Chapter 344 – The princess was in this castle

Chapter 344 – The princess was in this castle

“Are you sure you want to do this, Lydia?” John asked as the Princess appeared from the other side of the hall. Previously boring concrete, lit by the bright artificial light of magical electronics, it was now slowly unwinding from all the dimensional bending it had been made subject too.

Lydia forced herself into the room on obviously shaky feet. Her usually so impeccable uniform was ripped all over, and she was cuffed with some sort of plastic straps, probably enchanted heavily. Swaying steps, barely upheld by the wall, she came closer. John hastened towards her, together with Undine as the rest of the group kept look-out for Ivan, who was trying to grasp the thin wire around his neck that was Lydia’s hair.

Opening her mouth to answer, the princess only managed to formulate a dry cough. Judging by her lips, usually wonderfully red and flawless now parched and covered in dead skin, she hadn’t been given drink since she had been abducted. John broke off the tip of one of the earthen spikes Gnome used to attack and formed a crude bowl using Craft for Undine to fill with fresh water.

With military discipline, Lydia washed the stuff down her throat that probably burned from the sudden influx of much needed fluid. Nevertheless, she succeeded. “Another,” she commanded in a hoarse voice. After exhaling with relief following the third bowl, she finally handed it back. She had deep bags under her eyes.

John should have been at least a bit surprised that she managed to free herself, but he would have been more surprised if she hadn’t made at least one semi-successful attempt at breaking out. They had a more pressing concern, however, in Lydia’s father still trying to grasp the increasing number of strands of his daughter’s hair wrapping around his throat like garrotte wire. “Au-augu...” he tried to formulate words.

Lydia just gave him one smiting glance, and the hairs pulled even tighter. “I am more sure about this than anything else,” she announced and moments later extended a hand towards Aclysia in a gesturing request to undo her bindings and hand her a weapon. “Let’s make this as quick as possible; he is a walking corpse in the first place.”

“Augusta...” the miserable pleading choke of the cowardly man was filled more with fear for himself than concern. Even with this terrible display of uselessness, John couldn’t help but feel that this judgement was rather hastened.

However, he also knew Lydia, and this man’s life was forfeit no matter how this ended up. He was miserable, a traitor to both sides and his daughter and would just rot in a cell. Maybe it would have been a mercy for him to die quickly, but John couldn’t just let Aclysia hand over a weapon in good conscience.

He was going to be the judge on this one, despite knowing that he was horribly biased and unfit for this position; he was the best Ivan would get. Not defending a man that had surrendered and who was unable to defend himself would have been against his morality. “What did he do?” John wanted the whole story.

Lydia stared at him for a solid six seconds, eyes of steel grey, before answering. “Five years after my grandfather picked me up, I went to my mother’s grave on the day of her death. I hadn’t seen my father in months, I was worried, and then I saw this thing,” the strings cut even deeper into the quivering man’s neck, his face slowly turned purple, “sitting on top of her open casket and holding the one thing she wanted to be buried with. The key to the Vault of Teuton.”

Taking a deep breath, John closed his eyes. This was exactly what he had feared. “And the daughter who couldn’t bear to see such a thing,” he filled in the gaps audibly, “asked her father why. The answers were for people she despised, for reasons that she hated. She should have stopped her father right there, but the last bit of her feelings held her back, and she let him go, letting him know that he died to the world that day.”

“And the naïve girl fused with her elemental, becoming another person,” Lydia ended the story as she took the halberd from Metra, who was the first to step forth after Aclysia cut off the plastic. “Swearing to make this the last lie she would tell her people.”

“Ly-“ Ivan tried to choke out a few last words.

“I am no longer Lydia Goch, I am Lydia Augusta the Fourth from House Hohenzollern,” Lydia declared; “The one who makes the decision shall be the one to carry the burden.” The pointy end of the halberd was rammed forward and straight into the eye socket, fulfilling the princess’ promise.

A moment later, she pulled back and then looked down at the corpse, falling over with a loud rattle. “I should feel bad about this,” she stated, “but I have dreaded this moment for so long, have had it play out in my head over and over again that I now just feel... oddly relieved.”

John wasn’t quite sure if that was healthy. Killing one’s parents shouldn’t feel exactly good, but then again, this was hardly a normal situation. Had the guy deserved it? Undoubtedly, desecrating your own wife’s grave to pick up the one item she wanted buried with her was pretty unforgivable. Especially if one then handed it to a cult of bloody revolutionaries who would try to nuke a city with the artefacts one supplied them.

He kept this filed under the dirty things that needed to be done and just pulled Lydia into a close embrace. “It’s good to have you back,” he just told her. At that moment, Nariko and Rave finally showed up as well.

“Huh, ya already got everything done around here,” Rave said and looked at the two corpses. “Anything I need to know?”

Grinding her teeth at her daughter succinctly pointing that she didn’t really want her here, Nariko fell back into a brooding silence. Well, they would obviously never truly get along, but at least they weren’t stabbing each other with word daggers anymore.

John wondered when conversations like this after coming from a life or death battle had just become normal. Well, for Rave they always had been. Seemed like this was another one of those things where he just got caught up in her hype. He also didn’t even bother to ask who Ellen was; he would either find out some random day or never.

“Can you put on some clothes by the way?” John asked the berserker babe.

“Do I have to?” Metra returned; “I much prefer being naked, unless I am in danger. You have no idea how much I missed having erogenous zones. Lit AF... is that a thing people say nowadays? I am going by what little knowledge I can get out of our connection.

“It’s less have to, but I would like it if you did,” the Gamer admitted. He wasn’t all that comfortable with exhibiting someone in his group to the public COMPLETELY naked. Eliza had pushed that about as far as he wanted.

“Fine,” suddenly plates shot out of her body one by one, covering her entirely in dark grey armour. It looked the kind that you would put a villain in, with red decorations all around, the helmet and shoulders having short spikes at the edges shaped directly out of the plates themselves and generally just looking pretty darn evil while also having a kind of futuristic look due to its heavily segmented nature.

The helmet folded into itself and down into the neckline of the armour. “These are the only clothes I have, unlike modern artificial spirits I can’t eat to get new ones.” Well, where they were going, a plate armour was more than fitting.

“By the way, you included yourself in that list of weirdos, Jane? Cause otherwise it won’t be complete,” John poked fun at her now that he had that line of talk done with. He would get to know Metra better another time. So far he only knew that she had good anger management.

“Oh, HA HA, Brainiac,” Rave shot back in a playfully offended manner. Then the banter began as they hastened back to the surface.

_________________________________________________________________

“There you are!” Maximillian and about twenty knights had formed a defensive ring around the entrance underneath the shadow of the iron giant. It must have run out of power by now, as its core had burned out. Both Ria and Magoi where in the middle of that formation. “Good to see you again, Lydia; how nice of you to let yourself be rescued like a proper princess. First time you behaved like one.”

“Shut up, Max,” Lydia declared; “I haven’t eaten in three days, and your sass is something you can choke on yourself!”

“Can – you – youngsters – shut – UP!” Magoi growled; he had lost almost all of his mask, his top hat had a bullet hole, and he was generally covered in dust from explosions, just like the rest of the group. Behind that broken mask, John saw an old man who was really straining to keep whatever he was doing going. “I can barely keep them from breaking in all at once!”

“What do you mean? I got rid of Gehnigm,” John declared.

“Well, that is superb and all, but did you also get rid of the other two High Fateweavers running about on the enemy side?” Magoi wanted to know. “If the answer is no, I know exactly what is going on out there, and it’s them trying to break in, and all I can do is reduce it to short bursts!”

John’s eyes went wide. So even after he got rid of the biggest cause for concern, the exact situation he had feared to happen came about anyhow? Karmic balance was achieved again: the world had given him an easy out, and now it fucked him over again.

But he was a crafty man, and he would find a solution for this. For a start, he grabbed into his inventory and pulled out the mask. “Would this help?” he asked Magoi who immediately grabbed it and put it on.

“Very much, yes,” the new Supreme Fateweaver spoke.