Something about this night does not feel right, and yet, this should be my easiest night on duty for ages. Little Brother and that fiend, are out celebrating their anniversary. Though maybe I would feel more at ease if he just went through with the annulment. Adumbra sighs as she stretches.
An almost militant force of multiple sentient life marches just outside the royal roost hall’s main entrance. Her stance towers stalwart on the other side of the hall's drape-way. Her mighty wings arch with feathers aggressively puffed out as a protective gate.
"This hall is closed to visitors. Turn around immediately."
From the darkened corridor through the entrance, emerges a frightening of Voidists. Their translucent veils indicate that they are of the highest of the faith's priests and priestesses. Each member of this group wears the same uniform; a sheer veil on their heads, no shirt, no shoes, only a crimson satin sash that covers their groins. Their natural mosaic of deeply bold and dark colors all washed shallow gray by their custom.
She searches their faces, I recognise them all. Palace residents, staff, politicians, even some of the royal guards.
"Beautiful Night o' Captain Ossifragus. We seek passage to our holy princess, as The Void Prophet seeks peace and reconciliation with her. All hail the darkest nights." They all speak in unison.
She spits at their feet. "I trust not your void false prophet as far as I can throw her."
"You are the protector of the Black Lotus’s and the Void Prophet's roost hall, and yet you harbor such hatred for our empress?" Their unison voices are broken by a single question.
"Her personal bias denies our religious freedom!" The second voice caws out.
"She denies our prophet and denies the royal family she serves!" The third rings.
Quickly activating her communicator gauntlet. "I need reinforcements- Lt. Vayav, continue guarding Princess Phantisma!"
"Put the communicator down Captain Ossifragus." Elder Vampira steps out from the back of the Voidist group.
I did not see her, how did she hide from me? She tries the communicator again. I can’t seem to activate any lines, not even Little Brother’s.
The Voidists yield to the elder, their high priestess, who passes through them to the front of the group toward the Captain. As she does, the voidists begin chanting again in unison.
"Shut up you brainwashed psychos." Shinawk, I am alone with them.
"Good Adumbra, our Empress is ready to stop hunting her children, if she initiates this one daughter. The solution is clear. Think of our Dark Shepherd, how much pain would alleviate his heart if his family got along? We can unite as a people." Vampira speaks with a fiendish charm that not even the most vile of hellworlds could swallow.
"I trust no unity of someone who turns her talons on those in her care. Nor should you." Thankfully, twenty ages of enduring Malencia has made me resistant to tunes of hypnosis.
“That was ages ago, let them rest at peace-”
“Rest at peace?” The Captain’s right talon tightens into a fist as she grits her teeth. She lowers her voice in case Princess Kurai is eavesdropping and walks straight up to Vampira with her wings spread wide in a threatening display of wrath. “The emperor still has nightmares from losing Prince Desiderius to the empress's talons. He does not rest at peace, and neither do I.”
Her fiercely morganite eyes channel her tears to increase the mass of her tensing muscles. “Do not forget that Malencia made me watch when I tried to protect them that night in the garden. Do not forget that I was the one who escorted my Little Brother as he laid our Little Emperor’s soul orb in the tomb.”
“I-I remember Prince Desiderius’s laughter… I cannot forget Princem Nephti’s playful mischief… The palace has been a tomb without them.” One of the Voidists, Lady Meihua, Dr. Kroe’s secretary breaks from formation.
She approaches Elder Vampira and Captain Ossifragus with professionalism in her stride. She then looks to Elder Vampira. “Princess Kurai is not going to be hurt right?”
Vampira speaks again with her silver tongue cloaked in silk. “We all have gone through initiation, we all adore the princess. No harm shall come to her. I give you my word not just as a member of the Elder Council, but as The Mother of Vampirism."
Lady Meihua nods her head and steps back to the group.
“Then you will have no issue with the Umbral Guard Captain following protocol at Princess Karasu Kurai’s side.” Adumbra still towers.
"This is a sacred rite, those with no desire nor curiosity to join are not allowed to bear witness. Now step aside Captain or The Empress will have you tried and executed for treason."
"Treason? Ha!”
“This is no laughing matter Captain Ossifragus.” Vampira’s eyes become like daggers.
“Finally, something we can agree on.” Adumbra strengthens her stance. “I only take orders from the sacred blood of the Black Lotus. It is my duty to protect Princess Kurai at all costs in his absence, even from the High General herself.”
“By all The Void, move aside Captain.”
“Listen closely, all of you.” Adumbra caws out as she shifts her glare to the group. I know each and every one of your faces. Most of you, I know your names and where you live. I am his Dimperial Majesty, Guardian Emperor Koriath’s talons of protection and justice in his absence. He does not trust your prophet, and neither should you. This is your chance to walk away. I will show no mercy, as the empress shows no mercy to her family if you continue.”
They nod in nervous silence, looking to Elder Vampira to lead them between faith and law. The elder first looks to the floor silently, then her undead eyes reveal threads of a timeless evil and ancient affliction. The Emperor should be out of the equation by now. Vampira thinks to herself before she speaks.
“Captain Adumbra Ossifragus of the Royal Guard.” Vampira says as she takes a stance. “This is for the good of the Dimperium.”
Adumbra starts to draw energy from halls themselves to fortify her physique for combat.
Vampira shifts into a silver fog. “Take the Princess to the Void Prophet. I will stain myself with the dust of morganite.”
“Over my crushed soul orb.” Adumbra grabs the first Voidist who tries to run past her and throws him to the ground.
“Precisely.” Vampira reforms with her nails on Adumbra’s nape.
Adumbra grabs Vampira’s hands, then drops and shifts her weight. Vampira falls as Adumbra brings her down, then jumps up. Adumbra grabs another Voidist who tries to run past, throwing her down as well.
Vampira rises as another Voidest charges, not at Adumbra, but at Vampira. Meihua lunges at Vampira with heroic silence.
Adumbra cannot join her, as she keeps the waterfall of voidists falling and fighting to get past her. Between blows she tries her communicator again, this time the hidden line. “Koriath- FeatherSteal!”
Adumbra’s words are few as a furious fighting ensues. She snaps a Voidist’s neck as they get within striking distance. Another she knocks out with a strategic spin kick.
Meihua shouts as she continues to fight. “Forcing and stealing into a faith is not sacred!”
This snaps another once palace guard, the conversation of earlier, the memory of that fateful night in the garden. The smell of dead souls and bodies fills his mind again as he falls to his knees.
Within this moment of weakness Vampira magically appears beside him. Adumbra moves to follow, however Vampira is so quick as she instantly feeds on his life force. The Orkun guardsman falls over instantly as a dead husk. Vampira not even needing to bite to feed, then using the captured lifeforce to give her the strength to drain out Meihua’s.
A troll woman pins Adumbra down, aided by the magic of an elderly corvapian man. The rest of the Voidists then break their way into the Dimperial Princesses’ roost chamber.
Kurai is hiding as a shadow in the place in the spa room that her father taught her. In the soiled towel chute is a hidden side chamber just before the drop. Oh no, they are here!
"Beautiful Night Princess Kurai." She hears them from the roost chamber.
I really do not like how they talk.
"The Void Prophet requests your company. Join us please ma‘lady. Hail the darkest night." Kurai can hear them talk to try and shuffle out their rushed searching.
How do I get around them? They are stepping into this room.
"No need to hide, come join us." A voidist coaxes.
Kurai’s heart beats too hard to stay hidden, her spirit form reverses back to physical. A corvapian Voidist feels the shift and opens the laundry shoot cabinet.
Kurai holds herself tight. Wait, I think he can hear prayers. She tries to pray silently, not realizing her tears and whispers in the darkness can be heard by those other than her father. “Aw’ddy! Help! Please! I need you!”
Swiftly the hidden door swings open to where Kurai was hiding, a stranger’s talon reaches in as he declares. “I found her.”
Kurai bites his talon as he tries to grab her, becoming a darkened mist again.
"Catch her." One shouts as she darts herself into the chute.
A silver mist surrounds her energy, in manifestation Vampira holds a dangling, squirming, biting, crying, Kurai.
The other Voidists in the room reach out to help their high priestess.
So many hands holding me down. Kurai tries to fight a legion of cultists by herself, while simultaneously being forced into physical form by Elder Vampira's chanting. I can't move... I can't scream! One of them is picking me up!
"Unhand me!" Kurai struggles to speak.
Vampira quickly passes her back to the Voidists, then flies out on a ghostly silver wind into the hallway. The voidists continue with their plan.
They are carrying me away! Come on, body move! We are out of our room. I can see her!
Captain Adumbra slowly rises from Elder Vampira on her back.
It's like this pressure all around me, it hurts. I gotta speak! I'm crying, this is weird, and it hurts. Kurai thinks to herself as she struggles.
"Adumbra!" Come on arm reach out for safety! It hurts, it hurts so much.
The Captain uses the same move again to try and dislodge herself from Vampira, but the Elder forces her weight down on Adumbra’s wings.
Adumbra dives herself backward, Vampira lets go at the last moment.
I cannot defeat this valiant hen in hand to talon combat. Vampira thinks to herself analytically.
“Get your filthy mitts off her!" Adumbra flies toward the one carrying Kurai with a lunge. She drives a flying kick as one of them jumps in front of the one carrying off the princess.
Vampira rises like an undead creature and starts focusing her magic on Adumbra.
"As your princess, I command you to let me go!" Kurai hits, claws, and yells at her kidnappers. She bites the one holding me, they dropped her.
Then several more hold her down as she tries to travel in the dark mist.
“Code Pluck!” Adumbra shouts at her communicator as she fights half of the cultist group by herself.
Unable to poof away, Kurai’s wings puff out in an intimidation display, showing her teeth. "I'll tell Aw'ddy!” Crying and rasping in anger. “Treason on all of you!"
“Princess Kurai, this is for the good of your people.” One of them tells her in a creepy whisper as they keep her down. “This is an honor.”
I wish I was bigger! Kurai continues to scream and fight. Aw’ddy! Please. I’m praying. Save us! With this, a few of Kurai’s feathers fall from her rapidly beating wings. One takes the shape of a tendril, however it is no larger than the feather that fell. The childling’s black energetic mass is powerless against adults trained in combat or magically enhanced.
The Captain charges and knocks down half of them, responding to them with martial arts. However the elder vampire is draining her energy and giving it to each of the voidists.
Adumbra's energy stops flowing into her kicks and talons. Vampira is still draining her. Adumbra starts praying while fighting, but in a language that I cannot translate.
Where is the backup she asked for? I know Devadas has been re-stationed to guard Aw'is. Is no one else coming? Where is Aw'ddy? He should have heard us. The feathers on her wings! They are falling and fading. She is going to die if I do not stop this.
Adumbra keeps fighting through tears and tiredness, she increases her mass so that her frame is about three meters tall. Trying to grow tall enough to tower in the hall and throw out the invaders.
Captain Adumbra's face falls in horror. "Princess! No!"
Of all the traits you could have picked up from your father, do not pick up his martyr complex. She grits her teeth as she thinks to herself. The Captain raises her dark energy. Ki the color of night, wraps around her body, making her muscles larger.
She grabs a Voidist closest to her. The Voidist struggles against her in vain. She throws his unarmored body down the hallway. Swiftly throat punching another.
Vampira tries harder to suck the energy and life force out of her as she chants with void.
Adumbra starts feeding off the emotions of everyone in the vicinity to keep up her furious fighting.
She is beating them! Then something hits me, it feels like an insect sting. Is that a dart? Who shot that? Kurai becomes dizzy and paralyzed, one of the Voidest picks her up and lays her over their shoulder.
"Take the princess to The Void Prophet. I will deal with this one." Vampira directs.
"No! Please. Leave her alone- Koriath - Devadas! I failed!" Screaming into her communicator.
One of the voidists, who is hidden in the shadows, snipes the Captain’s neck with a laced blow dart. As she rips it out of her neck, her body stumbles, catching herself before falling.
"Most of the Dimperial guards are Voidist. Give up Adumbra Ossifragus. Your precious Divine Mother and Little Brother are now both forever gone.”
Koriath, Black Lotus Divine, Our God, Our Night in Flesh, Dark Shepherd, Kurai needs you. Please save her. Please hear my prayer. Little Brother, you cannot be gone. Your daughter needs you. Adumbra slowly rises as she prays with all of her soul’s might.
“No one will fight beside the youngest of poor miners’ offspring." The old vampire cackles as she continues to drain Adumbra’s life force.
"Princess Kurai! Stay strong!" Her body falls limp as she tries to punch The Elder.
"Captain Adu..." A dreamless sleep takes me as I am carried off.