Chapter 140
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Hiram was more than fine with it. In fact, he was downright pleased that there existed legal provisions to spare as many people as possible and gave me carte blanche on pulling similar tricks, so long as it definitely removed the offending families from Kraut sphere of interest. Annoyingly for both of us, that still left us with a surfeit of unrepentant assholes to deal with. Falstaff pointing out that the majority of those had already accepted a new and glorious career as a fertilizer did lift my spirits a bit, though I can not say the same for Hiram. Apparently, Falstaff had the presence of mind for someone to hold up the tablet so that Hiram could see the action with his own eyes, and he got the first-row seat experience at seeing what autocannons do to densely packed cavalry. His only comment on that - "...At least it was very quick." Ambercrombes are... discombobulated. As far as I can tell, they were fully prepared to die, and on finding out that they of all people are exempt from execution had messed with them badly. All three of them are sitting in the very much shot up hall on the only three chairs that retain some sort of structural cohesion and exchange deep sighs and murmurs. I listen in, of course, but the gist of their discussion is voicing of assorted worries about how they will be received by the Champagne branch and what can they possibly do to safeguard themselves from being enslaved again. I should probably have a word with the dean when I hand them over. Falstaff's men (and women) are using telekinesis to collect the body parts together. Upon having had taken pictures of the heads for the record-keeping, Falstaff declared that everyone is getting to share a communal pyre. I did offer to burn the whole keep to make it simple, but apparently Falstaff has some plans for it later. So I grabbed some firewood, split it into planks, smoothed them out to be safe to hold and slapped basic telekinesis formulae on them. Mostly, because people were planning on handling the bloody gibs by hand and, ugh... just, no. Fuck that unhygienic noise. Are you wizards or not, dammit? Falstaff immediately asks if they are allowed to keep the kinesis paddles. Leading to me asking why would he want them because it's the basics of enchantment. And this is where he floors me. Apparently, common sense on enchanting says that you may define parameters during enchantment, and that's it. So my paddles that accept your notion on what the target for the spell should be are... yeah. He also explains that I'm an oddity in how often I use TK and how groundbreaking the idea of utility use is. To hear him say it, the usual way those spells are cast is all about "I rip out that hill to smack you around with it!". I counterpoint with an assertion that surely someone thought to use TK for lockpicking before. Turns out no. No one did. The spell they do have for locks is basically "blow the lock out of the door with a little explosion". He expresses doubts that TK can have the finesse for lockpicking. I pick some locks in the keep. People collectively lose their shit. So now I am sitting in the yard using a table and chair pilfered from one of the less wrecked rooms and jotting down the compilation of things I ended up cluing Falstaff into. Both to make sure I remember all that I clued them in and to give a copy to sir Malachi. No reason to give Kraut intelligence services an edge over my own country, ne? ___ Meanwhile... I am investigating the bog keep. Falstaff and his folks will keep - they are busy collecting all the evidence, bodies and whatever else they need, and while they are at it, I made preparations for the final movement. Shilka is not going to get through the bog, it's more water than ground so I time it out and queue something different instead. Let's see... Ah, this will do nicely. A small hoverboat, just the thing I need for the bog. Fits only ten people, but I'm pretty sure Falstaff will need to leave someone behind to watch the horses anyway, so it should be fine. I'm going to pacify the place before they even see it anyways, so... Yeah. Done with preparations, I inflate the instance I teleported to the keep and take a good look around. This room is kinda abandoned, though there seem to be... some traces left. Ok, so this is a puddle of vomit and those are the boot scuff marks... Presumably, Dachaufreisser is responsible for the vomit... And maybe scuff marks too? If he had an episode and fainted or whoever else was there knocked him out when he became hysterical... I push open the door and sniff. Aha. The trace of vomit scent is unmistakeably leading me down the corridor... And the other end of the corridor seems to be leading into the inner yard anyways. ...Huh. Well. That DOES confirm that Dachaufreissers are prone to harsh mood swings, at the very least. Or, perhaps, the baron was just prone to depression. Anyways, he hanged himself. Given that his belt still has the empty scabbard on it, I imagine that he tried for the dagger first, had it taken away and then people just left him here to recuperate. A little thoughtless, but hanging is typically considered a commoner death, so perhaps they just did not expect the baron to be distraught enough to go for it. Aaanywa... WHOA. I lean away from the dagger almost hitting me in the face, backstep and retaliate with a kick. Then a punch. Holy shit, they ARE prone to mindless rages!... Wait, no, she married into the family... Huh, then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the propensity for berzerk rages is maintained by marrying within the family. For all I know, the baroness was related to the baron even before marriage. Anyway, related or not, she is pretty fucking aggressive with the knife and does not seem to be registering the bruises I already inflicted. Alrighty then, let's ramp it up, since for all her snarling aggression, she is still working at human levels of physiology. Decently trained human, but no more than that. Sending her back with another kick, I conjure my go-to for the brawl, Bec de Corbin and let her have it. Well. Dagger versus polearm is not exactly effective. She quickly gains a stab in the abdomen with the pike tip... and seemingly ignores it. The follow-up hammerhead to the knee is more successful. My standing theory is that she is too enraged to register pain, but broken bones do slow her down. Really, without a kneecap it changes from alarming to pitiful, so I step away once again, pivot to the side and end her activity with a beak strike to the base of her skull. Instant kill, more or less, severs the spine from the skull. I'm guessing the dagger she had is the one that's missing from the scabbard I noticed earlier. Looks matching, at least. Well, that's Dachaufreissers scratched off the list. Now I'm just missing Brikhiters. Wonder why no one turned up at the sounds of the brawl. The keep seems abandoned... Wait, no. I can hear something faint from above. Let's see... The ground floor is empty. I am guessing that this place has no servants, as one would expect from a secret bolthole. No basement either, it's simply not an option in the middle of the bog. I'm actually surprised there was enough firm land to account for an inner yard, to be honest... Oh. Oh wait. That's not actually... Oh. Wow. The whole thing is actually a house on stilts, and the inner yard is just a palm-deep layer of earth on top of a log underfloor. Explains certain things. Of course, no one could find this properly, the only way to get to the keep is in a johnboat. Which would need to be carried into the bog. Which is widely considered a dangerous and poisonous place by locals. Cunning, I'll give them that. The sounds come from the big room upstairs. Unsure what it's for, everything I can think of for it that's reasonable for the hideout is already present elsewhere. Like, the mess hall is on the ground floor, training is likely conducted in the inner yard and the ballroom is poignantly pointless in a hideout... What else? Meh, I can just take a look, right? Well... shit. The top floor is a purpose-built ritual room. And Brikhiters are putting the finishing touches on a summoning ritual. Given that there are two bound persons in the circle diagram, it should be something... considerable. Like that demon. Wow. I'm not sure which realm exactly this guy is from, but he looks vaguely like a baron of hell from Doom. Twice my height, built like a brick crapper, vaguely goat-like head with massive horns. Brikhiters are very much preoccupied with their ritual to notice me opening up the door and stepping in. I'd kill several of them to disrupt the ritual... but they are already past the stage where it would work. This guy already made a landing, so to speak, if I kill them now, all that it would achieve is setting the demon loose without any constraints. And since I'm pretty sure their request would be to kill me anyways, I might as well wait a moment and see how this shakes out. After all, if they successfully make the request, it would be much harder for this guy to duke it out with me without causing collateral damage - as opposed to breaking the negotiation and letting him loose without any reason to worry about collateral damage, to begin with. "STATE YOUR DESIRE, MORTAL." - the demon booms at the guy I'm standing behind, whom I peg as the baron himself. His two sisters are next to him and the rest of the kids are spread around the perimeter of the circle. Looks like they're a family coven of demon worshippers. That makes the sacrifices in the ring baroness and the only legitimate son. Huh, I guess the baron really dislikes his "legal" family, if he is willing to use them as expendables. "Oh great Baal, the customs have been observed! The seal was drawn, the offering was given and the supplicant speaks!" - the baron intones. I'm no expert on goat expressions, but I have a distinct feeling the demon in question sorely wants to facepalm right now. "Grant us the boon, oh great Baal, deliver us from our foe and strike her down! The White Witch, Alyssa Gillespie!" - he continues, his voice winding up into a zealous shriek by the end of it. And then he spoils the whole impression by breaking down into a coughing fit. "FUCKING FORMALITIES." - the demon commiserates - "THE WHITE WITCH, YOU SAY? LET US SEE... UH..." He does something. Pretty nifty trick, actually, I'm going to crib that one. He is basically polling the local noosphere for info. I had no idea it's even viable, but apparently... Oh. Wow. So neat. Very impressed. Nice, dude, taught me something new and neat today. Just for that, I'll try not to draw it out if we're gonna brawl. ...Two new things, actually. This is the first time I see a demon go pale. "...JUST TO VERIFY. BY WHITE WITCH, YOU MEAN THE PERSON RIGHT BEHIND YOU?" - the demon... bleats, I have no other word for how his voice suddenly just sorta caved in on itself. Baron whirls around, along with his sisters. The kids just sort of sway in place, still mostly in a trance. I'm guessing they are holding the seal while the adults are manipulating it. His eyes bug out as soon as he sees me. "....How in the name of the starless void are you even here!?" - he then demands incredulously. "Dachaufreissers were using old Farseeing Sphere from Sultanate to keep an eye on their kids back in the mansion." - I suggest languidly - "That thing has an aetheric tether, you know? Child's play to follow it along." "...Good to know." - he grumbles - "Then again, rather obvious in hindsight. That what connects must have a connection, and a road that exists is a road one can follow along... Gods-bedamned idiots and their accursed blood ties. This is the last time they use my sham of a marriage to drag me into their mess, I swear." "You seem smarter than the rest of them. Why'd you even throw in with this lot?" - I inquire. I'm legit curious, the baron seems to have some brains, demonologist or not. Why would he join in on this suicidal pact, I have no idea. Baron scoffs bitterly, spitting out - "As if I WOULD." He turns around and by all appearances seems to be about to kick one of the bound figures in the middle of the circle... before pausing and pulling back. Which is smart, because disrupting sacrifice right now would have weird consequences. Even discounting the fact that demon seems to be... less than inclined to deal with me. "...THE DEAL'S OFF." - the demon in question interjects suddenly - "YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD PARTNER, MORTAL, BUT I AM NOT GOING AGAINST HIGHER BEING." Cue the baron gogging out at him incredulously. "...higher being?" - he repeats faintly. "THE... FORMFACTOR YOU REFER TO AS WHITE WITCH IS..." - and at this point demon suddenly cuts himself off and peers at me intently - "...APOLOGIES, I SHOULD NOT SPEAK OUT OF TURN." ...He seems to be very disinclined to deal with me. To the point where he thinks that even divulging information about me is dangerous if I am seeing this right. Whatever, one way or another the baron is leaving, so... Might as well give the demon dude a chance to explain himself properly. "Feel free to state your reasons." - I wave at him lazily - "Baron already knows too much, some background facts won't change anything at this point." "GRATITUDE." - the demon proffers hastily - "MORTAL, WHAT YOU SEE BEFORE YOU IS BUT A FORM YOU LOT ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. WHITE WITCH DOES NOT EXIST INSOFAR AS YOU COMPREHEND IT, IT IS SIMPLY A MASK OF BEING VASTLY MORE EXTENSIVE. SHOULD THIS BEING DECIDE TO ABANDON THE VEIL OF PERCEPTION, YOUR MIND WILL SHATTER. WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS AND TO THEIR POWER I AM LESS THAN YOU ARE TO ME. I REJECT THIS DEAL BECAUSE THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY FOR ME TO SUCCEED - AND BECAUSE IF I ELECT TO TRY ANYWAYS, THIS BEING WILL END ME IN PERPETUITY. AS A TOKEN OF OUR PARTNERSHIP, I WILL OFFER YOU AND YOURS ONE-TIME ASSISTANCE AT DIMENSIONAL EMIGRATION - IF I AM PERMITTED TO DO SO. THIS IS THE UTTERMOST I CAN OFFER YOU INSOFAR AS YOUR SURVIVAL IS CONCERNED." This... actually sounds pretty good. If the baron accepts the exile outside the world as the demon seems to suggest, it will definitely be sufficient for Hiram, and I have no specific beef with Brikhiters. The demon summoning, well... I WAS assaulting their keep, trying to fight me off at this point is kinda common sense. So long as the baron is fine with it and the demon can pull it off... I'll sort out what to do with sacrifices later - the baron definitely isn't going to include them on the deal and the demon can't take them because he already rejected the deal. "What do you say, baron?" - I ask in the lull of silence that follows the explanation - "Hiram paid me well to excise your group from Kraut, but he did specify I may offer exile to anyone smart enough to take it. If you accept the offer of your partner, I will let you and your family go otherworld with sufficient supplies to start your new life in some other world comfortably. Your associate likely has an idea for which world will be most receptive to accommodate a practicing demonologist with family." Baron looks at me, swallows, then hugs his sisters around the necks, pulling them into a brief huddle. A brief exchange in whispers and he turns back - "...I... WE accept the offer. Will you permit us half an hour to collect our belongings?" I shrug. Stomp on the floor, stabbing a couple of tentacles into the floor and spread them across the keep. There will be a bunch of random holes, but hey, it's not like this place is going to be used again. Not without a thorough examination and repairs, at least. Putting everything they might conceivably carry together, packing it up and pulling it up to the doors is a matter of five seconds of concentration. The doors push open, as a cavalcade of sacks and packages enters. I literally took everything that could be carried by a person, leaving behind bare walls and big furniture. They will have enough clothes, food and gold for the initial set-up, that's for sure. Hell, they just might settle down into early retirement if they're fine living modestly, Brikhiters seem to be pretty rich and they do keep it in this keep. Makes sense, it's kinda safe here. Can't rob what can't be found. Baron swallows again as the tentacles stack all their belongings into the circle next to the demon and remove the bound bodies. His sisters meanwhile are busy waking up kids, who... might have been spared even if the baron decided to be stupid. My estimation is that they range from seven to thirteen, give or take. I have mixed feelings about literal kids participating in the human sacrifice ceremony, but... it's not gonna be my problem very soon. "...Ooer... yes, quite." - he stammers, staring at tentacles with a certain degree of fascination mixed with a healthy dollop of terror. Nabad, I guess he has some degree of defilement himself, given that demonology by the definition is all about going outside the world bounds. "Out of idle curiosity, baron... How did you end up supporting this idiocy anyways and how often do you actually carry out human sacrifice?" - I inquire. If he is a serial killer, I just might change my mind. "...Er, three times, counting today." - he offers haltingly - "It is used to be uncommon in the area to commit crimes grave enough to be consigned to death." I look at the bound bodies and cock an eyebrow at him. He sighs tiredly and strokes his beard. A nervous tic, I guess. "The woman on the floor is my former wife." - he then begins gloomily - "Understand me right, jungfrau, if I had any say in the situation, the vile hag would have never been included in my family. I have been informed by schwagerlin von Norn that I am already married and that all that remains for me to do is to take in the woman in question and claim her son is mine by blood once she gives birth. She made it clear that my consent on the matter is neither important nor sought out. To this day, I do not know who the actual father is, save for the fact he must be someone high up for schwagerlin to accommodate the situation so much. My inclusion in the situation was facilitated solely by my so-called wife in the most aggrieving manner - she forged my letter of acknowledgment and permitted all that rabble to enter my keep before I was even made aware of what is going on." He heaves a sigh, then forges on - "Once I was informed of the situation, I sought to make inquiries with the people most responsible for this... division of authority, so to speak. Much to my surprise, you have already killed both count Norn and most of the family, including my maledictor. I have immediately renounced the people forced on me, for reasons you can easily surmise, but it was too late to bow out of the situation - the blood feud was already announced. Hence, I sought to obtain the most powerful protection I could think of, using my former wife and son as the payment to do so, since it was their fault I was locked in the struggle to the death with someone I haven't even spoken to before." "Maybe you should have practiced more." - I suggest flippantly - "Plenty of undesirables around to hone your sacrificial game on, you know?" He recoils. "That's monstrous." - he then says firmly - "And cheapening of sacrifice. Life should be treated with the utmost gravity, lest it becomes worthless to everyone." Huh. Moral demonologist. Live and see oddities, I guess. "...Aaand you have just secured your continued existence." - I smile at him - "Continue this course, baron. And better luck in your new life." He seems like he is about to say something, but then waves his hand, smiles helplessly and ambles over to the pile of supplies which is now decorated by the rest of his family using it as the seats. "Farewell." - offers one of his sister-wives. "May we never meet again." - adds the other one. The demon takes this as his cue. He had curiously kept silent and patient while we were talking. Am I THAT scary to his people? He is, quite obviously a capable individual - both physically and magically. Wonder what's up. ... ...... ......... "...Yeah, no." - I then suggest. I see the problem. The way those demons use magic is through their horns. Robust, but a little... OK, a LOT subpar on the economy. He just might boil his brains before he manages the dimensional rift to take the exiles away. The fact he was willing to do so vastly implies that the baron is... well, a friend to him, no other way to slice it. Let's help out. I saunter over to the demon in question, streeeetch up (I think Brikhiters are all defiled enough to take the limited exposure) and grab the dude by the horns. ...Huh, that has better potential. Nudge things around like this... And this... Yep, now just let them spiral up naturally, graft the pattern in, it should be self-reproducing if.. .yep, that's better. The demon in question staggers as I let him go, his clawed hands clutching at his horns. Which now sport spirals of orange glow. The visual representation of mana channeling. I fudged with his bone structure a little and anchored the magic to his sense of ego... I think. It's fiddly. But if I pulled this off right, the magically efficient horns should breed true for him. "...I... THIS... AAAAAAH!" - he finally finds some words, as the basic spell he used to probably test his horns after being fiddled with blares into life about two orders of magnitude beyond the expected. What should have come out as little light instead comes out with the power of a searchlight, reflects off the wall and makes everyone present blink spots out of their eyes for a couple moments. "...BUT... HOW..." - he stammers, before his upbringing kicks in and he bows to me, his horns almost scraping the floor for a moment - "...I THANK YOU FOR THIS BOON." "Good luck to you too." - I quip - "Just a word of warning - this will probably breed true, so pick your mate very carefully." Compared to the previous attempt, the flare of dimensional magic swallows all of them almost instantly, sending a wobble through the immediate area as the demon, the baron, the family and the luggage all vanish into an aether abruptly. All I hear is the cut off - "THIS IS WHY WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS, MORTAL, FOR THEY..." Welp. That happened. And just because at times I just have to be a memelord, I don a freshly conjured hat that says "Truck-chan" on it. I mean, technically I did just isekai someone, so... ___ With all that excitement, I almost forget about the two left behind. Which... well, they are both unconscious and have had been such for a couple hours. I consider them, throw a diagnostic spell on them and come to the conclusion someone rather professionally blackjacked both of them six to eight hours ago. Around early evening, then. Waking them up is as simple as a couple slaps. I do remove the eye coverings, but I leave the gags and bindings where they are for now. Just to keep things calm. "Awake?" - I quip, seeing two pairs of eyes focus on me after some grogginess - "Good. I'm going to remove the gags now. I'd admonish you against shouting, but we're in the middle of the bog. No one around to hear your scream." "Who are you!?" - the boy demands as soon as I pull his gag off. ...Darn, it feels awkward to refer to him as a boy. He's like fifteen by now. At least. The teen? The lad? The bastard? Fuck it. "...Seriously?" - I drawl. I wonder if his mother is quicker on the uptake. Nope. No glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "To brass tacks." - I urge them on - "We are currently in the secret bog keep belonging to the Brikhiter family. Baron and most of his family had attempted demon summoning, using you two as sacrifices to make it happen. It didn't go as they expected and instead of you two, the demon took all of them and vanished. I don't think they're coming back. You two are all that's left of Brikhiters now. I'm going to untie you now, try not to move too much. You were unconscious for hours, your bodies are likely numb." I take off their bindings. Maybe I should have killed them without waking them up, but I'm morbidly curious. Baroness seems to be another member of the old hag conspiracy... Wonder what she'll sing. For the time being, I'm going to blithely ignore their questions about my identity, since they don't seem to recognize me, and instead redirect them to all that is happening around. "Baron Dachaufreisser, where is he!?" - the baroness demands urgently - "Be on your guard, he is no friend of ours!" "Tall black-haired man, thickly built?" - I "confirm" - "He hanged himself in the room over yonder for some reason." Both of them doubletake. "What do you mean, HANGED?" - the teen demands - "That's for commoners!" I shrug. "I think he tried to stab himself with his dagger first." - I explain - "Someone took it away and left him to recuperate, but the baron had other things on his mind. I overheard baron Brikhiter mentioning he was hit with insanity-causing spell earlier, so... yeah." They clearly don't know what to do with the information. Baroness seems to come to grips first, though. Actually, she tries to sit up. With moderate success. Numb, as I suggested. "...A bad way to go, but he deserved it." - she mutters - "Where is your boat?" I blink at her. "Boat?" - I repeat - "At the dock. Are you sure you want to leave? This is probably the safest place right now." She scoffs. "Safest? The den of demon summoner? Surely you jest." - she proffers - "Besides, this nonsense with blood feud should be over by now." "Last I heard, it was still going strong." - I object mildly - "And you are the last of Brikhiters now, given that the baron and the rest of his family were taken by a demon." She forcibly sits up and shakes her head. "Utter nonsense." - she barks - "You do not know what you are talking about, Truck. Bring us to the boat right now, there are matters to attend to and we can not dawdle in this bog." Wha...? Oh. The hat. Hah. Heheheh! Did she assume I'm a servant from orient or something? "Let me rephrase things." - I proffer - "You're not going to leave this bog. Ever." Ooh, now they are starting to grasp the situation. Too late. "And, just so we are clear, my name is not Truck. This is a joke for one." - I continue, taking off the hat and fanning myself with it, then letting it time out - "I am Alyssa Gillespie, also known as White Witch. Pleased to find you, you're the last ones I am hunting." Huh. Baronet is quick on the uptake, at the very least. I grab his wrist, halting the knife just before my face. Good reflexes and decent training... And utter lack of tactical awareness. I shoot him in the face from below with the other hand. This is basically point-blank distance, the bullet enters under his jaw and comes out of the top of his head in a small fountain of blood, brains and skull shards. I let go of his wrist, step back and award baroness with a gut shot. Then I simply take my time to reload the flintlocks, disregarding the last witness. You might say I'm sympathetic to baron Brikhiter. Being forced into marriage is bad enough, being forced to claim a bastard as his own and the only legitimate heir, when he has six genuine children? That's just nasty. Though the bastard technically was first, come to think of it. "...Haah! Aaah... Hah!... Nnngh!" - hrm. I glance at the baroness. Gut shots are painful, yes. "Who was the actual father of the boy you foisted on Brikhiter?" - I ask absentmindedly - "You're dead anyways, the question is merely how quick it will be. Tell me what I want to know and I'll finish you off... Or I will just leave you here and come back in a couple weeks once you expire from a combination of peritonitis, blood loss, starvation and foul water." "Oh gods, count Norn! Norn was the father oh gods mercy, you're a monster!" - she gasps out. "Were you in on the whole old maid conspiracy?" - I question. She clearly isn't, befuddlement is clear even with the pain she's in. Fair enough. I let her open mouth for yet another moan or imprecation or whatever she wanted to say, slip the barrel tip in and shoot her in the roof of the mouth. Basically the same instakill as what just happened to her son. Blood feud... complete. ___ "On one hand, I'm impressed." - Falstaff proffers from the next seat, as I carefully pick my way through the bog. A lot of fallen trees and other assorted debris at the edges, but things got smoother when we got further in and hit the water stretches. "On the other, I can't help but wonder if the quality of carriage and the noise it makes are tied somehow." - he continues, keeping his voice quite loud to be heard over the roar of hover fans. "To make things quieter, you need to improve the road, not the carriage!" - I shout back as I peer forward intently. The keep is somewhere... SHIT! I should have waited a few more hours to get better visibility. Early morning murk on the bog is nasty. The keep pretty much jumps at me suddenly and I barely manage to jerk the rudders enough to swing along the wall rather than smack right into it. Fans screech as we spin out, but thankfully stabilize a few moments later. Gunning the march propeller with a lot more caution, I manage to float us over to the dock relatively neatly. Two of the six men Falstaff elected to take along open the door, hop out on the dock with ropes and secure us to it properly, allowing me to power down the fans and let the boat just settle down on the grimy water. The grand total of the expedition is me, Falstaff, Anne-Marie and six unnamed men mostly along as laborers. The rest remained with the horses. It takes me a few minutes to show Falstaff around. The hideout is not particularly big, after all. Big enough for one family like Brikhiters to hide out in and wait out the troubles for a couple months, but not more than that. He clicks his tongue at the sight of corpses, particularly so at hanged Dachaufreisser. "Was that truly necessary, freulein?" - he inquires with a measure of distaste, as his men cut the cadaver down. "Wasn't me, Falstaff." - I retort - "He hanged himself, and as far as I can tell, that happened because they took away his dagger earlier. My theory is that he had a bout of suicidal hysteria after seeing me kill his sons." He frowns, looks around, checks up a couple spots, including the corpse I made of Dachaufreisser's wife, then comes up to me. "...I find myself both admiring your ruthless efficiency and sorely desiring you'd do it in some other country as soon as possible." - he proffers with a rueful chuckle - "That's Dachaufreissers crossed off the list. What about Brikhiters?" "This is where it gets weird." - I admit, as I guide him upstairs to see the ritual circle. He hisses in alarm when he sees it partially carved and partially painted into the floor and carefully circles around the diagram. "What do you make of this?" - he then asks me - "I have a pretty good hunch myself, but a second opinion never hurts." "This is a demon summoning circle." - I explain to him - "Baron Brikhiter and his actual family were using it to summon a demon they intended to sic on me, using his wife and "legitimate son" as the sacrifices for the ritual. It did not go as they planned, instead the demon took all of them and departed, leaving the potential sacrifices behind. Given what I know of demonology, the baron is NOT coming back." Falstaff draws a sharp breath, but then relaxes and chuckles. "I take if even demon thought discretion is a better part of valor, if confronting you was on the table, huh?" - he jests, making me doubletake in return - "No offense meant, fraulein. Obviously, the baron flubbed something in his incantation to get such an odd result. Oh well, wherever the demon took them, they are not our problem anymore." I nod and shrug. "The would-be sacrifices I talked to, verified they are hostile to me and disposed of." - I assert as I guide him further in to see the corpses of baroness and baronet - "Baronet attacked me with a knife as soon as I mentioned my name, so... I shot him in the head. Baroness got shot in the gut. I bargained quick death for some truth and she agreed. Apparently, the baroness got pregnant by count Norn and schwagerlin Norn forced her as a wife on baron Brikhiter. It goes without saying that Norn's bastard was posited as the one and only legitimate Brikhiter heir. You can see why they were used as sacrifices, I believe." He nods and sighs. "Well, at least this miserable mess is over." - he offers quietly - "The rest we can leave to the old man." Taking a bit of a pause, Falstaff suddenly chuckles - "You know? I am quite looking forward to this, actually. Klaus will be here around midday. And given the way things are, he will have to thank you. This promises to be entertaining, if nothing else. I will stick around to make sure he does not decide to do something... rash."
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Hiram was more than fine with it. In fact, he was downright pleased that there existed legal provisions to spare as many people as possible and gave me carte blanche on pulling similar tricks, so long as it definitely removed the offending families from Kraut sphere of interest. Annoyingly for both of us, that still left us with a surfeit of unrepentant assholes to deal with. Falstaff pointing out that the majority of those had already accepted a new and glorious career as a fertilizer did lift my spirits a bit, though I can not say the same for Hiram. Apparently, Falstaff had the presence of mind for someone to hold up the tablet so that Hiram could see the action with his own eyes, and he got the first-row seat experience at seeing what autocannons do to densely packed cavalry. His only comment on that - "...At least it was very quick." Ambercrombes are... discombobulated. As far as I can tell, they were fully prepared to die, and on finding out that they of all people are exempt from execution had messed with them badly. All three of them are sitting in the very much shot up hall on the only three chairs that retain some sort of structural cohesion and exchange deep sighs and murmurs. I listen in, of course, but the gist of their discussion is voicing of assorted worries about how they will be received by the Champagne branch and what can they possibly do to safeguard themselves from being enslaved again. I should probably have a word with the dean when I hand them over. Falstaff's men (and women) are using telekinesis to collect the body parts together. Upon having had taken pictures of the heads for the record-keeping, Falstaff declared that everyone is getting to share a communal pyre. I did offer to burn the whole keep to make it simple, but apparently Falstaff has some plans for it later. So I grabbed some firewood, split it into planks, smoothed them out to be safe to hold and slapped basic telekinesis formulae on them. Mostly, because people were planning on handling the bloody gibs by hand and, ugh... just, no. Fuck that unhygienic noise. Are you wizards or not, dammit? Falstaff immediately asks if they are allowed to keep the kinesis paddles. Leading to me asking why would he want them because it's the basics of enchantment. And this is where he floors me. Apparently, common sense on enchanting says that you may define parameters during enchantment, and that's it. So my paddles that accept your notion on what the target for the spell should be are... yeah. He also explains that I'm an oddity in how often I use TK and how groundbreaking the idea of utility use is. To hear him say it, the usual way those spells are cast is all about "I rip out that hill to smack you around with it!". I counterpoint with an assertion that surely someone thought to use TK for lockpicking before. Turns out no. No one did. The spell they do have for locks is basically "blow the lock out of the door with a little explosion". He expresses doubts that TK can have the finesse for lockpicking. I pick some locks in the keep. People collectively lose their shit. So now I am sitting in the yard using a table and chair pilfered from one of the less wrecked rooms and jotting down the compilation of things I ended up cluing Falstaff into. Both to make sure I remember all that I clued them in and to give a copy to sir Malachi. No reason to give Kraut intelligence services an edge over my own country, ne? ___ Meanwhile... I am investigating the bog keep. Falstaff and his folks will keep - they are busy collecting all the evidence, bodies and whatever else they need, and while they are at it, I made preparations for the final movement. Shilka is not going to get through the bog, it's more water than ground so I time it out and queue something different instead. Let's see... Ah, this will do nicely. A small hoverboat, just the thing I need for the bog. Fits only ten people, but I'm pretty sure Falstaff will need to leave someone behind to watch the horses anyway, so it should be fine. I'm going to pacify the place before they even see it anyways, so... Yeah. Done with preparations, I inflate the instance I teleported to the keep and take a good look around. This room is kinda abandoned, though there seem to be... some traces left. Ok, so this is a puddle of vomit and those are the boot scuff marks... Presumably, Dachaufreisser is responsible for the vomit... And maybe scuff marks too? If he had an episode and fainted or whoever else was there knocked him out when he became hysterical... I push open the door and sniff. Aha. The trace of vomit scent is unmistakeably leading me down the corridor... And the other end of the corridor seems to be leading into the inner yard anyways. ...Huh. Well. That DOES confirm that Dachaufreissers are prone to harsh mood swings, at the very least. Or, perhaps, the baron was just prone to depression. Anyways, he hanged himself. Given that his belt still has the empty scabbard on it, I imagine that he tried for the dagger first, had it taken away and then people just left him here to recuperate. A little thoughtless, but hanging is typically considered a commoner death, so perhaps they just did not expect the baron to be distraught enough to go for it. Aaanywa... WHOA. I lean away from the dagger almost hitting me in the face, backstep and retaliate with a kick. Then a punch. Holy shit, they ARE prone to mindless rages!... Wait, no, she married into the family... Huh, then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the propensity for berzerk rages is maintained by marrying within the family. For all I know, the baroness was related to the baron even before marriage. Anyway, related or not, she is pretty fucking aggressive with the knife and does not seem to be registering the bruises I already inflicted. Alrighty then, let's ramp it up, since for all her snarling aggression, she is still working at human levels of physiology. Decently trained human, but no more than that. Sending her back with another kick, I conjure my go-to for the brawl, Bec de Corbin and let her have it. Well. Dagger versus polearm is not exactly effective. She quickly gains a stab in the abdomen with the pike tip... and seemingly ignores it. The follow-up hammerhead to the knee is more successful. My standing theory is that she is too enraged to register pain, but broken bones do slow her down. Really, without a kneecap it changes from alarming to pitiful, so I step away once again, pivot to the side and end her activity with a beak strike to the base of her skull. Instant kill, more or less, severs the spine from the skull. I'm guessing the dagger she had is the one that's missing from the scabbard I noticed earlier. Looks matching, at least. Well, that's Dachaufreissers scratched off the list. Now I'm just missing Brikhiters. Wonder why no one turned up at the sounds of the brawl. The keep seems abandoned... Wait, no. I can hear something faint from above. Let's see... The ground floor is empty. I am guessing that this place has no servants, as one would expect from a secret bolthole. No basement either, it's simply not an option in the middle of the bog. I'm actually surprised there was enough firm land to account for an inner yard, to be honest... Oh. Oh wait. That's not actually... Oh. Wow. The whole thing is actually a house on stilts, and the inner yard is just a palm-deep layer of earth on top of a log underfloor. Explains certain things. Of course, no one could find this properly, the only way to get to the keep is in a johnboat. Which would need to be carried into the bog. Which is widely considered a dangerous and poisonous place by locals. Cunning, I'll give them that. The sounds come from the big room upstairs. Unsure what it's for, everything I can think of for it that's reasonable for the hideout is already present elsewhere. Like, the mess hall is on the ground floor, training is likely conducted in the inner yard and the ballroom is poignantly pointless in a hideout... What else? Meh, I can just take a look, right? Well... shit. The top floor is a purpose-built ritual room. And Brikhiters are putting the finishing touches on a summoning ritual. Given that there are two bound persons in the circle diagram, it should be something... considerable. Like that demon. Wow. I'm not sure which realm exactly this guy is from, but he looks vaguely like a baron of hell from Doom. Twice my height, built like a brick crapper, vaguely goat-like head with massive horns. Brikhiters are very much preoccupied with their ritual to notice me opening up the door and stepping in. I'd kill several of them to disrupt the ritual... but they are already past the stage where it would work. This guy already made a landing, so to speak, if I kill them now, all that it would achieve is setting the demon loose without any constraints. And since I'm pretty sure their request would be to kill me anyways, I might as well wait a moment and see how this shakes out. After all, if they successfully make the request, it would be much harder for this guy to duke it out with me without causing collateral damage - as opposed to breaking the negotiation and letting him loose without any reason to worry about collateral damage, to begin with. "STATE YOUR DESIRE, MORTAL." - the demon booms at the guy I'm standing behind, whom I peg as the baron himself. His two sisters are next to him and the rest of the kids are spread around the perimeter of the circle. Looks like they're a family coven of demon worshippers. That makes the sacrifices in the ring baroness and the only legitimate son. Huh, I guess the baron really dislikes his "legal" family, if he is willing to use them as expendables. "Oh great Baal, the customs have been observed! The seal was drawn, the offering was given and the supplicant speaks!" - the baron intones. I'm no expert on goat expressions, but I have a distinct feeling the demon in question sorely wants to facepalm right now. "Grant us the boon, oh great Baal, deliver us from our foe and strike her down! The White Witch, Alyssa Gillespie!" - he continues, his voice winding up into a zealous shriek by the end of it. And then he spoils the whole impression by breaking down into a coughing fit. "FUCKING FORMALITIES." - the demon commiserates - "THE WHITE WITCH, YOU SAY? LET US SEE... UH..." He does something. Pretty nifty trick, actually, I'm going to crib that one. He is basically polling the local noosphere for info. I had no idea it's even viable, but apparently... Oh. Wow. So neat. Very impressed. Nice, dude, taught me something new and neat today. Just for that, I'll try not to draw it out if we're gonna brawl. ...Two new things, actually. This is the first time I see a demon go pale. "...JUST TO VERIFY. BY WHITE WITCH, YOU MEAN THE PERSON RIGHT BEHIND YOU?" - the demon... bleats, I have no other word for how his voice suddenly just sorta caved in on itself. Baron whirls around, along with his sisters. The kids just sort of sway in place, still mostly in a trance. I'm guessing they are holding the seal while the adults are manipulating it. His eyes bug out as soon as he sees me. "....How in the name of the starless void are you even here!?" - he then demands incredulously. "Dachaufreissers were using old Farseeing Sphere from Sultanate to keep an eye on their kids back in the mansion." - I suggest languidly - "That thing has an aetheric tether, you know? Child's play to follow it along." "...Good to know." - he grumbles - "Then again, rather obvious in hindsight. That what connects must have a connection, and a road that exists is a road one can follow along... Gods-bedamned idiots and their accursed blood ties. This is the last time they use my sham of a marriage to drag me into their mess, I swear." "You seem smarter than the rest of them. Why'd you even throw in with this lot?" - I inquire. I'm legit curious, the baron seems to have some brains, demonologist or not. Why would he join in on this suicidal pact, I have no idea. Baron scoffs bitterly, spitting out - "As if I WOULD." He turns around and by all appearances seems to be about to kick one of the bound figures in the middle of the circle... before pausing and pulling back. Which is smart, because disrupting sacrifice right now would have weird consequences. Even discounting the fact that demon seems to be... less than inclined to deal with me. "...THE DEAL'S OFF." - the demon in question interjects suddenly - "YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD PARTNER, MORTAL, BUT I AM NOT GOING AGAINST HIGHER BEING." Cue the baron gogging out at him incredulously. "...higher being?" - he repeats faintly. "THE... FORMFACTOR YOU REFER TO AS WHITE WITCH IS..." - and at this point demon suddenly cuts himself off and peers at me intently - "...APOLOGIES, I SHOULD NOT SPEAK OUT OF TURN." ...He seems to be very disinclined to deal with me. To the point where he thinks that even divulging information about me is dangerous if I am seeing this right. Whatever, one way or another the baron is leaving, so... Might as well give the demon dude a chance to explain himself properly. "Feel free to state your reasons." - I wave at him lazily - "Baron already knows too much, some background facts won't change anything at this point." "GRATITUDE." - the demon proffers hastily - "MORTAL, WHAT YOU SEE BEFORE YOU IS BUT A FORM YOU LOT ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. WHITE WITCH DOES NOT EXIST INSOFAR AS YOU COMPREHEND IT, IT IS SIMPLY A MASK OF BEING VASTLY MORE EXTENSIVE. SHOULD THIS BEING DECIDE TO ABANDON THE VEIL OF PERCEPTION, YOUR MIND WILL SHATTER. WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS AND TO THEIR POWER I AM LESS THAN YOU ARE TO ME. I REJECT THIS DEAL BECAUSE THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY FOR ME TO SUCCEED - AND BECAUSE IF I ELECT TO TRY ANYWAYS, THIS BEING WILL END ME IN PERPETUITY. AS A TOKEN OF OUR PARTNERSHIP, I WILL OFFER YOU AND YOURS ONE-TIME ASSISTANCE AT DIMENSIONAL EMIGRATION - IF I AM PERMITTED TO DO SO. THIS IS THE UTTERMOST I CAN OFFER YOU INSOFAR AS YOUR SURVIVAL IS CONCERNED." This... actually sounds pretty good. If the baron accepts the exile outside the world as the demon seems to suggest, it will definitely be sufficient for Hiram, and I have no specific beef with Brikhiters. The demon summoning, well... I WAS assaulting their keep, trying to fight me off at this point is kinda common sense. So long as the baron is fine with it and the demon can pull it off... I'll sort out what to do with sacrifices later - the baron definitely isn't going to include them on the deal and the demon can't take them because he already rejected the deal. "What do you say, baron?" - I ask in the lull of silence that follows the explanation - "Hiram paid me well to excise your group from Kraut, but he did specify I may offer exile to anyone smart enough to take it. If you accept the offer of your partner, I will let you and your family go otherworld with sufficient supplies to start your new life in some other world comfortably. Your associate likely has an idea for which world will be most receptive to accommodate a practicing demonologist with family." Baron looks at me, swallows, then hugs his sisters around the necks, pulling them into a brief huddle. A brief exchange in whispers and he turns back - "...I... WE accept the offer. Will you permit us half an hour to collect our belongings?" I shrug. Stomp on the floor, stabbing a couple of tentacles into the floor and spread them across the keep. There will be a bunch of random holes, but hey, it's not like this place is going to be used again. Not without a thorough examination and repairs, at least. Putting everything they might conceivably carry together, packing it up and pulling it up to the doors is a matter of five seconds of concentration. The doors push open, as a cavalcade of sacks and packages enters. I literally took everything that could be carried by a person, leaving behind bare walls and big furniture. They will have enough clothes, food and gold for the initial set-up, that's for sure. Hell, they just might settle down into early retirement if they're fine living modestly, Brikhiters seem to be pretty rich and they do keep it in this keep. Makes sense, it's kinda safe here. Can't rob what can't be found. Baron swallows again as the tentacles stack all their belongings into the circle next to the demon and remove the bound bodies. His sisters meanwhile are busy waking up kids, who... might have been spared even if the baron decided to be stupid. My estimation is that they range from seven to thirteen, give or take. I have mixed feelings about literal kids participating in the human sacrifice ceremony, but... it's not gonna be my problem very soon. "...Ooer... yes, quite." - he stammers, staring at tentacles with a certain degree of fascination mixed with a healthy dollop of terror. Nabad, I guess he has some degree of defilement himself, given that demonology by the definition is all about going outside the world bounds. "Out of idle curiosity, baron... How did you end up supporting this idiocy anyways and how often do you actually carry out human sacrifice?" - I inquire. If he is a serial killer, I just might change my mind. "...Er, three times, counting today." - he offers haltingly - "It is used to be uncommon in the area to commit crimes grave enough to be consigned to death." I look at the bound bodies and cock an eyebrow at him. He sighs tiredly and strokes his beard. A nervous tic, I guess. "The woman on the floor is my former wife." - he then begins gloomily - "Understand me right, jungfrau, if I had any say in the situation, the vile hag would have never been included in my family. I have been informed by schwagerlin von Norn that I am already married and that all that remains for me to do is to take in the woman in question and claim her son is mine by blood once she gives birth. She made it clear that my consent on the matter is neither important nor sought out. To this day, I do not know who the actual father is, save for the fact he must be someone high up for schwagerlin to accommodate the situation so much. My inclusion in the situation was facilitated solely by my so-called wife in the most aggrieving manner - she forged my letter of acknowledgment and permitted all that rabble to enter my keep before I was even made aware of what is going on." He heaves a sigh, then forges on - "Once I was informed of the situation, I sought to make inquiries with the people most responsible for this... division of authority, so to speak. Much to my surprise, you have already killed both count Norn and most of the family, including my maledictor. I have immediately renounced the people forced on me, for reasons you can easily surmise, but it was too late to bow out of the situation - the blood feud was already announced. Hence, I sought to obtain the most powerful protection I could think of, using my former wife and son as the payment to do so, since it was their fault I was locked in the struggle to the death with someone I haven't even spoken to before." "Maybe you should have practiced more." - I suggest flippantly - "Plenty of undesirables around to hone your sacrificial game on, you know?" He recoils. "That's monstrous." - he then says firmly - "And cheapening of sacrifice. Life should be treated with the utmost gravity, lest it becomes worthless to everyone." Huh. Moral demonologist. Live and see oddities, I guess. "...Aaand you have just secured your continued existence." - I smile at him - "Continue this course, baron. And better luck in your new life." He seems like he is about to say something, but then waves his hand, smiles helplessly and ambles over to the pile of supplies which is now decorated by the rest of his family using it as the seats. "Farewell." - offers one of his sister-wives. "May we never meet again." - adds the other one. The demon takes this as his cue. He had curiously kept silent and patient while we were talking. Am I THAT scary to his people? He is, quite obviously a capable individual - both physically and magically. Wonder what's up. ... ...... ......... "...Yeah, no." - I then suggest. I see the problem. The way those demons use magic is through their horns. Robust, but a little... OK, a LOT subpar on the economy. He just might boil his brains before he manages the dimensional rift to take the exiles away. The fact he was willing to do so vastly implies that the baron is... well, a friend to him, no other way to slice it. Let's help out. I saunter over to the demon in question, streeeetch up (I think Brikhiters are all defiled enough to take the limited exposure) and grab the dude by the horns. ...Huh, that has better potential. Nudge things around like this... And this... Yep, now just let them spiral up naturally, graft the pattern in, it should be self-reproducing if.. .yep, that's better. The demon in question staggers as I let him go, his clawed hands clutching at his horns. Which now sport spirals of orange glow. The visual representation of mana channeling. I fudged with his bone structure a little and anchored the magic to his sense of ego... I think. It's fiddly. But if I pulled this off right, the magically efficient horns should breed true for him. "...I... THIS... AAAAAAH!" - he finally finds some words, as the basic spell he used to probably test his horns after being fiddled with blares into life about two orders of magnitude beyond the expected. What should have come out as little light instead comes out with the power of a searchlight, reflects off the wall and makes everyone present blink spots out of their eyes for a couple moments. "...BUT... HOW..." - he stammers, before his upbringing kicks in and he bows to me, his horns almost scraping the floor for a moment - "...I THANK YOU FOR THIS BOON." "Good luck to you too." - I quip - "Just a word of warning - this will probably breed true, so pick your mate very carefully." Compared to the previous attempt, the flare of dimensional magic swallows all of them almost instantly, sending a wobble through the immediate area as the demon, the baron, the family and the luggage all vanish into an aether abruptly. All I hear is the cut off - "THIS IS WHY WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS, MORTAL, FOR THEY..." Welp. That happened. And just because at times I just have to be a memelord, I don a freshly conjured hat that says "Truck-chan" on it. I mean, technically I did just isekai someone, so... ___ With all that excitement, I almost forget about the two left behind. Which... well, they are both unconscious and have had been such for a couple hours. I consider them, throw a diagnostic spell on them and come to the conclusion someone rather professionally blackjacked both of them six to eight hours ago. Around early evening, then. Waking them up is as simple as a couple slaps. I do remove the eye coverings, but I leave the gags and bindings where they are for now. Just to keep things calm. "Awake?" - I quip, seeing two pairs of eyes focus on me after some grogginess - "Good. I'm going to remove the gags now. I'd admonish you against shouting, but we're in the middle of the bog. No one around to hear your scream." "Who are you!?" - the boy demands as soon as I pull his gag off. ...Darn, it feels awkward to refer to him as a boy. He's like fifteen by now. At least. The teen? The lad? The bastard? Fuck it. "...Seriously?" - I drawl. I wonder if his mother is quicker on the uptake. Nope. No glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "To brass tacks." - I urge them on - "We are currently in the secret bog keep belonging to the Brikhiter family. Baron and most of his family had attempted demon summoning, using you two as sacrifices to make it happen. It didn't go as they expected and instead of you two, the demon took all of them and vanished. I don't think they're coming back. You two are all that's left of Brikhiters now. I'm going to untie you now, try not to move too much. You were unconscious for hours, your bodies are likely numb." I take off their bindings. Maybe I should have killed them without waking them up, but I'm morbidly curious. Baroness seems to be another member of the old hag conspiracy... Wonder what she'll sing. For the time being, I'm going to blithely ignore their questions about my identity, since they don't seem to recognize me, and instead redirect them to all that is happening around. "Baron Dachaufreisser, where is he!?" - the baroness demands urgently - "Be on your guard, he is no friend of ours!" "Tall black-haired man, thickly built?" - I "confirm" - "He hanged himself in the room over yonder for some reason." Both of them doubletake. "What do you mean, HANGED?" - the teen demands - "That's for commoners!" I shrug. "I think he tried to stab himself with his dagger first." - I explain - "Someone took it away and left him to recuperate, but the baron had other things on his mind. I overheard baron Brikhiter mentioning he was hit with insanity-causing spell earlier, so... yeah." They clearly don't know what to do with the information. Baroness seems to come to grips first, though. Actually, she tries to sit up. With moderate success. Numb, as I suggested. "...A bad way to go, but he deserved it." - she mutters - "Where is your boat?" I blink at her. "Boat?" - I repeat - "At the dock. Are you sure you want to leave? This is probably the safest place right now." She scoffs. "Safest? The den of demon summoner? Surely you jest." - she proffers - "Besides, this nonsense with blood feud should be over by now." "Last I heard, it was still going strong." - I object mildly - "And you are the last of Brikhiters now, given that the baron and the rest of his family were taken by a demon." She forcibly sits up and shakes her head. "Utter nonsense." - she barks - "You do not know what you are talking about, Truck. Bring us to the boat right now, there are matters to attend to and we can not dawdle in this bog." Wha...? Oh. The hat. Hah. Heheheh! Did she assume I'm a servant from orient or something? "Let me rephrase things." - I proffer - "You're not going to leave this bog. Ever." Ooh, now they are starting to grasp the situation. Too late. "And, just so we are clear, my name is not Truck. This is a joke for one." - I continue, taking off the hat and fanning myself with it, then letting it time out - "I am Alyssa Gillespie, also known as White Witch. Pleased to find you, you're the last ones I am hunting." Huh. Baronet is quick on the uptake, at the very least. I grab his wrist, halting the knife just before my face. Good reflexes and decent training... And utter lack of tactical awareness. I shoot him in the face from below with the other hand. This is basically point-blank distance, the bullet enters under his jaw and comes out of the top of his head in a small fountain of blood, brains and skull shards. I let go of his wrist, step back and award baroness with a gut shot. Then I simply take my time to reload the flintlocks, disregarding the last witness. You might say I'm sympathetic to baron Brikhiter. Being forced into marriage is bad enough, being forced to claim a bastard as his own and the only legitimate heir, when he has six genuine children? That's just nasty. Though the bastard technically was first, come to think of it. "...Haah! Aaah... Hah!... Nnngh!" - hrm. I glance at the baroness. Gut shots are painful, yes. "Who was the actual father of the boy you foisted on Brikhiter?" - I ask absentmindedly - "You're dead anyways, the question is merely how quick it will be. Tell me what I want to know and I'll finish you off... Or I will just leave you here and come back in a couple weeks once you expire from a combination of peritonitis, blood loss, starvation and foul water." "Oh gods, count Norn! Norn was the father oh gods mercy, you're a monster!" - she gasps out. "Were you in on the whole old maid conspiracy?" - I question. She clearly isn't, befuddlement is clear even with the pain she's in. Fair enough. I let her open mouth for yet another moan or imprecation or whatever she wanted to say, slip the barrel tip in and shoot her in the roof of the mouth. Basically the same instakill as what just happened to her son. Blood feud... complete. ___ "On one hand, I'm impressed." - Falstaff proffers from the next seat, as I carefully pick my way through the bog. A lot of fallen trees and other assorted debris at the edges, but things got smoother when we got further in and hit the water stretches. "On the other, I can't help but wonder if the quality of carriage and the noise it makes are tied somehow." - he continues, keeping his voice quite loud to be heard over the roar of hover fans. "To make things quieter, you need to improve the road, not the carriage!" - I shout back as I peer forward intently. The keep is somewhere... SHIT! I should have waited a few more hours to get better visibility. Early morning murk on the bog is nasty. The keep pretty much jumps at me suddenly and I barely manage to jerk the rudders enough to swing along the wall rather than smack right into it. Fans screech as we spin out, but thankfully stabilize a few moments later. Gunning the march propeller with a lot more caution, I manage to float us over to the dock relatively neatly. Two of the six men Falstaff elected to take along open the door, hop out on the dock with ropes and secure us to it properly, allowing me to power down the fans and let the boat just settle down on the grimy water. The grand total of the expedition is me, Falstaff, Anne-Marie and six unnamed men mostly along as laborers. The rest remained with the horses. It takes me a few minutes to show Falstaff around. The hideout is not particularly big, after all. Big enough for one family like Brikhiters to hide out in and wait out the troubles for a couple months, but not more than that. He clicks his tongue at the sight of corpses, particularly so at hanged Dachaufreisser. "Was that truly necessary, freulein?" - he inquires with a measure of distaste, as his men cut the cadaver down. "Wasn't me, Falstaff." - I retort - "He hanged himself, and as far as I can tell, that happened because they took away his dagger earlier. My theory is that he had a bout of suicidal hysteria after seeing me kill his sons." He frowns, looks around, checks up a couple spots, including the corpse I made of Dachaufreisser's wife, then comes up to me. "...I find myself both admiring your ruthless efficiency and sorely desiring you'd do it in some other country as soon as possible." - he proffers with a rueful chuckle - "That's Dachaufreissers crossed off the list. What about Brikhiters?" "This is where it gets weird." - I admit, as I guide him upstairs to see the ritual circle. He hisses in alarm when he sees it partially carved and partially painted into the floor and carefully circles around the diagram. "What do you make of this?" - he then asks me - "I have a pretty good hunch myself, but a second opinion never hurts." "This is a demon summoning circle." - I explain to him - "Baron Brikhiter and his actual family were using it to summon a demon they intended to sic on me, using his wife and "legitimate son" as the sacrifices for the ritual. It did not go as they planned, instead the demon took all of them and departed, leaving the potential sacrifices behind. Given what I know of demonology, the baron is NOT coming back." Falstaff draws a sharp breath, but then relaxes and chuckles. "I take if even demon thought discretion is a better part of valor, if confronting you was on the table, huh?" - he jests, making me doubletake in return - "No offense meant, fraulein. Obviously, the baron flubbed something in his incantation to get such an odd result. Oh well, wherever the demon took them, they are not our problem anymore." I nod and shrug. "The would-be sacrifices I talked to, verified they are hostile to me and disposed of." - I assert as I guide him further in to see the corpses of baroness and baronet - "Baronet attacked me with a knife as soon as I mentioned my name, so... I shot him in the head. Baroness got shot in the gut. I bargained quick death for some truth and she agreed. Apparently, the baroness got pregnant by count Norn and schwagerlin Norn forced her as a wife on baron Brikhiter. It goes without saying that Norn's bastard was posited as the one and only legitimate Brikhiter heir. You can see why they were used as sacrifices, I believe." He nods and sighs. "Well, at least this miserable mess is over." - he offers quietly - "The rest we can leave to the old man." Taking a bit of a pause, Falstaff suddenly chuckles - "You know? I am quite looking forward to this, actually. Klaus will be here around midday. And given the way things are, he will have to thank you. This promises to be entertaining, if nothing else. I will stick around to make sure he does not decide to do something... rash."
Hiram was more than fine with it. In fact, he was downright pleased that there existed legal provisions to spare as many people as possible and gave me carte blanche on pulling similar tricks, so long as it definitely removed the offending families from Kraut sphere of interest. Annoyingly for both of us, that still left us with a surfeit of unrepentant assholes to deal with. Falstaff pointing out that the majority of those had already accepted a new and glorious career as a fertilizer did lift my spirits a bit, though I can not say the same for Hiram. Apparently, Falstaff had the presence of mind for someone to hold up the tablet so that Hiram could see the action with his own eyes, and he got the first-row seat experience at seeing what autocannons do to densely packed cavalry. His only comment on that - "...At least it was very quick." Ambercrombes are... discombobulated. As far as I can tell, they were fully prepared to die, and on finding out that they of all people are exempt from execution had messed with them badly. All three of them are sitting in the very much shot up hall on the only three chairs that retain some sort of structural cohesion and exchange deep sighs and murmurs. I listen in, of course, but the gist of their discussion is voicing of assorted worries about how they will be received by the Champagne branch and what can they possibly do to safeguard themselves from being enslaved again. I should probably have a word with the dean when I hand them over. Falstaff's men and women are using telekinesis to collect the body parts together. Upon having had taken pictures of the heads for the record-keeping, Falstaff declared that everyone is getting to share a communal pyre. I did offer to burn the whole keep to make it simple, but apparently Falstaff has some plans for it later. So I grabbed some firewood, split it into planks, smoothed them out to be safe to hold and slapped basic telekinesis formulae on them. Mostly, because people were planning on handling the bloody gibs by hand and, ugh... just, no. Fuck that unhygienic noise. Are you wizards or not, dammit? Falstaff immediately asks if they are allowed to keep the kinesis paddles. Leading to me asking why would he want them because it's the basics of enchantment. And this is where he floors me. Apparently, common sense on enchanting says that you may define parameters during enchantment, and that's it. So my paddles that accept your notion on what the target for the spell should be are... yeah. He also explains that I'm an oddity in how often I use TK and how groundbreaking the idea of utility use is. To hear him say it, the usual way those spells are cast is all about "I rip out that hill to smack you around with it!". I counterpoint with an assertion that surely someone thought to use TK for lockpicking before. Turns out no. No one did. The spell they do have for locks is basically "blow the lock out of the door with a little explosion". He expresses doubts that TK can have the finesse for lockpicking. I pick some locks in the keep. People collectively lose their shit. So now I am sitting in the yard using a table and chair pilfered from one of the less wrecked rooms and jotting down the compilation of things I ended up cluing Falstaff into. Both to make sure I remember all that I clued them in and to give a copy to sir Malachi. No reason to give Kraut intelligence services an edge over my own country, ne? ___ Meanwhile... I am investigating the bog keep. Falstaff and his folks will keep - they are busy collecting all the evidence, bodies and whatever else they need, and while they are at it, I made preparations for the final movement. Shilka is not going to get through the bog, it's more water than ground so I time it out and queue something different instead. Let's see... Ah, this will do nicely. A small hoverboat, just the thing I need for the bog. Fits only ten people, but I'm pretty sure Falstaff will need to leave someone behind to watch the horses anyway, so it should be fine. I'm going to pacify the place before they even see it anyways, so... Yeah. Done with preparations, I inflate the instance I teleported to the keep and take a good look around. This room is kinda abandoned, though there seem to be... some traces left. Ok, so this is a puddle of vomit and those are the boot scuff marks... Presumably, Dachaufreisser is responsible for the vomit... And maybe scuff marks too? If he had an episode and fainted or whoever else was there knocked him out when he became hysterical... I push open the door and sniff. Aha. The trace of vomit scent is unmistakeably leading me down the corridor... And the other end of the corridor seems to be leading into the inner yard anyways. ...Huh. Well. That DOES confirm that Dachaufreissers are prone to harsh mood swings, at the very least. Or, perhaps, the baron was just prone to depression. Anyways, he hanged himself. Given that his belt still has the empty scabbard on it, I imagine that he tried for the dagger first, had it taken away and then people just left him here to recuperate. A little thoughtless, but hanging is typically considered a commoner death, so perhaps they just did not expect the baron to be distraught enough to go for it. Aaanywa... WHOA. I lean away from the dagger almost hitting me in the face, backstep and retaliate with a kick. Then a punch. Holy shit, they ARE prone to mindless rages!... Wait, no, she married into the family... Huh, then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the propensity for berzerk rages is maintained by marrying within the family. For all I know, the baroness was related to the baron even before marriage. Anyway, related or not, she is pretty fucking aggressive with the knife and does not seem to be registering the bruises I already inflicted. Alrighty then, let's ramp it up, since for all her snarling aggression, she is still working at human levels of physiology. Decently trained human, but no more than that. Sending her back with another kick, I conjure my go-to for the brawl, Bec de Corbin and let her have it. Well. Dagger versus polearm is not exactly effective. She quickly gains a stab in the abdomen with the pike tip... and seemingly ignores it. The follow-up hammerhead to the knee is more successful. My standing theory is that she is too enraged to register pain, but broken bones do slow her down. Really, without a kneecap it changes from alarming to pitiful, so I step away once again, pivot to the side and end her activity with a beak strike to the base of her skull. Instant kill, more or less, severs the spine from the skull. I'm guessing the dagger she had is the one that's missing from the scabbard I noticed earlier. Looks matching, at least. Well, that's Dachaufreissers scratched off the list. Now I'm just missing Brikhiters. Wonder why no one turned up at the sounds of the brawl. The keep seems abandoned... Wait, no. I can hear something faint from above. Let's see... The ground floor is empty. I am guessing that this place has no servants, as one would expect from a secret bolthole. No basement either, it's simply not an option in the middle of the bog. I'm actually surprised there was enough firm land to account for an inner yard, to be honest... Oh. Oh wait. That's not actually... Oh. Wow. The whole thing is actually a house on stilts, and the inner yard is just a palm-deep layer of earth on top of a log underfloor. Explains certain things. Of course, no one could find this properly, the only way to get to the keep is in a johnboat. Which would need to be carried into the bog. Which is widely considered a dangerous and poisonous place by locals. Cunning, I'll give them that. The sounds come from the big room upstairs. Unsure what it's for, everything I can think of for it that's reasonable for the hideout is already present elsewhere. Like, the mess hall is on the ground floor, training is likely conducted in the inner yard and the ballroom is poignantly pointless in a hideout... What else? Meh, I can just take a look, right? Well... shit. The top floor is a purpose-built ritual room. And Brikhiters are putting the finishing touches on a summoning ritual. Given that there are two bound persons in the circle diagram, it should be something... considerable. Like that demon. Wow. I'm not sure which realm exactly this guy is from, but he looks vaguely like a baron of hell from Doom. Twice my height, built like a brick crapper, vaguely goat-like head with massive horns. Brikhiters are very much preoccupied with their ritual to notice me opening up the door and stepping in. I'd kill several of them to disrupt the ritual... but they are already past the stage where it would work. This guy already made a landing, so to speak, if I kill them now, all that it would achieve is setting the demon loose without any constraints. And since I'm pretty sure their request would be to kill me anyways, I might as well wait a moment and see how this shakes out. After all, if they successfully make the request, it would be much harder for this guy to duke it out with me without causing collateral damage - as opposed to breaking the negotiation and letting him loose without any reason to worry about collateral damage, to begin with. "STATE YOUR DESIRE, MORTAL." - the demon booms at the guy I'm standing behind, whom I peg as the baron himself. His two sisters are next to him and the rest of the kids are spread around the perimeter of the circle. Looks like they're a family coven of demon worshippers. That makes the sacrifices in the ring baroness and the only legitimate son. Huh, I guess the baron really dislikes his "legal" family, if he is willing to use them as expendables. "Oh great Baal, the customs have been observed! The seal was drawn, the offering was given and the supplicant speaks!" - the baron intones. I'm no expert on goat expressions, but I have a distinct feeling the demon in question sorely wants to facepalm right now. "Grant us the boon, oh great Baal, deliver us from our foe and strike her down! The White Witch, Alyssa Gillespie!" - he continues, his voice winding up into a zealous shriek by the end of it. And then he spoils the whole impression by breaking down into a coughing fit. "FUCKING FORMALITIES." - the demon commiserates - "THE WHITE WITCH, YOU SAY? LET US SEE... UH..." He does something. Pretty nifty trick, actually, I'm going to crib that one. He is basically polling the local noosphere for info. I had no idea it's even viable, but apparently... Oh. Wow. So neat. Very impressed. Nice, dude, taught me something new and neat today. Just for that, I'll try not to draw it out if we're gonna brawl. ...Two new things, actually. This is the first time I see a demon go pale. "...JUST TO VERIFY. BY WHITE WITCH, YOU MEAN THE PERSON RIGHT BEHIND YOU?" - the demon... bleats, I have no other word for how his voice suddenly just sorta caved in on itself. Baron whirls around, along with his sisters. The kids just sort of sway in place, still mostly in a trance. I'm guessing they are holding the seal while the adults are manipulating it. His eyes bug out as soon as he sees me. "....How in the name of the starless void are you even here!?" - he then demands incredulously. "Dachaufreissers were using old Farseeing Sphere from Sultanate to keep an eye on their kids back in the mansion." - I suggest languidly - "That thing has an aetheric tether, you know? Child's play to follow it along." "...Good to know." - he grumbles - "Then again, rather obvious in hindsight. That what connects must have a connection, and a road that exists is a road one can follow along... Gods-bedamned idiots and their accursed blood ties. This is the last time they use my sham of a marriage to drag me into their mess, I swear." "You seem smarter than the rest of them. Why'd you even throw in with this lot?" - I inquire. I'm legit curious, the baron seems to have some brains, demonologist or not. Why would he join in on this suicidal pact, I have no idea. Baron scoffs bitterly, spitting out - "As if I WOULD." He turns around and by all appearances seems to be about to kick one of the bound figures in the middle of the circle... before pausing and pulling back. Which is smart, because disrupting sacrifice right now would have weird consequences. Even discounting the fact that demon seems to be... less than inclined to deal with me. "...THE DEAL'S OFF." - the demon in question interjects suddenly - "YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD PARTNER, MORTAL, BUT I AM NOT GOING AGAINST HIGHER BEING." Cue the baron gogging out at him incredulously. "...higher being?" - he repeats faintly. "THE... FORMFACTOR YOU REFER TO AS WHITE WITCH IS..." - and at this point demon suddenly cuts himself off and peers at me intently - "...APOLOGIES, I SHOULD NOT SPEAK OUT OF TURN." ...He seems to be very disinclined to deal with me. To the point where he thinks that even divulging information about me is dangerous if I am seeing this right. Whatever, one way or another the baron is leaving, so... Might as well give the demon dude a chance to explain himself properly. "Feel free to state your reasons." - I wave at him lazily - "Baron already knows too much, some background facts won't change anything at this point." "GRATITUDE." - the demon proffers hastily - "MORTAL, WHAT YOU SEE BEFORE YOU IS BUT A FORM YOU LOT ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. WHITE WITCH DOES NOT EXIST INSOFAR AS YOU COMPREHEND IT, IT IS SIMPLY A MASK OF BEING VASTLY MORE EXTENSIVE. SHOULD THIS BEING DECIDE TO ABANDON THE VEIL OF PERCEPTION, YOUR MIND WILL SHATTER. WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS AND TO THEIR POWER I AM LESS THAN YOU ARE TO ME. I REJECT THIS DEAL BECAUSE THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY FOR ME TO SUCCEED - AND BECAUSE IF I ELECT TO TRY ANYWAYS, THIS BEING WILL END ME IN PERPETUITY. AS A TOKEN OF OUR PARTNERSHIP, I WILL OFFER YOU AND YOURS ONE-TIME ASSISTANCE AT DIMENSIONAL EMIGRATION - IF I AM PERMITTED TO DO SO. THIS IS THE UTTERMOST I CAN OFFER YOU INSOFAR AS YOUR SURVIVAL IS CONCERNED." This... actually sounds pretty good. If the baron accepts the exile outside the world as the demon seems to suggest, it will definitely be sufficient for Hiram, and I have no specific beef with Brikhiters. The demon summoning, well... I WAS assaulting their keep, trying to fight me off at this point is kinda common sense. So long as the baron is fine with it and the demon can pull it off... I'll sort out what to do with sacrifices later - the baron definitely isn't going to include them on the deal and the demon can't take them because he already rejected the deal. "What do you say, baron?" - I ask in the lull of silence that follows the explanation - "Hiram paid me well to excise your group from Kraut, but he did specify I may offer exile to anyone smart enough to take it. If you accept the offer of your partner, I will let you and your family go otherworld with sufficient supplies to start your new life in some other world comfortably. Your associate likely has an idea for which world will be most receptive to accommodate a practicing demonologist with family." Baron looks at me, swallows, then hugs his sisters around the necks, pulling them into a brief huddle. A brief exchange in whispers and he turns back - "...I... WE accept the offer. Will you permit us half an hour to collect our belongings?" I shrug. Stomp on the floor, stabbing a couple of tentacles into the floor and spread them across the keep. There will be a bunch of random holes, but hey, it's not like this place is going to be used again. Not without a thorough examination and repairs, at least. Putting everything they might conceivably carry together, packing it up and pulling it up to the doors is a matter of five seconds of concentration. The doors push open, as a cavalcade of sacks and packages enters. I literally took everything that could be carried by a person, leaving behind bare walls and big furniture. They will have enough clothes, food and gold for the initial set-up, that's for sure. Hell, they just might settle down into early retirement if they're fine living modestly, Brikhiters seem to be pretty rich and they do keep it in this keep. Makes sense, it's kinda safe here. Can't rob what can't be found. Baron swallows again as the tentacles stack all their belongings into the circle next to the demon and remove the bound bodies. His sisters meanwhile are busy waking up kids, who... might have been spared even if the baron decided to be stupid. My estimation is that they range from seven to thirteen, give or take. I have mixed feelings about literal kids participating in the human sacrifice ceremony, but... it's not gonna be my problem very soon. "...Ooer... yes, quite." - he stammers, staring at tentacles with a certain degree of fascination mixed with a healthy dollop of terror. Nabad, I guess he has some degree of defilement himself, given that demonology by the definition is all about going outside the world bounds. "Out of idle curiosity, baron... How did you end up supporting this idiocy anyways and how often do you actually carry out human sacrifice?" - I inquire. If he is a serial killer, I just might change my mind. "...Er, three times, counting today." - he offers haltingly - "It is used to be uncommon in the area to commit crimes grave enough to be consigned to death." I look at the bound bodies and cock an eyebrow at him. He sighs tiredly and strokes his beard. A nervous tic, I guess. "The woman on the floor is my former wife." - he then begins gloomily - "Understand me right, jungfrau, if I had any say in the situation, the vile hag would have never been included in my family. I have been informed by schwagerlin von Norn that I am already married and that all that remains for me to do is to take in the woman in question and claim her son is mine by blood once she gives birth. She made it clear that my consent on the matter is neither important nor sought out. To this day, I do not know who the actual father is, save for the fact he must be someone high up for schwagerlin to accommodate the situation so much. My inclusion in the situation was facilitated solely by my so-called wife in the most aggrieving manner - she forged my letter of acknowledgment and permitted all that rabble to enter my keep before I was even made aware of what is going on." He heaves a sigh, then forges on - "Once I was informed of the situation, I sought to make inquiries with the people most responsible for this... division of authority, so to speak. Much to my surprise, you have already killed both count Norn and most of the family, including my maledictor. I have immediately renounced the people forced on me, for reasons you can easily surmise, but it was too late to bow out of the situation - the blood feud was already announced. Hence, I sought to obtain the most powerful protection I could think of, using my former wife and son as the payment to do so, since it was their fault I was locked in the struggle to the death with someone I haven't even spoken to before." "Maybe you should have practiced more." - I suggest flippantly - "Plenty of undesirables around to hone your sacrificial game on, you know?" He recoils. "That's monstrous." - he then says firmly - "And cheapening of sacrifice. Life should be treated with the utmost gravity, lest it becomes worthless to everyone." Huh. Moral demonologist. Live and see oddities, I guess. "...Aaand you have just secured your continued existence." - I smile at him - "Continue this course, baron. And better luck in your new life." He seems like he is about to say something, but then waves his hand, smiles helplessly and ambles over to the pile of supplies which is now decorated by the rest of his family using it as the seats. "Farewell." - offers one of his sister-wives. "May we never meet again." - adds the other one. The demon takes this as his cue. He had curiously kept silent and patient while we were talking. Am I THAT scary to his people? He is, quite obviously a capable individual - both physically and magically. Wonder what's up. ... ...... ......... "...Yeah, no." - I then suggest. I see the problem. The way those demons use magic is through their horns. Robust, but a little... OK, a LOT subpar on the economy. He just might boil his brains before he manages the dimensional rift to take the exiles away. The fact he was willing to do so vastly implies that the baron is... well, a friend to him, no other way to slice it. Let's help out. I saunter over to the demon in question, streeeetch up I think Brikhiters are all defiled enough to take the limited exposure and grab the dude by the horns. ...Huh, that has better potential. Nudge things around like this... And this... Yep, now just let them spiral up naturally, graft the pattern in, it should be self-reproducing if.. .yep, that's better. The demon in question staggers as I let him go, his clawed hands clutching at his horns. Which now sport spirals of orange glow. The visual representation of mana channeling. I fudged with his bone structure a little and anchored the magic to his sense of ego... I think. It's fiddly. But if I pulled this off right, the magically efficient horns should breed true for him. "...I... THIS... AAAAAAH!" - he finally finds some words, as the basic spell he used to probably test his horns after being fiddled with blares into life about two orders of magnitude beyond the expected. What should have come out as little light instead comes out with the power of a searchlight, reflects off the wall and makes everyone present blink spots out of their eyes for a couple moments. "...BUT... HOW..." - he stammers, before his upbringing kicks in and he bows to me, his horns almost scraping the floor for a moment - "...I THANK YOU FOR THIS BOON." "Good luck to you too." - I quip - "Just a word of warning - this will probably breed true, so pick your mate very carefully." Compared to the previous attempt, the flare of dimensional magic swallows all of them almost instantly, sending a wobble through the immediate area as the demon, the baron, the family and the luggage all vanish into an aether abruptly. All I hear is the cut off - "THIS IS WHY WE CALL THEM WORLD SHAPERS, MORTAL, FOR THEY..." Welp. That happened. And just because at times I just have to be a memelord, I don a freshly conjured hat that says "Truck-chan" on it. I mean, technically I did just isekai someone, so... ___ With all that excitement, I almost forget about the two left behind. Which... well, they are both unconscious and have had been such for a couple hours. I consider them, throw a diagnostic spell on them and come to the conclusion someone rather professionally blackjacked both of them six to eight hours ago. Around early evening, then. Waking them up is as simple as a couple slaps. I do remove the eye coverings, but I leave the gags and bindings where they are for now. Just to keep things calm. "Awake?" - I quip, seeing two pairs of eyes focus on me after some grogginess - "Good. I'm going to remove the gags now. I'd admonish you against shouting, but we're in the middle of the bog. No one around to hear your scream." "Who are you!?" - the boy demands as soon as I pull his gag off. ...Darn, it feels awkward to refer to him as a boy. He's like fifteen by now. At least. The teen? The lad? The bastard? Fuck it. "...Seriously?" - I drawl. I wonder if his mother is quicker on the uptake. Nope. No glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "To brass tacks." - I urge them on - "We are currently in the secret bog keep belonging to the Brikhiter family. Baron and most of his family had attempted demon summoning, using you two as sacrifices to make it happen. It didn't go as they expected and instead of you two, the demon took all of them and vanished. I don't think they're coming back. You two are all that's left of Brikhiters now. I'm going to untie you now, try not to move too much. You were unconscious for hours, your bodies are likely numb." I take off their bindings. Maybe I should have killed them without waking them up, but I'm morbidly curious. Baroness seems to be another member of the old hag conspiracy... Wonder what she'll sing. For the time being, I'm going to blithely ignore their questions about my identity, since they don't seem to recognize me, and instead redirect them to all that is happening around. "Baron Dachaufreisser, where is he!?" - the baroness demands urgently - "Be on your guard, he is no friend of ours!" "Tall black-haired man, thickly built?" - I "confirm" - "He hanged himself in the room over yonder for some reason." Both of them doubletake. "What do you mean, HANGED?" - the teen demands - "That's for commoners!" I shrug. "I think he tried to stab himself with his dagger first." - I explain - "Someone took it away and left him to recuperate, but the baron had other things on his mind. I overheard baron Brikhiter mentioning he was hit with insanity-causing spell earlier, so... yeah." They clearly don't know what to do with the information. Baroness seems to come to grips first, though. Actually, she tries to sit up. With moderate success. Numb, as I suggested. "...A bad way to go, but he deserved it." - she mutters - "Where is your boat?" I blink at her. "Boat?" - I repeat - "At the dock. Are you sure you want to leave? This is probably the safest place right now." She scoffs. "Safest? The den of demon summoner? Surely you jest." - she proffers - "Besides, this nonsense with blood feud should be over by now." "Last I heard, it was still going strong." - I object mildly - "And you are the last of Brikhiters now, given that the baron and the rest of his family were taken by a demon." She forcibly sits up and shakes her head. "Utter nonsense." - she barks - "You do not know what you are talking about, Truck. Bring us to the boat right now, there are matters to attend to and we can not dawdle in this bog." Wha...? Oh. The hat. Hah. Heheheh! Did she assume I'm a servant from orient or something? "Let me rephrase things." - I proffer - "You're not going to leave this bog. Ever." Ooh, now they are starting to grasp the situation. Too late. "And, just so we are clear, my name is not Truck. This is a joke for one." - I continue, taking off the hat and fanning myself with it, then letting it time out - "I am Alyssa Gillespie, also known as White Witch. Pleased to find you, you're the last ones I am hunting." Huh. Baronet is quick on the uptake, at the very least. I grab his wrist, halting the knife just before my face. Good reflexes and decent training... And utter lack of tactical awareness. I shoot him in the face from below with the other hand. This is basically point-blank distance, the bullet enters under his jaw and comes out of the top of his head in a small fountain of blood, brains and skull shards. I let go of his wrist, step back and award baroness with a gut shot. Then I simply take my time to reload the flintlocks, disregarding the last witness. You might say I'm sympathetic to baron Brikhiter. Being forced into marriage is bad enough, being forced to claim a bastard as his own and the only legitimate heir, when he has six genuine children? That's just nasty. Though the bastard technically was first, come to think of it. "...Haah! Aaah... Hah!... Nnngh!" - hrm. I glance at the baroness. Gut shots are painful, yes. "Who was the actual father of the boy you foisted on Brikhiter?" - I ask absentmindedly - "You're dead anyways, the question is merely how quick it will be. Tell me what I want to know and I'll finish you off... Or I will just leave you here and come back in a couple weeks once you expire from a combination of peritonitis, blood loss, starvation and foul water." "Oh gods, count Norn! Norn was the father oh gods mercy, you're a monster!" - she gasps out. "Were you in on the whole old maid conspiracy?" - I question. She clearly isn't, befuddlement is clear even with the pain she's in. Fair enough. I let her open mouth for yet another moan or imprecation or whatever she wanted to say, slip the barrel tip in and shoot her in the roof of the mouth. Basically the same instakill as what just happened to her son. Blood feud... complete. ___ "On one hand, I'm impressed." - Falstaff proffers from the next seat, as I carefully pick my way through the bog. A lot of fallen trees and other assorted debris at the edges, but things got smoother when we got further in and hit the water stretches. "On the other, I can't help but wonder if the quality of carriage and the noise it makes are tied somehow." - he continues, keeping his voice quite loud to be heard over the roar of hover fans. "To make things quieter, you need to improve the road, not the carriage!" - I shout back as I peer forward intently. The keep is somewhere... SHIT! I should have waited a few more hours to get better visibility. Early morning murk on the bog is nasty. The keep pretty much jumps at me suddenly and I barely manage to jerk the rudders enough to swing along the wall rather than smack right into it. Fans screech as we spin out, but thankfully stabilize a few moments later. Gunning the march propeller with a lot more caution, I manage to float us over to the dock relatively neatly. Two of the six men Falstaff elected to take along open the door, hop out on the dock with ropes and secure us to it properly, allowing me to power down the fans and let the boat just settle down on the grimy water. The grand total of the expedition is me, Falstaff, Anne-Marie and six unnamed men mostly along as laborers. The rest remained with the horses. It takes me a few minutes to show Falstaff around. The hideout is not particularly big, after all. Big enough for one family like Brikhiters to hide out in and wait out the troubles for a couple months, but not more than that. He clicks his tongue at the sight of corpses, particularly so at hanged Dachaufreisser. "Was that truly necessary, freulein?" - he inquires with a measure of distaste, as his men cut the cadaver down. "Wasn't me, Falstaff." - I retort - "He hanged himself, and as far as I can tell, that happened because they took away his dagger earlier. My theory is that he had a bout of suicidal hysteria after seeing me kill his sons." He frowns, looks around, checks up a couple spots, including the corpse I made of Dachaufreisser's wife, then comes up to me. "...I find myself both admiring your ruthless efficiency and sorely desiring you'd do it in some other country as soon as possible." - he proffers with a rueful chuckle - "That's Dachaufreissers crossed off the list. What about Brikhiters?" "This is where it gets weird." - I admit, as I guide him upstairs to see the ritual circle. He hisses in alarm when he sees it partially carved and partially painted into the floor and carefully circles around the diagram. "What do you make of this?" - he then asks me - "I have a pretty good hunch myself, but a second opinion never hurts." "This is a demon summoning circle." - I explain to him - "Baron Brikhiter and his actual family were using it to summon a demon they intended to sic on me, using his wife and "legitimate son" as the sacrifices for the ritual. It did not go as they planned, instead the demon took all of them and departed, leaving the potential sacrifices behind. Given what I know of demonology, the baron is NOT coming back." Falstaff draws a sharp breath, but then relaxes and chuckles. "I take if even demon thought discretion is a better part of valor, if confronting you was on the table, huh?" - he jests, making me doubletake in return - "No offense meant, fraulein. Obviously, the baron flubbed something in his incantation to get such an odd result. Oh well, wherever the demon took them, they are not our problem anymore." I nod and shrug. "The would-be sacrifices I talked to, verified they are hostile to me and disposed of." - I assert as I guide him further in to see the corpses of baroness and baronet - "Baronet attacked me with a knife as soon as I mentioned my name, so... I shot him in the head. Baroness got shot in the gut. I bargained quick death for some truth and she agreed. Apparently, the baroness got pregnant by count Norn and schwagerlin Norn forced her as a wife on baron Brikhiter. It goes without saying that Norn's bastard was posited as the one and only legitimate Brikhiter heir. You can see why they were used as sacrifices, I believe." He nods and sighs. "Well, at least this miserable mess is over." - he offers quietly - "The rest we can leave to the old man." Taking a bit of a pause, Falstaff suddenly chuckles - "You know? I am quite looking forward to this, actually. Klaus will be here around midday. And given the way things are, he will have to thank you. This promises to be entertaining, if nothing else. I will stick around to make sure he does not decide to do something... rash."
