"Anna. You're wrong about something, about how operating on Alura is impossible." Time is of the essence right now, and you can't really spare any now. "You're forgetting something quite important about me."

Her eyes seem to light up as she remembers just what your ability entails for being able to operate on somebody. You just need to be careful in doing so, and extracting Alura's 'heart' will be a simple matter. "Of course! You're right Arthur! But... you'll have to follow my instructions to the letter if we want to do this and save her." You nod silently at her as she lays Alura's body on the floor. "Right now, Alura's core is connected to her dying body. If it remains in it for too long, eventually, the core will also die. Think of it like taking a cutting from a flower when the rest of the plant has been stricken by a disease." Her explanation is hasty, but she tries to explain the basics of just what it is you'll be doing. "How... precise... is your control of your ability, also? Can you limit yourself to following exact measurements?"

"It shouldn't be that difficult to restrict the power to a thin needle or varying length, as needed." You're confident in your own ability at least to that degree, if it can be used to save Alura now, then you'd have pushed past your limits regardless.

"Excellent then, just... bear with me for a second." Anna hastily begins removing Alura's dress, or at least the half of it that remains after her injury. Eventually culminating in Alura's naked body being exposed to the two of you. You might have been embarrassed or even have flushed red at the sight, if the situation had been less terribly dire. "Oh, and hand me the torch. I'm going to need to be the one providing light for this."

You quickly pass her the flashlight as you stare at the motionless body laid out before you. "Right. Where do I start then, Anna?"

"Alright, here's what we're going to do, I'm going to trace over the path you need to cut, and you're going to follow me while cutting... 2 centimeters deep. Understood?" You nod as Anna begins to trace a finger just above the diagonal cut that separated her into two pieces. You follow her actions as she does so, ending up cutting away a circle of Alura's flesh and revealing a strange almost spherical object in the center of Alura's chest underneath her skin. It pulses slightly, just like a heart would, yet rather than looking fleshy, like the rest of the interior of her body it has a reddish-green hue and appears far more rigid and tough than a human body would be.

What you can only assume are the equivalent of her veins and arteries are connected to the strange facsimile of a heart. You look over to Anna as she scrutinizes Alura's core. "What do I do next, Anna?" She seems to concentrating heavily on attempting to remember as you watch the core of Alura's being pulsate.

"Next up I think we need to sever the tubes connected to her core going from the largest to the smallest. Then all we need to do is... extract it." Of course, you know that surgery is supposed to be far more complex than this, and deep down hope that Anna's advice is correct. She's the one who's spent most of her life specializing in the field of magical botany though, and it's true that Alura's body is clearly far more durable than that of a normal person. You doubt it would be possible for any human to survive sustaining an injury like Alura's without immediately dying.

You remain silent as you comply with Anna's instruction to cut the tubes binding the heart-like organ to Alura's body, and as the last of the tubes are cut, you take one last look at Alura's body. Her face, so peaceful in it's eternal rest despite the agonizing pain she was in prior to falling unconscious, makes your heart ache in sorrow. In one final motion, you grasp ahold of the core organ and pull it free from Alura's body.

As you look at the still pulsating organ in your hand, only a single question could possibly come to your mind as you stare directly at Anna. "Did it... Did it work? What do we have to do now?"

Anna, for the first time since your escape against Alucard, allows herself to smile. "It worked, Arthur. As for what we need to do now, I suppose we're going to have to plant her. Though the question is should we plant her here or should we wait until we can find some sort of plant pot to carry her around in... Maybe a pot for her would be better, we don't know if we're going to be pursued, so leaving her here might not be possible..."

As Anna seems to think about what would be the best way to transport Alura around from now on, a strange flash of inspiration strikes you. If Alura was put through this because of she was too weak compared to that damn half-vampire, then what if you could make her next body strong enough so that she could fight against him on more even terms? Of course, the thought would be impossible if not for one thing you picked up quite some time ago in the mansion.

Of course, you don't know just what effects these potions will have on her, but you get the odd feeling that these potions would make whoever ingested them stronger, even if it were only a temporary effect. You pull three of them out of your pocket at random, ending up with the green, the silver, and the yellow vials grasped firmly in your hand. You proceed to take off the lids sealing them shut and pour half of each of the vial upon Alura's core, which strangely appears to absorb the liquids like it was some form of sponge.

You really hope that Alura isn't too upset by your act of somewhat spontaneously forcefeeding her potions. You hope even more so that your instinct was correct and the potions were truly beneficial. Thankfully, it seems like whatever those potions did, the odd seed-shaped object you now hold seems to appreciate them, as it swells with power and grows an ever so tiny amount.

"Arthur. What did you just pour on Alura's core?" Anna sits behind you, her voice sounds quite annoyed by your actions.

"Oh. I don't quite know, honestly. They were potions I found hidden in the mansion, so I thought I would try to make Alura stronger with them." You shrug as you put the vials back in your pocket

Anna's response to that a sputter in place of an actual sentence before she places her palm on her face in disappointment. "I... I see." She removes her hand as she takes a look at the seed you're holding. "You're just lucky that Alura seems to appreciate whatever it is you did. Otherwise we would be having a very long talk about why you shouldn't feed unknown potions to people." She takes on a stern tone as she reprimands you for your, admittedly in-hindsight, foolish actions. "But... as it is, whatever those potions were, they might just end up making Alura strong enough to kill that loathsome Alucard. One of them looked a lot like a strength potion to me. The yellow one, I mean." She then takes another look at the seed in your hand with an appraising eye. "With any luck, due to her species' fairly unique biology, her body will end up being able to replicate the effects of those potions indefinitely."

"Interesting. That would certainly be helpful... by the way, how much does this potion of strength increase physical strength by anyway?" Knowing for certain how much this potion could help Alura also helps you. You didn't use all of it on her, after all, and being able to increase your physical strength

She gets up and tries to brush herself off as she answers. "If it's anything like the recipe I know of, then it should increase the person who ingests it's strength by a magnitude of three. Though it only lasts a few minutes and almost always ends up causing severe muscle damage in any human that tries to use it. They aren't often used due to being such a last resort option, in many cases, the muscle damage is permanent, too." That does sound like a pretty major drawback for a temporary boost of strength... "Arthur? Aren't you going to get up?" Anna then notices the state your leg is in, and gasps in shock and the damage that you've been trying to avoid bringing too much attention too. You're almost certain that it's broken. "Y-your leg! Aren't you in pain?" The question is difficult to answer. While you were in pain when you received it, and any additional strain on the wounded limb causes you a spike of pain, when you're just sitting on the floor, you can hardly feel it!

"Oh. Right. That's going to be a problem, isn't it?" Your response is one without any real emotion, but your current lack of any pain aside, being unable to walk is going to be a real issue. For all you know, the two of you could be in the middle of nowhere, miles away from any potential rescuer.

"Just hold on, Arthur. I'm going to find some wood to make a splint, then I'll see about setting the bone." Her smile has once again vanished as she looks at you with a worried expression.

>Allow Anna to find some wood suitable to make a splint with. You're going to need to walk one way or another
>Ask for her support so you can go with her to fetch the wood.
>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage (Which potion?)
>Write-in...

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>>4278480
>>Allow Anna to find some wood suitable to make a splint with. You're going to need to walk one way or another
Oh Arthur. You really will be the Dark Lord people deserve.

>>4278480
>>Allow Anna to find some wood suitable to make a splint with. You're going to need to walk one way or another
Don't forget a nice thick fallen branch too. Nice walking stick/temporary cane. Maybe even a crutch if it's big enough.

>>4278480
>"Oh. Right. That's going to be a problem, isn't it?" Your response is one without any real emotion.
Is this autism? Pretty sure this is autism.
>Allow Anna to find some wood suitable to make a splint with. You're going to need to walk one way or another.

>>4278526
Dark Lord to Dank Lord when?

>>4278549
>Dark Lord to Dank Lord when?
When he starts making dad jokes at any vampires he sees just in case he is spiritually their grand father or something.

>>4278480
>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage (Which potion?)
The blue one.

We should keep a vial of each allies blood to find them when we're separated like this in the future.

>>4278480
>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage (Which potion?)
Blue.

>>4278639
But if we do that we have no way of meeting Theresia again.

>>4278549
>Dank Lord when?
You know, we do have an ally that can grow, control and enhance plants. We could get the kind of shit they smoked in 'nam.

>>4278480
>>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage (Which potion?)
Blue.
Whoops, forgot to vote with all the dank lord stuff. Hope it still counts.

>>4278480
>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage (Which potion?)
Blue

>>4278480
>Allow Anna to find some wood suitable to make a splint with. You're going to need to walk one way or another
I know Blue is probably healing, but I'm genuinely iffy on just quaffing it without Anna saying it's fine.
Besides we might need it for someone else.

We are now tied between splinting the broken leg and drinking a currently unidentified potion.
I'll probably end up rolling a dice if it's not resolved by the time I can start writing.

>Before she leaves, try drinking one of your potions to heal the damage.
Blue just to break the tie

"Wait a second, Anna. Before you go, I have another potion that might help out." Anna raises an eyebrow as you fetch the two still full potions from your pocket, her eyes widening slightly as she catches sight of the blue potion.

"Arthur. Is... Is that a healing potion?" She asks, almost in disbelief at the magical concoction you are holding.

"I don't really know, actually. It looks kind of like one, but there's something about it that just looks a little different." Compared to the potion you saw Grigori imbibing, this mixture just doesn't really look the same. Similar, but distinctly different.

There's a long awkward silence between the two of you, and even the spherical core in your hand momentarily pulsates rapidly. Then, Anna looks you in the eyes. "Arthur... Why didn't you mention if you might have had a healing potion before we operated on Alura?" She runs a hand through her hair and calms down just a bit. "But I suppose that carrying around Alura's heart is much easier on us compared to trying to move half of a corpse about." Alura's core once again pulses at that comment, it seems that Alura is aware of what's going on right now, despite having lost almost her entire body.

"I guess it just slipped my mind at the time... Sorry, Alura." You directly address the seed in your hand as apologetically as you can manage, before Anna holds out her hand, eyes fixed on the heart.

"I'll take care of Alura from now on, Arthur. She's survived for now, but she's really weak right now. If her core takes any damage, then there will be nothing we can do to help her." Anna makes a solid point as you hand Alura over to her. After all, you are far more likely to get involved in a fight than the botanist girl, who is strictly a non-combatant. As she takes the core of the plant woman from you, she smiles happily, placing it safely in one of her dresses pockets.

As she takes the core from you, you finally unseal the blue potion and pour the contents down your own throat. The potion tastes like a strange herbal mix that you can't place, with a distinct strawberry flavor underneath the herbs. The strawberry flavor does not however make drinking it a more pleasant task though, and it's really all you can do to prevent yourself from spitting the potion out.

Thankfully, you manage to swallow the horrible mix, and moments later feel an odd sensation bubbling within you. A faint white glow surrounds your body as you look down at yourself. Then, impossibly, you see your broken leg begin to shift by itself, setting itself right in seconds.

Anna looks positively shocked by the effect the potion had on you as you rise to your feet, testing your new leg slowly and being amazed at the complete lack of pain. In fact, not only is there a lack of any sort of pain, you feel even healthier than you were before you were injured! Whatever was in that vial was some powerful stuff. But you can't help but wonder whether it would've been put to better use being given to Alura. If it could restore your leg so quickly, then could it have even regenerated her body? It would have stabilized her at least. "Looks like I won't be needing a splint after all, Anna." You marvel at the effect of the potion, though any sort of amazement you would normally feel at the miraculous magic is heavily dulled by the gnawing thought that Alura might've been better off having been given the potion instead. Especially as she's already shown herself to be quite capable of healing you by herself.

As you experiment with your repaired leg, Mistral finally makes an appearance, looking queasy and dazed as she crawls out of your suit. "Oh good. You survived, Arthur... I'm glad..." She's clearly still half asleep, but she appears terribly nauseous, so you can't find it in your heart to hold it against her. She slowly makes her way up your body and crawls onto your shoulder. She sits down upon you and quietly sighs. "That spell that vampire used to get you all away from that place was dangerous... you know? It took a lot out of me, but I at least made sure that nobody would fall to their death from such an unstable teleportation before it activated..." She leans back and takes a large breath of air. "Inter-dimensional teleportation isn't exactly an easy spell to cast, after all. Even normal teleportation tends to end up with most of it's practitioners falling to their death or embedding themselves deep in the ground, so it was never a very popular form of magic..." Mistral slumps down on your shoulder a little as she is momentarily overcome by exhaustion, she seems fairly knowledgeable on the topic, but you don't have the leisure to chat with her about it right now. You were too distracted to really focus on it before, but a huge problem lies before you.

"As interesting as your vast knowledge on the history of teleportation magic is, Mistral. It's dark, cold, and it's getting late. So we really ought to find some fort of shelter before Anna and I start freezing to death... but, thank you, for protecting everyone." You thanks is sincere. Sophia, Holly and Coller might not have been imperiled by the possibility of falling to their deaths, but Effi and Grigori definitely would have been. As would you and Anna actually, though as far as you know, there was no drop from the sky for you.

Mistral doesn't make any response to your thanks, having fallen asleep on your shoulder in the time it took you to speak. With a silent sigh, you pick her up and place her into her chosen pocket.

Anna speaks as you finish your brief interaction with your familiar "You're right about that Arthur. We do need to find shelter for the night, or preferably civilization. We aren't exactly equipped for wilderness survival right now."

Both of you turn your heads towards the lamppost on the hill. Hopefully, the vantage point might be able to shed some light on what direction you should be heading. The hill itself is deceptively steep, and while you don't really have much of an issue with it, Anna continually struggles and would have slipped multiple times, if not for you holding her hand to support her ascent up the hill.

Eventually the two of you finish your ascent, and the vantage point is quite incredible, even at night. In the distance, you can see a large city complete with skyscrapers, with hundreds of plumes of smoke ascending from it. There's a smaller looking village that is slightly closer though, though it doesn't seem as if any roads lead to it, oddly enough. There's a large circus tent that seems to be set up by the ruins of some sort of church to the right, the opposite direction to the village. In the centre of it all is a fairly small ancient looking castle. Even from here you can see that it's dilapidated and in disrepair.

Looking at the potential destinations before you, you eventually decide to head towards.

>The circus near the ruined church.
>The ancient castle, in disrepair and overgrown.
>The city billowing plumes of smoke.
>The peaceful looking village.
>Write-in...?

>>4279940
>>The circus near the ruined church.
What better place to hide than a house of freaks?

>>4279940
>The circus near the ruined church.
Seems like a decent place to check out for a bit.
We should definitely check out the castle after this though.
When we grow Alura we're gonna need to head into the city to get an adequate amount of blood.

>>4279940
>The ancient castle, in disrepair and overgrown.

>>4279974
+1
Circus arc???

To be honest I have trouble keeping track of all of our allies abilities at this point

>>4280076
Things and Gimmicks TM

>>4279940
>The circus near the ruined church.

>>4280076
Well wasn't the vote to use the potions that would help Alura after removing her core?
And that for some reason people were worried that Alura's body would be cursed or something?
That Arthur didn't use a blue potion on her means it wouldn't have helped after she was cored.
It should also be easier on Alura to re-construct her body stronger if she absorbs the potions this way right?

>>4280315
We just used our options at random assuming that our luck would get us the best ones for Alura I think.

>>4280403
Yeah that's what I mean, if the blue one would've reconstructed her body he would've ended up using it on her.

>>4279940
>The city billowing plumes of smoke
What's the logic behind the circus?
If we wanted to hide surely the city or village would work better?

>>4281071
Because a Circus moves. If it's a proper big tent it'll get up and roll out after a while. We might be able to ingratiate ourselves with them and go with them. Then we'd have the cover of a bunch of people traveling as a group. Carnies tend to care for their own, too.

Also dude it's the circus, there's always a proper weird thing in it. And fun.

You know, I really did not expect for you to head to the circus. I figured you would sooner try to find shelter in one of the other locations.
Ah well, things will only be more fun for this, I think.

>>4281944
That makes me wonder if you were expecting us to die to Alucard, and how close we were.

>>4282041
I bet we got lucky

>>4282041
It all came down to how you used the Power of Destruction in the end.
It was more than possible for you to use it in a way that didn't significantly alter the natural course of the battle.
Depending on how little you changed, this would of course eventually end in Arthur's death. But not before a few more of his allies' own, of course.

You just happened to pick the option that led to nobody else taking a mortal wound and instead getting your leg broken.
Not that the broken leg stuck.

>>4282148
We had a broken leg?

Of course, while you can't actually be certain of just how much use any of the locations will be to you. There's just something drawing you towards visiting that circus down there. After all, who would ever think of looking for you in the middle of a group of performers? "Anna, you see that circus? We'll be heading towards it. With any luck, we'll be able to organize a place to sleep for the night too. You've got the money still, right?"

"Of course. But... the circus?" She looks down at the large tent with a concerned expression. "Isn't it a little hopeful to think that a circus will be able to provide shelter for the night?"

"Anna, we have hundreds of thousands of euros on us. Even if they don't provide any form of hospitality usually, I doubt that is something that won't change, given enough monetary incentive." You begin heading towards the tent in the distance as Anna follows you, quickly finding yourself wandering through a fairly dark forest, guided only by the light of your torch. You hope you don't run into any hostile wildlife. You've honestly had enough fighting for today as it is.

"Well, I suppose you've got a point. Not many people would think of looking for us in a circus after all, would they? But we really need to think of a way to get in contact with everyone else. No offense towards your own combat skill, but you either need to get far far stronger than you already are, or we need to start thinking about... raising an army, I suppose." Anna brings up something you haven't really thought about that much so far. You suppose that if you are to become the Dark Lord, then an army would sort of be something of a necessity, wouldn't it? You aren't much of a lord of anything without subjects.

"Raising an army? Well, as nice as that might sound, I don't really see any viable paths towards getting an army behind me right now, Anna." Not unless you decided to start some form of paramilitary organization funded by swindling casinos, at least.

"Well, not right now obviously, but when Alura is finished growing then doing something like that should be pretty simple. It would've been even simpler if we had one of the vampires with us still too, especially Sophia. A vampire of her level is bound to have a near unlimited ability to use any form of necromancy she pleases, I think. Wasn't she also capable of summoning demons?" Anna looks into the distance as she finishes her sentence.

"But what good will an army do us if somebody like Alucard could just cut through them all with ease and reach us regardless?" As far as you can tell, no number of summoned skeletons or demons could've stopped your monstrously powerful foe. The man was simply too strong, even now, you struggle to think of a way that might have allowed you to have defeated him in the fight. Even the Power of Destruction wasn't able to reach the man, and you got a broken leg for even trying to use it on him, to boot.

"Arthur... People like Alucard, like the Belmonts and anyone else that's dealt a killing blow to Dracula in the past. Do you know the one thing that they have in common? Anna asks quite cryptically, implying she knows something that you don't. Which is just the slightest bit irritating

"I can't say that I do, Anna. Why? What's so special about them? Their unwavering loyalty to the Church?" You half-joke as your answer to her question. You honestly have no idea.

"Not quite, Arthur. It's that all of these so called champions of what is good and just are simply unable to stand by and allow evil to continue without their interference. Dracula for whatever reason never really prepared for an attack by a Belmont, despite there having been quite ample time for him to flee or ambush them even as they rampaged through his castle, as I understand." The more you learn about Dracula, the more it really does sound like he was literally just trying his hardest to lose each time. It's a wonder Chaos wasn't more frustrated with him, honestly.

"Then... what about the Dorin Organization bombing that city? How could he have allowed that to have happened? And how exactly do you know all this anyway?" Nothing about this description of the cold bastard that nearly killed you all really makes sense.

Anna remains silent for a long while as seems to think of an answer. "Maybe he just decided that the lives of the few were worth sacrificing for the sake of the many. Or maybe this organization of his just withheld the information from him. As for how I know, the Belmonts are a terribly vain bunch. Each of them wrote about their defeat of Dracula which was later collated into one single book. Though annoyingly, the book sort of cuts off after Richter's entry. So I'm not really sure what happened after that point. Both Trevor and Richter did mention Alucard quite a bit though. Though Richter stressed that Alucard did nothing and was of no real concern quite a lot... Then the text got really nasty when it described this priest called Shaft... Ah, sorry. I'm rambling." They wrote down their encounters with Dracula? Well, there's a logic in that, you suppose. As foolish as revealing their own abilities might sound, wouldn't Dracula himself already know? Writing about their battles like that would've seemed like one of the safest endeavors they could've have undertaken to teach the later generations at the time

"Is this book... publicly available? Well, as publicly as the magical world gets, at least." Being able to read something like this would really help out a lot to help understand the caliber of the enemies you face, as well as any abilities that you might have to look out for from them in the future.

"Oh goodness me, no. I had to go through quite a lot of trouble to get my copy... shame I was too busy to pick it up before the mansion went up in smoke..." As she recalls the mansion's incineration, she seems to recall something. "Actually, now that I think about it, that girl with Alucard might've been a Belmont, actually..." Anna pauses awkwardly as she notices the stare you're giving her. "Though it was probably just some bootleg Church wannabe." She hastily corrects herself. "While the Belmonts used a chain whip, none of the descriptions of their whip, the 'Vampire Killer' that I remember matched the whip she's holding." You suppose that makes more sense. You doubt you would be alive right now if you had been attacked by a member of this legendary family of vampire slayers at the same time as Dracula's own son. Your survival is practically a miracle as is.

"Well, alright then. But how exactly does this tie in to getting an army? Do you think they won't be more motivated to stop me if they know I've got a huge army of demons or the undead to support me?" You can't help but feel like painting a larger target on your back isn't something that will end up panning out for you

"Motivation at this point is pretty irrelevant, Arthur. They basically just tried to pass a death sentence onto you for the sole crime of disobeying their own schemes. They even sent their strongest man to get it done!" She takes a look into the distance, apparently hoping the circus would have become visible once again at this point before sighing. "The point is, if you can keep them distracted facing off against whatever makes up the bulk of your army, they'll never have the opportunity to attack you directly! All you need to do is keep them preoccupied with protecting innocent people! Besides, even if they do, you can just leave by the time they've defeated your forces! Go into hiding and start again! Reemerge from the shadows when they least expect it and crush them!" She starts getting excited as she begins speaking about outsmarting the forces of good by exploiting their own moral code against them.

"Alright, Alright. I think I get your point, Anna. I'll keep that in mind for when we have the potential to start creating something like that. For now though, we just need to make sure we don't get captured or killed by our enemies."

She shakes her head rapidly, as if removing herself from some sort of self imposed trance. "Of course. I was... getting a little too enthusiastic there. Sorry."

"There's no need to apologize to me for something like that, Anna. You've explained quite a lot to me on our trip over to this circus, at least. I'm sure it will come in helpful in the future, and look! We're almost at the circus!" Anna seems to breathe a sigh of relief as after the fairly long walk, your target finally comes into sight.

After about ten more minutes of walking, you finally reach the perimeter of the circus. There's some sort of collection of caravans set up next to it, as well as another tent, that while fairly large, is nowhere near the size of the main circus tent. Of course, the main circus tent is nothing to scoff at either, though the entrance is guarded by two men. One with black hair, and the other a deep red. Of course, there's also the strange ruined building, church-like in design, but something gives you the feeling that it wasn't ever really used as a place of worship. It's odd, but there's something about the place that just makes it feel like entering it would be a terrible idea.

>Check out the caravans.
>Check out the smaller tents.
>Go talk to the two men guarding the entrance of the main tent. (About anything in particular?)
>Sneak into the main tent.
>Check out the ruined building?
>Write-in...

>>4282248
>>Check out the caravans.
Hello, fellow weirdos.

>>4282248
>Check out the smaller tents.

>>4282248
>Smaller tents
Smaller TENT
That is meant to be singular, not plural!

>>4282248
>Check out the smaller tent
So, does nobody have any thoughts on the fact that we're apparently no longer on earth?

>>4282312
Well that's pretty obvious from the tent-shaped spaceship crewed by the killer klowns.

>>4282317
I was referring to Mistral's comment about interdimensional teleportation, but sure.

>>4282372
Well interdimensional would mean traveling between dimensions. Not traveling to other dimensions. Unless something goes horribly wrong you should pop back in to your own dimension at the end.

Think of it like walking from one side of a room to another - by shuffling inside the wall. You'll come out somewhere else but you'll still be in the same room. Unless of course you fuck it up. But you'd probably notice right away.

Extradimensional travel is a different story though.

>>4282442
Interdimensional travel should be traveling between dimensions.
We weren't on earth, so if a teleportation spell had been used it would only be able to traverse the prism cube.
That's why interdimensional teleportation was used.
Dunno why you think you would pop up in your home dimension when using interdimensional teleportation though.
What you describe should be the teleportation process in general, not just something limited to interdimensional teleportation.

>>4282446
>Dunno why you think you would pop up in your home dimension when using interdimensional teleportation though.
Because inter means "between" not "to". Interdimensional would literally mean the stuff between dimensions. Just like intergalactic is the space between galaxies. You wouldn't use an interdimensional teleport to go to another dimension. That would be an extradimensional teleport. And being sealed in the box doesn't take you to another dimension in the same way that the inverted castles and painting world things aren't actually NOT earth. They're still on earth. Like putting a firefly in a bottle. It's not suddenly transported to bottleverse. It's just in a bottle. It's a warping of space not a warping of reality.

The same isn't true of crazy shit like the chaotic realm. That stuff just don't play fair.

>>4282457
Hmm. That's a weird specification.
That just seems to me to be an explanation of a plain teleportation spell, since that's how they work.
An interdimensional teleportation spell being specified like that implies that you leave your home dimension in a way that you wouldn't with a normal teleportation spell.
Extradimensional teleportation would only specify that you're teleporting away from this dimension, not between dimension x and y as interdimensional teleportation would.

>>4282465
>Hmm. That's a weird specification.
Yeah. Seriously fuck the guys 2500~ years ago who thought mingling English and Latin was a good idea. And everyone down the line who kept it going.
Regular teleportation would better describe bending space-time to get to where you want. You stay working with every other law of reality you just break the specific one tying you to where you are. Because why would you want to go to a place where existence has no meaning relevant to you as an organism that shouldn't be there?

Would you want to be inbetween dimensions when you're supposed to be relaxing where you're supposed to exist? That's like some Cthulhu shit there. A regular teleport should be like Portal shit. Interdimensional just means you're telling reality to go fuck itself you do what you want.

Though I suppose extradimensional could mean you're just leaving this dimension. Interdimensional would still mean specifically the stuff between it. Transdimensional would then better be used to describe going to another dimension. Even though that also doesn't explicitly state it so. As it can also mean across. And like twenty other things. It really comes down to how you want to interpret the English meaning behind the Latin prefixes. Fucking latin.

>>4282248
>>Check out the ruined building?
Adventure!

Was kind of hoping for some more votes by now so I could write another update.
It's kind of an important choice after all.
Ah well.

As for clearing up this interdimensional business, some small spoilers that you might've otherwise figured out Alucard had everyone sealed in a space outside of the one the world itself is in for the sake of allowing him to use his full power without worrying about the consequences. You haven't been isekai'd to a different planet or time yet.

>>4282248
>smaller tent
As much as I want to see whatever is in the church, I think this might belong to the man in charge of the circus. We can go dungeon delving later.

I already miss Sophia. And Effi.

"Anna. Let's head over to the smaller tent. With any luck that's where we'll find the person running this circus, then we can ask about accommodation at least." You turn towards the abandoned church. "I really don't want to be forced to sleep in that place." Though despite the plant growth on the building, the building itself is in pretty good shape. You suppose that if you were to be forced to go without proper shelter, it wouldn't be that bad. Would it?

"I couldn't agree more. I don't know what it is about that place, but I don't want to be anywhere near it! Nevermind staying inside it!" Seems that Anna hasn't quite got the hang of the idea of surviving in the wilds yet. "I do hope you're not just taking us to the gift shop..." she looks at the smaller tent with what could only be called an over-inquisitive eye, trying to determine what the white and red fabric making up the tent is truly concealing.

Thankfully, and almost miraculously, the two of you aren't stopped once by any of the employees. The two people standing outside you had taken for security guards of sorts don't even move a muscle as you start poking around what is clearly a more behind the scenes part of the circus, and soon fade from sight entirely as you get closer to the smaller tent. Though despite being nowhere near the size of the main pavilion, it's still almost the same size as a house. This place has got to be important.

As you reach the entrance to the smaller, you nearly end up colliding with a group of four girls wearing clown outfits with ridiculous looking wings. Each set looks similarly based on a bat, but each is also with the unmistakable patterns of a suit of cards. Hearts and Diamonds, you notice, belong to girls with pure red hair and a red colour scheme to their outfits. Clubs and Spades likewise have black hair and a black colour scheme to their outfits. Their faces all look quite similar too... twins? Or quadruplets, in this case, you suppose.

As you open your mouth to apologize, the girl with Heart patterned wings simply giggles at you and drags the other girls along with her before you can so much as utter a syllable to them. "Well that was certainly... odd. Let's just get in there and ask if there's a place to stay tonight." Anna looks at the retreating performers with a watchful eye, clearly put on edge by this bizarre circus already.

"Agreed. But at this point it's going to take more than a little oddness to unnerve me." You don't have a phobia for clowns at least. Unless actual demons show up, you feel like you can take things easily for now.

Entering into the tent, both of you are surprised to find it quite empty. Looking around to find only an empty seat next to a desk with a lit candle upon it among an assortment of less notable furniture. A brief glance at the desk reveals nothing but a half drawn design for a poster. There's a cute looking demon holding a trident in the corner of the poster. In his other hand is a large banner with the words, 'le Cirque du Diable' written upon it.

Anna muses at the name of the poster. "The Devil's Circus, hmm? Well, I suppose we couldn't have found a more suitable sounding place to end up. Not unless there's a vampire parade in that city, at least." Anna tiredly mocks the name of the circus. With a name like that, you can be pretty certain you aren't going to run into any assassins from the Church by accident.

Just as you're about to leave the tent though, an ominous voice begins speaking, it's source unclear and it's true identity impossible to determine.

"And the travel weary in their moment of need stumble across my circus. To look for shelter against the freezing cold of the Romanian night! Ah, but it is such a pity that even I, with my endless benevolence, cannot offer such succour to our poor travellers... well, at least not without... 'proper payment' I can't." The ominous tone fades away as the voice takes on far more mischievous tone, though you still can't place the gender of it. Whoever is speaking must be an expert orator, to shroud their voice like this.

"Proper... payment?" Anna echoes the voice, clearly curious as to why such an emphasis was placed upon it.

"What, do you only understand English when you're talking to each other? Yes. Payment. Like 'why should I help you two trespassers?', do you understand now?" The voice sounds a little annoyed at being asked to clarify.

>Look up.
>"We are in possession of a lot of money. Legally obtained, I assure you."
>"Because I am a Dark Lord Candidate, and you'll regret defying me."
>"Because I... always planned on joining the circus! Do you want to see my... special skill?" (Show them what?)
>Write in...

>>4283168
>"Because I... always planned on joining the circus! Do you want to see my... special skill?"
The ability to part anything.

>>4283168
>>Write in...
Well the girls outside we're playing card themed, how about we play for it? I win you let us stay here, treat us like family. You can name your bet.
Texas Hold Em okay?

>>4283168
>Look up.
We're in the area around Sophia's castle right?
This could be one of her sisters.

>>4283197
Oops, her castle is in germany right?
But this person says we're in Romania...
Where was Sophia targeting with that teleportation spell?

>>4283224
I would assume the target was "anywhere but next to Alucard".

>"Because I... always planned on joining the circus! Do you want to see my... special skill?" (Show them what?)
We have the strength of ten men on PCP. So the strength of a hundred men.

>>4283254
bruh. If my mouse doesn't click when I press one more time it's going to the moon.

>>4283168
linky

>>4283168
>>4283254
Seconded

>>4283254
Are we even that strong though?
What about something like:
>A body that can't be pierced, even by bullets.

>>4283182
>>4283254
>>4283268
Guys why not go for the option Arthur is sure to win and get Arthur's luck into play? Let's get her to play poker with us

>>4283284
Why poker instead of go fish or blackjack?
Poker isn't really a luck based game, and pulling off the same trick with the same game is a little lame.

>>4283292
Blackjack is fine too. Also who cares if it's lame if it works. I'd rather ensure a win then not.

>>4283284
Dice, anon. We play dice if we want to have fun with Arthur's luck. Craps would be a good option.
Then again, considering the name of this place I don't think it's really wise to expect luck to play a role in any high-stakes gambling we do here.

>>4283308
Lame wins are lame.
We gotta have some panache as a Dark Lord Candidate.

>>4283168
>Look up.
"This may sound odd, but do you happen to know someone by the name of Sophia Hildebrandt? The bat theme is a real point of commonality."

>>4283311
I'm fine with dice too

>>4283317
We have to keep as many of our cards secret as possible too. We are weak as shit and need every advantage. Even if it means a "lame" win

>>4283284
Because unlike our companions. This motherfucker will DEFINITELY cheat.

>>4283328
Yeah, and going around and displaying how lucky we are isn't keeping our cards secret?
At least many people have unique physiques that allow them to pull off superhuman feats, super luck is something different altogether.

>>4283340
I'm sure they will. Still have better chances.

>>4283341
Super luck we can't use against alot. It's useless against the likes of people like alucard and monsters. Let them just think we're lucky

>>4283352
Arthur's skill only works when actual luck is involved in the outcome, if the guy cheats it's useless.
Fair point about deceiving them into thinking we're just lucky though, but wouldn't Alucard already know we aren't?
Given we displayed the ability to continue standing after having our leg broken, used the PoD to teleport him, and made a really fast leap towards Anna and Alura before being teleported away?

>>4283352
>Still have better chances.
If they're a good cheat, there is a zero chance of winning. Luck doesn't matter if they are actively choosing what cards are drawn.

I mean unless you're saying any other way has a less than zero chance of succeeding. Magic.

>>4283361
Yeah Al probably knows but I'm not worried about decieving him. Mostly these unknown carnies.
And on cheating it depends. If they're marked or weighted we still should be able to use it due to flaws. A weighted die for example will mostly roll what it's weighted for but sometimes it rolls something else.

>>4283369
What about magnetized dice?
Or magic dice?
Or cards marked in such a way that human eyesight can't see it?
Or magic cards?
Or... magic?

When do you think Arthur will realize that he'll have to kill Alucard since he's a Dark Lord Candidate?

Depending on how I count it, it's eiter two for looking up and two for saying you're as strong as 100 men...
Or 2 votes for saying you are as strong as 100 men alone, which would make it the winner.

>>4283581
My vote is to look up though.

>>4283587
Alright then we're tied.
Just needed clarification, honestly.

Still tied?
A pity. I was hoping I would be able to get another update done, but I'm out of time for that now.

>>4283168
>>4283182
Guess it's up to a minor party to break it. Switching to
>Look up.

>>4283671
First look up, second 100 men comment

You stay silent for a moment, raising a hand to your chin as if to appear in deep thought, to provoke the speaker into action once again. The speaker acts just as you predict, as the booming voice once again fills the room. "Well? I'm waiting, and your silence isn't one of the most compelling arguments I've ever seen."

With a sigh, you simply look up to the roof of the tent, having realized quite a while back that the only place the voice could be originating from would be either above the two of you. Well, that or they are invisible, but you feel like you can probably rule out magic in this situation.

As you crane your head up, you notice netting spread all across the sealing, and despite catching a glimpse of the silhouette of a humanoid figure, their incredibly rapid movement that makes discerning what the figure moving actually is almost impossible. The figure quickly dashes behind a heavily curtained area on the top floor of the large tent that truly conceals them. If you had to bet, you imagine they were about to drop down for the sole purpose of making some form of dramatic entrance.

You can see a few long platinum blonde hairs poking through the curtain, even with their attempt to quickly hide themselves. "Don't you have any appreciation for dramatic flair!?" The echoing ominous tone fades away from the speaking voice and is replaced entirely by the indignant voice of a woman angrily berating you for ruining what was supposed to be her dramatic entrance.

"Sorry, I've been through this once before already and it's really lost it's impact having somebody try the same thing twice. Say, you wouldn't happen to know a woman by the name of Sophia Hildebrandt, would you?" Honestly, the question is asked more as a joke than anything else. "You have something of a similar way of... introducing yourself to people." Honestly, the only difference is that you aren't getting horribly injured as a result of upsetting this woman.

"Sorry, but I only know of a single person with that last name, and it isn't this 'Sophia', sorry." The voice seems to take a sort of sadistic pleasure in knowing something that you don't. It is quite an irritating tone, but it seems now that the woman speaking with you not only has the right to decide whether to grant you shelter for the night, but also holds information that you might very well end up needing.

"Wait! You do?" Anna speaks now, as the allure of this information is just too much for her to remain silent any longer.

"Of course. Though, the last time I spoke with her was about 40 years or so ago when she visited our circus. So goodness knows what she's gotten up to since then." The woman's voice sounds far far too young to truly be able to belong to a woman in her 50s at least. Then that can only mean that you've managed to stumble across somebody that is either supernatural, or a terribly good liar.

File: Jeste.png (1.32 MB, 850x1134)

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"You... are you a vampire too?" You finally ask the question. In the worst case, you'll just look like an idiot. But if this woman truly is some sort of supernatural being, which her extreme speed she displayed in trying to avoid being seen by you earlier would indicate to be true to at least some degree, then you'll properly open up the conversation to real discussion. Being able to drop the whole pretense about

"Tsk. I should've known you were already informed of things as soon as you brought up that vampire's last name. The smell of blood clinging to you is also a dead giveaway too, if I'm going to be honest." The woman begins to mutter in frustration. Then, she jumps down from the curtained area, doing a flamboyant backflip as she falls before landing on her feet. Her outfit is like some form of mixture of the card based outfits worn by the girls you ran into as you entered the tent, black, red and white. Her eyes are a deep beautiful red, framed by an equally beautiful face. Her long platinum hair seems to radiate light as you look at her. "No. I'm not a vampire, if you want to find out what I really am, you'll just have to get to know me bet-"

"You're a demon, aren't you? Some sort of succubus, I'll wager." Anna cuts the woman off halfway through her introduction. Obviously bored of the womans flamboyant antics already.

A long awkward silence occurs between the newly revealed succubus and Anna, before the succubus begins to laugh merrily. "Fine fine. Yes, it's true. You've revealed the truth of my identity. My name is Jester, and I've run this fine establishment for... well, going on about 120 years now!" She makes eye contact. "Though you may refer to me as Jes, handsome." She blows you a kiss.

"I... I'll keep that in mind." This woman is what can only be called annoyingly beautiful. It's something a distraction, honestly. But you don't allow yourself to be caught up in this womans charms no more than you allowed yourself to be caught up in Alura's own charm. You've dealt with supernaturally beautiful women in the past in the form of Alura and Sophia anyway, so falling to a woman's charm here would just be pathetic.

"Is... Is that all?" She sulks slightly as she notices your lack of a reaction to her obvious flirting. "Fine. Whatever. I know the two of you need shelter and information, and I can offer them both to you... for a price. I'm not sure how much good you'll be able to do, but you saw that... church on the way over here, didn't you?" A quick nod from the two of you is all she needs to be continue. "Well, it's more than just the normal church. There's incredibly powerful blessings on that building that are not only preventing me and my... underlings from entering ourselves. I'm... the curious type, you see? There's absolutely no record of that building anywhere that I can find, and I want to know just what secrets it holds!"

"So you want me to go exploring a dangerous blessed ruin for you... just to sate your own curiosity? Then after that you'll help us?" There's something that this woman isn't telling you about this 'church'. There has to be. Nobody would so happily offer assistance merely for exploring some unknown building, would they?

"Of course!" She happily answers your questioning of her generosity with a smile. "Now, I may have introduced myself, but the two of you never bothered introducing yourselves, did you?"

"I am Arthur Bernhard. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Jester." Even if she is hiding something from you, there's no reason for you to impolite to her. Not without actually confirmation from her."

"Anna Morgan, I do so hope that our newly forged relationship is only one that will bring prosperity to the both of us." Her own introduction is colder than your own, but retains a form of politeness and etiquette, at least.

"Well, Arthur. Anna. What do you say about my proposal. Will you sate this curiosity of mine?" Then she frowns at you. "If you aren't going to call me Jes, could you at least call me Jeste? My full name just feels so... formal when used between friends." Her full name is a single word? How strange. Also, she seems dangerously quick to assume the two of you are friends at all!

>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.
>Deny Jester's request. Only a fool would dive in where demons fear to tread.
>Propose some other deal to secure her help (what?)
>Attack her. Beat her into submission instead of playing along with this silly game.
>Write-in...

>>4284680
>Only a fool would dive in where demons fear to tread.
That's angels, I heard. We'll be fine.
My vote is:
>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.

>>4284680
>>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.
I wanted to hang out with some freaks but sure. Why not. We already almost died once today, what's another between new friends? I don't know if we should bring Alura's lump in with us though. We should be fine, being mostly human. She probably won't enjoy it. But I don't want to leave Anna behind to watch her alone with this gaggle of monsters.

>Her full name is a single word?
Come now Arthur, clearly Jes is her given name and Ter is her "family" name.

>>4284680
>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.

>>4284680
>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.

>>4284680
>Agree to Jeste's request. You honestly intended to check the building out anyway.
>Fondle her tail.

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>>4284998
>touching a stranger's tail
>when it's not even fluffy
I expected better of you, anon.

>>4285026
Nevermind that she's entirely within human form right now thus her tail, her wings and her horns are all hidden.
>>4284998
You could ask to fondle her tail though, if that's what you want to do.

>>4285026
You touch fluffy tails eh? Bet you wanna fuck cats, too. You disgust me. You are a revolting example of truly subhuman filth. You're the gum on the shoe of a child that just waded through a waist high river being defecated in upstream. You are the speck of dust marring the screen of a stolen phone held in the hands of a Tibetan monkey with symptoms of syphilis. You microscopic detritus infecting the bloodstream of an ant recently diagnosed with lung cancer. And ants don't even have lungs you worthless trash.

Sorry what were we talking about? Anyway why would anyone want to touch a tail when it's just a leathery strip with bones? Not even fluffy.

Could this church-like building be related to the one from Alucard's interlude?
It would be nice if we could liberate that map from them.

>>4285054
>Derides touching fluffy tails.
>Questions touching non-fluffy tails.
Do you have a problem with tail-touching anon?
You don't want to see the reaction to touching her weak point?
Shame anon, shame.

File: 47484756.gif (1.78 MB, 340x195)

1.78 MB GIF

>>4285080
It's called a joke, anon. A jape. A jest.

>>4285258
A jest...er?

File: cb5ae546ccc67d9d56af23e47(...).gif (2.38 MB, 480x270)

2.38 MB GIF

>>4285261

"So, all you want to know is what's inside the church? There's no secret hidden weapon hidden away in there that you are trying to trick me into unwittingly retrieving, right?"

"I don't know... But if you can find whatever it is that is maintaining the defenses and disable it, I would be especially grateful. As for anything that you might find in there, let's just honor the time honored tradition among demons of 'finders-keepers.', OK?" She shrugs, denying any knowledge of the contents of the building.

"When you say blessings... what sort of blessings are we talking about here?" Anna quizzes the demon on just what exactly you can expect from this ruin.

"Ones that cause any demon or undead that sets foot in that building to burst into inextinguishable flame and burn to ash... I'm just glad I sent an imp into the place to see what would happen." She soon notices the two glares being directed at her. "Hey now, it's mostly just due to it being highly consecrated ground. The two of you should be fine unless you've ever found yourself getting a sun burn from standing within a church." Jeste quickly clears things up before anyone misunderstands anything.

"But what do you actually get out of us doing this for you?" It really doesn't make any real sense for her to even care about this building. Sure, she can't enter it, but it doesn't seem like it's actively harming or hindering anything.

"The satisfaction of knowing that whoever tried so hard to keep the unholy from trespassing on their domain's efforts were all for naught, and that whatever it is they wished to hide away in this place is exposed to those who they most despised!" There's a long pause between the three of you as Jeste starts acting like she's giving some speech to a fanatical crowd, upon seeing the subdued reactions, she tones it down a little bit. "When you've lived as long as I have, there's not really much that can truly make you feel anything at all. Triumphing over those who loathe me and my kind holds something of a special place in my heart." Jeste sighs wistfully. "But all this magic and demon business aside, I'm a very busy woman. I still have to get prepared for the show, after all!" She then saunters over to her desk and opens one of the drawers, retrieving two laminated pieces of card before handing them to both you and Anna. "VIP passes. Feel free to check out the show once you're finished with that building. It's enchanting, or so I'm told."

"Right, we'll keep that in mind. Farewell, Jeste." The succubus' face brightens a little as you leave the tent, clearly happy at your use of the slightly shortened version of her name. What a strange person.

As you begin to walk back towards the ruined building, Anna stops. "Just... hold on one moment Arthur. I just saw something I need to do." You're more confused by her sudden demand to stop than anything else, though the cause of her request soon makes itself apparent as she quickly removes the flower from a plant pot sitting nearby a few wooden crates. She quickly rejoins you, holding the now half-empty pot. "I didn't really want to have to resort to stealing that, but I for the life of me could not think of a way to ask that demon if I could... have a plant pot." She has a point, it would've been an awfully strange thing to request, and Anna clearly wasn't much of a fan of Jeste anyway. Then she reaches into one of her pockets to retrieve Alura's core, burying it in the soil of the pot. "There you go, Alura." You aren't sure what's stranger. Somebody talking to a plant, or knowing that the plant can hear them.

"So... how long do we have until Alura is finished, uh, regrowing?" You decide to ask the expert on the subject.

"A month or so. A few days if we can find enough human blood." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Hours if we can get our hands on a few pints of demon blood." Seems that you might have another reason to ingratiate yourselves with Jeste then. Hopefully you'll be able to convince her or one of her demon underlings to give up a few pints later. Getting Alura back so quickly would be an incredible boon. Had Alura been capable of action, then Anna and you wouldn't have even needed to seek out shelter in the first place.

"We'll see what we can do then." Human blood should be fairly plentiful anyway, even if you simply visited that city and raided a blood bank. You get the feeling that getting a demon to willingly part with a few pints of their own blood might be a tricky problem to work out. You don't really want to provoke this circus by simply attacking a demon either, not when there's an untold amount of enemies awaiting you if you did so.

As the two of you approach the door to the ruined building, that sense of danger lurking inside of it starts to make itself apparent on you, though you ignore it. Anna however is not so courageous in her response. "M-maybe I'll just stay out here, with Alura! H-honestly, I'd just slow you down even normally if you got into a fight, wouldn't I? Now I'm holding Alura like this, I'm going to be even less help!" If this reaction is anything to go off, it seems that the consecration of this building isn't the only thing keeping intruders from entering.

"Fine, stay here or go and watch the circus then. I'm not going to force you into this, and it seems like there's some sort of spell that's affecting you anyway. That being said, having Anna accompany you into this ruin might give you somebody to talk to, but it would also give you the responsibility of keeping her safe against whatever unknown threat lurks within.

Anna seems to regain some of her wits at being told of the magical influence on her mind. "Y-you might be right about that. Though I'll stay here regardless, I owe you that much." You raise an eyebrow at her. "I'm not entirely certain if it's the blasted fear clogging my mind, but I get the feeling that even if I were to fight through it, my vulnerability to just the deterrent alone bodes poorly for how I will do should any more magic like this be encountered within." Anna's argument is solid and even if it is influenced by the magical fear afflicting her, you can't exactly find issue with it..

"Very well then. I will see you again shortly." With that parting comment, you open the double doors leading into the building and step inside into what seems to be a large dining hall of some kind. It's still dimly lit by candles adorning the walls, though the chairs that haven't fallen apart are all completely empty. It's quite the ominous sight. Somebody was definitely here, and they went through all the effort to light each candle in the room, too. There must be at least six dozen in total.

Then, the doors behind you that lead into the cold freedom of the night slam shut, and before you even get the chance to think of the futility of trying to seal the wielder of the Power of Destruction in a place with such mundane methods, a huge image of a flame appears on the wall, glowing white for just a moment before being obscured by a wall of flame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7qRrrGQki4

A sad voice echoes around you, this time, it obviously belongs to a woman. Though you do tire of people thinking that talking while out of sight is a polite way to introduce themselves. "Another man charmed by the words of a demon, come to Ecclesia once more to seize that which I have pledged to protect... a pity. Very well then... State what you seek and I shall pass my judgement upon you."

>"I seek power."
>"I seek freedom."
>"I seek happiness."
>"I seek revenge."
>"Who are you to pass your judgement upon me?"
>Write-in...

>>4285878
>>Write-in...
>"I'm just looking for what's in here."
Who tries to philosophize with a disembodied voice, anyway?

Her name is Jessie Terrence not Jester. Jessebel Terise. Jesephina Termin. Jene Stephanie Ergalt.

>>4285878
>"I seek freedom."

>>4285878
>>4285903
For now, this is fine with me.

>>4285878
>>"I seek freedom."
It's like the basis of what we do.

So I've thought about it, and how about telling her we seek demon blood?
Or our companions?

>>4286107
The way I see it it's all just a morality trap. Everything we can say will be twisted into making us seem like a dick. "I'm looking for my buddies." turns into "You hang out with murderers and monsters who don't deserve to live" or something. And considering the tone and words McGhostface is using I doubt it lets people go unscathed even if they've been manipulated or forced into this place.

Basically I think the disembodied voice is just a self-righteous asshole so there isn't any reason to really care about its questions.

But hey there's plenty of time before the votes are tallied. Go for what you think is best.

>>4286119
If it's like that then the 'who are you to judge me?' Vote seems to be the one that fits what you're going for best here.
I do like your vote because it shows that Arthur actually lives freely instead of just saying he seeks freedom.

>>4286147
The problem with asking them what gives them the right is that they are always self-assured in their duty. Every single time. They're right, we're wrong. They'd be a guardian and at the end of the day we'd be a simple looter at the behest of a demon. It's a morality trap.

It's why you never talk with disembodied voices. They tend to be very deluded.

>>4286156
Eh, that's kind of the reason I feel we shouldn't just piss it off straight away with something like "I want your stuff."
Let's play along Abit and see if we can figure out the who and why and then act from there with more knowledge.

>>4286182
But they also tend to have ways to detect lies.
I don't see the harm in being truthful.

>>4286186
It suggests that multiple people have been charmed to come in here and steal its stuff and they've all got torched. Telling the "protector and guardian" we're here to sieze the things it's guarding seems like a "we fight now" option and we don't even know what it is.

>>4285878
>"I'm a mess of desires, mostly because of circumstances that were out of my control for a long time up until now."
>"But right now? I seek nothing more then to help out my subordinates, who I also happen to consider my friends."
>"So I implore you to reconsider judging someone that is absolutely done with this kind of horseshit, hide away and cut your losses."

Something along those lines.

>>4286188
But we're just telling them that we want to know what's in here, not that we want to take it out.

>>4286193
Like >>4286156 says it'll probably twist words.
Saying "I'm looking for what's in here" can be read as if we know what it's guarding and we want it and it's gone through alot of effort to keep it secret from the way it set up the barrier to keep people away and torching people who made it through

>>4286197
We can always use more words to make our intent understood.

>>4286208
Just using you as an anchor bro, but did anyone else catch that the voice said this is Eccelsia? Which means
>a huge image of a flame appears on the wall
Is probably a flame glyph. Which is another reason I think we should try to avoid a fight.

>>4285878
Supporting >>4285903. There's no reason to play along with this self-righteous judgy gas.

>>4285903
+1 express Arthur's plain lack of info and obvious confusion and throw this voice off by doing so

>>4285903
I like this because it's not vague enough to be turned against us.

>>4287119
Yes. Yes it is.

>>4287153
At that point, literally anything is vague enough to be turned against us.

>>4285878
>>4285903
An proposition, if I may?
>"To learn what's in there and inform the lady so she would let us stay at her place."
Not even a genie can twist it.

>>4287155
Dude it's literally telling a guardian
>Hey we want what's in here
I am looking for what's in here, what being the thing it's guarding and here being the place it's guarding.

>>4287199
You know when you look for something that doesn't mean you want to take it. Just find it. It's not like saying "I'm after what's in here." or "I want what's in here.". One implies discovery and the others imply theft.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just too autistic.

You're in absolutely no mood to speak philosophy with this disembodied voice. It was bad enough when Sophia challenged you to hide and seek or when Jeste only minutes ago attempted to remain hidden for the sake of her own entrance. So, you aren't going to play along. "What I seek? Honestly, I'm just looking for what exactly is in here."

There's a long pause as you answer the question given to you, and you aren't really sure what to make of the silence. The wall of flame still crackles behind you, sealing you in the room. It looks like you don't really have much of a choice but to just keep exploring the building. Ecclesia, you think the voice called it. As you take a step forwards though, there's a soft thud in the distance from one of the bookshelves.

Before you can remark on the strange occurrence of a book just happening to fall now of all times, a bright light begins to shine from it, and the entire floor begins to take on the glistening blue sheen of ice at a rapid pace! It's all you can do to use your enhanced ability to jump thanks to Mistral's blessing to avoid the freezing wave of energy as it quickly covers the entire floor. As you land once again, careful not to slip on the newly formed ice, you notice that even the tables and chairs in the room have been covered in a layer of ice.

"What was that for? Not a fan of visitors huh? You know, you should lighten up, there's a circus right outside. Maybe you should think about attending?" You try to keep the anger out of your voice at being attacked with such lethal force with a joke. Were it not for your own abilities of which this woman would have no way of knowing about, then you wouldn't have been able to have avoided that freezing wave of energy as it passed through the floor. As it is, you barely managed to make the leap before the ice reached you anyway.

"That was supposed to kill you. But it seems that you're a cut above the rest of the men that those succubi have sent wandering in here, doomed to be enslaved to the whims of a demon forever. I do not enjoy what they have forced me to do so many times already, but I must not allow you to find Dominus and bring it to them. Untold disaster could be brought about if I allowed such a thing" The disembodied voice once again speaks, this time in a slightly softer tone.

"I'm not being controlled by a demon, you should know." Time to correct this delusion she appears to hold. " And it's quite irritating you would assume as such, if I'm to be honest with you. My actions are my own, and nobody will decide what I do except myself alone." There, that ought to at least prevent her from accusing you of being some form of mindslave, at least.

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"Then if that's the case and you are truly as free as you say, why do you seek Dominus? You must've realized from the spell cast upon the chapel that entrance would only bring about harm should you have entered." Now she takes on something of a lecturing tone, as if telling a child something obvious.

"I have no idea what this 'Dominus' of yours even is, though if you could give me an explanation as to enlighten me, I could simply leave. All those demons wanted was to know what was in here anyway. They were quite specific that they didn't care about me actually... well, taking it." Obviously, whoever your opponent is, you don't want to provoke them. They've shown a tremendous ability to use magic, while you can't even begin to pinpoint their location. Had that ice attack they used previously had less of a warning from the book colliding with the floor, you're pretty sure that you'd be an ice sculpture right now.

"How can this be? Are you not one of Dracula's servants, come to use the power of Dominus to bring him to this world once more?" Doubt begins to reveal itself in the voice of your shadowy adversary.

"I'm certainly not one of Dracula's servants. Nor am I a servant at all. If you would like me to repeat myself, I'll do so. I haven't got any master and all that I do I do for my own sake and the sake of the people I care about. Besides, if what I've been told is true, Dracula was killed for good twenty years ago."

"Do you mock me? Do you mean to tell me that it was possible for all this time for this time for Dracula, the Dark Lord himself, to have been defeated utterly in such a way to ever prevent his return?!" The voice is getting really quite angry now. You aren't sure if it's from them having difficulty comprehending the idea, or if it's a result of their own disbelief towards your own completely true statement. "For all these centuries, that people lived in the shadow of Dracula's always looming presence... and you mean to say that we simply did not have the knowledge nor means of doing away with him for good?"

"I do." You answer truthfully.

There's another long pause, before the flame wall behind you disappears and the ice coating the entire floor fades away. "I can see that you are speaking the truth. This means one of my eternal duties has finally been resolved. If Dracula is truly unable to be resurrected as you say, then I don't have any cause to protect Dominus as I have been for the past century and a half." The figure finally appears, standing a few meters away is a glowing blue woman. Her transparency gives away the truth of what she is quite easily. "But..." Her voice trails off and you take the opportunity to ask her a question instead.

"So... you're some sort of ghost then? You've been protecting this Dominus for all that time? Now that it's useless, why don't you just... move on?"

"Even if I did, there is nothing that awaits me in the afterlife. But regardless of what I might wish, just because Dracula can no longer walk among us, it doesn't mean I intend to allow Dominus to fall into the wrong hands. It might no longer hold the power to resurrect the Dark Lord, but the dark power it contains is dangerous and corrupting nonetheless. I must remain here to protect it even now." There's far less hostility in her voice now, thankfully. But then she seems to remember the purpose for your visit. "If these demons were truly curious about what lies within this temple and weren't simply tricking you, tell them that I, Shanoa, am the protector of this ruin, and that if I were not bound within it, I would ensure their destruction as penance for the innocents they forced me to put out of their misery, stripped off their will and turned into puppets, and forced to do their bidding."

"So, I'm free to go then?" Thankfully, this ghost has been frighteningly easy to mislead.

"Of course. Well. I do have one more question I would like to know the answer to you." The ghost's expression turns quite cold, and the temperature in the room seems to be even lower than when the floor was frozen.

"What's that, miss Shanoa?" You pick your words carefully, for some reason, you get the feeling something really bad is about to happen.

"If Dracula is truly dead, why do I feel his energy from you?!" As she utters the damning question, dozens of images begin to form in the air, swords, knives, bows, hammers and all other kinds of weaponry are represented by glowing images of power which explode into the real thing. There must be at least a hundred or so assorted weapons floating within the room, all pointed directly at you.

>Use the Power of Destruction to defend yourself and retreat from the building.
>Use the Power of Destruction to attack the woman.
>Attempt to explain yourself. (Say what?)
>Try using the Power of Destruction to fully shield yourself from the attack.
>Write-in...

Of all the choices you could have made, you all just had to pick the one that would lead you here, didn't you?
And on the same day you're destined to die, as well...

>>4287383
We're going for the record of times death has been cheated in a single day.

>>4287374
>>Attempt to explain yourself. (Say what?)
>"I was born this way. It's not like I was given a choice. You'll kill someone for crimes they didn't commit and still take the moral high ground, huh?"
Get outta my face you backless dress having blank eyed looking soul shattered being ass tool.

Come to think of it she'd get a good laugh outta us telling her we're not the only one. And that the others are probably assholes who'd try to kill us given the chance. Honestly letting us live would give the greatest chance of knocking off even more of Dracula's successors. Should we mention it? Hm.

>>4287374
>>4287452 is something worth mentioning.

>>4287374
>"Upon his defeat, Dracula's powers were separated from him, and found new hosts. I am one of them. My being here is proof that he is truly dead, even if his legacy has yet to turn to dust."

Maybe we should prepare to use the PoD to shield ourself just in case?

Hmm. She said she's bound to the Church, so if we can escape it we'll be safe.
Even if we tell her the truth, how likely is she to simply kill us for having Dracula's power?

>>4287573
For now I'll edit my vote to:
>"Upon his defeat, Dracula's powers were separated from him, and found newly born hosts. As I am one of them, my being here is proof that he is truly dead, even if the effects of his demise can still be felt."
>Prepare to use the Power of Destruction to defend yourself and retreat from the building at the first instant of lethal force.

>>4287374
Gonna go with >>4287625 and a little extra if lethal force is shown
Though the question is if we should muse about his wraith holing up in our soul. Eh.

>>4287374
Gonna support>>4287625

>>4287625
+1 nice write-in

The weapons hang in the air before you, obviously, she's giving you an opportunity to explain yourself before launching the deadly barrage of weaponry towards you. How generous of her. "Fine. I was somewhat withholding the truth about what I am from you, I admit. In truth upon his defeat, Dracula's powers were separated from him, and found newly born hosts. I was born as one such host, and my being here is more proof than anything else of the truth of Dracula's final death. Even if that energy of his can still be felt as a result of his demise." Hopefully, that will be enough to convince this woman to stop her attack before it begins. You aren't confident that you can defend or dodge against all that weaponry that floats above you, even with Mistral's protection. You don't really want to find out if their magical origin will allow them to bypass it either, and the Power of Destruction would only serve to exhaust you.

The weaponry hangs in the air and Shanoa stares directly into your eyes, the eye contact seems to last an eternity before she turns away from you and fades out of sight. The weapons still hang in the air for a moment before dispersing into thousands of red petals which similarly vanish. It seems that she believed you once again, and now that she's no longer preventing you from leaving and you are in possession of the knowledge of what secret this chapel holds, you can just freely leave and have Jeste agree to assist you!

As you turn back around to head towards the door leading to the outside once again, there's a loud smashing sound directly behind you. You quickly turn to see a large hand of solid stone smashing into the stone floor and leaving deep cracks in it. Either this woman is terribly inaccurate, or she's not trying to hit you. Another crash behind you and then to your sides quickly reveals just what it is the woman is trying to do.

You try to leap as the portion of the floor falls into a darkness below you, but your surprise causes you to instead tumble and only manage to grab on to the side of the newly formed pit, your hands being cut into by the sharp fractured stonework as you grasp onto the stone floor and try to pull yourself up. Only for the ghost to once again appear and look down at you. She opens her mouth to speak once more. "While I do not doubt that you are telling the truth, I must make sure that you are a suitable host of Dracula's power and will not fall to it like others have. I apologize for this." She brings her hand forward quickly and a burst of green magic flies towards you... to absolutely no effect other than to blow your hair about slightly. She looks confused by the lack of the magic having any effect on you before suddenly raising her other arm, causing a large ball of fire to appear in front of her.

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You have no choice but to plunge into the darkness or face incineration as she tosses the dangerous projectile towards you, watching the explosion of flame from below, it looks like you fell at least three stories down into this basement. You suppose you have Mistral to thank for not having any broken bones from the impact. As you get up, the room slowly becomes illuminated in a dim blue light coming from strange crystals embedded in the ceiling.

You almost stumble backwards in surprise as you get up upon seeing what secrets the room hides. Haphazardly scattered about the room are skulls. Dozens of them seemingly tossed about randomly. Judging by the state they are in, these skulls must have been down here for decades! Thankfully, you can see a closed door just ten meters or so away from you. So you won't have to linger in this room for too long.

Though as you take a step towards the door, one of the skulls begins to... shake? Out of caution, you draw your revolver. Then the other skulls begin to mimic the actions of the first skull, only for four monstrously long thin brown legs to sprout from the sides each skull.

Now you aren't surrounded by dozens of human skulls, but dozens of spiders which had taken the shape of a human skull. You aren't really sure if there's any sort of benefit of them doing this at all, as all seeing a skull would do is put any potential victims on edge anyway.

Annoyingly, despite their seemingly pointless tactic of hiding within or taking the form of human skulls, these horrible creatures are still in your way, and are encroaching upon you at a rapid pace.

>Spiders are spiders, skull or not. Just stomp the things to death.
>Draw your other pistol and use both of your guns to shoot at the spiders closest to you.
>Use the Power of Destruction. Wipe them all out.
>Avoid the spiders and simply head for the door to the next room.
>Write-in...

>>4288845
>Draw your other pistol and use both of your guns to shoot at the spiders closest to you.
Never let spiders anywhere near you unless you know they're harmless.

>>4288845
>Draw your other pistol and use both of your guns to shoot at the spiders closest to you.

>>4288845
>>Draw your other pistol and use both of your guns to shoot at the spiders closest to you.
Really starting to get irritating. Now ghosts are getting added to the shitlist. Good job Shanoa. Any future ghost waifus get to start in D-tier.

>>4288937
>Any future ghost waifus get to start in D-tier.
So Hilde and Alura will have some company then?

>>4288944
Alura is easily D+ at the very least. Solely because she didn't try to hide on the fucking ceiling. Though I'd put her at C-.

>>4288845
>Draw your other pistol and use both of your guns to shoot at the spiders closest to you.

When we eventually come back to make the power of Dominus ours, I wonder how Shanoa will feel about this encounter.

Well, it's certainly been a while since your other far less powerful pistol saw any legitimate use, and you don't imagine you'll be finding yourself against any mundane enemies like these spiders all too often, so you wordlessly draw it with your free hand, even while using the revolver to transform the spider creeping closest to you into a pile of white and red goo.

The next few minutes are more frustrating than exciting. While the spiders are completely unintelligent opponents, normally just trying to find the quickest path to reach you instead of just surrounding you and presenting you with a challenge that you wouldn't be able to overcome with just your pistols, there's still a great quantity of them in the room. Even though every shot of either of your gun manages to lethally wound them at least, you still find yourself resorting to having to kick a few of them that get too close to you, the wind explosion from the kicks tearing them apart.

Things only get more frustrating when the Beretta runs out of ammo, forcing you to simply drop it instead of bothering to reload the damn thing. Instead opting to use your now free hand to reload the revolver by spinning the cylinder.

Eventually, one of the spiders gets close enough to attempt to bite you, but they don't manage to pierce your skin with their fangs through the combination of the shield of wind protecting you and the outfit you were given by Alura. When you realize just how little a threat these creatures actually pose to you, it feels as if all the tension in the fight just vanishes. The only thing that you might have to watch out for being them managing to bite a part of you not protected by your suit, but even then, the wind shield might blunt their attack enough for them to not even be able to pierce your skin. You're sure that these creatures, being so otherwise harmless, would have some form of terrible venom on their fangs, but that is quite meaningless if they can't actually inflict it upon you.

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The spiders are slowly whittled down until there are only three of them left. You destroy the two furthest away from you with one magical bullet each, and the one closest to you you simply crush under your foot. The skull shaped body of the monster collapsing in on itself with a sickening squelching sound. As far as tests go, this wasn't exactly one you struggled with, but it's also not something you would like to repeat any time soon. While you weren't really in any danger from those enemies, who knows what might've happened if there was double their number? You doubt you would've been able to take the battle so lightly, even if they for all intents and purposes were completely unable to hurt you. Especially when you saw one of the begin scurrying up a wall with the same pace it could move across the ground. You'd rather not test out the limits of your protective abilities against enemies who are almost certainly venomous either, one misstep could lead to your death, after all.

The room now empty of the creatures and you stand alone amid dozens of spider corpses. If they weren't so annoyingly fast, you might've felt some form of catharsis from eliminating them all. As it is, you really only feel on edge. You make sure to reload the revolver with a spin before slotting it back in it's holster. You do the same for the Beretta when you find it on the floor amidst the bodies, though you don't know when it will come in useful again. It certainly helped you out against these fragile beasts.

Seeing no more reason to stick around in the previously spider infested room, you approach the door and open it. Stepping out into what seems to be some sort of half-hallway half-stairwell. Directly in front of you as you leave the spider infested room are double doors made of solid metal with a red image emblazoned on them. The image itself is strange, a bleeding eye wearing a crown and surrounded by bat wings. Underneath it is some form of banner, but you can't read whatever language the letters are. The language is like nothing you've ever seen before.

Disregarding the metal doors for a moment, you can also see a set of stairs leading downwards, and further into this strange dungeon, and a set of stairs leading upwards, to your safety. The only question that you face now is just what path you will take.

>Go through those metal doors. There's something about them that seems to call to you.
>Head up the stairs, there's no need to prolong this any more than you already have
>Head down the stairs, you're curious as to what other secrets this place holds.
>Write-in...

>>4289620
>Go through those metal doors. There's something about them that seems to call to you.
Call me a sucker for drama, if you want.

>>4289620
>Head down the stairs, you're curious as to what other secrets this place holds.

>>4289620
>Go through those metal doors. There's something about them that seems to call to you.

>>4289620
>Head down the stairs, you're curious as to what other secrets this place holds.

>>4289620
>>Go through those metal doors. There's something about them that seems to call to you.

>>4289620
>Head down the stairs, you're curious as to what other secrets this place holds
Ignore the boss door!

>>4289620
>>Head down the stairs, you're curious as to what other secrets this place holds.
It's not like the door's doing anywhere. Maybe we'll find a kickass hat down there.

>>4289860
Or a cape with magical powers.
Think about it; if we added like a little half-cape to our white suit, we could totally pull off the phantom thief look.

Now that I think about it, tying in with the phantom thief reference, once we start getting more showy powers maybe we should work in a general gambling/casino motif. Playing cards, dice, the whole shebang. We already have the suit and super luck, after all, and it'd definitely work for our pretty-boy looks.
Plus, it'd give us a clear stylistic divide from the 'old' dark lord look of Dracula that Alucard's decided to keep up in his true form.

>>4289856
>>4289860
I mean, I'm all for exploring this place. But honestly, with Shanoa floating around we might want to take the Glyph door sooner then later. I'd bet my money that's where Dominus is, and if I remember my OoE, the picture that was posted with the update is Agony which would be MASSIVELY beneficial if this place has anymore surprises.

>>4289977
I doubt she's finna let us take it regardless. Something tells me she wants it to stay in here where its safe. Last thing she wants is for us to take it, leave, get got by some big bad thing and now it has part of Dominus.

>>4289992
Still worth a try. If we succeed, we get Dominus. If we fail, we don't.

>>4289620
>Go through those metal doors. There's something about them that seems to call to you.
Shanoa isn't going to be happy.
Oh well.

>>4290000
I'm not saying don't do it. It's just pretty dumb to do a boss before clearing the area first. Might get stuck in a cutscene that locks off the area. Or there's something around that'll make the fight easier.

Looks like you're split between further exploration downwards and seeing what lies beyond the door.
We're tied.

>>4290238
Alright, I'll switch to going down the stairs. Maybe there *will* be something useful down there afterall.

It's probably smart not to go for the door that feels like it's calling for us anyways.
That might be where the fancy spell is and Shanoa would be pissed if we touched it.

As tempting as it is right now to find out what lies behind those large metal doors, you feel like whatever it is that you might uncover upon opening the doors can wait. There's no real rush right now anyway. If Anna gets cold or bored of waiting, she can always go and watch the circus without you, so you don't really need to worry about how she's doing up above either.

Then if Shanoa really intends for this to be some form of test or training, the most logical path for you to take would be to descend a level deeper into the heart of what can truly only be called a dungeon. So that's exactly what you do, heading towards the stairs going downwards, you let out a yawn. Hopefully the next challenge that this Shanoa has set up for isn't such a boring one. All her last challenge really did was confirm that you aren't actually all that afraid of spiders, even ones that look as unnerving as those skull shaped creatures and that you're surprisingly accurate with your revolver.

As you descend the stairs, you note how deep they are taking you. You descend what feels like it could easily be three or four levels in a normal building with nothing but the soft illumination of ancient candles that are impossibly still alight to guide you downwards. It's a wonder that you don't slip on the stairs, actually.

Eventually though, you reach the end of the winding stone staircase only to be greated by a solid stone wall, carved from some kind of blue rock. Was this a trick? A prank on whoever made this building's part to annoy visitors into descending a needless staircase? No, there's something about that wall that tells you that it's not actually just a cruel prank being played on you by that woman's ghost.

For a moment you consider trying to punch through the blue wall with the Power of Destruction before there's a muffled screeching sound of ancient gears being forced to turn after decades of inaction, and soon, the wall that you had just considered breaking your way through is hoisted upwards into a slot in the frame, allowing you to step through into the next room. You place a hand on your revolver as you walk into the dark room, prepared for the worst.

The room lights up slowly, lanterns hanging from the ceiling igniting one by one and revealing what lies before you. You are on a platform standing at least twenty meters above a drop onto the stonework below. There's a similar platform with a closed door on the opposite side of the room, about two hundred or so meters away. In between you and the door are hundreds of thin stone pillars or varying height and width. None of them appear large enough to fit both of your feet upon them comfortably though. Are you really expected to navigate your way across this? Isn't this a little bit unfair? Is worthiness for Dracula's power really something that can be measured in acrobatic ability?

Shanoa's voice speaks out as you look at the challenge that lays before you in annoyance, her presence making itself clear in the room somehow, to the point where you can feel it. "My apologies for the... spiders, that you were forced to fight after I caused you to fall." So she's apologizing for the things that tried to kill you but not the fact that she dropped you down here in the first place? Alright, fine. "They were originally supposed to only attack intruders with dark intentions, but I believe that the similarity of your energy to Dracula's own may have caused them to attack you regardless." For whatever reason, her voice seems to be a little kinder than it was before. When she, well, dropped you into that room full of skull spiders.

"How do you figure that I don't have dark intentions then? That those spiders of yours weren't just acting as you wished them to?" Of course, asking her this is a bit of a risk, but you really want to know just why she's so confident now. Before this she had not only tried to freeze you, but had also threatened to skewer you with those floating weapons.

"You didn't actively seek the power of Dominus for your own, nor did you retreat for your own safety." So even when you thought you were making your own decision, it was some form of subtle test on her part? Well, guess that explains what was behind those metal doors then. "Your next challenge is about achieving inner balance, as much as it is about maintaining your physical balance. I look forward to seeing your progress." The voice fades away, and as it does, you can no longer feel the presence that was watching you. You wonder if this ghost would be so happy to test you if they were truly aware of your goal to become the Dark Lord, probably not.

Shanoa's lack of information on the truth of your existence aside however, gaining her trust ought to be quite beneficial to you. Just from the magic she's cast so far, you can tell that she's incredibly skilled at magic. Maybe as skilled as Sophia, if not even more so. Regardless, you're going to have to find a way across this room. Without falling, preferably.

>Just try leaping from one pillar to the next as fast as you can, for as long as it takes you to finally succeed. With Mistral's second blessing, the fall shouldn't hurt anyway.
>Try to leap into the air and catch hold of one of the ropes suspending the lanterns from the ceiling. Then swing from one lantern to the next.
>Try to plot out the best course to jump and take each jump slowly. One at a time. Rushing things will just lead to you slipping and falling.
>Use the Power of Destruction to erase the space between you and the exit. There's no need and no time for you to bother actually playing by the rules.

And of course
>Write-in...
Is an option, I just forgot to add it in this case.

>>4290950
For a second I thought it'd be neat to use the PoD to dig our hands straight into the wall and create perfect hand slots to clamber across.

>Try to plot out the best course to jump and take each jump slowly. One at a time. Rushing things will just lead to you slipping and falling.
We should throw a couple of rocks at the pillars. See if they or the floor below does anything weird. I'm not quick to trust a foot+half sized pillar's structural integrity after who knows how many years of just sitting down here. Otherwise just visualize where you want to go and move with intent.

>>4290987
+1 when in doubt throw some rock at it

>>4290950
>Try to plot out the best course to jump and take each jump slowly. One at a time. Rushing things will just lead to you slipping and falling.

>>4290950
>Try to plot out the best course to jump and take each jump slowly. One at a time. Rushing things will just lead to you slipping and falling.
If we're meant to achieve 'inner balance', the answer seems pretty clear.

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>>4290950
Fucking platforming sections...
Supporting this:
>>4290987

>>4290950
>Try to plot out the best course to jump and take each jump slowly. One at a time. Rushing things will just lead to you slipping and falling.

We're literally jumping through hoops at this point.

The challenge ahead of you looks like it's going to be a real pain to accomplish, but for whatever reason, you decide it would be best to just get on with it rather than to try to cheat your way around it with the Power of Destruction or by leaping from lantern to lantern.

The problem however is that this place is at least a century old, and you don't quite trust these pillars of stone not to break under your weight upon being stepped on. With that in mind, it's obvious to you that the best way to complete this challenge you've been set won't just be to sprint across the pillars and hope for the best. Even if they were all totally stable and structurally sound, that's just asking to slip and fall.

No. Clearly the best path for you to take is to actually plot out a course before trying to leap across to the other side. Especially with how many pillars you'll have to jump across. Even if running across was a viable tactic, the distance of which you'd have to cross just isn't something you're happy with chancing. You slowly begin to plot out a path as you stare at the pillars currently visible to you. Looking for any discrepancies in their design that would lead you to believe in their lack of integrity.

Of course, there's almost a thousand of the pillars, so it's not exactly possible for you to look at all of them at once. Only a few of them are truly visible to you, after all. Regardless though, of the closest, you've seen enough to know which of them looks the safest for you to move to, so you put a single foot on one of the pillars. Unfortunately, this really does look like it's going to be a balancing act, because there isn't enough space on the pillar for you to fit both of your feet on it at once.

You don't allow this setback to get you down though, and instead keep on looking for the safest closest pillar, measuring the distance as well as the integrity of the pillar with a glance and then moving your other foot to the next pillar. For a moment you struggle to balance on a single foot on such a small surface, but you eventually manage it.

This process continues for what feels like hours, until eventually, you find yourself at the mid way point of the room. Thankfully, it's some sort of rest point at that. A larger pillar that you actually can comfortably stand on. In fact, it's so large that you could even lay on it, if you wanted. It's at this point that you feel a shuffling in your inner pocket, and soon enough Mistral flies out of your suit to look at just what it is that's going on. You're even more thankful for the rest point when you realize that it means that Mistral's flitting about won't be able to distract you when you're actually trying to balance your way across the field of pillars. You've already successfully navigated across almost a hundred of the damn things, and falling now would just make you want to give up entirely. "What are you doing, Arthur?" She looks completely confused at the text of acrobatic skill you've been challenged to.

"Trying to make my way to the other side of the room, obviously. Not all of us are blessed with power of flight, you know." As you answer her, she gives you what you can only think of as some sort of smug self satisfied grin, before shrugging.

"Well alright then. Do you mind if I watch you as you go across? I haven't actually had the opportunity to see you in action all too much, after all." She's actually being quite polite. Which you hadn't really expected of her. Unless she's already forgotten that you agreed to follow her orders for the day anyway.

"Well, maybe you would see more of me if you didn't just sleep all the time. But go ahead, I don't mind as long as you aren't planning on being a distraction." Honestly, the last thing you need right now is a fairy flying around.

"Hey! I am conserving my energy till I gain enough of a reserve so that I won't fall unconscious or worse if I try to do anything!" She pauses as she flies right up in your face." Which wouldn't be a problem if you knew how to actually use some of your surplus mana you have to do something about it!" Her response is kind of informative, actually. Surplus mana? You'll need to remember to ask somebody with a little more knowledge about magic about that. Maybe Jeste or Anna might know? Shanoa almost certainly knows, but you aren't certain if asking her is a good idea.

"Well, I could look for a method as to how I could go about doing that, if it would make you happier and more active. I feel like you miss out on a lot due to these bouts of sleepiness you suffer from too. I would really prefer if you would remain awake for as long as I do, honestly." Mistral smiles in response to your words before flying out of sight and leaving you to concentrate on the task at hand.

As soon as you place your foot on the next pillar after stepping off the rest point, something strange begins to happen. The room seems to slowly being to turn. You rub your eyes to try to make sense of things, but instead it feels like you're standing at a ninety degree angle. You can barely hold yourself back from flinching and stumbling off the pillar.

"Wow. That's quite an interesting illusion." Mistral muses in the background, apparently unaware to your own confusion to the shifting of the room. For a moment, you resent the fairy for her own ability to fly. But it quickly turns into less resenting Mistral for her ability to fly, and more wanting the ability to fly yourself. Again, something to ask one of your more magically inclined allies about when you get the chance. Hopefully the others are doing alright. You haven't really given them much thought since you had more pressing matters, but you do feel some concern about how Effi, Holly and Coller will get on alone. Grigori and Sophia however should be able to function perfectly fine by themselves. You're somewhat hoping that Sophia is capable of tracking down everyone from where she teleported them. You aren't all too keen on the idea of stumbling around looking for your missing allies when for all you know they could be spread out across the entire continent.

You almost trip again as you are distracted by your inner thoughts and confused by the strange whirling of the room. You've mostly managed to get used to the spinning of the room though. The rotation is only on a single axis and it remains at a constant steady pace. All it is now is just an additional annoyance for you to work around as you make your way to the end of the room, making sure not to step on any unsteady pillars.

After what feels like another hour, you finally make it to the other side of the room. Immediately collapsing upon the stone platform in exhaustion. Your legs scream in overexertion, yet you managed to get across. You simply lay there for a minute to recover, only for Mistral to appear hovering overhead. "That was pretty impressive, actually. I kept thinking I was going to have to give you a boost up if you started to fall, but you managed it!" She's actually clapping for you. You aren't sure whether to appreciate the gesture or be annoyed at the sylph who simply watched you struggle through that challenge. You instead decide to ignore the gesture, and get up.

Your head finally starts to clear and the room ceases it's endless spinning, finally letting you actually properly gain your bearings. You can't really tell what's wrong, but your vision feels odd even after the room stops spinning. Better, somehow. Whereas before, Mistral's wings were always a blur of motion whenever she used them, now you actually somewhat possess the ability to see them in motion. It's a strange sensation, but it feels almost like you can see better after completing that chore of a task.

After your legs recover from their extreme fatigue, you allow yourself to get up and start to walk towards the next door. Hopefully you don't have to do more tests of acrobatic skill, otherwise you really would just remove the space between yourself and the exit with the Power of Destruction.

As you go to open the door, you quickly realize that it's almost impossible to budge. Eventually, you are forced to place both hands on the heavy door and force it open with all of your strength. You're glad you didn't have to reveal the Power of Destruction for such a mundane obstacle, best to keep it under wraps for now, you would think.

Finally, you step inside the room. A circular chamber with a single stone sarcophagus at the far end. A beautifully carved statue of a man in clothing that seems like something Sophia would pick out stands at the base of the statue, his expression one of serene tranquility despite the firearm placed in his open hands. Other than the statue and the sarcophagus, there's not really a lot to go off in this room. There doesn't even seem to be an exit other than through the way you came in. Is that it then? Have you truly reached the end of this test Shanoa wanted to make you take? It's not exactly much of a test of spirit or whatever she planned for you to take if the extent of it was an overly difficult and unfair obstacle course.

>Call out to Shanoa, ask her to explain what this room is.
>Take the gun from the statue.
>Try to open the sarcophagus.
>Try to push the sarcophagus aside.
>Simply wait to see if anything happens.
>Write-in...

>>4292546
>Simply wait to see if anything happens.

>>4292546
>>Simply wait to see if anything happens.
And make sure to look up. You know, just in case. And down. We will not abide by fuckery of the stonework.

>>4292546
>>Take the gun from the statue.
Honestly, might as well. If a trap happens, it happens.

>>4292546
>Simply wait to see if anything happens.
First, I don't want another gun, second, I'd really rather not do anything to spoil the good impression we've been making on Shanoa so far. Let's wait this thing out 'til our ghostly guide shows up.

>>4292585
>>4292614
>>4292667
I don't think there are any traps, the sheet says we have a skill that lets us notice them.
Also, if that gun is the gun I think it is. It's an upgrade and we should grab it.

>>4292719
We all know what gun it's supposed to be, but an upgrade to our lamest weapon is still something I'd like to avoid. The sooner our hand-to-hand combat is more useful than our magic revolver, the happier I'll be.

>>4292729
I mean, I doubt that gun would be considered our lamest weapon and we have a couple perks that enhance our ranged ability.
Ignoring a direct upgrade just because you don't like guns is kind of dumb.

>>4292546
>Take the gun from the statue.

>>4292719
Oh, I didn't even notice the Character Sheet got updated.
Still, shouldn't we ask Shanoa before taking anything?
I'm also concerned about Mistral saying something that would make Shanoa concerned and ruining the impression we've been making.

>>4292733
So is robbing the grave of a colleague of the woman to whom we're supposed to be proving our moral worthiness right now. It doesn't matter whether there are no traps, stealing from Albus' tomb isn't going to help convince Shanoa that we're her idea of a good person.
It all comes down to your priorities. The way I see it, if we start taking gun upgrades, we're going to end up stuck on the gun path because anons tend to take the "most optimal solution" (read, easy way out) as much as possible. I'd like to get off of the pistol train, personally.

>>4292740
>>4292741
I mean, if you guys want to ask Shanoa before taking it then that's fine. I'm good with the gun path, revolver has been MVP.
Though I find it amusing that we're trying so hard to convince Shanoa that we're a good person now that we know she can kill us when before it was "screw playing along with the voice."

>>4292741
She did lead us here though, and it appears to be the only thing obvious enough for a 'good guy' to take.

>>4292757
I'm just going along with it to see how much loot we can obtain.
We've already gained a new trait from this encounter, and we know the location of Dominus, I'd say this excursion is already pretty good.
Getting to know the layout in the case that we return here would be useful, but Alucard and friends may already be on their way here, so they'd probably meet ghosty Shanoa and confiscate Dominus first, so if we could get it now that would be wonderful.
Who knows, there may also be something that can help grow Alura down here.

Well, might as well change it..
>>4292546
>>4292585
>Call out to Shanoa, ask her to explain what this room is.
>If she's okay with it, then take the gun from the statue.

>>4292772
I'm willing to support this. Changing from >>4292662

>>4292757
My curiosity outweighs my disdain for disembodied voices.

>>4292546
>Try to push the sarcophagus aside
"Lmao let's try looting a tomb during the day we're supposed to die."
Yeah no, let's just move on.

>>4292546
>>4292772
Supporting this

This room is quite an odd one, there's no test or challenge visible, and the only things of any note are the statue and the sarcophagus. If there's meant to be something for you to do in this room, you aren't certain of what it is, and you're hesitant to just start rummaging around in this room when it's quite obviously meant to be some form of tomb. Why would Shanoa lead you here?

"Shanoa. If you're watching me right now, would you care to explain what exactly this room is? I was under the impression that you wanted to ensure I wouldn't fall to Dracula's dark power or something." There's nothing to do but ask for the woman herself to get involved here. Otherwise you're just going to stumble around in this tomb and potentially cause some form of disrespect.

A few seconds after you call out to her, the woman's ghost appears with her back to you, staring at the statue of the man. Despite her sudden appearance, she remains silent, and doesn't actually give any indication that she heard your request at all. She just stands there, looking at the statue sadly. You tap your foot in order to get her attention, and she actually jumps slightly, apparently having forgotten your presence entirely.

She still doesn't turn to face you, but she does speak. "This room is... It's the tomb of my brother, Albus. He took the three glyphs that make up Dominus for himself, for the purpose of researching a method to destroy Dracula without a sacrifice needing to be made." She recalls these past events sadly. "He was corrupted by the power despite having only the intention to destroy Dracula, in the end, Dominus took his sanity from him, and forced me to... put a stop to his madness."

"Sacrifice? What sort of sacrifice?" You don't really like the sound of that."

"Dominus. The full power of Dominus was never meant to be wielded by humans, and to call upon it would tear the user's soul to shreds. Removing it from existence altogether" She mutters sadly.

This doesn't make any sense, why would they try to use Dominus to destroy Dracula? Didn't she tell you it was intended to bring Dracula back to life? "What exactly does Dominus... do?" You feel like the more informed you are the more chance you'll have of actually understanding what you should do about Dominus.

"I suppose I owe you something of an explanation after making you go through that challenge. Dominus is a powerful weapon, it was created by my master, Barlowe, as a weapon to defeat Dracula. At least, that's what he told everyone else at Ecclesia. While Dominus was indeed a powerful weapon, so much so that even split into three, each piece holds tremendous power, that wasn't it's true function. In truth, by using all three pieces of Dominus together, you could resurrect Dracula, more powerful than ever before." Interesting, it seems that this Dominus she's talking about is quite a bit more powerful than you had first assumed, if it can be used as a weapon. "However. The full power of Dominus also had another use. If it was called upon as a weapon instead, it would immediately end the life of everyone the user could see, without question, even if it were to be used against Dracula himself."

That sounds horrifyingly powerful! Even with the Power of Destruction at your side, even you never considered an ability that powerful to exist. Even if it does cost the user's own soul to use it, the ability to instantly kill absolutely anything is completely unreasonable, you can only hope you never find yourself facing somebody with it's power, though there are a few ways for you to ensure you won't have to ever face such a thing. "So, Dominus is both corrupting and kills it's user? I can understand the wish for a weapon to destroy Dracula, but would it not have been wiser for this Dominus to have been destroyed?"

Shanoa shakes her head. "No. Dominus cannot be destroyed. The only power that would be strong enough to destroy any of the three glyphs would be the three gylphs combined. Simply put, there was no method Ecclesia had to allow them to destroy Dominus." You imagine the Power of Destruction would allow you to accomplish such a thing, but you don't want to reveal that to this woman just yet, especially when claiming the power of Dominus for your own feels quite tempting in and of itself.

"I see. There is another question I wish to ask of you though." Shanoa finally turns to face you, having had her share of staring at the sarcophagus. "That gun being held by the statue. What exactly is it?" You don't exactly know why, but the weapon seems to call out to you. Despite it's totally antique design, something about it just has a strange feeling of power to it."

She breaths in. "That... is Agartha. My brother's weapon. He was a genius with glyphs, and that gun represents one of his greatest accomplishments in using them. I could tell you what glyphs it makes use of, but I don't imagine you'd understand them by name alone, and I doubt you want a lecture on their purpose." She confirms your suspicions. It is some form of magical weapon after all! "But I know what your next question is, and I'm afraid the answer is no."

"Why?" You should've predicted this the moment she mentioned that it belonged to her brother. Nobody would want to part with one of the few things they have to remember a relative with in order to give it to somebody who is almost a complete stranger.

"Albus... he became more and more paranoid as time went on... for good reason, admittedly. He ensured that his weapon was only possible to be used by himself through some means of magic even I was unable to figure out. Even if I were to give it to you. You would only be able to use it for it's most basic function, and not use the magic of the glyphs stored within it." She explains the problem with the weapon. "I won't stop you from taking it by force, if that is what you truly wish to do, maybe you might have more luck unlocking it than I did, but I wouldn't recommend it. Albus might have been the greatest user of glyphs Ecclesia ever produced. But as for this room, it only serves as a reminder that even the strongest among us can fall to the power of darkness. That's all."

>Take the weapon regardless. It will be an upgrade over the Beretta, in any case.
>Don't take the weapon. It just feels disrespectful, and who knows what Albus did to that gun.
>Attack Shanoa while her guard is down. Ghost or not, the Power of Destruction shouldn't fail you.
>Write-in...

Note to self: in the future don't make it so a term that is going to be repeated often is put solely in red formatting.

>>4293794
>Don't take the weapon. It just feels disrespectful, and who knows what Albus did to that gun.

>>4293794
>>Take the weapon regardless. It will be an upgrade over the Beretta, in any case.

>>4293794
>Don't take the weapon. It just feels disrespectful, and who knows what Albus did to that gun.

>>4293800
>>4293810
Wouldn't it be even more disrespectful to leave it here for the circus demons to take and desecrate?

>>4293815
They can't get in.

>>4293820
They can't get in right now, but the reason we came here is because they wanted us to find out the cause of the barrier and turn it off so they could come and rampage around the place.
I'd rather Agartha and Dominus be with us, then anyone else before that happens.

>>4293794
>>Don't take the weapon. It just feels disrespectful, and who knows what Albus did to that gun.
Not like we can use it. And using the PoD to try to destroy the "restrictions" on it sounds like it'd end up making it explode or something unfortunate like that. Besides his most useful ability was the teleporting and I don't think that was tied to his gun.

>>4293831
That's just not true. Jester asked us to go in and find out what was in there, not to disable the barrier.

>>4293851
>Jester asked us to go in and find out what was in there, not to disable the barrier.
Do you just skim the posts or something? Seriously.

>>4285870
>"But if you can find whatever it is that is maintaining the defenses and disable it, I would be especially grateful."
>"The satisfaction of knowing that whoever tried so hard to keep the unholy from trespassing on their domain's efforts were all for naught, and that whatever it is they wished to hide away in this place is exposed to those who they most despised!"
>"When you've lived as long as I have, there's not really much that can truly make you feel anything at all. Triumphing over those who loathe me and my kind holds something of a special place in my heart."

>>4293832
We don't need PoD to do it. We could ask Hilde or if we absolutely have to, get a favor from Chaos.

>>4293831
Those barriers will probably only be removed when Shanoa dies.

>>4293851
She did say she would appreciate it if we did though.

I kinda want to sneak attack her right now, our full abilities will be put on display the further we go with these tests and the more likely our purpose is to be revealed.
She isn't likely to look upon our goals kindly.

>>4293866
Huh. Guess I'm more spaced out after work than I thought, I totally forgot about that.
Anyway, it's not like we're going to exorcise Shanoa, and that's probably the only way to undo the blessings, so it's a moot point. She's just going to have to not be "especially grateful".

>>4293877
We're most likely going to need to kill her since she won't let us go if she learns more about us.
I doubt there won't be a trial about 'pure intentions' or something like that if we keep going.

>>4293866
I'm just gonna say it Sophia is shit at magic. She ain't a wizard. She just does things and stuff happens. She probably knows about as much about the basics of proper spellcraft as we do. Grigori would be a better person to ask since despite having a natural affinity for magic he is a proper mage.

>>4293877
Depends. She said her goal was to protect Dominus. If we take Dominus, she has no reason to protect this place anymore.
Meaning the barriers will probably drop. That's why I'm saying, let's take Agartha, let's take Dominus. It's better then letting them have either, they can have the skull spider room.
I'd also like to see if Eccelsia's library still exists, and take the books there.

>>4293794
>Take the weapon regardless. It will be an upgrade over the Beretta, in any case.
Well, we do have ways to figure out how to use it.

Calling and writing in 15 minutes.

>>4293894
We do need the gun to perform research on it though.
The PoD also seems to be pretty surgical, it doesn't erase our body even though we're the originator, so if we could find the specific restriction removing it shouldn't destroy it, unless there's a failsafe we don't remove.
But even without it we can have Grigori or Sophia, or even Anna look at it, hell, maybe Drac could have something to say about it.
And it's been a bit since we've gotten ourselves a useful weapon.

>>4294328
It's also honestly better then leaving it here and letting it possibly fall into someone else's hands.

>>4294335
Yeah, I have almost no doubt that Alucard and the Dorin organization will be heading this way asap.
We really do need to get ourselves better equipment immediately.

>>4293794
>Take the weapon regardless. It will be an upgrade over the Beretta, in any case.

And now we are tied.

>>4294361
Tied the vote 1 minute before the cutoff. That's brutal.

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564 KB GIF

>>4294368
Now I suppose we wait for the tiebreaker.

>>4293794
I'll be the tiebreaker.
>Take the weapon regardless. It will be an upgrade over the Beretta, in any case.
For its own safety. Can't let it fall into the wrong hands indeed

>>4294421
Anon we are the wrong hands. We've got two left hands. Not a right hand in sight.

>>4294427
It just needs to fall into the right wrong hands, then it'll be ok.

>>4294427
We're like the least wrong hands it could fall into.

>>4294405
Can we mention to Shanoa we're only taking it because we don't want it to fall into the hands of like the Demon Circus or something.

>>4294438
>I'm working with these guys
>but I don't want to help them get stuff
It doesn't exactly sound genuine. Better to leave it vague if anything.

>>4294471
She did witness us using guns, us wanting a better magical one shouldn't be surprising.

>>4294471
They said we could take whatever we want out of what we found.

You aren't about to pass up on the opportunity to claim a magical weapon for your own. Even if it's true power might be sealed, you're sure that you'll be able to find some use for the thing. You move forwards towards the statue, moving past Shanoa's ghost as you do and eventually stopping before the statue of Albus before picking the weapon up, it really does look like an antique. Strangely though this weapon, Agartha doesn't have the weight you would expect of it, nor does it actually have any way for it to be loaded!

You look at the weapon in bewilderment as you try to figure out the specifics of how it works. "I could only ever figure out the glyph keeping it's most basic function locked, so it's capable of firing bullets fairly rapidly without the need of reloading. In a way it's like that magical weapon you carry, except it has no need to manually reload like that pistol. Though Albus himself was capable of doing far more than just that with it, locked within that weapon hides nearly a complete record of every offensive glyph Ecclesia ever researched before it's... dissolution when Barlowe's treachery against mankind was finally exposed." Shanoa explains the weapon to you somewhat before you quickly realize that you don't actually have anywhere to store the gun. It didn't come with a convenient holster and despite being some form of pistol, the damn thing is pretty large.

Shanoa watched you with a strangely amused look on her face as you struggle to find a place to actually holster the weapon, before a leather belt with a holster attached appears in her hand. She quickly passes the belt over to you. "Thank you. But why are you so willing to part with one of the few things you have to remember your brother by?" Honestly, that's the thing that makes the least sense of all of this. It should be something deeply precious to her, even if she has long since died herself. You detach the holster from the belt and instead hook it onto your current belt. Stashing the other belt into one of your pockets.

"I... I don't intend to stay within the halls of Ecclesia much longer, and without me, eventually somebody would come across Albus' tomb, so I would rather it be passed on to somebody who I have had the opportunity to test myself." She explains her motives to you. You feel like asking her how old she is, before realizing that it would be terribly rude to ask for a woman's age. Even if that woman is a ghost and appears no older than twenty or so.

"Speaking of this test of mine, are we done? I thought you would want to test me for longer than you actually did. I don't see how forcing me to jump from pillar to pillar is really any judge of my character." It was more of an exercise in the limits of your patience than it was anything else.

"You would be surprised. During your challenge, you had the ability to cheat and use whatever supernatural powers you possessed to aid you in that test, yet instead, you simply observed and slowly took the correct course of action. You did not choose to rashly run through the obstacles, nor did you attempt to use the lanterns to swing across." Sounds sort of flimsy, if you were going to be honest. "Furthermore, when you reached Albus' tomb, you were as respectful as could be expected, asking me for guidance instead of simply blindly charging through a place of remembrance in an attempt to complete a challenge that was not there." So you really are done then? This really wasn't much of a test of character, but you don't mind too much. If that's how Shanoa is going to judge your character, far be it from you to correct her. At least you didn't have to enter a cave and fight some hallucination of your father or something equally trite.

"So, I can leave then? Are you truly satisfied that I've proven myself a viable host of Dracula's dark powers? As long as your next test doesn't involve any needlessly long ladder climbs up, you'll be fine, you think.

"There's... one more test, actually. Though if you wish to leave now, I shall not stop you." There's a hint of caution in Shanoa's voice, and some concern for you as well.

"I'm not about to back away now, Shanoa. I'll prove to you that I am worthy of this power without a doubt." For some reason, you answer almost without thinking.

"Very well then, Arthur." You... don't recall giving Shanoa your name. Though she may have have simply overheard Anna speak it when you were. "Don't move." At Shanoa's word, a ring of glyphs appears underneath your feet. the symbols and incomprehensible letters glowing brighter and brighter until the light completely blinds you.

The light finally clears and you find yourself in the room above the pillars you had just jumped across, though the metal doors with the red image upon them have now opened, revealing a long dark corridor before you. So, this must be final test Shanoa spoke of. It has something to do with Dominus of that, you're sure.

>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.
>Go upwards to leave Ecclesia instead. Pursuing Dominus is foolish, given what you know of it.
>Write-in...

>>4294599
>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.

>>4294599
>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.

>>4294599
>>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.

>>4294599
>>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.
She did literally open the door for us.

Oh, and about Shanoa knowing our name, shouldn't Arthur have thought about Mistral rather than Anna?

>>4294760
Don't blame Arthur for forgetting about her. She's just a gust in the wind after all.

>>4294599
>Go through the open metal doors into the dark corridor.

>At least you didn't have to enter a cave and fight some hallucination of your father or something equally trite.
What's this a reference to?
>As long as your next test doesn't involve any needlessly long ladder climbs up, you'll be fine, you think.
Going from some reference I don't get to MGS3? Wow, Arthur sure has good taste in kino.

>>4295174
>What's this a reference to?
Empire Strikes Back.

Well, Shanoa has opened the doors for you, and it would be rude to refuse this last test after agreeing to it so readily before. Regardless of Shanoa's intentions, this is the perfect opportunity to behold Dominus yourself, and decide what to do about the mysterious glyph yourself. While you certainly won't be using it to tear your own soul asunder or to bring Dracula back from his eternal grave, the way Shanoa spoke of it implied that there were other functions to it, and not just ones with rather fatal repercussions.

You step through the doors and into the darkness ahead, holding your breath slightly as you do. You are quite anxious about this, after all. Especially as there's no telling what Shanoa might do if you do try to claim Dominus for your own use. That woman is quite the mystery after all, though it's possible that her decades in isolation have caused her to lose quite a bit of what sanity she had whilst she was alive. She is quite literally opening the way for you, a Dark Lord Candidate, to take the thing she is apparently supposed to be protecting.

As you walk through the dark corridors, candles light themselves in a blue flame as you pass them, only providing minimal illumination despite the ghostly blue flame that burns upon them that allows you only to see the huge golden suits of armor that stand guard in alcoves set between each candle. Each is easily twice your height, and it's quite obvious that no man could possibly have need of such a large suit of armor. The corridor is long, and for every candle that is lit, you find your heart beating faster and faster, constantly on edge for something to leap out of the darkness ahead to attack you.

But no attack comes, and eventually you find yourself at the end of the corridor, with another set of doors ahead of you. These doors share the same symbol as the doors you passed through originally, the crowned bleeding eye. You try to relax as you push the double doors open, beholding a large cylindrical chamber, lit by a huge image on the ceiling emanating intense light, those same golden suits of armor from the corridor are positioned all around the circular walls, with another row of them standing in front of them kneeling down with their swords supporting them, whoever positioned these suits of armor either had way too much time on their hands, or they weren't positioned by a third party at all...

Disregarding the army of huge golden knights, you instead look to the centre of the room, to the red glyph floating just above a circular plinth of marble and gold. True to the symbols on the door, the glyph itself is composed of a winged eye with a crown. It's almost unnerving how the eye itself seems to be watching you. You aren't sure whether it's some sort of trick of perspective or if it actually really is looking at you. This must be Dominus. There's no question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4UMtHHohjk

You approach the glyph despite the general sense of foreboding that it gives off, and stop when you're just a meter away. Close enough to reach out and grab it. You stand there in silence for a long while as you think on just what you should do about the powerful weapon ahead of you.

Shanoa herself is nowhere to be seen despite how important that this room must be to her, and offers no guidance or explanation of the room. Though that doesn't mean that you get to remain entirely in silence, as Mistral begins fluttering about and looking at the golden knights, despite having remained almost completely silent up till now. "Say, Arthur. What do you think these suits of armor are for? This Shanoa woman must really have liked gold, I think." Of course, your theory that Shanoa might have overheard Anna outside the church when she knew your name was probably incorrect after all. Mistral can't help herself from saying your name any time she addresses you. Still, it is quite rude to not ask for somebody to introduce themselves first and to just call them by their first name, you think.

"I don't know, Mistral. I'm trying to think, so could you remain silent for just a moment? I'll buy you something nice later." It feels like Dominus itself is calling out to you, and the last thing you need to have is Mistral fluttering about to distract you.

"Oh fine. But it better be something I like!" She shouts at you before dissipating into the wind. Despite the tension in your body that merely looking upon Dominus is giving you, you can't help but smile slightly. It's not like Mistral is fussy about anything at all. Honestly, you could probably buy her something most people would disregard as trash and she'd be fascinated by it.

You shake your head to rid yourself of the thoughts of Mistral, and instead refocus on Dominus. It's been a good five minutes now, and the room is almost completely silent. There's still no sign of Shanoa or of any movement at all, actually. Just you and Dominus. Now is the time then, it seems, as you

>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.
>Take a step forwards and use the Power of Destruction to rid the world of Dominus.
>Turn around and take your leave. You don't need the Power of Dominus.
>Write-in...

>>4295217
>Turn 360 degrees and walk away.

>>4295217
>>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.
If she's going to let us have it, then let's have it.

>>4295217
>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.
I'm not looking forward to fighting all these final guards, but I'm not about to pass up an opportunity like this either.

>>4295217
>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.
Ours now

>>4295265
I can't wait for Dracula's shadow in our soul to start laughing.

>>4295217
>Take a step forwards and use the Power of Destruction to rid the world of Dominus.
I have a feeling that we're gonna have a bit of an identity crisis if we take Dominus into ourselves.

>>4295273
We'll have to pay close attention when he does, and see if we can learn his laugh teleport.

>>4295217
>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.

>>4295217
>Take a step forwards to claim Dominus for yourself.

You take a step forward as you reach out towards the glyph floating before you, your hand involuntarily trembles as you reach towards Dominus the anticipation of claiming it having managed to cause your entire body to shake. Somehow, this just feels like it's the right thing to do. Like claiming a piece of yourself that has been stolen away.

Finally, you allow yourself to be held back no more, thrusting your hand forwards and grasping at the hovering glyph. For a moment, you are surprised when your hand passes through the image almost without any resistance. Just as you are about to let out a noise of confusion however, the glyph begins to meld with your skin. The pain of the magical ability bonding with you is worse than anything you've ever experienced before. The red glyph vanishes completely as it disappears within your hand, though you can feel the pain as it snakes it's way down your arm and towards your back.

Upon reaching your back, the pain only increases further, as it seems to spread out, carving into your back as it does. You fall to a knee as the pain becomes simply too much for you to bear with, and you reach a hand to your back to feel the wet sensation of dripping blood creeping across your skin. Even the outfit that Alura made for you having been reduced into ribbons of bloody fabric.

Your agony doesn't stop there, however, as the newly formed cuts upon your back then burn with the intensity of a raging inferno. You can smell the horrifying sensation of your own flesh cooking as you fall to the floor, unable even to support yourself at all through the tremendous pain.

All you can do is grit your teeth and wait for the pain assaulting the very core of your being to finally dissipate. You were completely unprepared for just how much pain that claiming Dominus would bring you, and now you are suffering for it. The world fades out of your vision a few times as everything goes blurry, but you don't allow yourself to fade into unconsciousness.

Finally, after what feels like hours of pure agony, though in reality you doubt it was more than ten minutes, the pain begins to fade. The world begins to take proper shape again around you, and you struggle to your feet. You can feel that your back is actually bare, whatever Dominus did upon binding itself to you having actually burned away the fabric of the suit and the shirt underneath. Craning your head to actually look at the result of claiming Dominus, you can see the scars on your back in the exact same form as that of the glyph that you claimed. Though these are clearly no ordinary scars, as each line is charcoal black, and feels indelibly bonded to you. In this moment you know that Dominus will be with you until the moment of your death, and that nothing could possibly remove it from you.

You gasp for air as you hold on to the side of the plinth to support yourself. Then, you surprise yourself even, as you swing your arms out and begin to laugh as loudly as you can. The power of Dominus that flows through you despite currently remaining inactive feels... good. You feel so much more powerful. That worm Alucard will die by your hand!

You clutch your head in pain and soon regain your sense and cease your bout of maniacal laughter to allow yourself to focus on the chamber once again. You highly doubt that Shanoa is going to have appreciated your taking of the glyph. Even if she did wish for you to take it for whatever reason, suddenly bursting out into what could only really be described as a fit of evil laughter wouldn't exactly inspire much confidence.

Despite you having taken Dominus though, there's no indication from anything in the room that anything is wrong at all. The giant suits of armor remain in place, frozen as they were when you entered the room. Though that all changes at the very moment you set a foot off of the elevated part of the room the plinth of Dominus was resting upon. As in perfect synchronization, every single one of the hundreds of giant suits of golden armor suddenly stand tall, their heads all craning towards you. Yeah. You figured something like this was going to happen.

>Call upon Dominus Agony to help you escape, even with your newfound power, fighting so many enemies is suicidal
>Use the Power of Destruction to help you flee. Despite your confidence in your skill, you aren't about to face so many enemies if you don't have to.
>Call upon both Dominus Agony and the Power of Destruction at once. Destroy all that oppose you.
>Attempt to escape the guardian suits of armor without using either of your dark powers.
>Write-in...

>>4295479
>Attempt to escape the guardian suits of armor without using either of your dark powers.

>>4295479
>Attempt to escape the guardian suits of armor without using either of your dark powers.

>>4295479
>>Attempt to escape the guardian suits of armor without using either of your dark powers.

>>4295479
Actually, you know what. I'm going to switch >>4295502 to
>>Call upon Dominus Agony to help you escape, even with your newfound power, fighting so many enemies is suicidal
I just noticed that there are HUNDREDS of Final Guards.

>>4295479
>>Attempt to escape the guardian suits of armor without using either of your dark powers.
The first thing you do when you get a new thing isn't to use it haphazardly. Gotta acclimate and experiment in small doses. Besides, how fast could giants suits of armor be? We're gonna die, woo.

>>4295479
>Call upon both Dominus Agony and the Power of Destruction at once. Destroy all that oppose you.

>>4295479
>Call upon Dominus Agony to help you escape, even with your newfound power, fighting so many enemies is suicidal
Discretion is the better part of valor, and all that. Time to ramp up our speed and get out of here.
Then again, I wonder where the other pieces of Dominus are. If they're kept in Ecclesia, running away now will mean leaving them for Jester (assuming Shanoa really is going to be fading away soon.) I can't imagine they'd be anywhere else, though.

>>4295538
We are still being tested you know.
If we failed the test by taking Dominus, then Shanoa would probably have killed us while we were incapacitated.

>>4295561
Doesn't matter if we die. I'd rather survive to find out we failed the last bit, then die and find out.

>>4295578
Armors are pretty slow right?
We should be able to outrun them, to the hallway at least.

>>4295561
I think the real test is whether or not we use it right away. To see how it affects Arthur. I'm personally not keen on using it immediately after we had a fit of megalomania.

>>4295561
I'm not sure if I see just exactly how your point ties into my comment. Are you suggesting that if we keep passing the tests we're liable to get access to the other two pieces of [r]Dominus[/r], that to use it now would fail the test and invite Shanoa's wrath, both, or neither?

>>4295610
Unless the other two pieces are separated from this one for some reason, they should all be here.
And if Shanoa's claim about not being around much longer holds true, then she must intend for us to do something about [r]Dominus[/r].
Given that she doesn't know we hold the Power of Destruction, she shouldn't have assumed we held the capability to destroy it, so she probably wants us to take them.
The armors awoke after we took Agony, so she probably intends for us to get rid of them, but I don't want to immediately use it to destroy them though, since Arthur just lost his marbles a bit when thinking about destroying Alucard, he could easily lose himself at the moment.
Actually, could that be the test? Use Dominus without losing yourself to the power?
But as a footnote, couldn't we easily accidentally kill ourselves using it in conjunction with the PoD?

>>4295638
>Actually, could that be the test? Use Dominus without losing yourself to the power?
That's a more likely test then "Don't use it and die to 100 Final Guards."
Let's at least survive this.

>>4295479
>Call upon Dominus Agony to help you escape, even with your newfound power, fighting so many enemies is suicidal
Let's not get too ahead of ourselves.
Final Guards are overpowered.

>>4295479
>Call upon Dominus Agony to help you escape, even with your newfound power, fighting so many enemies is suicidal
Yeah no we aren't equipped physically or sanity-wise to take on A WHOLE ROOM OF NOTHING BUT HUNDREDS OF FINAL GUARDS

>>4295675
Really depends on the type of final guard. But seeing as a bigass shield wasn't mentioned and they're only twice Arthur's height these may be the symphony version. Which are the best. Ecclesia shouldn't even have final guards like this though. This is cheating.