"... Ah."

It had been just too much at once for him.

The vampire's headless body toppled sideways, landing with a dull thud, crimson leaking onto the stone floor. His head, in Tyaethe's grip, seemed to still be quite alive for the moment.

That was unlikely to last much longer.

"... I see, so I should have taken you all more seriously," he said, speaking in spite of being nothing more then a severed head, "My my, I guess all that taunting didn't pay off, did it? You handsome gentlemen sure now how to reject someone..."

It was strange, how Damon Cal seemed to speak so casually, even though his remaining life was draining away at a rapid pace.

"... To be honest, I had hoped to fight [i]you[/i]," he commented, his crimson eyes, coming to rest on the vampire holding him, "You're quite adorable, far more then I expected."

To see someone manage to sigh without a throat was rather impressive.

"Perhaps agreeing to join them was a mistake, after all. In any case, I shall leave you with these parting words:"

A smirk crossed the vampire's lips.

"You should best prepare, for not everything that is gone is dead."

The light left those crimson eyes, and yet the smirk remained on his lips.

Damon Cal was dead.

[hr]

Her knights were at her side, and Vosahnn's sister was still alive...! Fanilly could feel the hope awaken, just a little, in her heart. The enemy would dare not kill their hostage, not now. Not when she was still of potential value in order to preserve their own lives.

The skeletons were immediately distracted with Maritza's arrival as well! One had already crumbled, and the others would prove no more durable then it had. As long as they kept making this progress they could do it!

Taking one of the skeletons by surprised, the diminutive blonde knight used the pommel of her sword like a hammer, knocking apart its upper body and caving in the back of its skull. The solid metal was more then enough to break old bone, even if the skeletons were armored! Pulling Vosahnn close with her free hand, she kicked another skeleton away, the others completely distracted by Maritza! As long as she could get in close...!

"Tch."

The lightning mage cocked her head, a blue shield of light and rotating symbols seeming to materialize around her body, sparks flying as the thrown knife bounced off of it. Raising one hand, she unleashed a bolt of lightning towards her attacker, from the center of a magic circle of light at her fingertip!

... And in a blur of red, it suddenly veered ever so slightly off course, ripping past Sir Gerard and striking the wall meters behind him with enough power to blow apart the solid stone.

"I missed? Damn it!"

Confused at what could have just happened, the mage concluded rather wisely that her opponent was now too close for any spell of sufficient power to stop him for certain. Instead, she immediately began moving back, raising her hands to reinforce her magical barrier and try and keep up her defense while maintaining some distance.

The masked man cocked his head as his skeletons proved insufficient.

"You do realize I could kill the little nem at any time, don't you?" he commented, "But if you insist on this farce..."

He opened his cloak. Affixed to his belt were jars, four total, filled with a sickly green-brown fluid.

"I shall see to it that this is nothing more than a fool's errand."

Casually, he tossed one to the ground, allowing it to shatter. An impossibly foul odor, like that of long-rotten, fermenting meat, filled the room as the grotesque viscous fluid flowed from around the shards of glass. Almost immediately it spread out from where the jar had landed, its mass scooping up scattered bone shards, broken armor, and the weapons lost by the skeletons, before steadily rising and taking on a vaguely humanoid shape, shards of sharp metal, and bone sticking out of its mass, and the weapons it had captured protruding from one arm.

"Wh... what?"

Fanilly was taken aback. What was this awful... slimy... thing?!

[hr]

"Ah... well..."

The princess paused for a few moments.

"With all this commotion, many of them are quite busy ensuring that word does not escape these walls. And I can speak with them whenever I like... speaking with one of the Iron Rose Knights is quite different," she replied, smiling. It almost felt like the attempt on her life was a distant memory, at least for the moment.

"Ah, the Ingvarr, what were they like?" Eliabelle asked. She'd never met any before, so she was frankly eager to hear more about them from someone who had.

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