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Chapter 145: A Matter Of Faith
🕑 Added 2023-08-29 21:11:30 +0000 UTCWithin the darkened tunnels of an endless crypt, the only source of light came from a sister wrapped in a [Holy Barrier]. And yet it was enough to illuminate the stone corridors as though the sun itself was rolling through it.
Sister Rieze was both pursuing and being chased by the same swarm of vampiric bats. As she strode swiftly through these narrow halls, she held her crossbow aloft with one hand, while the other glistened with enough light to reach the horizon.
“[Holy Arrows].”
She clenched her fists.
As she did so, tendrils of light squeezed out like a lemon, dribbling down her wrist before forming into the mocking silhouettes of arrows.
They shot in all directions, piercing freely past her barrier as they swept into the swarm, severing wings and ricocheting off the smooth walls to carve through even more of the creatures.
Rieze knew she was heading deeper into the crypt. Into the vampire’s sanctum. The source of this monster’s power. With each step Rieze took, the more the strikes against her intensified. The vampiric bats flew at her, claws and fangs smashing into the shield of faith which guarded her like owls plunging against a window.
And yet it wasn’t enough.
It would never be. Rieze knew they could exhaust themselves upon her. But no sooner did the hint of a crack appear than it was polished over, the assailants dispersed to an arrow of pure light.
An expenditure of effort as easy for her as it was fruitless for her adversary.
“Oh? You’re not fighting in your true form?” asked Rieze, her inquiring voice drowned by the ceaseless fluttering of wings. “I’m rather surprised. Given your talents for warding off a … what was your neighbour again? A shadow lurker? Well, this seems rather meek.”
The frequency of the attacks stilled. Though no figure could be spied amongst the swarm, the density lessened.
Rieze smiled as she sensed the irritation.
“I have neither need nor desire to use my true form,”came the reply, echoing within the crypt. “Galling as your light is, few can stand up against a vampire’s attacks for any length of time. And I feel little necessity to expose myself when the minimum will suffice.”
“Then perhaps you lost your sense of strength when you also lost your soul?”
“The opposite, sister. When you are functionally immortal, you become acutely aware of how much there is to lose.”
“You’ve already lost any claim you have to an eternity sipping coffee liqueur cocktails while lounging in the heavens. I don’t see what else there is to lose.”
“My ability to complete my reading collection, for one thing. You shall understand if I choose to display prudence against a sister who wanders blindly into a vampire’s home.”
“Your lair of vice, you mean.”
“Excuse me? This is my home.”
“A den of carnality where you lure your prey to be consumed.”
“I read here!”
“Yes. Romance. To better understand the weak hearts of humans.”
“Look, I don’t see why this is so difficult to understand. Yes, this is a vampire’s lair. But there’s nothing … out of sorts occurring. I read books. I do very little else.”
“A spawn of evil does not sit quietly in the night.”
“This is exactly what this spawn of evil does. If you’re here because you think otherwise, then your presence is woefully unneeded.”
Rieze scoffed as she sent another set of [Holy Arrows] into the gathering swarm. She didn’t fail to notice them preparing to drive as a wedge into her shield.
“Whatever reasons you claim are irrelevant. As a sister who frequently performs overtime in the hope that my pay scale will eventually match my contributions, it is my duty to remove all beings of undiluted evil whenever sighted. You are a threat to every soul to wander the road.”
“Well, in that case, this being of undiluted evil apologises for fulfilling the duty of good hearted adventurers everywhere. Do you know how many horrors would love to rent out my warm crypt? Really now, I haven’t lived this long by eating random townspeople! Why, I’m practically an unpaid volunteer! The amount of felbeasts I shoo away has single-handedly ensured the continued living of people who should very well be dead. This mountain was dreadful before I came here.”
“Words of deceit as ineffective as your vampiric swarm. I wonder why you persist with this tactic?”
Click.
“That would be because of the entangling rune I was distracting you from.”
Suddenly, Rieze stopped. And not of her own will.
Peering down, she watched as tendrils of dark smoke took shape, gathering around her ankle as she slowly sunk into a tile.
“Well, now,” she said. “Is this when you finally appear to strike at me?”
“No,” came the same echoing response. “This is when my endless stream of disposal servants rise to weed out your repertoire of high level holy magic. And then I appear to strike at you.”
A noticeable tremor ran through the stone floor.
An eerie rattling filled the air, and then dust as the alcoves and tombs no longer remained silent.
All around, within the ancient corridor and beyond, the crypt’s inhabitants of vengeance and bones rose from the stone they were entombed. Socketless eyes ablaze with a dim blue light peppered the darkness where Rieze’s light didn’t reach, their movements shuddering and slow.
Even so, it wasn’t the skeletons which caught Rieze’s eye, nor the decayed weapons they wielded with thin limbs lifted with necromantic magic.
It was the very big skeleton, with the equally big decayed weapon.
Rieze blinked as the bones of an enormous figure began to form within its own alcove. It did not rise, but came together piece by piece, moulded by an unseen hand as a shadow joined to cover its gaps and joints like a twisted skin.
Rieze looked on as the figure of the fallen questing minotaur raised its battleaxe.
All that remained of its once noble soul was its eyes, still gleaming with a hint of cold intelligence, now sworn to its mistress’s command.
“This minotaur appears different to most undead I’ve witnessed,” she noted, as much for herself as for the vampire. “Less vengeful. More … lifelike.”
“Sir Horan Seldy. A family friend. Enjoys my cake. The one you ignored.”
“Quite the reward for friendship. To be turned into an undead revenant surely has to rank amongst the least kindly of fates afforded for loyalty.”
“Oh, I agree. I did tell him as well. But he insisted. For whatever reason, House Estroux had always been gifted its share of loyal retainers.”
“So you claim. A pity they don’t appear to have a mind to disagree.”
A pause. Rieze wondered if that was regret she spied in the brief silence.
“It is not a fate I imbued willingly, nor without much painstaking research. Though I consider myself quite the failure as a member of nobility, being able to offer my servants the fate they choose is one which I obliged, reservations or not.”
Rieze studied the shadowy figure of the fallen minotaur as it approached, black battleaxe in hand. She tilted her head slightly, puzzled at the lack of malice emanating from the hideous abomination of a once noble being.
Then, she focused on everything else.
The sound of grinding bones and unwieldy steps filled the air as the raised skeletons shambled towards Rieze’s immobilised state. They wasted no time, crashing into her [Holy Barrier] with neither thought nor tactics.
They were repulsed. Some violently. The weakest collapsed at once, falling into dust at her feet. Others careened away as though violently dragged back. And then came the actual weapons.
The flock of vampiric bats gathered again to strike at her shield, joining the mass of swords blunted beyond use. They hammered down at the magic protecting Rieze from earning a place in the crypt.
A gruesome sight filling her eyes as a mob of undeath lay siege to her.
“[Holy Nova].”
With a sweep of hand, Rieze twisted as much as she was able, sending a scything wave of golden magic rippling in both directions.
Bones collapsed upon themselves as glimmers of golden dots filled the tunnel. The undead shuddered as they were put to their final rest, immune to the call of necromancy ever again.
All except one.
Claaang.
The battleaxe struck hard, its edge undiminished even throughout the centuries.
Muscles which did not exist expanded within the skin of shadow as the honed edge of the shadowed weapon smashed upon Rieze’s [Holy Barrier]. And she blinked as the slightest of cracks appeared.
A figure as powerful in undeath as he likely was in life.
“Was this questing minotaur a fully anointed knight?”
“He was. Sir Horan completed his final quest at my own hand. His journey was complete.”
Rieze nodded.
It was the life’s goal of every questing minotaur to fulfil the impossible tasks given to them by their chosen pantheon. A goal often unfulfilled. Much of a questing minotaur’s path was open to interpretation. And they, in the spirit of chivalry, would only interpret the hardest demands and the longest path.
However–
“His journey isn’t yet complete,” spoke Rieze, her offering a soft smile as she knelt to lower her crossbow to her feet. “His soul has blackened, but even so, he may yet find solace in the Spiral Isle.”
Standing up tall, Sister Rieze ignored the worsening crack in her [Holy Barrier] and clasped her hands together in prayer.
Petals of light rushed to her as her eyes closed, drawn from gaps in the darkness where they had long hidden, waiting for a dawn that would never come, a saviour in the night.
Rieze would release them all.
“Hope springs as dewdrops in the night. A whisper of light slowing the darkness. Hear the distant melody as a streak upon the sky.”
She cast open her eyes. They burned with radiance.
As did her magic.
“... [Illuminating Dawn].”
Suddenly, all the darkness was denied.
Every blemish and crack in the crypt was made visible as luminosity greater than any magefire filled the corridor, seeping into every corner of the crypt. Should any wandering soul be outside, then they would witness a second sun pouring out from the crevasses and the gaps.
And within it–
All which was impure returned to the soil.
Rieze held her hands in place long after the light faded. A deep silence calmed by the heavens themselves fell across this place of undeath. And then the fallen minotaur found its rest, its form becoming ash so fine that it was carried by the mere thought of the wind.
Only one abomination remained.
At the end of the corridor, a telltale shroud of mist became a woman with scarlet eyes and silver locks. Smoke rose from her pink pyjamas and her pale skin as she assumed her true form.
Appearing in the flesh, Countess Miriam Estroux peered down, her expression taut as she raised an eyebrow at her fragile arms.
“You were able to harm me in my vampiric mist,” she said, her voice quiet. “That should not have been possible.”
Rieze continued to smile.
Shapeshifting into a swarm and morphing into mist. The two most powerful defensive abilities greater vampires possessed. Not even a dragon could harm a vampire who assumed these forms.
But dragons, for all the heights they flew, still flew beneath the heavens.
Rieze leaned down and picked up her crossbow. She gave it a cursory look to ensure it hadn’t been damaged, then raised it towards the vampire.
The girl merely glanced at the fading ash of the fallen minotaur instead.
“A powerful spell. Do you have another in you?”
“I do. But I also have a crossbow. And you no longer have your forms.”
Rieze aimed squarely at the former countess’s heart.
Then, she lifted it over her shoulder, and released the bolt behind her instead.
The mirage before Rieze vanished at once, but not before mirroring the shocked expression of the owner’s true self.
Rieze swivelled around, free of the entangling shadow burned by her [Illuminating Dawn], and saw a streak of black smoke emanating from a gash within the side of the vampire’s neck.
The girl blinked, barely a pace away. She touched the wound with her fingertips. As she pulled her hand away, a sizzling like a burning log could be heard.
But no more than that.
For the first time, the vampire offered a smile.
“Almost.”
“Yes,” said Rieze, not reaching for the spare quarrel in her boot. “You almost survived.”
The vampire blinked.
And then, she touched her wound once more.
She studied her fingertips and saw … nothing.
“I don’t understand,” she said, examining herself all over. “I feel fine.”
“That’s because I haven’t cast my spell yet.”
Rieze raised a hand.
The vampire reacted at once, alarm colouring her sudden movement as a forgotten emotion now visited her. Her defensive shifting and her mirage had been used. Now she was truly exposed.
Even so–
The girl didn’t even need to close the distance, such was the short gap between them. So instead, the Countess Miriam Estroux merely fell upon the sister, driving her face towards Rieze’s exposed neck.
It was an instinctive attack driven by opportunity.
The most powerful strike a vampire had. The most feared weapon in their arsenal, capable of devouring even the greatest of foes. Or turning them into thralls.
Their bite.
Rieze blinked as she felt the fangs pierce her skin, driving into her neck. She felt the invasion into her flesh, the unholy taint of the woman’s pink pyjamas brushing against her sister’s habit.
She also felt the fear run through the vampire.
After a long moment, the vampire withdrew her fangs. They were as pale and bloodless as her face.
“You …” she said, her voice horrified. “What are you … ?”
Sister Rieze touched her neck. Already, the puncture marks had vanished.
“Me? Why, I’m merely a sister of the Holy Church.”
And then, she reached out faster than Countess Miriam could react. Her hands grabbed the vampire’s neck, then began to crush.
The vampire’s eyes widened, fear and terrible confusion running across her face as her hands, empowered with a vampire’s might, failed to bat away the grip of the sister crushing her windpipe.
“My blood is faith itself. And I’m afraid you cannot draw that from me.”
“I … I … guhh …”
“Hmm?”
Rieze released the grip of her hand. Just. She preferred justice over mercy. But that didn’t mean she’d deny the opportunity for the vampire to show repentance.
She was a sister, after all.
“I … I haven’t … even finished … reading … the ending … to A Court Lady’s Indiscretion … yet.”
Rieze smiled.
Then, she crushed the vampire’s throat.
Releasing her hand, she watched as the monstrosity dropped to a pathetic heap, writhing on the ground as she clutched at her neck, desperate to mend herself.
Rieze watched for only a moment, then drew golden light towards herself. Her next [Holy Arrows] would dismember the undead thing, now shorn of all defences, escapes, and ability to make unamusing quips.
And then she paused, remembering the reason she came to the Kingdom of Tirea.
Yes … the heavens had placed this creature in her path for a reason.
Perhaps there was still a path for the girl to take. A route of redemption. A trying road of torment and suffering. One which would see her pleading for the kindest mercy Rieze had to offer.
And once the vampire had achieved it, then she could be destroyed as the final piece to her atonement.
Rieze kneeled down beside the girl, then gently placed her hand atop her head, stroking her bed of silver hair. A wide pair of scarlet eyes and a clammy face peered back at her.
“Don’t worry. You don’t need to be afraid. The light has found you now. And I shall ensure you will never leave it again.”
The vampire stopped writhing and became very, very still.
Rieze didn’t know what expression the girl made. Only that she saw it often. In the faces of her sisters, of the high clerics, of her foes.
All she understood was that it made her smile.
Comments
Thanks! You're correct. I've changed it now.
zachava
"This is when my endless stream of disposal servants rise..." I'm guessing that should be "disposable"
The Magician
Oh no, she's gonna turn the vampire into a nun. And she is going to use her to hunt down all the books she wants removed from church libraries that people have been hiding there.
