CHPT 523: Sword and Stone.

"We are TERRIBLY behind schedule, you understand this I hope…. You're the reason for it after all….. and then you don't even come well dressed. Your like a dictator. No style… no real finesse. Just crazy and musty-looking…"

"If I didn't have shapeshifter recovery you could've killed me— not because you're stronger than me. I may be a newly Reborn HexBlade but I'm not weak. I'm an Alpha."

"Well do my dishes and drop my drawls, I haven't been to the cloudylands in a decade at least."

"[Oh my sweet sweet sun starved home.... It's been ages.]"

There was so much distinct personality in one area it made Claude want to vomit as his social battery drained and withered into a croaking husk.

They stood at the apex of a mountain. A sheet of green laid across its endless peaks and valleys like a blanket born from the earth mother. Protecting her stone child. Here and there massive grey monoliths jutted up through the impossibly thick grey clouds, causing spotlights of old sun to peak through. At the grounds of these beams of solar brilliance all along the mountain small forests bloomed, climbing high like old world skyscrapers to reach their nutritious benefactor above.

Even from where he stood, he could see the reflective glow of the leaves and flowers in perfect detail. Like they were soaked in gasoline and given that weird two tone shade.

The beautiful sight was balanced by the odd skinned corpse here and there of various living origin. Death laid over breathtaking beauty. Griffons circled above. Healthy and large enough to shake his nerves… if he wasn't a Beast Tamer. Instead they told him a story.

The birds were well fed.

Claude stopped daydreaming and gawking after Loba licked his hand. A rather violent gesture considering her tongue was coated in skin rending spikes.

He looked back at his group.

A small unit of ten Vampires. Mostly the kind that didn't look very human and turned into cats. The ones that'd been following him since FeliAlu City. They still hadn't been able to address that much considering a once in a generation bloodline was at the cusp of awakening.

Speaking of Maris, she too was staring at the breathtaking sights. Only difference was no one was staring at her. Rare around Vampires.

"EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" Rupont pressed.

The other Vampires jumped, twisting in clouds and vortexing water balls into Black cats to scamper away.

"Redvine can speak to plants." Claude explained.

Rupont's previously comically outraged face calmed and he stood up straighter, looking at his adoptive sisters. One was combing out and fluffing up the others nappy pigtails, stopping to address him. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because Maris has an affect on you."

"I did nothing but arrive prepared." Maris replied still looking beyond at the shadowy green world.

Rupont snickered, "Isn't she a just perfectly crass?"

"This is what we mean." Adjua and Abina made faces that perfectly encapsulated the sentence without verbal emission.

Rupont caught himself and turned back to Claude.

Ursula and Cassidy stood beside him, wrapping their arms over his shoulders. Frosty's tail wagged as he jammed his way in.

"He was being cautious. Come on Rupont, would you rather be late or charred vamp dust?"

"Dust isn't charred that's called ashes you, beef cutlet."

Cassidy must've swallowed his spit down the wrong pipe because he erupted into a coughing fit of laughter.

Rupont lifted his arm and pulled back the black sleeve of his overcoat. "Bloody hell. Can we get a move on, everyone?"

Rhetorical question of course. He took off at a sprint. Or more like a playful jumping gait. Everyone followed.

They scaled the mountainous valleys like it was a green playground.

Claude watched Rupont— partially because of his Prey Drive, as they ran.

Seeing Vampires try to move like humans was disturbing. Not like with Lupines. He wasn't just animalistic and faster in the way Lupines and Shifters were. He was wrong— lifeless. When he ran his arms sometimes didn't move, and he hit the ground with no weight, as if he operated in a different world from there's.

Unlike Ursula who left craters and pebbled messes in her wake….

They traveled for another few miles before stopping at the end of the mountain. One of the tall grey monoliths stood beside them— along with its surrounding small forest growing towards the sun.

"Dwarves." Rupont explained as he walked over to a stone slab. "Sylvia's properly enjoying the benefits of diversity by giving her Wood-Elven cousins a home of the highest quality. Surrounded in an Arthurian commodity of sorts that also keeps them away from possible enemy Vampire factions. Sunlight…. And River Metal."

Rupont picked up the stone slab with one hand and threw it like a frisbee.

FWOOOM!!

The stone slab whistled through the air and slammed straight into the monolith halfway up its length in a gap where the forestry failed to cover it.

The rock hit the monolith that had a clearly metal sheen and bounced off, leaving the surface it hit rippling like water. Like rocks thrown across a river….

"The hell…"

"Neat." Cassidy commented.

"And…. Sylvia got the Dwarves to do this how?" Ursula questioned. Her connections to Glorian Elites made her think of the trade options and agreements before the amazement of metal that moved like water.

Rupont looked down the cliff of the mountain. "I can't say for sure. But money tends to push along most things.."

They all joined Ruponts side to look down the mountain.

In a massive crater sat one of the most beautiful castles he'd ever seen. Beauty was subjective of course. In this case, the castle was beautiful for how it fit into its surroundings. It looked abandoned. The white fantastical walls were discolored and dim. Covered in vines and flowers. The old purple died banner was left in tatters to blow in the low sweeping winds. Each individual spire than topped a new house within the castle was varying levels of broke and dilapidated. The only thing unbroken and untouched were the Gargoyles…. That were clearly not gargoyles.

"Hiding in plain sight?" Maris questioned.

"No." Claude, Rupont and Sloane said at the same time.

Maris looked at Claude, "What book did you read that explains what you know?"

"None." Claude looked up at the sky. "Griffons don't go for kills when they're hungry. They wait." Claude pointed at the corpses. "And Sylvia probably moved the Elves that she could over here with promised sunlight in exchange for protection. I learned from…. ERHM, someone, that Elven stealth is like no other."

Rupont nodded, "Well surmised, dictator."

"I can't even smell them." Sloane grunted.

"So, do we get there with another portal…. Or something else?" Ursula questioned.

"Something else." Adjua and Abina answered.

Sloane and her Betas grew out their claws. Rupont and his Vampires exploded into clouds of dark dust that fell down the cliff side as if it had weight to it.

Claude rushed into action, throwing his hands behind himself one time before lunging forward until he was almost off the cliff as he threw his arms forward and down the mountainside.

Two thick vines exploded past him, converging into a single braid as they passed him and slithered down the cliff.

Maris hopped up onto the vines and began sliding down, followed by Ursula, Cassidy, Frosty, Loba and Diamondback.

It didn't take more than a minute for them to reach the grounds, dusting off their clothes and no less tired than before.

The castle looked infinitely larger. And now that he could see the Vampiric guards at the massive doored entrance, it also looked infinitely more legitimate.

They wore beautifully styled armor— it almost look more artistic than functional with its sharp edges and wavy line work. In the shadows he could barely see that it was black and purple with starry undertones. Even still it was impressive.

They held up their weapons as the group approached.

"Oh for fuc- we don't have time for this." Rupont exploded into a cloud of bats and moved so fast he seemed to teleport directly in front of them.

"Let us pass. Remain at your posts."

Claude's skin tingled as insanely powerful suggestive magics slithered over his skin like bugs over a carcass.

The guards stiffened and sheathed their white stone blades. He was suddenly reminded of back home.

"[Never seen a Vampire compel another Vampire….]"

"Is it not the same as a man?" Claude asked.

"[Claude…. The bastards are dead. That's basically controlling a body with mere words..]"

Rupont snapped three times as he entered the dark castle depths.

"Come on people let's go meet the queen!"

***

The Queen. Sylvia Rotbane. With a last name like that her Elven side of the family probably dreaded Vampires. If she was an Arthurian native it made sense. Everyone in Arthuria hated Vampires as far as Claude knew.

And what he knew wasn't much. The same went for Sylvia. All he remembered was an uncanny level of beauty attached to pale skin and a lithe frame in thick fabrics of a dress. She commanded attention and seemed to respect Rupont as one of the Seven Heads of Night.

Of the only three he knew being Sylvia, Sgt Bertrand and Ruponts adoptive family head, he would've assumed she would be the brightest appearing, but as they traveled the castle depths in near perfect darkness he realized otherwise.

Sylvia had put on a front at the Summit of the Blooded.

Cats stalked the old stairway railings that spiraled up and across the ceilings, twisting like the vines that crept in through the broken windows and walls. Dark Elves huddled in groups where the shadows sat the deepest, whispering amongst themselves as the group traveled further in until they were met by two more guards. Rupont repeated his corpse control act and pushed open the doors.

FWOOM!

A wave of heat and light nearly singed Claude's eyebrows off.

A sun hovered in the center of a giant room with a blood red sparkling carpet.

The Dark Elves hidden throughout the spacious corridors behind him hissed and teleported elsewhere in a burst of black dust. Others did the same in a earsplitting zap of black lightning and flame.

He would've watched a while longer but the chaos of the main hall grabbed his attention.

Armored Vampires went to war in controlled sections. Twisting tornadoes of shifting bat clouds given human form only to clash sword blows and then return to their permissible form. Others stepped in and out of existence with invisibility and colorful blinding light shows as they disobeyed gravity, fighting on the ceilings and walls like lizards in dark armor.

At the far wall up a six stair, an unwashed dirty woman in a black tattered dress sat beside a short and thickly built female Dark Elf who worked to maintain the fireball sun. Glowing wisps of smoke trailed from her fingers and mouth as she whispered elven magical words and incantations. Even the sharpened tips of her armor gained a superheated glow.

"SYLVIA!" Rupont yelled as if he was elated to see her.

The Vampires crumpled in the face of the interruption. The sun died. Sylvia screamed.

As if Rupont was the end of times falling upon them.

"Turn that back on."

"Rupont— I— you…. DON't SEE ME LIKE THISSS…" as Sylvia hissed the world shifted.

Claude's skin screamed as magic washed over him in the same way it does when you plunge yourself into hot water and every inch of your body hisses in a flash of agony.

A sun danced across the busted windows from outside. Somehow. As it's metaphysical rays fell on the castle completely absent of heat, it repaired like wounds being sewn closed by a Healer. Windows filled with brilliant mosiacs of glass giving it a religious feel. The carpet lost its gothic sheen and turned purple. The moldy chandelier turned into a hung up gigantic crown of blood jewels. The Vampire warriors armor turned to stone white hues and purple clothes to hang around their waists in matching with the castle.

All the while Sylvia's hideous snarl turned into a beautiful seductive hum.

"I missed you, Rupont. You made quite the showing at the Summit." Sylvia's uncanny beauty returned. Spotless skin. A low cut dress that seemed to be predicated on showing the plumpness and oily sheen of her breasts. Her ear rings adoring the entire crown of each sharpened ear glistened purple like her eyes. The color of royalty…. Jammed in their faces repeatedly. Like she needed them to know. Because she did.

Her Elder Ability.

"Royal Mirage…" Rupont mumbled what Claude could only assume was the name of her Elder Ability.

She nervously ran a hand through her blond locks as she tied it up at the back of her head.

"I missed you too…. And your identity politics…"

Sylvia straightened in her chair as the Dark Elf beside her stood still as stone, "One must always put their best self forward when facing allies of important standing."

"And here we stand!" Rupont agreed, "Importantly!"

"Important in reference to your Red Queen I assume." Sylvia replied.

"You assume correctly."

"Well, I'd love to talk. After our fencing session ends. Proper Coven guests don't impede, do they Rupont?"

"No…" Rupont growled.

"We join." A voice behind him finished.

The group looked over at Maris already unsheathing her sword.

"All we've been doing is walking and talking…. And talking …. And talking. My jaw hurts and my ears ache. I'm here to get stronger not socialize."

Sylvia leaned forward in her chair suddenly. Her long wisps of blonde hair swung over her shoulders, swinging in the way of her cleavage like clock hands counting the silence seconds as her eyes dialed in on Maris, switching colors from royal purple to bloodlusted red. Her button nose twitched.

"Rupont, you didn't…."

"I did."

"Come then, all of you. Let's see what the Red Queen can do."