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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.

The Maids Guide to Demon Hunting

Polina Laye

Farisian Maid

---

Polina raised an eyebrow. “Well, I could repeat back some of what I thought I heard. I believe I heard some very interesting things, after all,” she responded, keeping up her usual dry tone. She angled her body away as Lyssa destroyed the beast, shielding the young girl still clinging to her back from the worst of the gore.

Not that it helped too much, considering the entire theater itself was just a glorified charnel house at the moment. Oh well, the girl was probably traumatized enough as is. Witnessing a little more violence wouldn’t do much further damage.

“Polina. Let’s,” she agreed, her face softening some as they continued to exchange pleasantries in the middle of battle. “That is… unfortunate news, but it is good to know.” With the immediate need for information satisfied, she turned her attention back to the thinned-out herd of demons. With the three of them here, the Farisian maid reasoned that this would more or less be a mop-up operation from here on out.

With a child still clinging to her, she took a more passive position here, letting the absolute juggernaut that was Lyssa at the moment crush the beasts with Lucrecia’s support, while Polina filled the gaps, shoving knives and blades where they needed to be… like turning one of the large headless ape things into a pincushion, for example.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Giselle internally chided herself the moment the humanoid creatures homed in on her, regardless of the illusion. Of course such creatures might react with different senses. In her haste and pragmatic sense to preserve most of her meagre vampiric energy, she had crafted merely a basic illusion. Had she taken the time to create something more comprehensive, then perhaps she would have remained undiscovered for longer…

But that was all water under the bridge.

Seeing the creatures quickly react, she immediately met them with her sword, helped on by the gorebat with the vampiric equivalent of a shot of adrenaline as the small creature injected the blood it had been carrying into her body. Invigorated by the boost of energy, she fell onto the humanoid abominations with the paladin’s sword, slashing and dicing at them, as it once had against other undead in the hands of the fallen paladin eons prior. Despite its legacy, she had no qualms using such a weapon as a practical tool. In truth, had the paladins merely stuck with culling such creatures, abominations that made a bad name for the rest of the beings that shared a moniker of ‘undeath,’ she might even have tacitly approved of some of their actions.

“I suppose it would seem fit to use such silver as it was truly intended,” she mused to herself.

With characteristic elegance and grace that had been her brand, the white-haired vampire leapt out of the way of the charging beast, before using the momentum to turn back in towards the creature and stab it in the back with the holy weapon. Pulling the weapon from its burning wounds, she met the next creature with a great slash, giving little quarter as she advanced on the rest while they were still stunned. If the situation didn’t change, Giselle intended to destroy them all where they stood with the silver blade.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

Lissa, perhaps, might have gotten some amusement out of the remaining campfire discussion among the Krysa, but she was long gone by the time they had finished. With an obvious solution to simply avoid the marked trees, she had a more obvious path forward. Finding the Yaga necromancer’s abode, then, became more or less child’s play with her charm as a guide, the trinket heating up as she passed by certain wards or illusions.

It wasn’t before long that she arrived at a clearing with a quaint little cabin in the center of it all.

For the home of a supposed dark magician, it looked downright comfortable and welcoming compared to what the Raam had been expecting. Still, she approached its door with some apprehension. Before she moved to knock on the door, she caught on to some words from inside. Had one of the ratfolk made it to the cabin before her? She couldn’t help but to briefly eavesdrop, but nonetheless, she rapped her knuckles against the door, before announcing her presence in a more vocal manner.

“Hello? Am I interrupting something?”