[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/zQXUPoA.png[/img]
[sub][@HereComesTheSnow][@Krayzikk][/sub][/center]
It was a bad time to arrive at.

Night was falling, and with it, came the domain of the nocturnal. Fort Daelantine lost its battle-scars from ages past to the encroaching dark, and with it, became a slumbering giant, a golem’s corpse. Silent, except for bird cry and insect buzz, creatures rousing themselves as Mayon’s pale light shone. The messenger had escaped, then died on the spot, yet here, Serenity could see nothing that would signal conflict. There were no crows flying overhead, no stench of fire and dirt that accompanied a proper siege. The gate was ajar, but likely left that way only because of the messenger’s own flight.

She tapped a finger against the pommel of her longsword, pronouncing her thoughts.

The enemy would have bypassed the walls entirely. They had not come across any arrows studding the ground upon their approach; the guards at the battlements must not have been able to respond in time. No, perhaps not an airborne assault after all, if one considered how only a vampire and a half-demon could sense the death that clung to this place. Greater magics then. Teleportation, perhaps, like the such that plucked the Lightning Witch from her cell. Charm, perhaps, to bade all the residents of the Fort to a single point of slaughter. Plague, perhaps, sweeping with a brutal virulence through the populace.

She was ready, this time.

Buckler and longsword, three torches soaked in pitch, two hatchets, and a full suit of plate armor, the visor of her helmet lifted up to afford her precious visibility. The buckler, smaller than the shields she preferred, kept her off-hand free to hold a torch, one that ignited easily with a spark from her stone.

[b]“We’ll be depending on your sacraments, Sir Nicomede,”[/b] Serenity spoke in passing. There was something foul afoot, something unnatural.

If it was that fucking vampire again though, she was going to fucking lose it.

Soon enough, she was matching steps with Gerard, her destination clear: the interior of the fort itself. If only the Paladin could smell the massacre, then it only made sense that such atrocities were sealed beneath stone walls.