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Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

As mundane as the combined rescue attempts of two vampire lords were, it was not a surprise that the human rescue attempt was a success, even if it was a very close thing. The moment Julene crossed the makeshift threshold, Giselle tossed her crowbar aside, dematerializing back into a mist of blood before she grabbed her outstretched arm and pulled her away from the burning building before it could collapse on top of them all.

Once they’d cleared the danger zone and were out in a proper open space, she paused and reached out a hand to help the singed blacksmith girl stand. She looked superficially fine except for some scrapes, but she knew that any human that had breathed in that much smoke would likely be winded for days afterwards or internally injured. She wouldn’t fault her if she couldn’t stand, but if the village had a healer, she would recommend her to see them. Still, she had been impressed. Had she used explosives to help take down that wall? It explained the fire, but she was surprised that knowledge of the complex chemical formulae for such things persisted to this day. Even if it did, it would still be rare for somebody to grasp making such things well. She gave Julene a thoughtful expression for a moment before speaking.

“You’re very welcome,” Giselle responded, despite the human having addressed those words to the cleric rather than herself. “If you can walk, we should head back towards the village proper. I believe we have taken care of all the creatures we’ve encountered thus far, so we should check in on the others.”

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Quite frankly, Polina thought going in and shooting every demon she saw was a viable and effective strategy, and it clearly was already demonstrated to work perfectly! She wasn’t going to go ahead and intentionally dig her grave further –she’d already intentionally done that, after all—but why bother when she would be saved by bribery any moment now? Ah, there it was. Polina quickly noted that she would have to have a large selection of sweets ready at a moment’s notice –not that she didn’t already—to bribe Lyssa with to keep her mother away, because the Farisian maid was sure that the older women would likely have more problems with her in the future.

Having stoically met Myrilla’s snarling up until now, she couldn’t help but to derive amusement from her interaction with her daughter even as she kept her outer façade stone-faced. Polina did have to agree with Lyssa, though. She was getting pretty hungry.

“It did,” she nodded, once Lucrecia approached her. “Less time spent being overly cautious meant there was more time to exterminate the threat. The young lady here was saved because of that.”

What Polina didn’t know what to do with, though, was the young girl that was still clinging to the frills of her dress. Considering that she’d just narrowly avoided more than a tongue-lashing from her superior, she didn’t try to reengage the woman. Instead, she turned to the girl, kneeling down and giving her a pat on the head as well. “Would you like some food? You must be hungry after all this while.”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Thankfully, her intervention was timely, even if the cleric might not have needed it. Giselle was satisfied with her handiwork regardless, though the question of what exactly had happened here remained. Ghouls, beasts, and other forest creatures, even of the undead variety didn’t tend to cause what looked like gas explosions in buildings, after all. The vampire princess studied the building for a brief moment with a critical eye; she had been, after all, renowned for her architectural creations. It didn’t take that much skill to assess that this particular building –or shack, really—wasn’t going to last much longer… oh, there went part of the exterior façade.

"Right." Giselle raised an eyebrow at Akyasha’s response once she finally made her way to her. She was surprised the building was still inhabited, or that the human inside was still alive, but considering they were all here to make allies in one way or another, she didn’t hesitate to follow. She peeked in too, confirming the presence of what looked like a blacksmith girl… and lots of flame.

As Akyasha hacked at the building’s wall, she took another critical eye at the building –including carefully fully peaking her head in through the hole for the briefest of moments-- before helping in her own way. Using her blood creation skills, she shored up the building’s weakest point with a blood-crafted brace so that it might last perhaps a moment longer. Simultaneously, she conjured up a crowbar of the same –hacking at the wall with a silver sword would do no good, after all—aiding the cleric in opening up a proper path for the human still inside.

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Polina ignored Lyssa’s flouting of her instructions, knowing that they would go unheeded. Instead, she checked on her young charge once more as she cuddled into her, clearly afraid of the pink-haired battle maniac maid. The Farisian maid mentally shrugged. She’d gotten through [most of her own wartime mental trauma just fine, so she was sure the little girl would be able to as well, eventually.

She gave her a pat on the head and proceeded to head back to camp with the others.

They returned to their landing site to find the vicinity cleansed of demons, though not cleaned of the telltale signs of the dirty work. After making sure the girl was sufficiently alright, Polina settled in to sort her knives and blades into order before the radios were operational again. Although she was an expert at manipulating and summoning them from the folds of her dress, putting them back tended to be trickier, and she had to do the bulk of that manually.

Before long, though, they had reestablished communications with their ship, and she the others met the craft at the edge of the city, with girl in tow. Polina didn’t quite know what she would do with her yet, but she suspected she might make a good maid-in-training, if she wasn’t overly traumatized…

Of course, with the airship came Myrilla, and quite the tongue-lashing for some perceived tactical deficiency. Apparently, the woman was not a fan of her brand of force escalation. She spoke up, but not before slipping the head maid’s daughter yet another small bag of macarons, giving her a short glance to bring the two of them to an unspoken understanding that favors would be owed… namely keeping her mother in check after Polina opened her mouth.

“Permission to speak freely?” she asked, ever the strict adherent of… surface level formality, before continuing on once given the approval. “From my perspective, it was a critically successful reconnaissance in force, with significant threat elements quickly identified and swiftly dispatched, ensuring a greater evacuation and recovery rate for the city’s inhabitants,” she helpfully clarified. She was serious, even if it was bullshit. She could spin the world’s biggest pile of bull with the straightest, most serious voice without missing a beat. But she wasn’t wrong, either!

“More importantly, all mission goals were met, and ahead of time.”

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.”