Giselle - Wanted To Find The Duke's Study

Giselle wanted to find the Duke's study.

When she found it, the Duke's study was a mess. That was not surprising. The people in it had been burning things in braziers. That was not surprising either. Giselle killed those people and extinguished the braziers. Yes, the dead people knew things. Giselle was not in the mood for babysitting prisoners. She was in the mood to look for mechanisms.

Failing to find any took long enough for more people to arrive. 

Giselle noticed them before they noticed her. She was dust again. Dead bodies and extinguished braziers put the new arrivals on high alert. They discussed options. It hadn't been the Crown Princess. The bladework was too neat and fussy. Was there a traitor in the household?

"There are always traitors in households," observed one.

That was usually true, thought Giselle. 

It would have been easier for her to ambush the new arrivals before they became alert and analytical. But she had a plan. Except it wasn't a plan. It was a hope. Giselle hoped the new arrivals would spare her the trouble of finding the mechanisms. Eventually, the new arrivals did just that. Fiddling with some kitschy glass figurines on one side of the room caused a section of floor on the other side to sink down and slide over.

Giselle again felt the urge to kill.

But there were five targets. If they were all ordinary people, no problem. But if any were "abducted" martial artists, the fight would take too long. At least one would drop into the passage. Realizing the gig was up, that person would seal the passage and disable the mechanisms. Instead of killing, Giselle blended in with the dust disturbed by the motion of the slab and flowed down stone steps carved into granite.

That granite was going to become a pain. The tunnels twisted every which way and created plenty of places to hide. Some opened onto a well shaft. It resembled Moonlight Chamber's well, but was narrower and had only simple stonework. Above was a small disk of the night sky. Below was water. A breeze blew out of the shaft and through the tunnels.

Giselle heard other people, but saw no one except the five she was following. They walked fast. Wherever they were going, it was down. That made sense. There were probably tunnels that went under the moats. Those were likely to only accommodate one person at a time, in order to limit the threat they posed to the fortress. Giselle imagined a smile. She could easily kill this group one by one in such a constrained space.

Except they entered a large space. It was an octagonal room with balconies in the walls. The stonework was not as refined as that in the crypt beneath Marquis Yue's mansion, but the reference was unmistakable. Instead of three balconies at weird heights, here the balconies followed a checkerboard pattern. Furthermore, many balconies were actually cages.

In those cages were people.

Giselle changed her plan. She returned to the first available opening on the well shaft. Then she flashed up the well to the surface. She wasn't at the highest level of the fortress, but was close enough to find the Crown Princess. 

"The Mithril Guard can clean up here," she told Esmaralde. "There's a bigger prize below."

Esmaralde looked skeptical.

"Maybe even a vampire's crypt," said Giselle.

"Lead the way," said Esmaralde.

Giselle led to the well.

"I'll go down first to mark the spot," she said.

Esmaralde nodded. Giselle streaked down the shaft. A creepy well in a creepy fortress was perfect for an assassin who practiced Gloaming Realm mhoddim interface techniques. She reached the opening she wanted and flickered inside. Anticipating that the Crown Princess's descent would be as conspicuous as possible, Giselle pushed her back against a wall, unsheathed her sword, and stuck it out into the shaft.

A lightning bolt came straight down the middle and sustained itself. Esmaralde descended the incandescent bolt while gripping it with one hand. At the level indicated by Giselle's sword, she stepped off. The pair raced to the octagonal chamber. There was no sign of the people Giselle had been following, but others rushed in to fill the void. Some may have been "abducted" martial artists. None lasted long against the Goddess of Glaives. Giselle found herself dodging body parts and blood as often as weapons.

Rather than strike out on her own, Giselle remained near the Crown Princess. Although Esmaralde wasn't in danger, together they forced their way through defenders so quickly it created a shockwave that further increased their speed. They fought up the tunnels wrapping around the octagon, then back down to the floor. 

Four people were waiting for them. One was Tianming Duchess. The other three were Mu Lang and his martial brothers. Jian Peak's gigolos looked hardened and rugged – as if they belonged to a different abbey entirely. The Duchess looked regal. She wore ostentatious clothes, too many jewels, and a tiara. Oh, come on, sweetheart, thought Giselle. The Duchess's right hand was extended forward. In it she held a longsword perpendicular to her body and parallel with the ground. No ordinary sword, it was a sacred weapon from the arsenal of Tianzi Peak Abbey.

"Crown Princess," said the Duchess. "You're too much."

Oh, come on, sweetheart, thought Giselle.

"The crowd above exhausted my patience," said Esmaralde. "Surrender, or I'll just kill you."

"If I surrender," said the Duchess, "I would deserve to be killed."

Her sword flared with golden light. Its radiance forced Giselle to take a half-step back.

"I am fighting to preserve four thousand years of history," said the Duchess.

"Are you going to complain about shopkeepers too?" asked Esmaralde.

"You're a warrior," said the Duchess, "and a descendant of royalty. Shouldn't you also complain about shopkeepers running the country? The nobility has been suppressed. The martial orders have been suppressed. All in the name of consumption and efficiency. What kind of society do you want to build?"

"Let's set the record straight," said Esmaralde. "You attacked me. Looking around, I think you were jealous of my new crypt. It's better than yours. Was a vampire even here?"

Esmaralde advanced against the glare.

"No," said Giselle. "This stonework is only a few hundred years old. It's a copy. But to make a copy, someone must have seen an original. Have the Tianming Dukes been worshiping imaginary vampires all that time? Isn't worshiping vampires the sort of thing the children of shopkeepers do?"

The Duchess stabbed the floor. A disk of light radiating out from her sword's tip.

"Worshipping isn't the word," said the Duchess. "How are your shadow tricks now, peasant?" 

Giselle sheathed her offhand weapon. Even animating its spirit would distract her too much under the current circumstances. Her shadow tricks were, in fact, no use.

"It's true I can't kill you as quickly as I'd like with all this sparkling," laughed Giselle. "But not only is your life at its end, so is your title. Peasant."

The Duchess swung her sword, conjuring a slice of radiant light. Esmaralde knocked it aside with a bare hand. The Goddess of Glaives spun forward. The Duchess knew enough to get the hell out of the way. Mu Lang blocked the shaft of Esmaralde's weapon. It put him under great stress, but blocking the Goddess of Glaives head-on was impressive. Esmaralde rotated her weapon in the other direction.

Mu Lang got the hell out of the way. 

The two other gigolos came for Giselle. They were not as strong as Mu Lang, but were still strong enough to be taken seriously. Giselle missed her shadow tricks, but old school fighting was good for the soul. When it came to fundamental sword techniques, Alistair had instilled within her a compulsion not to waste time.

The same could not be said for Jian Peak's whirling showoffs, but they did not preen as much as Giselle expected. More remarkably, they threw punches and kicks. Using a beautiful body as a crude weapon was heresy to Jian Peak. Street beggars threw punches and kicks. Gargogryeons and the Royal Guard did it, too. Who else? Bian Peak Abbey wove punches and particularly kicks into its forms.

Curious.

Giselle found that her most effective tactic was to pull the gigolos into conflict with one another. She was faster than they were. Jian Peak boys weren't used to fighting quicker opponents. Using that to her advantage, Giselle always kept one gigolo between her and the other. As they interfered with one another, they got frustrated. As they got frustrated, they made mistakes. As they made mistakes, Giselle cut them. Focused on dancing more than killing, she could never invest the time to cut them decisively – but she had an advantage in this battle of attrition.

Mu Lang and the Duchess were in a different kind of battle. Esmaralde was called Goddess of Glaives, and she was one, but she was also a master of Gargogryeon's force techniques. Her turtle shell made her back nearly invulnerable. Her front was a murder zone. Her sides could become murder zones without warning. All Esmaralde needed was to connect once and the battle was over.

Her tactic was to relentlessly threaten the Duchess.

The Duchess was a skilled fighter and could weave distracting magic into her strikes. If Giselle had run into all four of these people by herself, she would have lost. But the Duchess's skill was no match for Esmaralde's – and glamorous spellcraft couldn't save her. Mu Lang was constantly forced to intervene. 

Jian Peak considered offense the best defense. Mu Lang's natural instinct was to go on offense from behind. But he couldn't break the turtle shell. That forced him to get in front and play actual defense. Jian Peak's actual defense consisted of leveraging speed to get out of the way. Because the glitter boy sect was the fastest in Great Yao, that usually worked. Getting out of the way would save Mu Lang from Esmaralde, but it wouldn't save the Duchess. The glitter boy had to keep blocking. Although he could block the Crown Princess, which was amazing, block was all he could do.

Giselle formed a plan. This time it really was a plan and not a hope. She was faster than her two opponents. She could dictate where they moved. She therefore dictated that they moved toward a position from which Giselle could attack either her current opponents or the Duchess. To his credit, Mu Lang picked up on her intention and made a move to intercept. His status as Jian Peak Successor was legitimate. Too bad he was going to get killed by the Goddess of Glaives before he reached his prime. 

Esmaralde's overwhelming strength made her indifferent to plans. She played combat on an intuitive level. When conditions changed, she immediately knew where to stick her glaive.

She stuck it clean through one of Mu Lang's martial brothers.

Focused on Giselle, he had mistakenly believed that Mu Lang had the Crown Princess occupied. Giselle was forced to parry Mu Lang's attack. He was a genuine threat. That left her vulnerable to the third gigolo. That boy landed a slash. It hurt. Giselle wouldn't deny that.

But her plan had produced results.

Esmaralde threatened the Duchess. Mu Lang switched back to defense. Esmaralde committed more forcefully to this attack than previous ones. Spinning around Mu Lang, she accepted the risk of letting him remain inside the reach of her weapon longer – and slammed the Duchess with an elbow. The Duchess went flying.

Out on her own, she was vulnerable to both Giselle and Esmaralde. Rather than press his advantage inside Esmaralde's reach, Mu Lang blurred to collect the Duchess in one arm. Giselle considered it marvelously romantic. Also stupid. He had opened up the distance Esmaralde needed to….

Recognizing the battle was lost, Giselle's remaining opponent impaled himself on Esmaralde's onrushing glaive. The Duchess conjured a blinding flash of light from her sword. Esmaralde and Giselle assumed defensive stances. Both women could fight blindfolded, but no attacks came.

Previously, most Floating World commentators considered Mu Lang more an artist than a warrior. If that was ever true, it was clear to Giselle that was no longer true. He survived against the Goddess of Glaives and Moonlight Chamber's top killer even with the burden of defending a comrade. But back when he was considered more an artist than a warrior, it was always recognized that Mu Lang was a prodigy with flashy steps.

Both he and the Duchess were gone.

"He's fast," said Esmaralde. "I'll give the glitter boy that."

"Damn fast," said Giselle. "And I'm sure he has an out. We're unlikely to catch him."

"We've done what we needed to do," said Esmaralde. "I'm sure the people in these cages enjoyed the show so much, they'll be happy to tell us everything."

"I'm sure the people in these cages are our abducted martial artists," said Giselle.