although Lissa sometimes tended to behave otherwise, she was not intimidated by the Yaga’s cold response, although she had to wonder why it was so frosty. She had her own guesses, ranging from how the girl was simply lazy, or it was because she had been more or less pressganged into following the Death Goddess’s tenets, but it wasn’t something she could divine. More importantly, she hadn’t said no, although given her own understanding of the ritual, it wasn’t something she could say no to.

“Yes, and yes, and I understand,” she replied. She’d traveled far and wide enough that she’d had some information on the Death Goddess, but never as much as she truly wanted. After all, she hadn’t known of the Adjudication until she had been told by her kinsman, as she said. At the mention of the other man, she frowned for a moment as she hesitated, but she ultimately shrugged. “Okay, I’ll bring him back in,” she nodded, before dipping back out for her other visitor.

Scanning the clearing, she quickly found her mark and called him back over. “Hey, fellow petitioner,” she waved. “You’ve been given a second chance, courtesy of yours truly! Assuming you’re here for the same reason I am, and I think you are, we’re going to make a very good case.”

That done, she dipped back into Baba’s cabin, only to be put off again by her hostile tone. “Well… alright. It was my understanding of how this worked, anyway.”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

“Persistent little monsters, aren’t you?” Giselle declared to herself, even as she wrote off another hound as dead as it landed off to the wayside. The white-haired vampire had a little less luck with dispatching the antlered creature. The shots from her revolver hadn’t done in the beast, although considering its size, it was not surprising that the weapon didn’t have the stopping power to put it down for good. It was an annoyance, but not something that Giselle couldn’t deal with as the creature wheeled itself back towards her. The head-on profile leant itself towards easy shooting, but she held her fire, instead taking advantage of its inability to quite turn on a dime to dodge the creature at the last moment.

Deciding to be a little more proactive, she flipped herself upwards, landing and mounting the antlered beast as she took hold of one of its antlers.

Coincidentally, it put herself out of harm’s way of the apparently not dead enough clawed creature and the other meddlesome hounds… but just in the right position for Giselle to swing down at it once more with her silver blade to hack at. She quickly turned her attention back to the beast she was momentarily riding, though, as it would soon realize what she’d done. Changing her grip slightly, she moved to plunge the blade into the back of its skull to end its thrashing and charging for good.

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

“Cake is fine,” Polina remarked. “You just need to have the routine to go with it. Macaron?” As with the girl from earlier, she produced another satin bag of the sweet and offered it to her fellow maid. Whether she took them or not, her attention was soon returned to the demons surrounding them, after a brief check-in on the girl that was still clinging tightly onto her. Given that she didn’t look overly traumatized compared to when she had originally found the girl, she marked off what she was doing so far as a success… although she reasoned that it was probably high time to leave regardless.

Making sure to keep away from the headless furnace thing, she launched more debris at it, mostly to just slow it down. When it was joined by a second demon, she split her attention between the two. Polina wasn’t particularly aiming to finish them off, just to keep them indisposed so that she could speak.

“Lucrecia, Lyssa, it is time to leave,” she said evenly, but with a firm enough tone to convey her urgency. She repeated the exact same statement after seeing the latter get clobbered by a second furnace thing. “Unless you would like to be buried by rubble and demons,” she helpfully added, before snapping off a couple knives at any demon getting too close.

“Lucrecia, can you be a dear and pull that demon off her and help her leave? This has gone on for long enough.”

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

The Raam-in-disguise couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow at just who had answered the door. She had expected a Yaga girl of some sort, not a foreign human of some import, and certainly not a man and his fox…. Hmm. Could they be from Mie’s caravan? The attire fit the profile. Lissa quickly ran the calculations in her head; had they too been petitioning for help from this necromancer girl? If so, they hadn’t been very successful, it seemed.

She was nearly taken off guard by the man’s parting question. In lieu of answering, she kept that raised eyebrow for his answer, before heading inside.

“Great. Well, if you can spare another moment of your peace and quiet, I do have a request. An unorthodox one, nonetheless,” she hedged, inviting herself into the Yaga girl’s home as she closed the door behind her. The first thing that struck her after entering was the manner of dressing of the necromancer girl. It was a bit unusual for the area, yes, but frankly, to Lissa it seemed downright cute and maid-like for a practitioner of dark magic. It was almost disarming. Her eyes briefly roamed over the girl’s cabin, curiously inspecting its interior, before her eyes fixed back on the necromancer’s green ones.

Judging by her dismissal of her pervious petitioner, this was likely the only chance or hook she had to get a serious consideration from her. Thankfully, Amos and Jolca had armed her with some somewhat useful information.

“I’m here to request the rite of Amaranthine Adjudication.”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Giselle mused to herself as she leaned to the side, giving just enough space to avoid contact with the creature before she sunk her blade into its flesh. It was quite cathartic, exciting, almost, to have a bit of action like this. Strange, perhaps, when she had preached neutrality from conflict for over a millennia, but those were more geopolitical goals than anything, and her doctrine of peace had always been the variety of being armed so much that sane people wouldn’t want to annoy the peaceful peoples that also happened to be armed to the teeth.

Not that the Paladins happened to be particularly sane or rational, as much as they or their followers might have preached.

Their crusade had been the reason that she had personally picked up a weapon for the first time in an entire age, however. Despite her power then, there had been some growing pains after so much idleness, but she had learned from the experience, even if it had killed her in the end. She had also been reminded of the fact that beating things up was in fact, or had always been, quite enjoyable. Her maids had always said as much. She would have to figure a way to bring back Polina and her sister in the near future.

And from her perspective, that experience was mere days ago. Her power might still be much reduced, but she improvised, that re-honed battle instinct making her move as a second beast descended from above. Recognizing danger of its forward momentum, she palmed the ancient ceremonial dagger that she had picked up with her free hand, even as she slashed upwards with her sword. Twisting as it entered past the blade’s reach, she tore into its wings with the ceremonial blade, giving a glance of acknowledgement towards Akyasha’s gorebat in appreciation for the help… even if it was obviously self-serving.

After all, she had told it to get off her head in the first place.

Returning the ceremonial weapon to its place, she took this very brief respite to craft ammunition in her revolver, just in time for the gaggle of beasts to reform around her. She immediately fired on the hound charging her, before shifting her body and unceremoniously sending it away with a low roundhouse kick to its side. Giselle used that momentum to spin away from the antlered creature, firing twice into its side once she stabilized.