Chapter 363 - Horrors

Chapter 363

Ytakan Scrublands, Archduchy of Rebirth

Darthar-Asaria Trade Route

Golems moved through the ruins of the camp.

All of it had been swept already. Except for one area.

A golem held the tent flap open, and the first squad streamed into the duchess' pavilion.

The carnage within...was indescribable. The duchess and her personal guard may have died, but they hadn't died quietly.

One of the maids was ushered in, followed by Alexandra's ambassador golem.

The maid pointed at a pile of particularly thoroughly mangled body parts, and Alexandra gestured.

Golems scooped the mess up for analysis, as the maid and dungeon core went further into the tent. Finally they arrived before a room, and the maid stopped, as if she'd hit a forcefield. She began to shake, and Alexandra delicately pulled her back. She gestured, and two golems slowly ushered the maid back out of the tent.

The hologram over the golem took a deep breath, and the ambassador went into the room.

A few seconds later she exited it. Her hologram couldn't heave or throw up, just as much as it couldn't breathe, but it did a reasonable approximation of it.

Finally, she recovered, and she sent her golems in, to catalogue and record.

Then she disconnected, her hologram disappearing in a haze of static.

*****

"So you've confirmed she's dead?" Asked Allya, standing in the command center as she gazed at the holograms swirling in the middle of it.

Alexandra nodded.

"I had the body parts analyzed. The duchess is dead. And I've made sure she was soul sealed."

"Good call." The archduchess sighed. "It's good that it's finally confirmed. There were starting to be...questions."

"Thinking we'd squirreled her away to some black site?"

"Something like that." Allya smiled, which died out as she saw her friend's expression. "What is it?"

"I found the place the maids talked about." For some value of 'talking', at least. The maids they had found...Not all of them were capable of speech anymore. Not from being physically unable, but psychologically. Some of them were so broken Alexandra wasn't even sure if they would stay alive for that long. And now she knew why. "You need to see for yourself."

The holograms updated, and Allya's eyes went wide. First disbelief, then horror.

"Is that-"

"Yes." Said the dungeon core, flatly.

Something passed within Allya's eyes. Something beyond hatred.

"I think soul sealing the good duchess may have been premature."

"I know what you're thinking. Believe me, I was tempted." So tempted in fact, that she had assembled an acid vat and a stock of regeneration potions. "But I soul sealed her precisely so we wouldn't do this. So we couldn't."

Their gazes met, and Allya nodded, slightly.

"We should burn this place with fire."

"No." The archduchess' eyebrows rose, and Alexandra took a deep breath. "Someone has to bear witness. Someone has to remember. That someone might as well be us."

"...what of the maids?"

"I don't know. They're...most of them aren't sane anymore. Some of them...I don't know what they qualify as. They're beyond the Kingdom's help, for the most part."

"But not beyond yours."

Alexandra nodded.

"No. But they're beyond my official ability to help."

There was a short silence.

"How much so?" Finally said the archduchess.

"I...Arcadia once remade me. I can do the same to them. Give them a second chance. But that will require technology I shouldn't have."

And technology they couldn't risk anyone else knowing she had.

The silence was much longer this time.

"I assume that means your little coterie is going to be expanding?"

Alexandra looked at the images.

"We could have rescued them. Or ended their misery. We didn't. I owe them that much, at the very least."

"We didn't know-"

"WE DIDN'T CARE TO KNOW!" Yelled out the dungeon core, and Allya recoiled.

"...That doesn't make us less at fault."

"Does it?" There was something...haunted in her gaze, and Allya shivered.

"Even if we had known...what could we have done about it? If we'd had the option of assassinating the duchess, we would have done it. This would have taken even more."

The dungeon core frowned, and Allya realized the dungeon core was enraged at herself, not at anyone else, and she pressed her advantage.

"Besides, every resource spent killing them could have saved more slaves. Have you asked them which they would have preferred?"

"No, but-"

"Can you take a guess?"

Alexandra looked away, and sighed.

"Yeah. I can."

"Good. I'll see to arranging something so that they can get to you and no one will bat an eye."

"How can you be sure I'll take them in?"

"Because you're you." Allya gazed at the images once more, and went somewhat green. "Just...don't show this to Pyn, okay?"

"Agreed."

"Thank you. And forward me a copy. When it comes time to negotiate a surrender to all those holdouts...I will forward them this."

"Has this changed your stance?"

Allya's eyes darkened.

"My mercy has its limits. But I will extend it. Once."

"Then we are agreed."

*****

"So you'll help them with this?" Said Emilia as she nodded towards the virtual reality pod.

"As much as I can." Alexandra looked into the window of the pod, seeing the features of Emylris. "If need be I can keep them in here. Away from the world. Away from their nightmares. It's...something."

"That's not a life."

"Perhaps not. But it's their choice to make."

There was a short silence as they both looked at the machinery.

"It wasn't your fault, you know." Softly said the vampire.

"Allya has...made that point."

"She's a good friend."

"Yeah. We're lucky to have her." Alexandra sighed. "Which reminds me of something."

Emilia's eyebrow rose as Alexandra stood up.

"Which is?"

The dungeon core reached into one of her armor pouches, and pulled out a key, extending it wordlessly towards the vampire.

Emilia simply stared at it for a second. It was...banal, unornamented.

But she saw flashes. Recognized parts of it.

The disguised electronics. The genetic imprint scanner.

She took it. It was deceptively heavy. Both literally and figuratively.

"It's-" Started Alexandra.

"I know what it is." The vampire turned the key in her hands. She should have expected something like this. Had, truly, though she wouldn't have told her girlfriend. From the beginning she'd known that Alexandra didn't believe or care about the edicts. That she would only pay lip service to them so long as it was beneficial for her to do so. "How many?"

"Two. One hundred kiloton yield each."

The vampire snickered.

"Smaller than I expected."

"Truly?"

"At this point I thought you'd blow up the world." As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she shouldn't have said that, as Alexandra's face closed, and she felt her sorrow and hurt through their link, now deeper than every. More, she felt...images, memories, cropping up from deep within her own psyche. A world, writhing in nuclear fire... "I'm sorry, that...I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You didn't know."

"I did! Or...I think I do." Emilia closed her eyes. "I remember things, and then remember nothing. I have...memories of memories."

"A side effect of the hivemind. We all have a bit of each other now."

"Yeah...I remember...a world. A world dying."

Alexandra nodded.

"Europa. I...have no wish to see something like that happen again."

There was something else there. An echo of unimaginable pain. But Emilia didn't push.

"So you don't intend to use those nukes?"

"I will if there's no other choice. If nothing else, there is an orbital battlestation overhead that will object if we do."

"I was thinking they would be for the Citadel, actually."

Alexandra chuckled.

"Gonna need a whole lot more than that to take it down, believe me."

"Well...you're probably the best person to do so."

Alexandra frowned.

"Maybe, maybe not. If the Order is serious about what they're doing, then everything hinges on that station. Whomever controls the orbitals controls the world after all. So long as you're willing to bomb it from orbit anyway, and the Custodians have demonstrated that already." Emilia shifted uneasily, but she nodded. "So far the only solution I've been able to come up with is railguns, and I don't have the resources to make them."

"You mean you don't have the means, right?"

Alexandra smiled.

"I think it's time I showed you the labs. The real ones, darling."

*****

Marquis Midikan of the Red Keep was not happy man right now.

His family had stood guard over the Old World ruins of Bloodfall Bridge, where the Crimson Path crossed the Kamira River, since before there had been an Asarian Kingdom.

He knew how to hold a citadel like no one else. And he knew how to break them and keep them besieged.

Which was why the Duchess had given him command of the siege of Asaria.

Except that now he was the one being besieged.

He glared at the city in the distance, from the top of the keep at the core of his defenses. He'd built a network of fortresses both to serve as a secure fallback point after an assault, and in case the ridiculous rumors from the South had any truth to them. Unfortunately, they had more truth than he'd ever believed possible. And now the Duchess and his cousin were dead, their bodies probably being desecrated by the barbaric savages he'd once used as slave soldiers, if not the scarcely more civilized dregs Sarth and that so called 'archduchess' had managed to scrounge up to slouch along their dungeon mistress' troops.

Still, it could be worse. His well tuned sense of paranoia -and willingness to use the barbarians as meatshields- had allowed his men to close the fortresses' gates before they could be overrun. Still, many had fallen from their own servants, and many had been woken up by their bed slaves stabbing them to death.

His first instinct had been to flay them and put their hides on the battlements as an example to the rabble outside, but his second in command had dissuaded him from doing so. And he had to admit that it had been the right thing to do. Gods only knew what greater heights of savagery the scum outside would have reached had he allowed himself to meet their bestiality.

Not that the realization made the fact it was his second in command that had made the suggestion more palatable. Already the bastard had been of dubious loyalty before the war, but now...

Well, there was a reason the man was his second in command. Keep your friends close, and all that.

Now he advocated for surrender. Surrender! Ah! They were in dug in fortresses. If their majesties wanted to negotiate, they'd have to do it on his terms. And he had enough supplies and gryphon knights to make himself a considerable nuisance if they weren't willing to. He wondered how belligerent they'd be once he'd lead a few hit and run attacks on refugee convoys or nearby farmsteads, once they had been rebuilt of course.

Once they came to him, they could have a discussion about his lands and titles. He was sure they'd prove accommodating. Of course, the slaves back home would need to be put back under the yoke, but there were options and-

He jumped up from the place he had been leaning on the citadel at the scream, and began to run as he heard the clashing of arms and the clamor of battle. A frontal assault? Impossible, they'd never be this mad!

No, he realized as he pinpointed the source of the noise. The gate. They were after the gate!

He rounded to the other side of the keep, and leaned over the crenellations.

At first he didn't understand. He saw men in his colors, fighting, dying, but no enemies in that of the crown, or the garb of the filth encircling the fortress.

Then it clicked. His men were fighting each other.

What kind of madness-

He recognized his second in command, and snarled. No. Not even that little shit would dare!

But he was daring. The Marquis watched as the traitorous bastard cut down the men manning the gate house, and opened the mechanisms and enchantments that kept the imposing doors closed.

At once, they swung open...and this time, he did see the colors of the crown, as royal knights rode through the opening, swinging cavalry sabers and maces, helping the traitors open up a space for more royal troops to enter.

The Marquis' mind reeled. He needed to call those loyal to him, close the gates to the keep. They could hold on, they had to, and he would make that weasel pay for his treachery, but-

His mind was interrupted as the door to the top of the keep slammed open, and he whirled around, only to sigh in relief as his niece climbed up the stairs. Her once magnificent mage robes were stained and torn, but he scarcely looked better himself, and he was proud of her for running herself ragged trying to keep everything together these last few days. Even though she had been insufferable since her personal slave had been executed at his command all these years ago, she'd never shirked her duty.

"Clavisia, quick! We must close the gates to the keep! We've been betrayed!"

His niece's eyes met his, and he saw cold, burning hatred in them.

"I know."

"What-" He just had the time to realize she wasn't accompanied nor challenged by his personal guards, who were supposed to make sure no one disturbed him at the foot of the stairs, when soldiers exited the stairs behind her, their blades and armor coated in blood.

His niece pointed at him, and spoke an incantation, words of power ringing through his ears as the air was set alight with arcane energy.

Then he felt as if he had been hit by ballista, as he was effortlessly thrown over the battlements.

He gasped as he twisted in every direction, trying to grasp what had happened.

Then finally, gravity and ballistics reasserted themselves as the spell died out.

He screamed the whole way down.