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Stormhaven. A sprawling city with well-kept roads, prosperous trade, one suspiciously burned-out house, and a general air of contentment. Sure, things could be better, but they could also be far worse, and their Countess had done a wonderful job of things since she took power.
"You'd think they were ruled by a mortal," Nalina said, looking over the crowds.
"Well that seems rude," Nerezza replied. "Things were far worse when that was true. No, Cerise has done far better with Stormhaven than any mortal could have in these few decades." The sun had noticeably sunk in the sky since the beginning of this leg of their journey, and Nalina recognized the familiar scent of meals cooking all across town. She stopped for a moment to separate the scents in her mind, but Nerezza nudged her shoulder. "Come, pet, it wouldn't do to be late for our date at the fete," she said playfully, eliciting a reluctant laugh from Nalina. The two drew some attention from onlookers, who knew from their fine clothes that they were there for their Countess's event. Even the boldest in the impromptu audience found themselves intimidated by the look in Nalina's eye, though she made no effort to scare any children. Indeed, a few children looked in awe at the two, admiring their grace, composure, and fashion; Nerezza heard more than one girl say she wanted a dress "like the vampire lady's".
The crowds cleared out at the last road to the Countess's manor, atop the hill at the center of the city. None dared to step onto the path but Cerise's guests, but some still gathered to see the visitors. It was surprising to Nalina, behavior she'd have expected from a backwater like Stonebridge. But there were quite a few vampires in one place tonight, she reasoned, perhaps it made sense. More of them were armed than she'd expected too, and she wondered if they should expect trouble. Perhaps, she mused, that was simply to be part of her life now.
The two were greeted at the door by one of Cerise's servants, a mortal blonde woman in a humble but well-made dress. It seemed designed to not get in the way of work, and she gracefully led them to the parlor. It wasn't a terribly large gathering, and Nerezza immediately recognized most of the guests, but certainly not all of them.
"That one is Celeste Snowbloom, the Witch of Blackbriar," Nerezza whispered, gesturing toward a smaller woman with pale red-streaked eyes and white hair in a bun. "Her partner is... Huh. Tilvi Sun-Kissed." Nerezza's attention lingered on the brown-haired woman in a white tailcoat accompanying Celeste.
Nalina recognized from her build, and the sword at her side, that Tilvi was a fighter of some sort, but couldn't figure out why Nerezza seemed so surprised. "... and Tilvi is..?" she prodded.
"Tilvi is- apparently was a hunter," Nerezza explained, still wrapping her head around what happened. "She'd hunted and slain twelve of us in the span of four months, which is... uncommonly fast. But Celeste's silver tongue was always her greatest strength, not her symbol-magic or her herbcraft."
"And where blades and spells failed, seduction won out," Nalina mused.
"Mmm. To look at them though, I don't think it's just seduction," Nerezza said, watching the two share a tender kiss. Scanning the room for the next notable guest, Nerezza's eyes settle on another vampire, a woman with vivid indigo eyes and red-violet hair roughly cut just above her shoulders, and a bruised, scarred brunette nervously standing beside her. "And there's Luna Crescent." Nalina raised an eyebrow, and Nerezza shook her head. "Would you believe that was her name from birth? Regardless, she's gentle enough, but she's never had a knight for a reason. She knows how to protect herself."
"Clearly," Nalina muttered, looking over her guest with pity.
"Oh, no, that's not her style," Nerezza quickly corrected. "Luna's more the... bleed-them-out type. No, I think that's someone she invited." She trailed off, musing, "A vampire and a mortal, fascinating..."
Their resplendent host made her entrance moments after, garbed in a long, furred red overcoat, luxurious and finely-embroidered. Her espresso-brown skin was a sharp contrast to the mostly-pale vampires in attendance, and her short, cherry-red hair matched her coat well. "Nerezza, I'm glad my messenger made it," she said warmly, hugging Nerezza before looking over Nalina. "And I see you have a Knight now... not a risk I'd be willing to take."
"Excuse me?" Nalina demanded, stepping forward.
"Ooh, I love country girls. They've got fire," Cerise replied with a smirk. "There are risks in Knighting someone, Nerezza knows them well. To be bonded like that can be a curse. But I'm sure you'll serve her well." Cerise turned away and waved Luna and her guest over. "Luna, Raven. This is Nerezza, master of Shadecrest, and her new Knight. But I called you over because we have affairs of the realm to manage, and I thought you should join me. Nerezza, you and yours as well." Nerezza and Nalina looked at each other and shrugged before following Cerise down a tucked-away staircase.
Though the parlor was warm and well-furnished, the stairwell was cold, unadorned, and dark, illuminated only by the most meager candlelight. A passage fit not for a countess or even a peasant, scarcely fit even for vermin. Raven stayed close to Luna, struggling to see through the gloom, though the vampires and Nalina suffered no such difficulty.
It led to a dungeon, damp and claustrophobic. Four men were imprisoned there. Luna and Raven recognized them immediately, though despite her bruises and well-earned anger Raven kept an impassive expression. "These men attacked a woman in an alley, then turned their wrath on poor Raven when she intervened. When Luna chased them off, they retaliated by putting Raven's home to torch." Nalina's fist clenched as Cerise recounted the events of the past week; she'd known people of their ilk before.
"What do you plan to do with them?" Luna asked, looking over the prisoners.
"Oh, I've had ideas," Cerise replied darkly. "But, why not ask the one they wronged? Let's see what Raven would have done," she proposed, a cruel grin crossing her lips.
"And what justice is revenge?" Raven sighed. "Is there any retribution that will return my parents' home to me? Any retaliation that will restore what I've lost? No. And I'll find no satisfaction in cruelty."
Cerise simply laughed, a low, dark chuckle that only made the captives all the more afraid. "Even after everything. Truly amazing. And yet, in her generous mercy, Raven has given me a new idea. You four are to leave town. Now. You have thirty minutes."
"What?!" one of the scruffier ruffians replied, shocked and indignant. "We won't even have time to get clothes or food!"
"That's the idea. The same generosity you offered dear Raven," Cerise taunted. "And suitable recompense for the damage you caused to three other houses, I add."
"No," Raven interrupted. Quietly, but clearly.
"I'm sorry?" Cerise replied, looking at the girl, the one mortal not in a cell, with a cocked eyebrow.
"No!" Raven repeated, louder now, unmistakable in her convictions. "There is no justice in that! Give them a day to gather their things, or you'd just as well execute them here and now."
Cerise was taken aback by the mortal girl's outrage, but visibly impressed at her audacity nonetheless. "Well, well. A true believer," she laughed, shaking her head. "Congratulations, boys. You've been given a stay of execution. Very well, you'll have twenty-four hours." Her mirth disappeared instantly, replaced with a bitter, glacial cold when she next spoke. "If you are ever seen in Stormhaven after twenty-four hours have passed, your bodies will never be found." She opened the cell doors, and waved the men out without another word.
"What was the point of that?" Raven demanded after the four disappeared up the stairs. "What, is it just not as fun if you don't have them afraid for their lives?"
"Yours is not the only home that could have been lost the other day, you know," Cerise replied, indifferent to the girl's indignation. "Men like that, they only listen to power. Anyone weaker is a target, not someone worth respecting, not someone to obey. And I'll not have men like that burning my city and my people." A scream from upstairs interrupted their debate. "Looks like the hunters are here, right on cue. Those four might've been scouting earlier, I caught them skulking around. Let's go."
The five rushed up the stairs to find a battle in progress, with the vampires and a few bondknights fighting to hold the hunters off as Cerise's mortal servants took cover behind the vampire lines. Luna immediately flung two of her barbed blades into the throats of two hunters while Cerise led the others to the armory. "Take a weapon, whatever's the best fit for you," Cerise instructed brusquely, rushing back out with knives in hand.
"My magic will suffice," Nerezza said while watching Nalina make her decision. She settled on an axe with a vicious spike opposite the blade, and Nerezza shook her head. "No elegance to that, dear."
"There's no greater art in combat than a job efficiently done," Nalina retorted, testing its balance. "Raven, if you're not up to it, stay behind us, I'll keep you safe," she said as the mortal girl nervously glanced around the armory.
"I... No. No, I can do this. I have to help Luna," Raven replied, collecting her courage. "I- I used to throw axes for fun, I can put that to use..." she continued, grabbing a few lightweight tomahawks and following Lady and Knight out of the armory.
The brawl was a chaotic one, even as Nalina signaled Tilvi to rally a squad together. "Knight, there's something wrong here. They're barely protecting themselves!" Tilvi said, cautiously holding off a seemingly-berserk attacker. A brief pulse of distortion induced by Nerezza gave her the opening she needed to take him down. Outside of the small party Tilvi and Nalina assembled, there were mostly just individuals or teams of two scattered around, whether friends, vampires and their bondknights, or pairs of strangers that just wanted to get out of this.
Nalina looked over the scene and noticed the same lacking skill Tilvi observed, but also that the hunters' blood was discolored - not the deep red it should have been, but faintly orange. "... Sundrop," she muttered subconsciously when the realization hit her. "They took Sundrop!" she repeats, shouting this time. She was barely audible over the shriek of one of Cerise's guests, whose mouth and throat burned from feeding on one of the hunters. The vampires shifted their tactics, incapacitating their foes with blunt and entangling attacks when possible and finishing them from a safe distance with thrown blades and bolts.
"What's that?" Raven hissed as Nalina jammed the handle of her axe into the gut of her attacker.
"War drug," Nalina replied, kicking the hunter in the throat. A knife thrown from behind finished the hunter off, and she explained, "I know the formula. Won't ever make it. Amplifies emotion, strength, speed, and makes blood anathema to those who feed on it. Dangerous though... you don't think. You act." Another assailant rushed at Nalina, who stood calmly defiant as Tilvi stabbed their chest from the side. "Tilvi, Luna, Raven. Reposition," Nalina ordered sternly, not wanting to say more than she had to and trusting the three to understand. They seemed to, and recruited a handful of others to join them before disappearing down a narrow corridor. She then took a breath and shouted an order: "FALL BACK!"
The hunters gave out a jubilant, bloodthirsty cry while Nalina rallied everyone she could into a fighting retreat. They took what pot-shots they could, killing and wounding a few hunters. "Keep that blood-lust going," Nalina hissed. "Keep them focused on us."
"They're ready, dear," Nerezza eventually said as they reached the dining hall.
"Do it!" Nalina grunted, struggling to hold off one particularly zealous mace-wielding hunter. A pair of knives flew in from her right, grazing the hunter's back and causing her intense pain. Briefly, Nalina caught a glimpse of them and realized that they only resembled dinnerware, and she found her thoughts occupied by questions about the "housekeeping" staff. "Nerezza!"
"Working on it, dear," Nerezza replied, tracing sigils in the air. "Brace for volume."
Nalina opened her mouth to ask what she meant by that, but never had a chance; a piercing screech came from behind the hunters, enough to briefly overwhelm them even through the Sundrop. It was a horrid sound that Nalina felt in her teeth, in her bones, even in her soul. But what followed made it worthwhile: Tilvi's reinforcements, flanking the hunters from a side corridor. Their limited facsimile of discipline, only enough to keep the mass pointed in one direction, instantly crumbled. Surrounded, each hunter simply went for the most convenient target, in whichever direction that was, exposing them to attack from all angles as the two squads closed in.
In the end, Cerise and her guests stood victorious. There were some wounded, and two fallen - the vampire that tried to feed during the battle, and one of Cerise's mortal servants that was struck down before the battle even began. As for the survivors, none had unbloodied hands; even the housekeeping staff joined in the battle after one of their own was murdered. Nalina recognized one man, a slender, delicate-looking blonde, as the one that had thrown the knives to her aid. As the housekeepers attended to the mess and to their own, Cerise paced around the manor, looking at the face of each that had come to kill her and her guests.
"I don't recognize any of them," she said eventually.
"Should you?" Nalina asked, suspicion rising in her tone.
"So this was intentional?!" Raven demanded.
"A calculated risk," Cerise replied. "... a miscalculated risk," she added in a near whisper, looking over her mortal servants. "I'd never expected..."
Nerezza, Raven, Luna, and Nalina all looked to each other, each silently asking the same questions and none having a clear answer - Is there a threat still? What do we do now? Are the others alright? Is Cerise alright?
But that would all have to wait, for the moment. There were other matters to attend to - the wounded, the fallen, safely removing the bodies of the hunters. Nalina set off to help deal with the hunters; she couldn't safely handle them anymore, but she could guide the mortals on how to dispose of them.
