[¶] The Doctor's Journal -- Storyline

[Der Pestdoktor]

Welcome! There's not much to say about this section; as you read on, The Doctor will be posting Storyline updates that pertain to the troubles that Panymium, the Plagues, and the Grimms are facing. Each page will have its own archive and will (hopefully) hold a Chapter's worth of content.

By the end of this, let's hope we have a happy ending, shall we?

ARCHIVE

CHAPTER I. The Ides
-I.- -II.- -III.- -IV.- -V.-
-VI.- -VII.- -VIII.- -IX.- -X.-
-XI.- -XII.- -XIII.- -XIV.- XV.

CHAPTER II. The Famine
PROLOGUE.
I. II. III. IV. V.
VI. VII. VIII. IX. X.
XI. XII. XIII. XIV.

 

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part I.
Written by: Zanaroo and ex o ex Snoof

Perishable Vassalage

March 15th, 1411.

It had been nearly over half a year since the incident with the Troupe de Panymium.

While Shyregoed never received the pleasantries of flowers during the Spring, let alone those coveted fresh and dewy mornings so taken for granted on western and eastern borders, Shyregoed's towns still received slightly warmer days during the season of rebirth, and that was blessing enough. Colwe, the heart of the nomadic faithfuls, sat well bedded within the shrouded mountains up north and snugged closely with the idle barriers of southern Shyregoed, where Helios laid behind stone borders. Unlike the chaotic day of the festival, Colwe was quiet on this day, its people idling in and out around the center plaza and swiftly to their destinations. None idled about and shared their merriment, as they might have an year ago, and everyone was intent on finishing what business they had.

Queen Valhalla in her rigid form sat straight on a throne perched high above the common grounds of common men, in a castle that towered the northern edge of Colwe with a watchful eye. The Queen's altar was placed not far away from the window in front of her, sitting tall and elongated so the Queen could watch both Shyregoed's blanketed ground and its dull sky, both of which seemed to merge on the bleached horizon. From there she watched, nearly eagerly, but with a sharp frown nonetheless, the seemingly peaceful streets of Colwe. She watched with a dreadful demeanor, a beseecher's claw gripping to the sides of the throne and a firm hand gripping intently onto the hilt of her sword, her blonde hair flowing down like flaxen waters spilling onto her seat in braided masses.

Magic encompassed every inch of her skin, just as the Mages felt their Apertures flood their own bodies with the extended power of a Plane beyond Profugus' reach. Shyregoed's Queen, so intensely trained in the arts, shared her heart and magic with the soul of her province. She could feel the pulse of all those steps and breaths and words taken and embedded into her snowy and vast cities, those isolated villages hidden far within the mountain's range. The empathy she felt for those she ruled made her paranoid and worried.

Was she to feel like this? Had her country also been so effected by the Black Death like the rest of her Panymese kin? Colwe had since been peaceful, she'd thought, and the rest of her realm, too, yet the sneaking suspicion of an end and doom ahead was all that crept through her mind when she rested and watched.

A white-robed advisor walked through her quarter's entrance and stood at the edge of the hall, hands clasped together in prayer. Queen Valhalla held the sword to her side ever tighter.

"Speak."

"My Queen, Lady Sage Estratus wishes to see you. It is a message of good news, she says, the northern regions seem to be doing well."

Queen Valhalla urged her shoulders to lax as she stood from her throne, taking formulaic steps down from her altar to face her adviser. "Very well. When shall she arrive?"

"Soon, My Queen. But--"

"I will go to her personally. Ease, adviser."

The adviser watched in nervousness as His Queen marched past her quarter's doors, skittering behind her as he glanced from side to side at the guards by the entrance. While Queen Valhalla was of the highest form of Shyregoedian royalty, she fit herself with a castle smaller than the ones fit for Fellowship nobility, and the flight of stairs deemed narrow and impressive nonetheless.

Despite his initial thoughts to reprimand His Highness of going down the oft dangerous and spiraling case of stairs, he kept quiet, and they moved swiftly toward the castle's entrance.

No sooner than the Queen of Shyregoed rose to her feet were the front gates opened to allow entry for a single horse drawn carriage. It settled itself near the front of the castle, a stone path expertly crafted with old runes and symbols worn from years of harsh weather and lightly dusted with a fine white powder.

The driver came round to open one of the carriage doors but it opened without his assistance and a black cloaked figure exited. On the other side, another door opened and a tall figure clad in white and red stepped out. Neither spoke a word but carried a form stance as they left the driver -- only the white cloaked man offering the driver a firm grip of his shoulder as thanks. Valhalla's guard approached, being doubly sure of these individuals, before opening the grand doors to the entrance hall.

Once closed behind, the hood of the black cloaked figure was lowered to reveal a pale and stoic face framed by raven hair. Her orange eyes roamed the corridor as her white companion caught up with her, standing nearly two heads taller with choppy red hair and swirled eyes. The Queen's soldiers seemed hesitant to approach with the woman's Plague so near and large but she gestured toward him to ease their worries. "Fear not; my knight will remain here, it is merely a precaution," Lady Estratus explained and this seemed to quell their worries for the moment.

The two exchanged looks before the Lady stepped away, allowing herself to be lead to a room at one side of the entrance hall that appeared to be a sitting room with a stone fireplace and extravagant furniture. She was lead to one of the chairs and asked to wait but she called the soldier back before he exited the room, requesting some water. He seemed perplexed but agreed, though did not return before the Queen and her adviser entered the room. Sage Estratus stood, bowing in greeting.

"Your Majesty," she removed her cloak and folded it over her lap as she returned to her seat, "I felt you could do with an uplifting word." Her tone, though speaking of good news, was listless just as her expression was impassive.

Never had Queen Valhalla, in her rigidity and straight form, looked so haphazard and reprimanding as she did now. Her rushed steps from the altar above slowed to a sluggish strut, her adviser stepping cautiously by her side. With a forcible raise of her head, Valhalla's back straightened as she urged the remaining guards at the entrance to ease-- only a single glance at them was order enough.

Despite her weariness, her memories of the lady and her knight in question were by no means bad ones, and with an insistent smile she pried her hand away from her sword. The Queen lifted a single hand in greeting and pointed it generously toward the seat behind Lady Sage. "Please, sit, Lady Estratus." Once the soldier returned with the Adviser's gauntlet of water, he bowed in greeting and excused himself from the vicinity.

Though the Queen had requested for Lady Estratus to sit, she remained standing, her eyes following the back of the soldier as he left swiftly for his previous station at the door of the room in front of them. When he was out of sight, Queen Valhalla eased her form and looked to Sage with a warmer demeanor, though serious nonetheless, pale hands extended to Sage's own as she shook it firmly in greeting-- a Shyregoedian tradition, one the Queen rarely ignored between allies.

"Adviser Sage, never have I been so eager to hear those words from the Fellowship's oracle," she let go of Sage's hand and went to sit on her own chair only two paces away, as she continued to speak with an eager smile, "Pray tell."

The Queen's adviser watched the Fellowship's own with a keen eye, one hand on Queen Valhalla's seat and the other on his staff. Though allied with the Fellowship, he surpassed what would have been a warmhearted greeting with an autonomous bow. "Adviser Estratus, a pleasure. While the Queen is anxious to hear your news, it's important to say-- Colwe has not had the same blessings that the northern regions might have had as of late, and I do hope what good tidings you bear shall soon give better days to the rest of Shyregoed as well," after pausing, he murmured curtly, "And will explain the Fellowship's current ill... health."

Sage offered her thanks for the water and obliged the queen, appearing thoroughly unsurprised by her gesture of hands as she returned the sentiment. There was little time to begin speaking as the Queen's own adviser bade greeting in a far less blissful manner, his final word hanging in the air like a sickness that made Lady Estratus force back a cringe.

"I'll waste no time, then," she began, staring the other adviser down before directing her attentions to the queen. Good news first, she supposed, to lessen the blow of any negativity. "Seasons ago, as I'm sure you were made aware, there was an attack on the North Base itself arranged by the House. An attempt on my life directly, which spoke of future attempts on those higher than I," Lady Estratus left out the details of her hiring a second knight -- herself -- as well as taking on a body double to act out the role of figure head -- Beatrix Amaranthe. These details were unnecessary for the Queen and would likely only exacerbate whatever health concerns her adviser held for the Fellowship. "Following the events of the... performance... there were many pocket incidents across our Northern boarders involving Obscuvan attacks. Small villages and larger areas were hit all the same, but were well defended."

Among these pocket incidents was when her own Plague decided to hunt down an Obscuvan stronghold on his own to exact vengeance for the Locos girl that was killed in such a ritualistic fashion. His plan went sorely awry as himself and a young Grimm were captured and tortured before they were able to kill their way to freedom. That was just a few months ago now, mere moons compared to the carnival, but the sting hadn't dulled despite their progress.

Adjusting herself, Lady Estratus took a sip of her goblet, keeping it close as she continued. "We discovered that most of their hideouts were stationed in abandoned castles, old and broken war forts, and were able to uproot many of their strongholds. Their numbers are dwindling in our area, fleeing like insects," this prospect at least seemed to please her somewhat as an odd gleam shone in her amber eyes briefly.

Next, however, was what Queen Valhalla's adviser was worried about and she leaned back in her seat with an airy sigh. "I know not what you've heard in regards to the Fellowship, however I am hopeful that we are regaining our bearings. Obscuvos' infiltration has shaken us, just as the rest of the Northern Sanctum and all of Panymium, so our... health is recovering." Perhaps the adviser could be more specific, lest her vague response reflect badly on the head representative of the Fellowship.

The adviser nodded through and through to Lady Estratus' thorough report of the Fellowship's and the House's recent up-and-comings, but with a dreary lean of his head, he slowly lifted down his white robe's hood. A young man with braided black hair, the Fellowship's emblem displayed proudly on his forehead, stared at Sage with the overwhelming tenacity to question, as evidenced by his slacked jaw and flared nostrils. His grip on the Queen's throne tightened, and he furthered his inquiry in a deeper voice, breathing first as if to sooth himself.

"My Lady Estratus, I... apologize... I was not clear earlier. The House is of no matter to me now, nor has the House been to the Royal Family for the few decades it has decided to haunt our fortresses with greater impact than the Black Pestilence itself. What I mean to ask are few, but important nonetheless," he straightened his form, his tone staunch with cautiousness, "The Troupe de Panymium only two seasons ago made an attempt at the Queen's life... and accused her as such of Shyregoed's shortcomings. Why?"

"Adviser Sanne, that is quite enough," the Queen interrupted, her brows hard-pressed as she turned to face her own adviser. "We have accepted the fate at the Festival, there is no need to press on."

His cold face now turned to the Queen, Adviser Sanne's curt frown melted into a fake smile of displeasure and urgency. "Please, My Queen, let me finish. To ease your thoughts is to first accept and face hardship." The adviser turned back to Sage, the same look as before, and continued without reprieve, "They mentioned the Fellowship as a whole. Their speech had read nonsense to the Mages but to the people... I worry. Why do they think this?"

Though the Queen's adviser paused, Valhalla nonetheless went without word and looked to the door just behind Sage with wide eyes, a paranoid look-- though her Magic worked well for Empathy, it knew not of what came ahead, yet flashes of emotions haunted the corridors of her castle and made her shoulders tighten, new and strange emotions that had never invaded the comfort of her own quarters. The adviser begged the Queen to ease, his brows now pressed with worry.

"...What has the Fellowship done to quell our people's thoughts? Where does our Grand Magus lie when her Queen is subject to the terrors of Shyregoed's miseries? An ancient pact was written long ago that it has been the Fellowship's duty first and foremost to aid the Royal Family and protect its country from disorder. This I understand is not your duty," he paused again, now, a soft frown upon his faction's own adviser.

"...It is Grand Magus Waldgrave's."

---

Waldgrave stood cackling from the depths of her stone-bedded castle fortress, which reigned not near Colwe but toward the very geographical center of Shyregoed itself, where all one could see for miles was the stretch of a white horizon and the sillhoutte of a castle, which rested against the snow like a mason beast. Unlike Queen Valhalla's house there were no guards present, as they were all issued by the Grand Magus herself to leave their stations and go elsewhere.

Through the unlit halls of the fortress was a gaping pair of doors, the height of ten guards themselves, which led into the Grand Magus' very altar, whose carpetry were a cold purple that befitted the nobility that was Waldgrave herself. Yet what was odder than the Grand Magus' entirely lonely fortress were the splotches of red blood that lined the walls, spreckled and smattered about like a viscous paint. Footsteps of the same color led up to a bathtub upon the altar, gold in color, framed by the cold skin of dead bodies, all of girls whose clothes were ripped and lined with hair drenched in its on fluids. From the edge of the bathtub was the reflection of a rich crimson, which echoed off the eerie voice of a young woman's laughter. Her thick blonde hair, nearly as white as the snow outside, was caked in drying brown layers.

She was young again.

From the corner of the room was a lady scrunched in a ball, hidden in the shadows of the thick stone walls. Red cloth barely covered her body, an equally as rich red veil shadowing off the details of her face, black hair obscuring the right half of her features. Arms wrung around her legs, she watched with a glowing black eye the lady in front of her, a quivering voice barely squeaking past a reply.

"My Lady..."

Yet, the woman in the bathtub continued to laugh to herself, red eyes shot toward the ceiling as she arched her back against the cold metal of the bathtub, relishing in the warmth of her freshly attained virgin's blood.

Grand Magus Benedicta Waldgrave was young once again.

Lady Estratus gently drew a finger across the rim of her chalice, matching the terse expressions the Queen's adviser was giving her. His apology seemed condescending and her back straightened in response. The surprise of him not wanting to hear about the House was only minimally obvious by a twitch of her brow but still she remained impassive.

Her gaze dropped to the cool, reflective surface of water in her hands as the queen offered a defense but it did little to stand in the way of her adviser's persuasion. However, Sage's eyes narrowed as she saw the Queen's reflection in her miniature pool begin to stiffen and worry. Her own empathic powers were not the strongest, instead feeling what the Queen herself was feeling as opposed to outward emotions dwelling within the castle halls.

Apprehension.

Unease.

The Fellowship Adviser's brow furrowed as Adviser Sanne continued on completely unawares, far too involved with attempting to debase the Mages to spare any concern elsewhere. It was a difficult topic, not only for Lady Estratus' own sensibilities but for the simple fact that she hadn't attended the performance. Her double, instead, went with Sir Sloane and she only knew of the biting aspects of the Troupe de Panymium's presence; such as them being entirely House run and executing an innocent Locos.

Sage attempted to push past the rising anger that was swirling in her stomach as she recalled these details and her voice crept out as sullen as before, "I should think, Adviser Sanne, that our people are smarter than to believe the lies of a group of performers who were, in fact, lead by the House you seem to find so little interest in." As for why the believers of a glutton god that prayed for the end of the world's hastening believed the Fellowship to be a cause of their woes, Lady Estratus could only put her fingers on reasons that Adviser Sanne would likely dismiss. It seemed to her that this man wanted very badly to metaphorically throw her and the Fellowship under a carriage and that just would not do.

"And as you understand, I am not the Grand Magus, so I cannot speak for her nor the entire Fellowship. I will tell you, sir, that I and mine have been doing our best to root out those who would conspire against not only the Mages but also the Royal Family. Conspiracies, Adviser Sanne, are what the House thrives on -- it is the resulting chaos that they crave and conspire to turn us all against one another." Leaning forward to set her glass down on the table before her, her eyes narrowed at the man, her own grip on the goblet as fierce as his fingers curling into the chair his Queen sat upon, "It seems to be working if you value our potential shortcomings over the current state of your Queen."

Releasing the cup, Lady Estratus stayed leaned across the table, her eyes drifting to Queen Valhalla. Her expression softened just the slightest bit and she kept her voice quiet so as not to spook the woman, but concern was apparent in the queen's eyes -- something was wrong and her Adviser wasn't catching on in the slightest. "What are you feeling?" she asked gently, knowing full well of the Queen's own magical abilities. What emotions she could glean from the ruling woman before her only intensified after the question was asked.

Something was very wrong.

Waldgrave turned to face the lady in red with a wicked smile sugarcoated in mirth. Leaning forward, she rested her pale arms against the side of the bathtub and stared deeply at her, twirling the ends of her blond locks as she nearly sang her reply. "Sanguine, dearest..."

"My Lady," Sanguine breathed, leaning forward at the Grand Magus' response. Though so fearful only minutes ago, never had she heard the sweetness of her own Grimm's response, and especially not in such a tone. Her two clawed hands, dipped in a near-black scarlet, scratched the stony surface of the floor below her as she nearly crawled forward. Waldgrave bid her closer until they drew towards each other, face to face, as Sanguine obliged Waldgrave with an empty but obedient stare. The youth of Waldgrave was invigorating, and her voice manipulated and swayed her fretful demeanor like a strong wind.

So easy was a child to sway.

"We must to Colwe," Waldgrave cooed, her hand drawing close to Sanguine's chin as to lift it up for inspection-- smiling, the Grand Magus tilted her head to the side. "To the Queen Valhalla's castle, where she reigns over our lands with a firm eye. She's yet to hear the good news."

Sanguine shot a nervous smile back and bid her Grimm's hand away from her chin, two arms extended in retaliation. "My Lady," she repeated, her voice barely past a whisper, her brows terse with worry, "We mustn't. I bid you, your youth will remain, but you are tired, my dearest Lady, and you must to rest first..."

When the Infitialis tried to pull back, Waldgrave replied with a sharp tug of her hand as she made to slap Sanguine across the cheek. A sharp twang resonated through the empty walls and blood sloshed about the bathtub and spilled past the brim from Waldgrave's violent movements; Waldgrave pulled Sanguine closer toward her, red pupils dilated and shot toward the heart of Sanguine's own pale face. "You say I tire, you dirty thing? I know what lies within your mind, and your thoughts speak muted words louder than your wretched voice," she shook Sanguine and continued, voice raised, "Take me to Colwe, at once!"

Waldgrave pushed Sanguine away, and at once the Infitialis covered her face with her hands and continued to speak with a shaky voice. She knew not to question her Grand Magus' orders any longer, though she questioned Waldgrave's true intent, "M-my Lady, Grand Magus Waldgrave... I know not where blood lies in Queen Valhalla's castles..."

"Blood lays there, I have assured it," Waldgrave spat coldly, raising herself from the bathtub. She stepped lightly toward Sanguine and grabbed her by her scarlet veil, her naked form bent forward as to whisper into Sanguine's ear, "Remember, now, your true birthplace was not here..."

Sanguine looked up at Waldgrave with a grave glare, but with pressed shoulders the two melted into the pool of blood only inches away from them.

The Blood Plague's sobs echoed through the Grand Magus' altar, the last of their presence there as they headed toward the Queen's castle.

---

"You have too much faith in our people, Lady Estratus," bolstered Sanne, who now took a quick glance toward the Queen as well, now equally as tense with apprehension, "I do not."

The Queen leaned forward from her throne, as if to stand any moment, a hand rested so tightly around the hilt of her sword that the edge of her fingers turned red. Eyes narrowed a hand placed on the Queen's shoulder as if to ease, Sanne bowed his head at Lady Estratus' latter statement. "No, I have no matters with the House, now, but I suppose the same can be said about your Grand Magus. My Queen speaks of Lady Waldgrave's hatred for the cult, yet her mysterious standing reflects even in you... is it not your duty as Adviser to know of and think on what your Grand Magus tells you? Is it not the same for you as I am now to the Queen? Valhalla will ease only when the Fellowship does, the Royal Family's Fellowship brethren suffer from shortcomings and must be addressed first and foremost."

Adviser Sanne frowned and contemplated saying anything further, for what he spoke was truth, yet the Grand Magus' Adviser did as well. Sighing, his voice broken, he continued, "...The Fellowship is My Queen's only tie, the Emperor is difficult. He sympathizes with the cult--"

Queen Valhalla placed a hand in front of her adviser and listened intently to Sage's inquiry. The Queen whispered, her trembling voice mirroring her fears, "I feel... cold, Lady Estratus. A cold I have never felt, even in the furthest mountains of this province."

A crashing noise from not far away resonated as a soft echo through the halls of the castle.

Lady Estratus looked none too amused at Sanne's rebuttals, however their meaning was not lost on the woman. Her brow only knit into something that could be construed as worry at the mention of the Emperor in league with the House. Her reaction was cut short, however, as the Queen gave her a quiet and shivering reply.

As if the Queen's chilled feeling took physical form, Sage's breath became visible. Then a crash destroyed the silence that was encompassing the room, sending the Fellowship Adviser to her feet. It only took a few seconds more before another crash was heard and the door to their room was thrust open; her white cloaked knight burst forth, swirled Plague eyes wide and sharp teeth bared.

"Forgive the intrusion, Your Highness," he bowed his head quickly to Queen Valhalla and her Adviser before turning to his Grimm, "I smell blood." The Infitialis' voice was tense and dark as though he was expecting the worst. Without a word of approval, he slipped inside and crept around, sniffing and searching for any source of the smell. Outside, the Queen's guard had taken to protecting the entrance as well as storming the halls to find the origin of the noise.

As guards ran rampant through the halls just in front of them, the Queen quite clearly eyed Sloane as if to quietly analyze his intent. He was an honest knight, and of Lady Estratus', and her shoulders eased if only a bit more as she raised herself from her throne. Someone was invading the castle, and she seldom thought to let only her guards handle the situation.

Upon her moving, however, Adviser Sanne gripped Queen Valhalla by her shoulder, who responded with a quick glare at the young man. Valhalla's hand pressed against the hilt of her sword, a shining silver blade just visible as a sliver of metal beneath leather, she placed a hand over her adviser's. "Ease," she turned to Lady Estratus then to Sloane, her voice hastened and intent, "Knight, is this blood you smell strong?"

Clatters of metal intruded the room, however, two guards standing at the threshold of the door. One had a sword out, and past his panting he urged, "Your Majesty, someone--"

Another crash thundered through the halls, but the soldier continued, "--Someone is trying to invade your castle as we speak, but we've yet to find the intruder... but no army nor militia is present outside."

"Persecute them at once!" Sanne blurted, as he made quick steps toward the two soldiers. "Where are they?"

"Near the grounds, sir. Soldiers are taking their rotue around to see if they're--"

"Take me," Sanne barked, whipping his form toward the entrance of the castle. The two soldiers made way with the adviser, as two other guards filed in to take their places. Queen Valhalla looked to Sage and Sloane, and in her worried state, the Queen of Shyregoed hurried to catch up with her adviser and guards.

---

They were stuck.

Sanguine sat the corner of the labyrinthine darkness as her Lady tested the cracks of the castle's walls with her pale hands, feeling through every crevasse in front of her until she landed on a weak spot with a smile. Though neither could see well within the darkness, Sanguine's glowing eyes saw in horror the devastation and delusion her Grand Magus was going through. Within the confines of shadows, Sanguine and Waldgrave were stuck within the realms of what was once a part of Queen Valhalla's castle-- but it seemed that it was no longer the case.

Since the Infitialis had transported them into the castle's nearest source of blood, they landed in a fake catacombs that saw neither entrance nor exit. Waldgrave forcibly made Sanguine follow her every step she, with her Magic, traced her hands against the walls and made them crack away and billow through the cold and stale air like dregs of sand. Every flick of her fingers rendered in a devastating blow to the barrier that kept them from the main castle, and with every devastating blow came a loud cracking noise.

Was her Grand Magus threatening the security of the Queen's abode? Sanguine wondered if the castle would hold after Waldgrave's aggressive maneuvers, each chunk of the wall disappearing making her cringe beyond belief. The walls were thick, and each shatter of stone rendered in more stone, but Sanguine was glad that Waldgrave had not paused yet to concentrate on a single area.

What worried her, however, was that Waldgrave was looking for someone, and it frightened her to know who it was.

"My Lady... the Queen will not like this," Sanguine urged, her hands now wrapped around one of Waldgrave's bare legs, "Please, you are unwound and drenched in blood, with no bodice nor robe to cover yourself..."

Unfortunately, as Sanguine spoke softly to the Grand Magus, Waldgrave stopped in her tracks and let a pleasured chuckle slip past her lips.

She had found her.

Eyes wide, Sanguine tightened her grip around Waldgrave's leg as the blood-drenched blond waved her hand in front of the stone obscuring her from sight. With an impressive flurry of rock, the stone blew away like lightweight fragments and spewed into the hallway in front of them. After her deed was complete, Waldgrave spat a dirty look at Sanguine and kicked her away from her legs, her tiny feet scaling past the rubble, through the dust mounded and obscuring both Waldgrave and the crowd in front of her from seeing one another.

Sanguine felt a familiar scent waft through the corridor not far away, the lingering smell of metal and the soft piques of wintry blossoms that marked a certain knight and the Queen herself, respectively. Her form sprawled about against the floor, she forced her arms to support her as she looked up at the dust mound, and began to weep.

The crowd before them was the Queen and her group of vassals.

"Queen Valhalla!" Waldgrave sang, her form just barely visible past the dust, "An old friend wishes to greet you..."

But one glance told both Plague and Grimm enough and the two looked at one another for barely a second before they moved in time, following the Queen and her Adviser out into the hall. Another loud crash stopped their procession, however, and rubble seeped into the room with a cloud of dust and a terrible clatter. Some guards were sent into a coughing fit but a young female's voice rang true through all of the surrounding racket.

Lady Estratus' knight tensed, the smell of blood filling all of his senses so he was practically swimming in it. Not just one source of blood, an unfamiliar woman naked and coated in the red liquid, but a sobbing Plague not far behind her who he had not seen in some time. Both scents intermingled, so similar and yet only one was tainted. Death's scent permeated the area, carried both by the taint of an Infitialis and the purity of a virgin.

The Fellowship's Adviser recoiled at the strong stench but held her ground, bearing her fists which quickly coated in frost. It crept along her arms to her elbows, thick blocks forming around her hands which were soon dotted with dagger-like icicles. As the dust settled, her eyes narrowed at the intruders; she was prepared for battle beside her Plague, beside the Queen's guard and perhaps the Queen herself. Before long, her gaze fell upon the simpering red cloaked woman on the ground and she realized all too despairingly that the woman was not just a woman but a Plague.

The Grand Magus' Plague.

Before them all stood a naked woman drenched in thick red blood calling for the queen and slowly the woman's aura settled into Lady Estratus' mind. This was not some stranger, not a frenzied member of the House intent on attacking the Queen like at the festival. No, far worse, this was an ally, someone she looked up to, someone who raised her and someone she cared for.

"...Grand Magus Waldgrave...?" she shuddered, her arms going limp.

As soon as this weakness showed, her knight stepped forward to place himself between the two women. From the wrist of his right gauntlet, a silver blade was drawn, pushing itself out from a non-existent hiding space. Sloane held it at the ready, clawed fingers clenched into a strong fist. His attentions were torn, however, between Waldgrave herself and the crying Plague at her feet. Whether any of them wanted to believe it or not, Sloane had detected a strong stench of death on the Lady Waldgrave ever since he first came into contact with her. Worse yet, now that he was face to face with her in the midst of this blood, he could say without a doubt that the Waldgrave they all knew was gone from this world, replaced with an inhuman child murderer worse than any taint spreading Plague.

Grand Magus Waldgrave laughed at the sight as she saw the swift and aggravated forms of those in front of her. Oh, how she laughed, now, as two guards forcibly pried themselves away from Queen Valhalla and Adviser Sanne's sides as if to protect them, swords drawn, and the detestable Sword's own form prepared and ready to act on his accord... her amusement, however, fell short as she focused now on the figure closest to her, an amber-eyed and black-haired youth Waldgrave had known since the Lady was but a babe.

Though Waldgrave had seen Sage battle-ready since her practicing in the magical arts, the situation now was too radically different to offer a correct response. The youthful Grand Magus knew all too well that Sage could absorb and identify her aura, and that enough was to ruin the surprise; yet, after a moment of thought, the Grand Magus extended friendly arms to her Adviser and smiled the same courteous and kind smile she'd given Sage throughout her existence. "Sage, dear child..."

Yet, her warm greeting came to an abrupt halt when Sloane stepped in for his Lady, and Waldgrave's hearty greeting blew away for a harsh and rash exterior. Her arms immediately lowered as she glared menacingly at Sloane, red eyes pressed into angry, seeping slits of vision, her form swaying back as if faced by a pitiable monster, rather than the knight Slone dutifully was. With her fists clenched, she hissed, "Move, creature."

"Waldgrave..." Valhalla stared wide-eyed at the blond woman nearly entirely obscured from her vision. When she tried to pry the guards' shoulders away, Adviser Sanne pulled her back by both shoulders and bid her to stray behind her, arms extended defensively in front of Queen Valhalla as if to shield her. His own hands were now wrapped in crystalline ice, cold air tangled around the tips of his fingers. He dared not speak a word.

Yet, as the last of Valhalla's uncertain proclamation rolled off of her tongue, Sanguine glanced up at the Queen and her vassals. Tears rolled down her red-hot cheeks as her lips pulled into an all the more miserable frown as she noticed Sir Sloane. She continued to sob, now, her eyes now pulled back toward the ground, as she bellowed, "Please, forgive my Lady... Please..." Sanguine's voice shuddered and remained quiet, however, as her uncertainty and fright ringed as true was the apprehension that now hung through the castle's corridor.

It all made sense now in the mind of the Sword Plague and yet made none at all to his Grimm. This woman, the Grand Magus Lady Benedicta Waldgrave had been a mother to Lady Estratus when she lost everything and a leader when she had no direction in life yet now all of the beliefs she instilled into Sage were torn asunder as she stood before them while Sloane's basked in his current understanding.

Waldgrave's soothing words and outstretched arms beckoned to her would-be daughter and Sage's offensive shielding of ice melted away in a mixture of dripping water and gently steaming air. Her body wasn't responding properly, disconnected from her mind which was overloading from all of her senses -- especially the sixth. Death wafted off of Waldgrave like a thick cloud, thicker than that which followed the destruction of the wall, and Lady Estratus was all but drowning in it.

At her command, the Infitialis held fast. "I knew I smelled death on you," he instead growled, red swirls glowing with malice as his lips raised to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth. "For years now, I could smell blood on your hands." It all pieced together, then, for how else was the blood of a virgin to become tainted while under Waldgrave's care?

His attention was briefly taken from the newly young Mage by her Plague as she pleaded tearfully with everyone. Immediately, her prayer for forgiveness was followed by a dull thud behind the white knight. Lady Estratus had fallen to her knees, an expression so blank and hollow upon her features like never she had worn before. It would have been belied by the tears beginning to stream down her own face if not for the simple and obvious fact that the Fellowship's Adviser was broken.

Broken mind.

Broken heart.

"...You killed... All of them..." her voice was so quiet, barely a whisper. She had seen it, then, in brief flashes as the aura of death washed over and pulled her into its clutches.

Waldgrave stood there with a pebble's worth of understanding, and a boulder's weight in confusion-- with a petty frown, her stare remained on the Sword Infitialis, and she relished his keen observation skills with a hollow click of her tongue. Attention to intent on the Plague who, in her eyes, had so changed Sage from when she was but a young child, untouched by the trauma of the Black Death. Head cocked, she straightened, her arms extended out and at her sides as she relished the freshly gained youth and vitality she'd received from her recent ceremony.

Perhaps it was that the Grand Magus had lost her Empathy with her sacrificial ritual, but the happiness and ecstasy she felt now about herself forcibly shoved her attention away from her now broken Adviser. She could feel the mirth and anger and the entire spectrum of emotions that she'd had as a youthful and naive girl, a young woman who had rarely been touched by sorrow, even in the face of the death-ridden touch of the Black Plague and its bountiful effects on her own kin.

"Death and blood, but all small prices to pay for new life... new youth. What good is there in mortality without paying sacrifice, Infitialis? Surely a Plague-son like you would know." She cocked her head at Sloane, embellishing herself in the reflection of her own voice and the anger thriving within the knight's. "I've long since detested your kind, even before your creation... but I have now learned what joy is sprung through eager Death."

Sanguine flashed a tortured glare at the Grand Magus and shook her head, quickly uttering contradictions sworn like echoes after Waldgrave's own voice. "Grand Magus, please, hear yourself speak-- these are not words you would have spoken not so long ago, please, your time at the altar has done you wrongly..." She spoke while staring at Sloane and the Queen, as if doubly begging the two intimidating figures, though her heart sank and her throat knotted like tight rope at the sight of Lady Estratus. To see the woman she knew to be so emotionless and esteemed weighed own Lady Waldgrave's already doomed fate like cast-iron shackles, and Sanguine could feel her own impending future weigh on her arms as she was dragged along.

Upon Sanguine's plea, Waldgrave waved a hand behind her and forced Sanguine's body to arc and bow in a formal fashion, and the Blood Infitialis trembled in her place. Waldgrave stared daringly at the Queen, whose very robe were being pulled by her adviser's hand as she dared to move through the guards, and received her company with a daunting frown.

"Will you say nothing, old friend? I did this for you, yet your silence speaks nary of your enthusiasm. You wished for my assistance forevermore, did you not?" Eyes narrowed, she smiled, "Then you will and shall receive it."

A moment's silence pressed on as everyone stood like statues in deadpan anticipation.

"LET ME BE!" Valhalla's scream ripped from her throat as she reaffirmed her grip around her blade's handle, the Queen's strength ripping past the two horrified guards as Adviser Sanne lurched forward to catch her like a lurking shadow, his levelheadedness now unmasked by a young boy's innocent terror.

"LADY ESTRATUS-- KNIGHT-- THE QUEEN--!"

Someone, stop her...

Even amongst all of the commotion, the terrible emotions weighing down and a distorted speech of lives for a life, Lady Estratus could not budge. Her name was called, she didn't even twitch. It was as though she had gone blind and deaf, frozen in her moment of broken sorrow.

This was the breaking point and no longer could she hide behind a false mask of indifference; her old face lay shattered as her newly uncovered one slowly contorted into deepest anguish. All of her ignored emotions, every single one that had been locked away like a prisoner awaiting execution, was released from their bindings: all of her rage and sorrow were let loose like mad dogs and as she shakily reached a hand up to hold her head the other came down with a thundering force against the stone floor.

Adviser Sanne's yelped plea was lost on her, just as the Queen's intent to kill.

Sloane rushed toward Shyregoed's Queen on instinct from the command, knowing all too well his place of rank and with his Grimm and leader out of commission he was professionally meant to answer to the 'next best thing'. Sanne, however, was not the next best thing and just as his sharp claws took hold of Queen Valhalla's robes he allowed them release. There was no reasoning with Waldgrave and her logic was as tainted as that new body of hers. He sneered with malice at the Grand Magus, only the faintest look of sympathy hiding in his eyes for the Plague who was about to lose her dear Grimm.

It was a wish of the Sword Plague's for some time to do away with Lady Waldgrave if only his assumptions were proven true. Here she stood, claiming her own meaningless existence was worth the lives of countless others, lives who had not even reached their apex, young girls who might as well not even have been born as they did not reach their peak into womanhood. If a single human life were so sacred, he believed it would be a virgin girl's; as pure as freshly fallen snow, as innocent as the mythical horned horses. Benedicta Waldgrave had committed the ultimate sin and she had done it many times over.

Sloane would relish her death.

Queen Valhalla could feel Sloane's hands ease away from her robe, and her sword cut past Waldgrave's glazed crimson eyes in a flurry of silver. Neither Plague nor Queen hesitated in their actions, knowing fully their intents, and understood completely the silent pact they shared amidst the scene. As the blade evened with Waldgrave's torso, the ruling Queen cut well within her and a blood viscous and fresh spewed slowly and slivered away toward the stone floor below, seeping unevenly between the cracks and mites of finite pebbles.

With no scream to relish or a voice to speak with, the Grand Magus of the Fellowship fell with a limp inhale for breath, and her naked form stood sprawled uncomfortably between bits of castle ruins. She remained gasping, a clean slice of the blade stopped only by her spine-- before she could look up, however, the Queen took a single step forward and made her sword bite the bitter features of Waldgrave's gasping maw.

The gush and squeezing sound of flesh was intruded only by the bellowing scream of the Plague just in front of her guardian's vision, and with a disturbed clench of her hair she placed her forehead against the stone ground. As the Queen stood above Waldgrave's unnaturally youthful form, she the sword out from its victim and dropped it to the ground.

It fell with a clatter, and adviser Sanne dropped his knees and stared in anticipation at Waldgrave's bloodied face, as though the Grand Magus would rise from her place and laugh her ghastly laugh once again.

All was for naught, however, and Sanguine screamed and sobbed in her place, her voice taut with anger, though her face was still obscured by her hands and crimson fingers.

"Look.. look what you've DONE!"  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part II.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof

Unspoken Omens

March 10th, 1411.

Low chanting filled the still air, a large group of voices giving a single tone of prayer as few men and women alike harmonized with each other into a single cry. The sea of white bird masks rose to their feet in the darkened pews, illuminated by the glorious red of their stained glass depictions of a righteous god, the true Lord who would lead them all to a new world. Their dark cloaks brought them unity, their masks gave them a single identity and their joined harmony melted away any misgivings or doubts.

They were all His children.

Red tapestries marked with the dark and recognizable symbol of their faith, others with the blackened and stylized silhouette of a crow’s profile. At the far back of the room was a raised platform constructed from dark wood in contrast with the polished black stone of the walls and floor, which was home to a pedestal and pews of its own. Hanging high sat a wondrous curtain painted with the most realistic depiction of their Lord sitting with his legs crossed, wings folded and a globe between his hands.

Standing beneath this elegant drape was the only figure not to be cloaked in black though still with a white beak covering her face. Bright orange hair pooled down her shoulders and the luxurious tourmaline of her lace covered dress spilled out to hide every inch of her form.

Across the outcroppings and small footholds across the black walls were several black birds, nestling quietly as if listening to the song. Here and there one would flutter, adding a natural accompaniment as if Obscuvos were flapping his wings in joy at the ensemble and raining his dark feathers across the grand hall in acceptance.

”Don’t you want to see the Truth?
What’s hidden in His heart is you.
How He longs to bring the new world,
And flutter down—
Walk among His children, His loves.
Let Him cast His grand wings out
To hold each and everyone.”

Children, young teens, adults and the elderly; man and woman, Plague and human; their voices connected and wove around one another to become one joyous song of faith and belief. In these services they were all one and they were all so dearly loved by their Lord, their Savior who will rebuild the world into something pure and wonderful for all who only return His love. Many of the swaying bodies reached out to hold their companions hands, clasped their hands to their hearts or raised their arms in reverence as the song came to a grand conclusion.

As if rehearsed, once their voices fell silent all of the masked bodies fell to a quiet and uniformed seat to observe a tall cloaked individual with a slightly more ornate mask bearing the Obscuvan mark upon its white brow come to rest before a podium. He bowed his head, hands clasped together and gently uttered their Lord’s name before clasping the sides.

”My brothers and sisters,” the Priest began, a slight drawl curling around his words, ”We have come so far in these dark times – a time of plight and war, a time of godlessness – and here we stand, strong and full of faith. How could this be possible while the Fellowship is crumbling from the inside out? How is this possible as the Council tries to dissect and understand with their minds what can only be understood with the heart? It is because of our love for each other, brothers and sisters, which brings us together. It is our love that radiates within the heart of the Lord Obscuvos, resonates inside his winged form and ensures that we are loved in return.”

Through the crowd came a murmuring of ‘Amen’, beaked heads bobbing in agreement with the Priest’s words. If it could be seen through a mask there would undoubtedly be warm smiles on every face in the room.

”It is with His love that our faith continues to grow. We find more of His children among us every day and with each faithful, loving heart His own grows more expansive. We want to share this love, for He loves unconditionally, however… if one does not return the Lord’s love then there is no way for them to achieve salvation. When the Catalyst begins, it is those faithful children who will walk with Him in His new world but we cannot all be so lucky.” The Priest’s tone sank, his head hanging in pity for all the poor souls who were not and could never be Truths. ”The Eastern Ports of our fair land are growing restless. In a place constantly teetering between genius and insanity, it is a sure bet that the more humble of its children are losing faith in their own hand made religion, their New Age Magic. They are lost… and we must be there to guide them. Their unrest shall become their salvation, brothers and sisters.”

With a flutter and caw, one of the many stationed crows perched atop the Priest’s shoulder. Visibly, he appeared thankful as though the action was a sign from Obscuvos Himself, raising his head to one of many stained glass depictions of their Lord and clutching at his heart before continuing. All around there were whispers, some excited and others full of pity for the Lost Children — those who would undoubtedly become Remnants and give their Lord nourishment.

”We will go to the Region of Science and free them of their loss but whether they are destined to walk with our Lord or linger behind is their decision.” Once more, the Priest bowed his head and gave utterance of their Lord’s name, ”For Obscuvos.”

”Obscuvos,” the crowd answered.

At the back of the platform, the masked woman stood and ran a pale hand through her warm locks. Her white beak was accented with gold, the sides painted with vibrant feathers. As she came to rest beside the Priest he bowed his head and stepped away while the crow on his shoulder protested quietly before flying back to its perch. Gently, she traced her white fingers across the podium and a smile graced her lips, the only feature of hers visible behind the mask besides dark pools with no light in its eyes.

”My children,” she began gracefully, beckoning to them with her arms, ”Our dear Lord loves us all equally even as He loves those who do not love Him. He is selfless and incapable of spite.” The woman animatedly twirled her billowing dress to and fro as she sang their god’s praises, often gesturing toward the many red windows or the portrait behind her for emphasis. Her voice carried easily through the long hall though she seemed to do little in the way of amplification, instead keeping a soft and serene tone. ”However, not all are worthy of His love. There are those who would attempt to gain His favor, His unconditional support and worm their way into the deserving and beloved Truths when in reality they are nothing more than a Remnant.”

Bringing her hands together, she stepped away from the podium as movement came from behind the large painted tapestry and many more cloaked, masked figures came out in procession. Their arms held aloft a wooden cross with a wriggling and naked form tied against it. The grim parade descended what few stairs there were beside the podium and rested the cross upright before it for all of the audience to see. Tied taught with dark rope lay an olive toned woman, skinny and supple with naught a hair on her head. However, a mask same as their own hid her face from view as she fruitlessly fought her bindings.

As the noble woman returned to the podium, she announced with great fervor, ”Our own Prophet!” before reaching down and stripping her of her last dignity. ”So blinded by the joy and love He could bring, she came to us with a wonderful vision and in doing so rose through the ranks and answered directly to the High Prophet himself. However, in all of her years, she seemed to forget to do one very simple thing,” a quiet chuckle escaped her closed lips as she examined the claimed mask, turning it in her hands as if examining a puzzle.

”She forgot to love Him in return.”

All around the room flooded gasps, mutterings of confusion and condemnation toward their once holy representative. The Prophet did not speak, only offering glares to all of the audience as well as the speaker. Another soft laugh came from the woman in the feathered mask and she turned to stare down at Mandy Young while setting the mask aside.

”You are a Prophet no longer, my dear, but you are still one of His children. He will always love you,” she reached out a hand, gingerly tracing the old Prophet’s jaw line and lifting her chin with a single finger, ”And you are blessed for getting to meet with him before us all.”

Miss Young’s dark eyes widened with a horrifying realization of what that meant and quickly began thrashing against her bindings. ”Andromeda, you cannot do this!” she pleaded wildly, ”I do love Him! He came to me! He spoke to me!”

Andromeda stepped away, returning to the pedestal and, raising her arms on high, she declared ”Naked were you born, naked will you sleep, cleansed by the purifying fire stirring within Him!” Without need of direction, all of the attending Obscuvans stood and clasped their hands in prayer as another hymn began to flow through the chamber lead by the melodious voice of Andromeda the Wise and accented with the terrified shouts of an unholy fraud.

”A debt of mercy be paid,
Of covenant mercy I sing,”
”Without fear we’re held in His arms,
Be reborn in His wondrous light.”

With each verse and chant, the woman’s yells became louder, turning to screams. Some younger children and Plagues alike clutched to their parents and Grimms, burying their faces as far from sight as they could. Her words increased in spite and incoherence, a flurry of curses and impious resentment caroling over top their holy song.

Just when it was becoming too much to bear, Andromeda’s voice rang out in admiration for their Lord and she cast a forgiving hand toward the once Prophet, flames springing up from the bottom of the cross and licking hungrily at the wood and rope. The fires soon took notice of the woman’s fragile and exposed skin and behind the burning Remnant danced the feathered mask, the Holy Wife, spinning and twirling as she envisioned herself dancing with the Lord.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part III.
Written by: X Purple--Platypus X

A Dusty Pedestal

March 1st, 1411

Dust motes coughed downwards through the air and Doctor Sedgwyck Kirkaldy’s characteristic thick browed frown sunk deeper and fiercer upon his face.

This was not good.

Above ground hundred, perhaps thousands, of discontented Imisese were protesting. Rallied together by this chaotic uprising’s leaders they were marching against The Council and there was nothing that the scientists could do to stop them. Kirkaldy looked around the chamber with hard critical eyes. Here they were, the finest minds of The Council, cowering away in their underground nest. There was Doctor Helmand, only last week he had been on the verge of proving the existence of a whole new chemical element! Now that fine intellect was reduced to nothing but a useless fool; hunched against a stone column looking up at the vaulted ceiling as if fearing the angry crowds metres above his head would break through. He had done nothing to harm them... Why were they so angry at him?

Because, in their eyes, he had done nothing to help them either.

Leaning heavily upon the nearest workbench Kirkaldy pinched the bridge of his nose, clearing his thoughts, before rubbing his temples with great pressure and determined thoughtfulness. What could be done? With the bubbling violence above ground and the constant threat that some marauding lynch mob would stumble upon them there was no way that they could escape and yet at the same time the crowds were so incensed, so completely and utterly baying for blood, that there was no viable way of calming them. Time had run out. The council had pledged that they would find a cure for the disease crippling the country but it really did seem as though everything they tried was met with an unexplainable block. Logic and clever deductions had not been successful enough.

“Comrades...” His voice resonated through the stone walled room, silencing any worried mumbles and half-hearted discussions in progress amongst the scientists. “It appears there is little that we can do. Experimentation and evaluation – the building blocks of our great council’s work – have failed us. Despite our best efforts the plague continues to spread throughout Panymium. The number of cadavers rotting in the poisonous miasma of the Black Death continues to rise at an uncontrollable rate... We promised results!” He slammed his fist down upon the work surface yet did not flinch as the impact shot pain up his slender arm. “But we cannot provide the people with the news that they want to hear! In short we have failed... The people can no longer wait and the delicately poised acceptance of the situation has finally slipped and that, my friends, is what we can hear above and is the cause of our fear. We have always viewed ourselves as working for the people to provide a means to the end of these dark times... But with the people losing faith in us we find ourselves the enemy of those we aimed to release from this pandemic’s dark grip.”

Kirkaldy slumped, apparently exhausted by this announcement. All hope seemed lost. However, as the pounding of the discontented crowds continued to shake the earth and a few pieces of delicate glass equipment sung quietly and all faces were fixed in a state of misery: all except one.

At the very back of the scientist’s cavernous hall one individual was still working. He was fully aware of the gravity of the situation but as the fretful council members had poured into the room he hadn’t even batted an eyelid. This, as far as he was concerned, was his and Kirkaldy’s work room and until he completed the work that he had been doing when the crisis had begun he would not deviate to attend to the people. Kirkaldy was more than capable of getting the panicked men and women sorted and he would be able to mind his own business in the mean time.

It was for that reason – his continued work – that the other scientists had been giving him a wide berth. After all, the majority of people do not like to be overly close to an ongoing autopsy.

The cadaver laid out on the operating table before him one of the many that had been cropping up across Imisus all with startlingly similar healthy background yet alarmingly quick development of the Black Death. His family had reported that he had died within a matter of hours. It could potentially be an anomaly or dramatised by the inaccurate recordings of the distressed family, but it was important that he make a thorough investigation considering the implications. The man’s emotionless and analytical eyes flicked over the report. ‘Slight soreness under armpits detected, matured into buboes within approximately three hours. Vomited large quantities of blood from second hour onwards. Death occurred on the fourth hour. ‘ Calmly slipping his hands into the open chest cavity and with a few careful incisions he removed the lungs and lifted them onto a separate surface.

Even in their removal it became clear as to what had happened to the man. Any pressure exerted upon the cold spongy material prompted thin curls of taint to ooze from the air sacs. The scientist barely needed to make a cut into the lungs to know the extent of the infection. Riddled with disease, the odour of rot and the metallic tang of congealing blood rose out of the messy blackened organs in a foul miasma.

He had seen this type of infection before and from it he could draw a solid evaluated conclusion.

Precisely noting down his findings before covering the corpse with a white sheet of material, he shook his head. Kirkaldy would not like this. The blank faced scientist knew that particular human’s emotions very well. This news would result most likely in anger... Culminated in the form of a swear word and potentially a frustrated display of aggression. It would be mildly interesting to see how the increased stress levels would affect the man, but now was not the right time to be experimenting with the Head of the Council’s emotions.

“Doctor Kirkaldy, I believe I have some important information.”

Two physicists standing between the man and the doctor visibly jumped and shuffled away, directing their eyes away from the unique looking man’s visage. Brushing against him carelessly could oh so easily result in spilt blood... His fingers were bladed scalpels – perfectly suited to dissection but only furthered his inability to maintain a mask of humanity. Yet it was not only the literal threat of damage that made them flit away. Even the most scientifically informed minds could be touched by the rampant scare mongering and rumours that flew around the city. Plagues were dangerous, no matter what alignment they were.

“Yes Erasmus... Do proceed...”

“The body I was investigating; I can confirm it was unnaturally tainted. It is unquestionably the work of an infitialis plague. After examining the report regarding the rate of infection and completing the autopsy finding large amounts of taint within the lungs and traces around the nasal pathways I would hypothesis that it was an airborne miasmatic transmission, cultivated and administered mouth to mouth by an anhelo plague. In light of this and the upwards trend in such cases arriving and the uprisings I’m afraid I believe that there is a serious cultist movement towards infection.”

The head of the scientists met the cold white gaze of the quietus. Perhaps, if this was truly the case, all hope was lost. The chaotic forces of the uprising above ground combined with the dark taint of The House... Could logic and deduction really prevail? It was like a grim experiment and only time would reveal the cataclysmic results.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part IV.
Written by: Zanaroo

City Gates

March 18th, 1411.

All was quiet in a city not far away from Gadu, Imisus, where a riot had taken place days before the Imperial Guard's massive appearance at the Council gates days after, when the streets were ravaged of vitality and a pressman's body, saggy and vapid of life, hung at the corner billowing in the wind. This place was a beautiful painting of what Gadu once was, its brimstone buildings held high and proud as if mimicking even the grand buildings of Ardenth and Ecara, with a few clay and mortar buildings scattered about the gate's entrance. A wiry apothecary, golden skin blessed by his Yiruian blood, watched between the concentrated slits of his eyes as two figures strode down from the vast fields of Imisus on stark white mounts. Their gleaming metal armor made his eyes sting against the sunlight, however, and with a curse uttered beneath his breath the apothecary hid his face from view and returned to his hut, where several shaded faces loomed and watched from the entrance, each face toppled on top of another like a totem pole while they took whiffs of their smoking pipes and poked about their meager bowls of food.

The two figures that they were watching were gallantly making their way towards the hut or, perhaps, next to it, where disgruntled gate soldiers rested their eyes beneath the cool shade of their helmets, steam and sweat rolling down their faces against the unusually warm spring weather that seemed to well up from Gadu. Perhaps the eastward winds from there had blown all of the heat of fire in their direction. The guard to the left of the gate watched more and more intently as the two horse-mounted men in armor seemed not to be two men, but a man and a lady, though neither guards prepared their weapons nor their stances at the threat of an invader, so sure they were at their nation's colors of navy blue and gold.

Still a distance away, as if to break the silence, the lady spoke. "General Kunze, as newly appointed officer, it's vital that you promote your relations in Shyregoed."

The man, stocky in build with a flame-orange hair tinted with yellow by the warmth of spring sun, stared with an eager smile at the lady in blue and gold just in front of him, a square hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. The lady in question trotted alongside the stark military man, their two horses galloping in unison amongst the array of golden fields, a hand equally as firmly pressed on her own sword, her brunette hair swaying to the side while she glanced at the nearing city just minutes away from them. Chaos was rare in this isolated part of Imisus, a place sanctioned from dirty House hands for as long as she could remember by loyal farmhands and somber, old militants. Though she could not measure the number of days such a thing could be said about this place in the future, she promised with all of her heart that the vast farm fields of the east would be untouched by cultist hands for as long as she lived.

"Such a strange thing to say, Plague General, when so much of our dealings have surmounted in Imisus as of late." Sir Kunze watched eagerly as Treatise glared at him with a serious scowl, though the raise of her brows revealed her surprise when she entered the city gates, its guards raising their spears in commemoration only when the red haired General Kunze followed soon after. The two horses clocked their hooves against the cobblestone surface of Imisus, however, and with an abrupt whinny Treatise's mount urged forward at a quicker pace. The honored General watched with a slow grin, trailing on afterward, straightening his back as he rode alongside the brunette. "Those affairs will happen in time, after we rebuild the order here in the east."

"These cultist scoundrels have done nothing to even irritate the resolve that the Imperial Guard has over this province, after we reclaimed--"

"--Momentarily so, I wouldn't put my finger on--"

"Reclaimed Gadu, our best tacticians have assured it," Treatise snapped, "But our strongholds in Shyregoed are faltering at this very minute. Does the death of the Grand Magus mean nothing to you, Diedthelm?"

"The death of Waldgrave matters to me every bit, but that is not the matter of the Imperial Guard first. Shan't we trust the Fellowship, like in old days?" the General pronounced, his hands wringing the horse mount as he gave a short hitch of breath and jumped off of the horse with a gale grin, his hands on its reign while Treatise methodically and more slowly went about the same chore, swirled blue eyes concentrated on Kunze's foolish smile whilst the two walked their mounts to the nearby stables. As if mocked, Treatise replied with a sour look of disapproval and the two Generals walked their way towards the center of the small city in silence. While the Plague seemed to care nothing of the surrounding architecture, General Kunze admired the stone structure of the place, brows raised as he arched his neck up and stared at the vast heights of the buildings.

Despite the beauty of the place, something was off, and General Kunze shifted his awed stare back onto the cornering roadways of the city.

Not a single body, able or not, roamed the streets, with what few and now typical line of Plague-ridden corpses strewing the corners of holes in vast quantities. Kunze's uneasy shoulders searched around and nudged directly into Treatise's, who paused with a statue-like and characteristic frown when the General bid her to stop. "You undermine Shyregoed in light of Imisus, and now you pause to admire the scenery, General? You would play with the gravity of the--"

"--Treatise, my love," Kunze burst, receiving her with a wry grin, his hands around his blade's sheath, "We have either hit a ghost town, or there is something quite peculiar about this place."

"The guards would have reported an issue if there was one."

"How far away is the rest of our troop?"

"Five minutes--"

Then came a gargled shout, and Treatise whipped her head back around towards the gate, where the two guards stood seeped with black and boils upon their faces. Kunze and Treatise glanced at one another and, with a grimace, the General took out his sword while the armored lady took out her blade, waiting with anticipation for a signal from the red-haired man. But there came no such a thing and, as Kunze slowly crept up near the guards, who now fell to the floor, eyes rolled over while their skin was overcome with buboes and a deep scarlet color, the wiry apothecary looming about the corner of the gates stared intently at him from the side. The General, frowning, readied his blade while the apothecary took sluggish steps forward.

"...They should hurry and make it one--" General Kunze murmured, as he shot a glance back at the woman behind him, "Is the Emperor blind? This place has been safe because it's a cultist--"

The apothecary wailed a slurred shout as he rushed forth at the man, with no weapon to spare, and the General swung clumsily to his side. Swinging around into a drunken stagger, the Yiruian cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted towards the city, "DELIVERANCE! Brethren, hear! They send us DELIVERANCE!"

General Kunze readied the brunt of his sword and hit the blunt of it against the apothecary's head, who, with a choked wail, fell face first against the cobblestone floor. Treatise rushed up and knelt beside the golden man, flipping him over to reveal his husky, thin face. The tanned general walked up to the woman and fainted man, the metal of his soles clattering as he bent town next to her, and he placed a gloved hand over Treatise's back. "We have to go back there and tell the troop that this city's been overtaken. Take up your blade, you're quicker than I."

Treatise obliged and quickly went to the stables, whereupon her horse dipped its head when the gate quickly opened before it. She hopped onto the saddle and secured her footing on its leather hoops, and with a single pull of the reign the mane jolted into action and trotted towards Diedthelm was, Treatise securing her hands around her blade.

But, nearly instantaneously, when Diedthelm looked up to Treatise a flood of black swarmed in from the corners of the city and from the edge of the gate, some with masks and others not; with a blade extended out in front of him, Diedthelm clenched his teeth and served the longsword around at the nearest attackers, brows furrowed as his eyes widened with shock as his Locos rode up to him without a moment's hesitation. He ducked as a flurry of strangers overcame him in a pool of bodies but, wrangling himself out with the point of his sword, he shouted as loudly through the amassing and erupting footsteps, "GET TO THE TROOPS BEFORE THEY ARRIVE!"

"Aye," with only moments to spare, Treatise whipped her mount forward and glared in horror as she seemingly abandoned the General on his own, so strangely reminded of the time now of her Servos days in Auvinus, but she shook of her memories nevertheless and continued to do as he so doubtlessly urged him to do. When Treatise reached the edge of the city gates, however, her eyes were fraught with despair at what she saw galloping only instances away from them-- the flag of the Imperial Guard waving high into the tailwind air as the Imperial Guard troop marched its way gallantly towards the town, presuming nothing. Hopelessness aside, the Locos continued her gallop through the gates as if to intersect the small troop, but the fell swoop of cultist hands rode up her mount and she was hurdled to the ground soon after.

Rolling to a kneel, stumbling back into a heavy stand as she pulled open her weapon, Treatise watched General Kunze push through the barricade of cultist backs and towards her again, his own weapon at the ready, eyes sordid with disbelief as the troop surged towards the city in a deafening storm, blades now raised as fire ravaged what torches were lit in the front line-- the troop had noticed. Shaking his head, Diedthelm turned to Treatise and the ring of dead cultists around them, her sword now coated with blood, and he pushed towards to the front of the enemy lines into the heart of the city once again.

The General was ensnared by black and clawed hands, however, and the armored lady rushed up to grip him by the shoulders-- but too late, and with a holler the red-haired man disappeared into a flurry of darkness, swelled up by bodies, and Treatise wiped the figures in front of her with her blade to no use-- he was gone.

"General Diedthelm!"

The shield Plague's own squeal of reply was muted by a surge of troop arms, and horses flooded into the darkening scenery which seemed so muted with black, now, even against the blistering sun, and General Diedthelm Kunze was gone.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part V.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof

Monsters

March 18th, 1411.

Above ground, chaos was rocking the Imisus ports. Screams and shouts, riots charging over head with the thundering pulse of hundreds, thousands of feet harmoniously clamoring. Underneath, within the catacombs, there was little difference. Students, scholars, professors and doctors alike became simpering messes in the wake of anarchy and beneath his mask he smiled.

Dark smoke swirled around his black and red form, the remnants of his teleportation into the Council’s catacombs, and his long limbs carried him down the halls with a determined and purposeful stride. Pushed into the rock walls of the tunnels were many wooden doors, some closed while others lay barricaded, many of them cracked open but the rooms inside looking nearly destroyed with glass and torn papers everywhere, all furniture completely over turned.

The lack of a cure, now seven years since the hanging of a man supposedly holding it in his grasp, was causing such unrest in Imisus as well as the entire country. It was delicious. Panymium was now like a taint itself, spreading to other parts of the world slowly but surely. Before long, the epidemic restricted to a single country in Profugus would span the entire globe and the world would be ripe with taint and chaos to be lovingly digested by the feathered god until only the Truths would be given new life in paradise.

The black form scouted the empty halls, noises of the riots above and crashing in the halls as small labs within were raided. Voices muffled by masks, hushed tones of discussion concerning the Council’s findings – if they could be called that – and the tiny squeaks of Excitos as they were rescued from continuing stagnation in the hands of these failed scientists. He nodded at their work, catching eyes with those whom he passed and granting them approval.

Things were going well but they were running out of time in this region.

Dust and dirt escaped the crevices between stone bricks of the catacombs, raining down from the ceiling in small bursts. Pebbles fell noisily, colliding with the rocks of the halls as well as the masks now clogging the halls. Navigating away from the group, the black and red Quietus stalked through more narrow corridors leading to untouched areas.

It was uncanny how similar the Council’s situation with their missing Counselor mirrored their own lack of a Prophet with the recent turn of events. It was a pity but the Prophet Miss Young had become a hindrance and liability, losing herself in the opiates, incenses and luxuries the House had to offer rather than performing her duties. Rightly so, she met her end at the hands of the Holy Wife. Unfortunately, repercussions do occur even with good change and the woman’s poor Plague lost his Grimm. A Plague without a Grimm was a sad state indeed, something to be pitied and put out of its misery. Perhaps the Doctor could have done something for the dark feathered Quietus but he had become such a screaming mess after her passing that there was simply no point in allowing him to suffer any longer. The Nameless One was laid to rest, his ashes mixed and spread with his Grimm. Perhaps then he would find peace, whether he was a Remnant or Truth.

Once taken care of, however, that left them with one particular problem: there was no Prophet and they faced the same problem as the Council. Running his fingers across the brick walls, feeling each craggy recess, his beak mask turned forward as black eyes met wide and terrified ones of a human. A wooden table leg was clutched firmly in his hands as the disheveled scientist held it aloft and ready, chest expanding and contracting a mile a minute nearly causing him to hyperventilate.

”Y-- …you…”

It was barely understandable, hardly even a whisper until he choked on his own breath and spat out his final word, ”Monsters!” With great vigor, the scientist charged and the Quietus leaped back, dodging the strike of a splintered edge. Each swipe the attacker made was met with evasion and a steadily growing giggle. Smoke wisped gently around the Quietus with his deft movements as they increasingly became more acrobatic, turning the haphazard battle into a dance. Finally, at the peak of laughter, the scientist let out a roar and readied his weapon to come down upon the Obscuvan’s head when a blade poked out from his throat and froze him in place.

Blood dribbled from the wound and his mouth, spattering as he choked on the red liquid and embedded steel. With an echoing clunk, the wooden weapon was released and the oxygen left his body almost like a vacuum as the blade was removed. His body fell limply and the Quietus side stepped, the body just missing him. Arms outstretched in greeting, the source of the weapon returned the gesture – an identical Quietus donning black and red cloth and mask. The two embraced, arms wrapped tightly around one another until one of the forms dissipated into smoke and returned to the body of the Quietus; just a duplicate, nothing more.

His beaked head turned to examine the felled scientist, a hand reaching up and untying the mask from the back. Gently removing it from his face, a soft porcelain texture was revealed with no visible facial features beyond two dark abysses for eyes and a thin line for a mouth. Soft Autumn hair peeked out from beneath the black fabric, wavy and full of life.

”We’re all monsters here.”  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part VI.
Written by: Storei

Aid in This Time of Plague

March 20th, 1411.

He had a strong imagination. Despite his years of being carefully sanctioned off from the plague-ridden world of Panymium, confined to his well protected boundaries of his estate, guarded by countless knights, walls, secrets and lies, and cankered over with fear, duty, and love for his people, Emperor Rine VIII had an impeccable sense of the chaos churning just a couple miles out from his isolated paradise. His stomach swirled with it, even with the numbing effects of a wisdom successfully grown with stress, and with every passing moment he knew that there were some threads of control and power slowly slipping out of his fingers to add to the pandemonium that was over running his lands.

Such an ominous feeling was what drove him to call the Plague Doctor himself into his presence. His advisers, of which there were many, and officers, of which there were strong, had opposed his meeting today with pining pleas, desperate waving of the hands, but Emperor Rine knew that such an important occasion with such an infamous audience would require nothing less than his entire attention, undiluted by mistakes or subtle changes in the words between running of messages so usually employed in dealings of any sort. Audiences with the Emperor himself were rare, but rarer still seemed to be the man who stood overburdened with dark doctor’s robes, a late afternoon shadow against the far end of the expansive counsel room, made all the more mysterious by the hanging sheets and shrouds of see-through fabric that hung about Emperor Rine’s throne like a protective haze.

Emperor Rine VIII sat as stiff and straight as a statue’s personification of his young self, his eyes hard like inlaid rock crystal and calcite, as he squinted down the long lengths of intricately laid mosaics and marble flooring to the dark slender man who seemed like nothing more than a mask and discarded swaths of robes hung on a hook on the wall. Guards huddled near the soldier-like pillars, struck stiff by orders to be silent, and personal advisers littered the floor about him, their heads bowed where they sat on their folded knees, patient and nervous.

“Plague Doctor,” said the Emperor aloud. His voice belied his youth and age even when it was shaped with nobility. Letting his head tilt to the side ever so slightly, his face in a constant struggle to keep itself blank and noble instead of saturated with the worry that founded the roots for this desperate meeting, he continued, “I have summoned your presence here today to my stronghold in Helios for a most serious and grave request, of which I am sure you have already assayed.”

The Doctor did not move, only stood, listening with ever disturbing intent.
“In the past seven years since the death of Diefendorf, our lands have been spiraling into chaos wreaked by the Plague with no headway in terms of science to present any curative for the Black Death, which rages ever out of control,” the Emperor said, tapping his fingers along the edge of his armrests,

“Hundreds of thousands are suffering if not dying, and our efforts have proved minimal success, if success is a word appropriate to describe our ability to keep our mouths just above the rising tides. We all know this best.” The Emperor paused, eying the doctor at the end of the hallway. He still made no move, no nod of acknowledgment. He gave a clearing of his throat before he opened his mouth again, his voice soft from disuse. “But from those of us who would have an inkling of most understanding, would be, without a doubt, yourself.”

“Enough of the formalities,” Finally the Plague Doctor had spoken, his words blunt, but without malice. Still, he had not moved, and his scratchy voice came from nowhere as if it were a bodiless entity, filling the hall in the form of echoes as cold as a stone door slammed into place. “We have no time for such trivialities, as you have described. With your permission, your highness, let us get straight to the point. What is it that you want?”

With eyebrows rising from either shock or disdain, Emperor Rine VII leaned forward in his seat, his hands grasping ever tighter at the intricate carvings placed on his arm rests. A hopeful smirk pulled at the corners of his lips, “I am glad for your eagerness, Doctor, as the quicker solution behooves us best in the face of the uprisings in Panymium. What I ask of you is this: Give us a remedy.”

At this, the Doctor shifted, just ever so slowly so that there was hardly any movement at all. “A remedy, if there was one, was lost with Diefendorf, you surely recall. The Black Death’s cure lies elsewhere in the Council’s capable hands. I have no remedy for the disease.”

Emperor Rine VIII lifted his chin, his twitching smirk pulling itself larger on his face, as if he held the aces in their metaphorical game of poker.

“A remedy for the disease is secondary in light of an alternate remedy that might do us an immediate good, Doctor,” he said, his brows knitting themselves together, “What I ask of you is a remedy to exterminate the Plagues as a species born from the Black Death.”

Silence.

On the cold marble floor, the personal advisers shifted, nervously glancing from side to side, as if to check if the nearby guards had their gloved hands on their weapons. Emperor Rine VIII waited in silence, his eyes firmly tied onto the reactions from the Plague Doctor, of which there were none. The dark hang of pitch robes and white empty mask were still, uncomfortably so, and his seemingly inhumanly cold presence swelling up in the room like a building wind. The silence was only broken when the Doctor, whose pause could only be interpreted as the time it took for a slow smile to creep up on his features underneath his mask.

“A remedy of such ends is already undertaken, milord,” the Plague Doctor croaks.

The advisers lift up their heads, their eyes widening. Gulping, Emperor Rine VIII raises his brows again for a second time, slipping onto the edge of his seat as if he were intending to launch himself from his throne and onto the hem of the black doctor’s robes. The young emperor’s teeth were tightly clenched together, waiting with tightly strung suspense.

“Well?” Emperor Rine pressed, his shoulders were pressed tight to his neck, “Is it finished? May I have it?”

The following silence only made Emperor Rine VII imagine that the Doctor’s grin was growing wider, an ear to ear Cheshire grin, split underneath that blank and void mask of his. “It is a process, Emperor Rine, one that I have yet to complete. My studies are not yet sufficient, the technique not yet perfected.”

Attempting a façade of complacency, Emperor Rine VIII used every tense fiber in his fragile body to push himself back into his lavish seat.

”By working with us, Doctor, to exterminate the Plague kind, I’m sure we-”

“ Plagues are meant to be kept out of politics, are they not, Emperor Rine?” suddenly asked the Doctor. He swayed at the end of the hallway, moving the most that he had in the time of their tense meeting. Within the holes of his mask, his eyes were dark and obscured, nothing more than shadows.

Youthful as he was, the Emperor wet his throat with a swallow and managed to keep a look of peace on his face. ”They are the source of this dilapidation we are suffering, Doctor, it’s inevitable that they would be dragged into higher politics. It is true that for some time we viewed them as nothing more than a side effect of the Plague, innocuously tied to its spread, but now, unfortunately, we have realized that they are buboes, just waiting to pop and fester. They’ve become the focus of this whirlwind of disaster. We must take action, Doctor.”

”Action, indeed,” agreed the Plague Doctor, his voice no more revealing than the space where his eyes should have been.

Words that might have been spoken in concrete conclusion of their arrangement were choked to death in the throats of the young Emperor and the onlookers, for, with nary a twitch, the good Plague Doctor whirled away with a stray draft, his black and tall slender form evaporating into a swirl of crude oil and black sand. Startled from their places, the imperial guard leaped out in the hallway, bouncing amongst each other in confusion as they searched for the suddenly disappeared doctor, but, looking on in stark shock, was the Emperor, again perched on the edge of his seat, hands outstretched as if to beckon the mysterious figure back. As guards whipped into a defensive circle about him, pulling him into the hooks of their arms in an effort to escort him away from the room and into the deeper and darker complex labyrinth of his hiding, Emperor Rine VIII kept his head swiveled towards the shadowy place where the Doctor once stood.

”Please, help us…” he whispers, a ghost of a beg quickly swept away by the sounds of shuffling armor as he was gently dragged into the inner sanctum of his stronghold. In the counsel room, the personal advisers clucked and checked behind the curtains for a dark stranger who was no longer there.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part VII.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof

Uprising

March 16th, 1411.

Death had sown seeds of madness within the tender and fragile earth, growing crops of insanity and conspiracy. Word traveled quickly across the plagued lands, whether by word of mouth or the scrawlings of ink on parchment, and as uprisings and riots uprooted and turned the fair ports of Imisus to chaos, the wintry Northern region followed suit as though infected by an entirely different plague.

Anarchy.

Those within the Fellowship defected, those of the commonwealth felt betrayed, and where factual information lacked, their minds more than filled in the gaping crevices to give them reason for their riots. Everywhere across the mountains mobs formed, gathering with their torches and makeshift battering rams constructed of felled trees. Anywhere there was a Fellowship stronghold, regardless of rank and stature among the many fortresses, hundreds of people were gathered to break their way inside.

What precise purpose differed from group to group but the motivation was singular and widespread: malcontent. All across the region it was the same, some groups shouting for retribution, others for higher rung members within the Fellowship ranks, but the majority of these groups were in fact asking for one person in particular.

"HEAVE!" they all shouted in time, moving as one single entity to smash at the frozen doors of an incredibly large castle nestled within the mountainous breast of Anica. The gigantic main gate shuddered and wobbled with the hit, clinking of large chains and locks acting as a twisted accompaniment to the riot, but showed little sign of caving in. A veritable fortress, iced over by perpetual winter, it was made of steel and stone but reinforced with Aether.

Again and again they struck at the door, relentless in their pursuit, and inside Fellowship figures scrambled about wildly; some went to the windows, offering non-violent blasts of wind to shoot the attackers back from their mark while others waited and bid their time until a lethal form of magic was deemed necessary. Most, however, were tucked further within the colossal citadel and hovered like a protective shield about an ornately dressed pale figure donned in a ghostly white with gleaming lavender accents.

The Mages, Seers and Sages all circled around the thickly cloaked figure, offering words of encouragement as they filed through corridors and hallways, down staircases and across entire wings. "Do not fear, Grand Magus, they cannot harm you here," one of the taller Sages spoke, inclining his aged head as they walked. No verbal response was offered from the new Fellowship leader but they bowed their head in return, following with the leading group.

Door after door opened, swinging of their own enchanted accord as they recognized those magically inclined loyals, shutting behind them with loud clicks of various locks and chains, barring entry from any who would dare to wish harm upon their leader. Further within its heart they descended, finally entering a large stone area alight with the flame of torches. The castle's cistern had be changed into an altar, the scent of death and blood hanging heavy in the air so thick it felt as though it clung to all of them as they passed through.

"I am so sorry, Grand Magus, but there was no time to clean from Waldgrave's... bath," the word lacked any macabre tones, belying the true nature of what had occurred within this very room. All over the floor was dried blood, spatters, pools and foot prints. Her foot prints as she stepped out of the well crafted tub still holding gallons of crimson liquid.

In a corner of the room, far off from any of them and lead to by a trail of smeared red, lay a messy pile unceremoniously tossed and stacked without a care. It was difficult to tell in the low light. The new Grand Magus approached it cautiously, the protective flock following after in case anything decided to jump out, but once it was seen they all reeled back and only a short sound of disgust was heard by their leader.

Corpses were stacked unceremoniously atop one another, shoved and broken into the corner, stained with their own life force and covered in lacerations. Young girls, all of them, aged anywhere from five to fourteen and it was painfully obvious that every single one of them had been an innocent virgin. The scent of rot hung heavily, thick like a miasma, and were it not for the frigid temperatures of the Northern Sanct, maggots and flies would no doubt be covering their fair, cold bodies.

One of the Seer's simpered, wiping at his face as if to rid himself of the sight, "They will be taken care of as soon as we can but we cannot do anything yet. Your safety comes first and foremost." Others agreed, beckoning and leading the Grand Magus away from the bodies. Safe they would be, here in the heart of the castle, with the virtuous blood of murdered virgins hanging all around them.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

Chapter I. The Ides
Part VIII.
Written by: Zanaroo

Reparations, Reparations

March 25th, 1411.

Standing before the altar of the Imperial Guard, Dr. Kirkaldy of the Council of Sciences came with nothing but himself and a few pieces of parchment wrapped to his side, hands clung tight, terse face softened with forcible calm.

Before him was a judgmental and crude line of guards, newly appointed and completely undaunted by the tragedies of Imisus, so new they were to the field-- Imperial greens, as the Dean called them, with their blindingly clean navy blue outfits adorned in sparkling white. In the center was a round table, emblazoned with Mishkan's proud insignia, and at the front a man whose back was turned and slouched, his hands wrapped together in prayer as he glared straight at the sun staring back at him from the large window, his head and neck wrapped around with the ceremonial red cloak of his faith. Awkwardly, Dr. Kirkaldy held up the candle he was given, and he took a gaping step forward as if to confront the praying man, blinking stupidly as candle wax dripped and burned uselessly in the glaring light. Though a religions man by spoken word, Dr. Kirkaldy rarely understood the inner workings of faith.

He was not ready for this.

"We come," Dr. Kirkaldy started, his voice irked with an audible shake, "In a time of emergency, General. The Council of Sciences have regained its roots in the east, surely, but it remains quiet in Imisus. Dauntingly quiet."

The Dean breathed, waiting for a response, though none was given, and reluctantly he continued. "Reparations must be made in Imisus, research must go on to give hope to our people, to refresh Panymium anew from the pits of despair from the Black Death. The Plague is ravaging, yet the Emperor has given the Council little to work with, and our headquarters have been losing its numbers to the illness itself day by day. The Imperial Guard is favored by the Emperor, General," pausing, he fussed for words, and repeated, "Reparations--"

Chuckling, the red-cloaked man turned his head to the side. Kirkaldy nearly lurched at the man's vaguely happy face but, relieving his hands of prayer, the general turned around to face the Dean, his messy red hair encompassing his husky face, bandages wrapped around his neck and cheeks. He was a shadow of the bulky man he was only days ago but, with a wide grin on him nonetheless, he signaled to Kirkaldy to sit in the chair just in front of him.

"I'm afraid that's not the word you're looking for, dear Dean," Kunze pressed his hands together once more, brows raised, "And your informers are more incorrect about their presumptions than I'd initially predicted."

Kirkaldy loosened the tenseness in his shoulders and remained standing. "You are--"

"Quite alive, thank you for your well wishes. I trust you came here without talking to any of my men beforehand," General Kunze alighted, his hands wrapped around the candle in front of him. He pulled it closer to him, blowing out the small fire at the tip of the candle's wick. "Being Alridge's legacy means a bit more to me than falling to cultist hands so easily, Dr. Kirkaldy. Now," the General draped the red cloak around the back of his chair, "I am quite sorry, but the Imperial Guard at this point in time is completely ruled by the Emperor. No allowances for a helping hand, you see. We earn what we need and we have nothing left, at this point."

Stifling his breath, Dr. Kirkaldy set the parchment down onto the table. "You can't tell me these documents by our government's officials are incorrect, General Kunze. The Imperial Guard is sowing every ounce of the Royal Crown's funding as soon as we see it, and the Fellowship is only alive because of its inherent affiliation with Obscuvan blood money--"

"Accusations are a reference for treason. I'd recommend you do less of it," the red-haired General stood and swerved around the circular table, and placed a hand over the scientist's emaculate shoulder sleeves. "The Imperial Guard has the responsibility of protecting your scientists, but I by no means will go against the Emperor by hearing your, how would I say, less than clean assumptions of provincial politics and, Dr. Kirkaldy, I can tell quite well how obsessed you are with being clean." Kunze lifted his hand from the Dean's shoulder and walked around him, his hands behind his back while he paced.

Dr. Kirkaldy brushed invisible dust off of his collar and coughed, crudely, eyes flinching when he noticed the smug look on the General's face.

Both knew as well as the other that this was not the conference that would determine their status, yet, amidst the new soldiers and the starkly lit General's room, the two knew what they said was truth enough, yet they would be mentioned amidst the governors and the King and Queen in vague hints, political whispers. Treason? Treason was less threatening an act now that nooses ravaged the streets. The Kings and Queens of this province depended on the recognition of law, however, and Kirkaldy knew that General Kunze's heart rested in the justice of government and, apparent by the cloak and candles, practiced faith.

The two officiates exchanged stares, though Kirkaldy was the first to break it. He looked at the now empty head-person's chair, eying the red cloak especially. "You're a man of prayer," Kirkaldy noted, turning around to face the General's taut back, "Of Panymese, no less. Your anger is quite... kept for your faith."

Kunze stopped pacing and wrapped a hand around his red beard, nothing worriedly, "I only pray when I'm fearful of something, I'm afraid I'm not as pious of a man as my father wished me to be." Sighing, then feeling the crevasse of his bruised neck, "Though, to say I'm fearful-- is not a lovely thing to say in my position of power, is it? Forget I said anything."

"What, exactly, are you fearful of?"

A soldier stepped in from the headquarter hall and poked his head in from the side of the entrance. Blinking at the sight of the two, the head of the Imperial Guard and the Council of Sciences themselves pacing abou the conference room like men caught on fire, the soldier said with a stammer, "G-general Kunze, t-the Queen and K-king are to be presented in five minutes. Th-the conference will be in th-thirty."

The General looked back at Kirkaldy with a chuckle, merely shaking his head, and he left the conference room with quick steps, easing the green boy's nervousness with a pat on the back. The Dean followed soon after, forgetting the parchment he'd left at the round table. Kunze said to him while walking, "I'm fearful of what will happen to my dearest daughter."

"Daughter?"  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part IX.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof and Zanaroo

Once Upon a Time, Part 1

March 26th, 1411.

That supposed daughter of General Diedthelm Kunze was certainly not a human, nor a child, nor of any common human courteousness nor decency but, in fact, one that was riddled with anguish as soon as she'd stepped out of Imisus borders. the injured state of General Kunze was not one to joke of, however, and in near secret between the two Generals, Treatise of the Imperial Guard made her way to the very heard of Shyregoed-- Colwe. As soon as she'd stepped into the foot of the Shyregoedian castle, however, to demand Queen Valhalla's appearance in front of her unanticipated but necessary presence in the north, she was whisked away by the magic of a witch donned in crimson, a Plague woman unlike herself whose title was supposedly "Lady Sanguine." Wise or unwise was no matter, now, the troop that Lady Treatise was sent with was separated from her by unknown distances, and for hours she'd attempted her escape to return, but the teleportation magic cast upon her had a daunting effect on her energy.

The Plague General's time with the insane and supposed heir of the passed Grand Magus did not bode well for her health. With every passing moment in time added another anchor's worth of anxiety and agitation to Treatise's already weighed shoulders, whose form was pressed up against the bulky forms that were Sanguine's mercenary soldiers. How phased she was when she first was kidnapped by the Infitialis, though now all of her initial shock and intrigue were channeled into spite and firm contempt for her own race.

She cared not what Sanguine bespoke of the Plague's fates in Imisus, and her duties laid still in the foundations of the Imperial Guard's own status, of which Sanguine knew not in these dark areas of Shyregoed. They were far away from Colwe, away from any of the safer and Emperor-sanctioned towns and cities. They were, in fact, deep into the northern swells of land that were the snowy and often unoccupied ghost villages laden with the fruits of ancient times and culture, both things of which Treatise was both ignorant and cared little about at this time. Eyes narrowed, cloak still pressed against her hair as to hide her face, though her eyes still gleamed with the signature Locos' white eyes, Treatise watched the downtrodden figure in front of her.

The Blood Plague was standing, making and conferring amidst her hired and ineptly unpatriotic hands her next line of action. Was she a Godless Plague, mind? To Treatise, yes; Sanguine sat on the beseecher's throne and exemplified the very nature and constitution by which Treatise stood against, yet she was forced to comply, isolated and within the foreign frozen mountains of which she had absolutely no plans to venture into only a half-day earlier. When Sanguine's men nodded and moved away from Sanguine, exiting the musky and frozen over hut of a home that Sanguine had kept Treatise in, the Shield Locos nudged away from the foreboding mercenaries and bid her spine to bend forward. She stared challengingly at Sanguine, now, who stared back with a gaze full of fret and sincere concern.

"What do you plan on doing to me, now? After you've relayed this-- information," Treatise spoke lowly, refraining from a contemptuous mutter, "Release me within the hold of these mountains? Tell me, are we near the Northern Bases?"

Sanguine slowly shook her head, letting her red veil flow to her side. The Infitialis strolled and watched the mercenaries stationed outside of the frozen Shyregoedian hut that they were in, red swirls blistering with nervousness. "No... we're out much farther than that. But there are-- precautions to be taken... my dear Plague General, and more word of the Fellowship to be told within less frigid walls."

"Precautions?"

Sanguine turned back and stared boldly at Treatise, nodding then to her two mercenaries to stand. She bode the Locos to stand, outreaching politely with her own twisted and clawed hands. Cautiously, Treatise bid her courtesy and (with a pinch of regret) took Sanguine's hands to stand, and with that she was forced into a hug upon which Treatise whispered, "Precautions, Plague General, as I believe someone's followed us... we must hurry."

Left in her befuddled state, Treatise was pulled onwards by Sanguine to the corner of the hut, upon which she took out a satchel from the side of her belt and dripped upon the ground a few droplets of crimson blood, fresh and vivid amidst the cold, dull scenery. Scowling, Treatise glanced at Sanguine, retorting then with a rough yank of her sleeve and a loud, "What are you doing--"

"Please, my Plague General, we must at haste--," Sanguine pleaded, her hands outreaching for the adamant soldier. Shaking her head, Treatise outright refusing the call of innocent blood shed by Infitialis alone, even from a satchel, she backed up into the tall walls of mercenary bodies and quickly dove away towards the exit, Sanguine watching helplessly as she beckoned the mercenaries with a plaintive stare to bring Treatise back to her.

Before enough droplets were shed from Sanguine's satchel, however, came an interruption.

Said interruption came with a gentle puff and a waft of smoke from one of the darkest corners of the room, blocked just out of sight by one of the mercenary soldiers. As the smoke dissipated, laughter replaced the ominous emanation from behind a few of the guards.

"Plague General, honestly," a spirited voice giggled, "What are you doing here?" Slipping between two of the soldiers was a limber figure, tall and thin covered head to toe in black and red with a distinctly beaked mask. Raising a fist, the mysterious individual tapped one of the soldier's chests and pointed toward the door of the hut with their thumb -- the order was accepted and one of guards took position in blocking the more obvious exit. Then, the invader's smoky black eyes drifted back to the two female Plagues, his masked face appearing more eerie than before as his attention locked in particular on Sanguine. "Oh, I must apologize; you thought they answered to you?"

He tucked his hands behind his head and leaned back casually on his heels, unable to keep stray chuckles at bay between his words, "What a shame you are so ready to lead this land and it wants nothing to do with you. The Queen won't even look at you, which is truly regrettable -- if I had gotten her head during the performance I could turn her gaze upon you favorably." One of the soldiers grinned at that comment but quickly straightened up.

The black and red Quietus circled the two lady Plagues slowly, eying them carefully like a vulture surveying its next meal. When he came around and had all but switched places with them, he wiped a foot through the few meager drops of blood Sanguine had released and smeared it against the floor until it was useless to the Blood Plague. "Everyone's all locked up and tucked in. Scrambling around like headless chickens," the imagery appeared to have struck a cord with the Quietus as he doubled over abruptly in raucous laughter, taking a few moments to hold his gut before resting his hands on his knees and staring up at Treatise with a curious head tilt. "And you, Shield; your arrogance is only greater than your lack of forethought. Not a Grimm or soldier under your command in sight!"

As Sanguine's mercenaries wrapped around the two ladies with little more than the slightest utterance of a command, the Blood Lady watched in growing horror. It was true-- someone was following them, and her efforts were for naught, now. She watched in painful silence while the mercenary next to her side smudged what precariously gathered blood she had collected from her shadowy times lurking the Grand Magus' castles. At first, she could not speak; there was no hitched utter, no stutter of a sentence that she could give, but before the raven-haired lady could react, Treatise pulled away from her and released the sword at her side from its leather sheath, turned now to the figure clad in black and red cloth, who was now racking her body with brusque laughter, shivering with thrill.

Then, in a flurry, the limber figure keeled over and quickly transformed into a disturbing plight of feather and bone, until the figure turned into one lady that could make Treatise cringe, who now as frozen as Sanguine was behind her. Andromeda the Wise, dressed in autumn and gold, was standing in front of her now, spitting scathing and blistering remarks that fueled the frozen feet of Treatise's legs. Firming her grip around the sheath, she kept her sword steady and growled, glancing behind her at the Blood Lady and the several mercenaries wringing them of space. They did not have a blank face, nor a lack of conviction that would typically follow the witch's magic; they were alive and as vicarious as they were, perhaps more given their honest smirks and growing smiles.

They were traitors.

There was no way to win this, not in these numbers, but the Shield kept herself steady nonetheless and retorted without giving a moment's worth of thought, "My plans are none of yours. Let alone--"

"You," Sanguine interrupted, taking an amble step forward, eyes wide as she retracted her hands in front of her, outstretched in horror, "You were-- the start of this," brows furrowed, her voice shriveled into a meek hush, "And the festival..."

Treatise whipped her view back at Sanguine, and for a moment the grip she had on her sword was loose.

"What?"

Andromeda's black gaze was locked on the lady in red as she busied one of her hands with caring for her well manicured nails. Sanguine's hushed words did little to interest the Obscuvan Quietus and her attentions only truly returned when the Plague General let out a perplexed sputter to which she offered a laugh in response.

"Oh yes, the festival," she sighed as though admiring a beautiful work of art, "I could not have done it without my wonderful children, of course, nor His blessing." Raising a hand, she conjured a smoky discharge from her palm that smelled faintly of embers and in her hand rested two small bells -- one silver and one gold -- that chimed ever so gently at the slightest motion. "It was a shame, we really would have liked to keep her but the people wouldn't have learned otherwise." Moving her hand out to show the two other Plagues her bells, they began to smolder and melt, emitting the same dark smoke as before.

Just illusions.

"How else would they know that the Fellowship is a farce?" Andromeda flicked the remaining illusory substance from her fingers toward Sanguine, it speckling various points of exposed skin with a charcoal-like smudge before disappearing entirely. "After all, your Grand Magus -- nay, your Grimm -- who so openly opposed us still held an allegiance. A hypocrite to herself and a traitor to the entire Fellowship, I dare say. These soldiers she hired," her hands theatrically waved toward the mercenaries in the room with them with a bold smile upon her porcelain features, "Are some of our finest stock."

For a moment, Andromeda paused to soak up their reactions but after a few seconds she chuckled to herself and raised her hands, "My apologies, I suppose I should explain. Listen closely, for I have a grand story tell you." Once she was certain both ladies were rapt with enough confusion to be interested she pulled her hands to her heart and began, "Once Upon a Time..."

To be continued.

 

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part X.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof and Zanaroo

Once Upon a Time, Part 2

March 26th, 1411.

Sanguine watched inky black splatter in tiny specks onto her pale flesh, stinging not with pain but with a hurt in her heart that seemed to harm her more than any dazzling performance of magic. She swiveled her gaze at the mercenaries around her, eyes round, shaking her head while she held herself closely to the Plague General. Her earlier confident and knowing gaze melting into her usual perplexed and unsure frown, she whispered, "No..."

The Plague General mirrored the blood lady's own growing horror in her own way, in anger and complete disparage; teeth clenched together, she buckled her knees in an offensive stance and ran with an enraged anger towards Andromeda, with a boisterous strength usually hidden beneath Treatise's own witty guard against such weighty circumstances. Just when the red-haired cultist paused to look at the two, Treatise swung her blade towards the woman's neck.

Nearly effortlessly, however, the cultist mercenaries ringing around them readied their square palms and released a blast of magic that stopped Treatise in her tracks, bursts of cold white flooding Treatise and Sanguine's vicinity as loudly and furiously as a strong gust from a winter's blizzard. Treatise's sword, only moments away from Andromeda's neck, dissipated and thinned, breaking off into bits and rapidly transforming into white flakes of snow. As the two Plagues were thrown to their sides onto the floor, the mercenaries scoffed and placed amble feet upon their backs, axes and swords placed precariously on the two Plague ladies' necks.

"Devilish wench," Treatise growled, squirming against the heavy weight of the mercenaries, "The Fellowship is a strong allegiance. It would not fall so easily to a Cultist's sway!"

As the Plague General charged, Andromeda laughed, throwing her autumn haired head back. The blade aimed well, charging for her porcelain flesh, and yet the mercenaries were so much more prepared. Effortlessly they took down the two females and the Holy Wife turned her back on them, twirling a finger through her thick locks. Her laughter subsided, turning to silence at Treatise's words, but a smile lingered on her face.

"I told you," her words seethed with condescension, beaked mask peeking over her shoulder at the Shield, "I had a story to tell. It's about a sad old woman and I think you'll very much like to hear it." The last two words were tense, curt, and emphasized by the mercenaries hefting their weight painfully down on Treatise to silence her further.

Turning on her heel, gown twirling, Andromeda spun her hands theatrically in the air as the curled with thick dark smoke. Forms and figures were conjured, dancing to life in the air, dark silhouettes of various players in the story. There was a hunched old woman, a lordly woman similar to the the Holy Wife herself and many beaked, hooded figures. "Once Upon A Time," she began again, adamantly, "There was an old woman. So haggard by sorrow and distress for the world was she that this old woman began looking for ways to be more useful. She was very old and this age was catching up to her. How useful could an old woman be in a position of power?" She smiled, tilting her head at Sanguine.

With a beckoning finger, the smoky old woman paced in place, her behavior becoming frantic as she began to sob and tug at her hair. "She could think of no solution, save for something she would have never dared to do in her sanest of moments. But where was sanity? Fleeting, fleeting with her young days. The old woman sought a higher power that she spurned so self righteously -- it was the only way." Andromeda's fingers danced and twirled, and so did the elegant smoky figure as she swayed up to the old woman followed by the many beaked figures, extending a helping hand, "If she wanted to keep helping the world, dying wasn't the answer but she could not stagnate as she was! Instead, a group of prophets offered her a solution: youth. Eternal youth. All she would need to do was bathe herself in virtue for seven years. It was so simple."

Andromeda waved a hand through the collection of cloaked followers, their forms dissipating and reshaping into a group of young girls. They danced and played with one another briefly before running up to the woman's form and hugging her then departing toward the old woman. "Seven years of virtue, seven years of bathing," suddenly, the group of girls collapsed, smoke curling like spurting liquid from them and pooling beneath their forms like blood, "Chastity." The girls reformed before falling prey to an identical attack, the 'liquid' smoke gushing from them as if they were sliced, "Temperance."

It continued, each time the girls were bled and each time the rose anew waiting the same fate. With each death and virtue, the form of the old woman slowly but surely began to shift and change. She was slowly becoming young. "Charity. Diligence. Patience. Kindness," Andromeda sighed as the girls fell one final time, their bodies dissipating along with the one representing herself, "Humility."

A wry chuckle escaped her lips as she waved a hand through the form of the newly young maiden, bringing the hand up to inspect her nails, "It worked, of course, but the irony of it is extremely humorous, wouldn't you say?" Black eyes fixated upon Sanguine, locking with her sorrowful gaze, "I believe the only virtue your Grimm ever exhibited was diligence and I must give her praise for that." Her face couldn't be kept straight and another cackle rocked her form, her arms wrapping around her bodice.

Sanguine seemed too swallowed in her own shame to respond, her clawed hands clutching the soft ground of the hut while Treatise stared in wide-eyed horror at the autumn colored Plague before them. The shield Plague let out soft winces of pain when the wide shouldered soldiers ground their feet into her lower back, her own hands ground into the surface, all while she stared up at Andromeda with a sneer befitting her pungent anger. The Blood Lady behind her started to sob towards the floor, her neck losing all strength as she cried into the floor-- her muffled voice seemed to be all that was needed to get Treatise to urge her endurance against the mercenaries, so dutifully trying to arch her back against their feet, trembling at the immense force all the while.

"I should strangle you for those words you dare speak, you lying, filthy b***h--"

"She is no liar," Sanguine seethed between her sobs, shaking her head, "She tells only the truth, Plague General..."

"What?" Treatise spat, though when she turned around to face the Infitialis, the soldier to her right delivered a blistering kick to her side. The woman reeled her breath and stared intensely at the ground, eyes wide, her head cocked up at the Quietus in front of her once more. With a faint whisper, brows arched up in utter shock, she retorted, "No... Lady Sanguine, you did tell me in faith that your Grimm was a revolutionary in Colwe..."

"Yes," Sanguine pleaded, sobbing harder all the while, "But I do not speak truth, as she does, please," crunching up her hands into tight fists, she looked up at Treatise, "Please, forgive me..."

Eyes as round as they could get, the shield faltered in absolute horror beneath the grip of mercenary force, her face now covered by the cold armor latched around her arms, and the brown locks of hair that drooped down her head. The Plague General felt the roughness of the unfeeling ground below her, which she was now so close to, and she trembled again at the farce presented before her in such a quick manner. So easily tricked as she to now be under stranger's reign twice, how stupid she had been to leave her Grimm's side under the assumption that Shyregoed was safely within the clutches of justice and, rightly, Fellowship hands.

Yet, she would not let this deter her.

Treatise, for a moment, was a lifeless but shaking form, a lady completely relieved of her willingness to fight back and of the strength she held up in immeasurable galleons. Still, her reprieve reprimanded even her own faltering belief in those around her, and she yelled a deep and throaty yell into the surface of the floor. Gripping onto the ground, her fingers slipping beneath her, she locked her arms by her sides and raised her back, cambering her limber back forward, making the mercenaries keeping her down clumsily reel in their feet and hobble in uneasy skips. As soon as Treatise rolled over and buckled her knees, kneeling in front of the mercenaries who were now so readily armed with their weapons, she stared menacingly at the Holy Wife.

A lumbering footman trudged over to Treatise, and she rolled over to her side and quickly jabbed her elbow within the nook of his leg, quickly ripping the longsword of his momentarily frozen hands by the blade. When the soldier wobbled over and tried to take back his weapon, tightening his grip around its sheath, Treatise clamored up into a kneeling stand and forced the butt of the blade into his muscly gut, which was armored only with the Fellowship's strips of leather guards and silky cloth. Yelling, grasping onto the longsword by its sheath, Treatise tackled through the other mercenary who dauntlessly shielded the Holy Wife, and again the Locos tried for Andromeda's life, an ample and angry swing while the blade was held high above her head.

"TREATISE!"

With nary a sound nor visible reaction, the Autumn Plague watched the two trapped females confer hopelessly with one another. So it appeared that the Lady Sanguine had lied to save face for the Grand Magus, made her out to be some heroic martyr to the Plague General. The very idea was laughable and oh how Andromeda did laugh as she begged for apology.

She feigned no indignation as Treatise slew insults her way, for how insulting could such a weak Plague be to one as powerful as herself? However, it seemed the Plague General was not without tricks as she slipped out from beneath the mercenaries holding her down and retrieved a blade. With a hearty squelch, it was embedded within the chest of one soldier and ripped away with a cold bite of steel.

How familiar this was, happening only moments ago.

As the other mercenaries scrambled to protect the Holy Wife, Andromeda twirled out of the way and pulled herself behind Treatise as momentum carried the Shield Plague. Reaching within her sleeve, a dagger was pulled out and the sharp point bit into the Shield's side like a needle. Out it came, in just a second's time, and once more it found unprotected flesh. Blood spurted from her wounds and that of the fallen mercenary behind them, spattering the floor and her own gilded mask.

What a pity it would be to have to kill another of her kind but in this instance she was certain that there would be little missed. The value of the Shield as both a military entity and a Locos was, admittedly, abysmal.

Treatise held in a gasp when the dagger was pierced so unfeelingly into her flesh, once then once more for cruelty; the Plague General could not react quickly enough to the cultist Plague, it seemed, only able to watch while the silver tip coated in her own red blood exited with a painful gush of blood. She placed a hand precariously over the seeping wound, armored hand now slippery in crimson liquid, but Treatise hobbled nearly drunkenly towards Andromeda with a willing furrow of her brows, her face writhing with anguish as she held her sword with the dripping remnants of her strength until, for a moment, the Autumn Plague's porcelain and masked face stood head in head with Treatise who, despite gravity buckling at her weakening knees, mustered a low growl.

"If one thing is fated in this world, it is your painful death--"

Sanguine, meanwhile, seemingly hopelessly trapped to the floor, shook her head worriedly, whispering curses and sobbing lightly to herself, her hands clawing deep scratches onto the dirt. Her eyes slowly followed the melodious drip of Treatise's blood fall before her, however, the last of her tears streaming from her lids-- she paused to relish the sight, body frozen with reminder.

Blood. Sweet and familiar blood.

Before the Shield could fully respond, Sanguine scrambled and wormed up from underneath the halfhearted shove of mercenary feet, a look of determination flush upon her face as she extended her clawed fingers towards the stammering and now staggering Locos woman. The Infitialis hugged her arms around Treatise's legs and, though consumed by absolute fright, growled as she had during the shadow of her days at Anica and looked up at the masked Andromeda with a look of disgust, teeth clenched, shadows welling beneath her and Treatise as she whispered a somber "The Fellowship will rise to kill you, Quietus."

The two women disappeared in a swirl of scarlet and red, and the blade clunked to the floor next to an empty vat of ground, marked only with the last pangs of wispy smoke from the Infitialis.

Laughter swelled and filled the room as Andromeda let loose a well of cackles kept down while she told her story. Dagger still in hand, she rushed back toward the two women, racing Sanguine to the Plague General but wasn't fast enough as the two dispersed into crimson smoke and blood. As their forms disappeared, the Holy Wife pranced to a steady halt, standing where they once were and staring out one of the far windows.

Back to the mercenaries, she sighed airily, almost sounding content, but the scathing bite of her words spoke otherwise. "The Fellowship is a dried corpse that needs to be properly disposed of, just like their leader," glancing over her shoulder at the two men, face blank, she addressed them directly "Wouldn't you agree?"

Taking a moment to stare at the blood stained blade, Andromeda's lips curled into a cruel smile. She hadn't killed Treatise, at least not outright, but there was the off chance she had nicked an organ or two and the thought brought such joy. Andromeda gripped the soft autumn cloth of her elegant sleeve and ran it across the blade, cleaning it before returning it to its hidden sheath. Her porcelain hands ran softly through her full hair before she turned to face the mercenaries and smiled at them. "I am sure you are all tired of this frigid wasteland," her words teetered between consoling and condescending as she clasped her hands together, "Our return to Auvinus is long overdue. You've been missed, my children. Let us get you out of these clammy old mountains."

With a shrill cackle, the Andromeda the Wise approached the men and hooked her arms around theirs as smoke rose about their feet. In a flash, they were gone and all that was left of their meeting were a few lingering blood spatters.  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part XI.
Written by: Storei

Toward the Horizons

April 10th, 1411.

Desperation now was a thing that filtered through his entire being, a plague in and of itself that was slowly eating him alive. Emperor Rine VIII nervously bit at the skin on his knuckles, glancing around the solid walls, slowly grasping at the dangerous notion that he wasn’t sure if they were a means of protection and defense from the terrors occurring in the outside world or a means of keeping caged like bait ready to for the taking. This raw moment of fear was only expressed for so long though, for he was not alone, he was never alone. Emperor Rine looked away from the walls and back to where he was being escorted to his throne in the counsel room. Long hours had been spent in his drawing room, his hands framed over several pieces of parchment littered with desperate illustrations in ink of the fear overtaking Panymium, pleas for the miracle of science and a metaphorical drop to his knees for help. It was the last thing that he had wanted to do, give up to a point where he had to bow down to such measures, but he had no other choice, not one other thing to try. His fingers were rubbed clean of the ink that he had carelessly smeared all over his knuckles by the incessant rubbing of worry around his wrists. He walked quickly, his layers of clothes sweeping about his legs, like he was running from something. This fear he was feeling was entirely responsible for the steps that he was taking today, desperate measures in desperate times in Panymium.

Seating himself down into the stiff statue like pose he automatically fell into upon the lavishly decorated seat, he waited for his guards to open the doors and allow those that he called for into his presence. Beckoning his solemn emperor air was something that he was used to doing, suffocating the youth that was as weak as an exhale on water, but in recent days, he couldn’t mask the sadness and desperation that was slowly but steadily leaking onto his face, staining his pale mien with severity. He would have liked to greet his men with a smile, or at least a determined knit of the brow, but all he had today for his bravest of sea-faring souls, was the despairing gaze of an emperor conductor whose arms had been snapped into shards.

Seven of his men drifted purposefully into his presence, ghostly shapes behind the veils which separated them from their emperor, and stood in a line, waiting and patient, blank slates to be written upon with the will of their ruler. Emperor Rine VIII hoped that the veils shrouded his subtle look of panic.

“My finest men of the ocean,” he said, using every ounce of his strength to imbue his voice with the confidence his body and face lacked. ”I have summoned you here today to ask you to embark on a grave quest for your country. Our country has grown terribly ill, rotten to a state of disrepair. Years of effort and science have driven us to dead ends; every step has proven worthless in our strain to discover a cure for the disease. We have exhausted every means we have within our borders and now we rage out of control, both us and the disease that plagues us. We must now search beyond our lands. I am sending you, my seven most trusted and able bodied men to take your crews and seek help from the surrounding lands, somewhere far beyond the oceans. Seek aid from Ardenth, Yirui, and Ecara, for they will be the most able to extend their help to us. It will be a perilous journey, but the peril here is greater.”

The seven men, with faces pale, drew their stiff bodies into deep subservient bows. One by one they filed out of the counsel room, with their faces grim and their shoulders laid straight underneath the new burden that they were bequeathed by their Emperor. They would be given detailed instructions by the Emperor’s servants, and letters for the other countries begging for aid in neatly wrapped rolls of parchment with the Emperor’s seal placed on its lip. That evening they would gather their men and begin packing the meager amount of supplies their warehouses would be able to part with for their long and dangerous journey ahead. Later, they would leave the shores of Panymium, their solemn and terrified young emperor filed away behind walls of labyrinthine protection in a dying plagued world.

The last words that they heard from their young Emperor Rine VIII were these:

“Bring us back a tether to pull us out of this insufferable darkness.”  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part XII.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof

A New Grand Magus

April 19th, 1411.

Heavy footfalls of boots in large echoing rooms broke the silence as a figure, cloaked in emerald and gold, traversed the gigantic stone halls Anica's frozen fortress. A quick pace was kept, white breath huffing from the hood in short bursts as doorways opened and closed with a simple gesture. One particularly barren hallway was entered, seeming only to house a large mirror. The figure approached and touched a frail hand to the glass, passing through it like liquid. In but a second's time, they found themselves on the opposite side of an identical mirror far across the expansive castle.

The room was well lit with warm candle and torchlight, a large and elegant doorway standing closed at the center with several armored guards posted at the front. They all greeted the figure with a bow of their heads while one approached and spoke, ”Greetings, Sage Yilena. How are things outside?”

Gently wrinkled hands lowered the hood to reveal a mass of messily braided, pale wheat colored hair and the woman chuckled, her sunken and pointed cheekbones rising, ”Unchanged, I fear. The coronation is...?” a clawed finger extended toward the doors which kept the throne room hidden from view.

”Progressing smoothly. However, due to the current circumstances, the ceremony itself is being condensed,” the guard offered the old woman a pathetic look but she waved it off.

”As long as it is progressing. We need only worry for those outside. Bloody mongrels, the lot of them,” Sage Yilena spat, one hand resting on her hip while she kept a claw pointed at the guard, her milky, cataract covered eyes narrowing, ”S'beyond their comprehension that a new Grand Magus would be anything unlike that traitorous husk, especially one who was raised under her wing. Feh! The apple does not fall far from the tree and all that nonsense, but this tree was on a mountain and our particular apple fell and rolled all the way down it.”

This raised a quiet bit of laughter from all of the guards, some of them glancing at the doors curiously but not daring to open them.

Tucking her braids back, the old woman curtsied as the guards bowed and politely she took her eave of them. Once more, she stepped through the mirror and it left large ripples over the glass before settling into place. Another mirror was exited into a separate hallway along the outer wall, a few mages stationed at various windows. A tall man cloaked in blue and silver was present, wide and burly, and he lowered his hood to Sage Yilena's presence.

”Ornen,” she curtsied and he bowed his head, ”Are our barriers holding?”

Only a grunt was given in reply with a nod before the old warrior mage glanced out, craning his neck for a better view, ”For now. They can only come so close but if they begin an attack it will fall before long.” Pulling back, his large hands closed the window and latched it tight, ceasing the cold winds from blowing them any longer. ”I hear she is finishing her vows and they are swearing themselves to her.”

A wry smile appeared upon the old sage's face as she clasped a hand to his shoulder, ”If not for the riots we would have done so ourselves. After all, Grand Magus Estratus has a far better ring to it than Grand Magus Waldgrave, does it not?”

Within the throne room, a soft wind blew and the candles were snuffed. Incense filled the area as the doors were opened and the accompanying smoke plumed gently out as figures emerged in pairs of two. Sages, Seers and the few lower ranked Mages and Augurs that oversaw the ceremony stepped out in a tightly filed line with their heads bowed and cloaks covering their faces. The procession stopped, filing at either end of the hall to allow entry of the Grand Magus who was donned in an ornate and flowing white cloak, hood covering most of her pale face as dark hair draped over her shoulders and back.

The soldiers and passing mages lowered themselves to their knees as she passed them, heading to the front of the procession and leading it down many halls. The scented smoke followed them, offering a calming presence to the group and, at least momentarily, cleansing their walkways of Benedicta Waldgrave's tainted scent. Each step the line of bodies took lead them further from the castle's heart and finally to a well adorned balcony on the South face of the castle.

There she stepped out, one Seer behind drawing back her hood and exposing the new Grand Magus to her dominion. Lady Estratus' amber gaze peeked over her shoulder at her many devout supporters, brow upturned in uncertainty but they merely smiled reassuringly to her. Reaching the edge, her hands found the stones as she looked far down the mountainside and saw many gatherings of black, swarms of angry people wanting nothing more than to kill her then and there, to get rid of any Grand Magus that followed Waldgrave and to topple the Fellowship.

A deep set frown tugged at her lips and Lady Estratus' hands clenched into fists; determination hung upon the air around her as the side of one hand slammed against the stone. ”I will make this right,” she hissed, head hanging as a gust of wind rushed through her long hair.

”All this I do promise.”  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part XIII.
Written by: Zanaroo

Wars and Battles

April 26th, 1411

General Treatise returned from Sanguine's care amidst the shadows of Anica, starting her leave as soon as her gaping wound allowed her to. She refused the help of mages and trusted only the Blood Lady at her place in the dungeons, secluded from sight, her brooding prejudice for the Cultists seeping into the Fellowship's repertoire far more than she could fathom. Mage loyals who claimed to be for the Fellowship and Panymium, those men of Waldgrave who betrayed Sanguine and professed to being on the House's side all along-- to think of those men infuriated her, and despite her wisdom she could not fathom for long those few Mages that breached her trust.

Though her outfit was as new and cleanly as it always was, beneath her clothes and wrapped tightly around Treatise's skin were layers of thick gauze around her torso. Her stature was changed, straight but cold and lacking the vigor she had only weeks ago. She trotted along the Imisese roadway with a stranger's horse that held the Fellowship's mark engraved onto its leather saddle, and even that was enough to make Treatise uneasy of even a simple animal such as the one carrying her weight for miles, unquestionably and so well. Slowly, the horse gradually whinnied and slowed at Treatise's command, her hands slung tightly around its reigns.

The Locos stood before gates painted in a similar way of the one she'd been to earlier, the ghost city where she and General Kunze were ambushed in before her eventual departure to Shyregoad. Brows furrowed, Treatise glanced at the two Guards near their sides, her glowing eyes swirled with an intense hue of blue, and without a word the men raised their spears, shouting something toward the tower that Treatise had no energy to pay attention to. The grating rattle of metal sounded and the gate was slowly lifted open.

As things should be, Treatise thought to herself, finding her surprise unbecoming when the guards opened the gates without thought at her presence-- she'd forgotten her identity as part of the Imperial Guard in that brief moment, but the thought recollected quickly. Head held high, she pulled the reigns of the horse again and marched forward, head arcing back to see a sign carved in stone only a few feet above the entrance, a proud insignia that was marked "GADU."

When she looked before her, however, Gadu of Imisus was in complete ruins.

The Plague General's eye were glued to the sight of the wreckage all around her, and her horse started to trot at a gradually slowing pace while she registered the havoc. Buildings were sprawled to the side and were crushed by rubble, small homes scattered about as diminutive as a single piece of straw in a haystack. When the main road merged into the famous Gadu plaza all she could see was a vast horizon of smoldering gray, the distance stopped only by the city's barriers miles away, decorated by the vast hills of ruin. It stunk of corpse and gunfire, and she was shocked by the lack of the Black Death's pestilence overcoming Panymium, which was now replaced by clean blood spilled only by battle.

Treatise climbed off of the horse and grabbed it by its helm, pushing it along gently by its side, making to uncover the purple cloth of the Fellowship at the top of its saddle-- she tugged it from its place and rolled it up into an ambiguous ball of color, which she then threw to the floor. The area was strangely empty and, amidst the quiet, Treatise inspected the flocks of birds hopping about in place of human life.

At the end of the road was an elongated shadow, and the sound of the evening's bell struck loudly through the ruined street. Treatise glanced up and looked at the Council academy's entrance, tainted by splotches of blood on its stone walls. She took her steed and wrapped its reign precariously around a makeshift stable at the side and started her way through the already open wooden gate of the academy, after which a much smaller door stood before her within the small gateway encompassed in white.

Slowly, she opened the door, her other arm clutched around her sword's sheath. Just past the door was an outdoors square painted with green grass and human bodies, peasantry wrapped in blankets and gauze and whose presence devoured the entirety of the Council's outdoor headquarters. Smiling beside herself, throat welled with pride, she noticed similar blue-robed soldiers hectically marching past the isle of people with similar medics hunched over with dozens of gauze rolls by their sides, metal pliers poking at unsuspecting refugees' faces.

At the end was a man, whose top half of his head was covered in a tricorne. Treatise walked closer into the army of refugees, carefully sifting her feet through toward him, and the closer she was the more familiar the man became. Stocky with slicked back orange hair tied into a stubby ponytail, tanned face watching carefully at the surrounding suffering Imisese, Diedthelm looked up at the Plague General and received her entrance with a splitting grin, white teeth flashing characteristically back at her befuddled frown.

The shield Plague contemplated between standing still and taking several large steps toward her Grimm but, before she could make any affirmation to do either, General Kunze gave a hearty laugh and pulled her close. Wide arms slung around her shoulders and he smiled again, glowing with the same idiotic but cheerful stare that he rarely did not have on him. "Treatise."

Treatise quirked her brows and her shoulders tensed at the General's abrupt hug, but her face quickly molded back into its usual neutral stare. She took Sir Kunze's hand and bowed momentarily, pulling herself back and into a straight-backed stand. "General."

General Kunze looked about Treatise and smiled worriedly, moving to touch her shoulder with a firm hand. Treatise merely pulled back and the General, flustered, nodded knowingly and returned her steady stance with his own. "You knew I was here?"

"No, not at first, but your scent is a strong one."

"Fortunate guess, then?" the General retorted, flashing a lopsided smile. Treatise was glowering at him, now, her swirled blue eyes full of anticipation while her head was ducked low. "You-- don't look relieved in the slightest."

The Plague General wrapped one arm around herself and lowered her gaze to the grass, looking back at the gate entrance, noticing the Fellowship horse's head poking near the door just at the edge of her vision. "How could I be?" Treatise dropped her shoulders and frowned, hands clenched, "I've been betrayed by the very people you told me to trust."

Wide-eyed, Diedthelm leaned his head forward and shook his head. "Treatise, I'm sorry... I've never had such a greater regret than allowing you to go to Shyregoed. But I'm relieved you're alive, the Plague General does have many obligations to complete. Imisus--"

"I cannot do a thing for Imisus, as I cannot do a thing within my rank," Treatise spat. "Lady Sanguine has told me everything. A Plague General means nothing to the Imperial Guard, nor the Plagues to Panymium. Why did you not tell me this?"

"Treatise..."

"Don't you dare tell me otherwise," the Plague General snapped, eyes narrowed while she inspected the passing refugees to her sides. Her idyllic moment of calm was ruined by her impassive irritation from Shyregoed growing at its full strength, reminded again of the lady in red's soft features and worried speeches while she rested mangled within the confines of the Shyregoedian castles. Never had she seen such kindness, and perhaps that made Treatise soft, but she clenched her hand around her wounded torso and glowered at General Kunze, full force of her irritation welling at her throat. For a month she'd experienced the cruelty within the Fellowship, saw what Lady Sanguine saw, and at last the Locos known as Plague General Treatise saw the need to speak.

How foolish was she, to not swear fealty to her own kind first?

"To think otherwise, I'll not fix a thing. This isn't over, General. Your battle with the humans might be over for now, but the war with the Plagues has only began. Don't you dare get in its way."  

[Der Pestdoktor]

CHAPTER I. The Ides
Part XIV.
Written by: ex o ex Snoof

Crowing Festivities

May 3rd, 1411.

Every hall was alight with smoke and cheers, flickering flames of all colors most bright and festive. A celebration, if there was ever a time for one, would be now, and it seemed that the High Prophet agreed as a dark and ornately cloaked figure complete with an extravagant beaked mask all his own navigated the halls in time with two others, followed by many faceless and identically garbed Bishops. To his right, a male figure cloaked particularly in reds with a stark white mask carrying their herald at its forehead and to the left an elegant woman in the colors of Autumn keeping her head bowed in the presence of their leader.

Hands clasped before her, Andromeda the Wise practically floated beside her Grimm though her expression did not seem to match the jovial nature of the festivities. Oh yes, a victory was had, and a mighty one at that, but there was still a very loose end that needed to be tied up, one that she would likely need to face personally. The distinct lack of a Prophet was felt mostly by herself and the higher rung members but if it were not taken care of soon it would indeed put a damper on the joyous mood of their hive and that was something the Holy Wife absolutely could not abide.

Two extremely tall, thin doors opened in reverence to High Prophet Molyneux and he stepped through the threshold of the dark church, across the red velvet carpet and up to the candle adorned pulpit. The cheering and clapping continued, and only when she could look upon her children from beside him, high on the pedestal, could she actually manage a small smile.

They were so full of loyalty and love for their Lord, it was truly breathtaking.

With a wave of both hands, the High Prophet was able to silence the excitement but she could still see many of the masked bodies and tiny excitos wriggling in anticipation. His aged fingers found the sides of the podium and raised his beaked head on high; a few crows squawked in comment.

”It is done,” he began, wise old voice permeating every square inch of the hall despite him using no magic to amplify it, ”As we had set out, we are one step closer to His vision. We have veined this country with our presence, His presence, and we have spread our family far and wide.” This called forth more cheers and clapping, the Holy Wife herself smiling to their leader and offering a gentle applause of her own.

Cracked and marred with time, his hands waved through the air, addressing every single individual within their walls all at once. His words gave praise and the motions moved the praise through every nook and cranny of their dwelling to the hearts and minds of every Obscuvan. It warmed her heart to see all of them so moved, especially after such a job well done, but she was unable to enjoy this moment to the fullest and that was the truly saddening part of it all.

Her black eyes fixed not on the crowd, then, but the large and detailed mural behind her; thereupon rested the familiar image of their Lord with the new world in His hands, raven eyes looking favorably upon it and all of His children reborn anew. Andromeda's hands found her heart and she hoped to Him that soon they would be complete, that soon they could all fulfill their purpose and dance with him in the purest fields of golden wheat. A quiet sigh left her thin lips, her eyes closing so she could lose herself in the vision of hope, but now was not the time for such things and the High Prophet's voice broke through, regaining her attention.

Even his excitement was hard to quell but the old man kept himself sturdy and professional, as in every instance of his life. ”This venture of ours was extremely successful; our House is no longer restricted to Auvinus, but we are also in the frigid North, the farms of the West, the ports and extensive catacombs of the East, and we have also nestled ourselves neatly within the walls of the Center. There is no place untouched in Panymium!” Again, cheers and shouts sounded, issuing an amused laugh from the High Prophet, ”Our job is not done yet, though, and our time for rest is short. While our reach is far, it is not yet deep enough for the Catalyst to begin. We are well on our way, and our Lord is very patient, but let us not keep him waiting for much longer. The Truth will see His light and we will bask in His presence!”

Cloaks billowed as every attendee stood, throwing up their arms, holding one another, clapping and cheering. Andromeda chuckled, swirling her dress idly as she watched the High Prophet step down and direct her toward the pulpit in his stead and she eagerly replaced him with flowing grace. They knew all too well what would come next and promptly seated themselves at attention, some readying their books.

Though forced, a wide and warm smile graced her hidden features and the Holy Wife bowed her head in greetings and reverence. ”His Heart is in the Crow,” she directed them so that they could ready themselves with the lyrics. After a moment or two, her slender arms were raised and she began to croon.

”Why should we feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?
Why should our hearts be lonely, longing for paradise?
When Obscuvos is our fortune, our constant friend is He;

His heart is in the crow and we know He calls to us.
His heart is in the crow and we know He calls to us.

We sing because we're happy.
We sing because we'll soon be free.
For His heart is in the crow and we know happy He will be.

“Let not your hearts be troubled”, His tender words we hear;
And resting by His warmth, we lose our doubts and fears.
Across the path He leadeth, and each step we may see;

His heart is in the crow and we know He calls to us.
His heart is in the crow and we know He calls to us.”