Breaking Providence Ch. 54 (Original) (Patreon)

A/N: He's ALIVE~

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With a sharp inhalation of breath, Marcus awakens. His eyes snap open and he finds himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, laid out on an unfamiliar bed beneath unfamiliar blankets. Immediately, the half-orc sits up, pulling the blankets down and staring at his bared chest. There, in the center, where the broadhead had pierced into his heart, is a large scar… but nothing else. He breathes in and then out, and everything appears to be in working order.

Running fingers across the scar, Marcus can’t help but marvel at it. It’s the first sign of injury that’s stuck around since he Awakened. Even now, he can remember how it felt to have his heart pumping blood out of the wound. His mouth filling with the copper tang as he’d forced what he’d thought would be his final words out. And yet… here he was.

“If you’re quite done fondling yourself…”

Marcus stiffens as an unfamiliar voice rings out in the room. His eyes widen, before narrowing as he seeks out the voice’s owner. He hadn’t detected anyone around him when he’d first woken up. And with his enhanced senses, that shouldn’t have been possible. Now that he’s looking for them though, he finds her in quick enough order. Sitting in a corner of the room that’s darker than the rest of it, a pair of glowing purple eyes stares back at him. And yet, Marcus doesn’t hear even the faintest sound of breathing coming from over there.

His jaw clenches, and his hands curl into fists.

“Baroness Bloodstone then? Or should I call you General Camilla.”

“Either is fine. Please, stand up and move around. I wish to know if your heart feels like it might still burst in your chest from too much physical activity.”

Marcus’ eyes widen at that, and he looks down at his chest again for a moment before grimacing. Throwing back the blankets entirely, he moves his legs to the side of the bed and stands up gingerly. He feels fine, but he’s still rather cautious as he twists this way and that, putting himself through a few simple stretches. He’s incredibly aware of his heart during those stretches, but it doesn’t FEEL like it’s about to burst or anything like that. Still, how is someone supposed to know one way or the other?

In the end, as the silence drags on and Marcus feels compelled to fill it, he finally looks back at that pair of glowing purple eyes, frowning.

“… I think I’m fine. I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

Finally, the Baroness stands and steps out of the shadows. Marcus takes her in, finding there to be a lot to… well, take in. For one, her hair is white and short, and her skin is ashen grey. For two, her ears are pointed, like an elf’s. Though… not as long as the ears Elsenthia’s mother had been sporting? She certainly has a beautiful figure, clad in a blood-red dress that exposes her shoulders and arms as she prowls towards him.

And what she does can definitely be considered prowling. Marcus is reminded of what the man who’d tried to kill him had said. He’s also reminded of what Sepia had said. Baroness Bloodstone was a Vampire. General Camilla wasn’t altogether sane. A dangerous combination to owe his life to, Marcus supposed.

“Mm. No. Not entirely.”

What? Marcus blinks at the Baroness’ blunt honesty, even as she stops a few feet away, seemingly examining him.

“Your pet Priestess did most of the healing. If not for her work, you wouldn’t have made it to me in time. Even with her help, you shouldn’t have made it to me, honestly.”

Something of his reaction to that must have shown on his face, because Camilla smirks a smirk that doesn’t reach her eyes as she waves a hand in the direction of his chest.

“The bolt’s broadhead was cursed, you see. It was designed to pin down a Vampire, after all. Your pet’s healing magics should not have been enough to overcome that curse. It would seem you found someone quite special among the Church’s usual riffraff.”

Thinking of what he knows of Angelina and all they’ve been through together, Marcus can’t help but smile softly.

“Yeah… Angelina’s pretty unique.”

Of course, then he stiffens, his jaw clenching as he looks Camilla in the eye.

“What of her and my other party members? Where are they?”

“Relax. They’re in the guest wing, enjoying my nicer accommodations for guests. You shouldn’t fret. Things could be much worse for them… they could be in the dungeons, with the accomplices of the hunter who tried to kill you.”

Marcus’ jaw clenches even harder, his teeth grinding together as he thinks of that man. In truth, the Vampire Hunter hadn’t seemed like a bad sort. Marcus liked to think he’d developed something of a sense for things like this. Especially after his experiences with men like Lord Graham and Commander Williams. This time around, he hadn’t even got the foreign man’s name. But… he didn’t seem like an evil man. Only… driven. And perhaps a little too callous, left jaded by his grim and gruesome work.

That said, Marcus still sags in relief at the mention of the man’s accomplices being in Camilla’s dungeons. He doesn’t know them, and can’t possibly pass judgment on each and every one of them, but at the same time… he knew what they were going to do. And that was enough.

“I’m glad you were able to capture them. They… did they hurt anyone before they were caught?”

Here, Camilla surprises him. She smirks again, but this time there’s actually a note of… something akin to ‘pleased’ to it. Humming, the gray-skinned Baroness turns to the door and snaps her fingers.

“Come.”

With little other choice in the matter, Marcus follows her out of the room and down the hall. They’re in her Castle, obviously. After waiting for a meeting with the Baroness, it seemed Marcus had finally gotten what he wanted, albeit not in the best circumstances. His party were elsewhere in the Castle, split up from him, and Marcus couldn’t say for sure that they were safe… nor that he himself was safe in Camilla’s company.

For now, all he could do was stay on his toes.

“I appreciate your attempt at warning one of my Knights of the hunters’ plans. You need not fret… what you feared most did not come to pass.”

That was a relief. Though, the mention of her Knight does bring another question to Marcus’ mind.

“And your Knight… was he okay? The Hunter tried something in the end. Something designed to debilitate one of your kind, I think. It didn’t seem to work… but even still…”

At this, Camilla glances back at him over her shoulder, a single sculpted brow raised in what Marcus recognizes is amusement. They turn a corner, only for Marcus to nearly stumble as he finds himself in a hallway lined with two sets of three of those exact same suits of armor. The Baroness snaps her fingers, and all six of the Knights suddenly turn and face them. When she snaps her fingers a second time, their visors open up of their own accord.

It takes Marcus a moment to register what he’s seeing under those helms. That is… nothing at all. There’s nothing in the armor. No head, and, he’s beginning to realize, no body either.

“… I see.”

Snapping her fingers again, Camilla puts the animated suits of armor back against the wall and then continues on her way, with Marcus following after her.

“Indeed. Once again, your compassion is admirable. But no, my Knights are not Vampires. I am the only Vampire in this Castle… indeed, I am the only Vampire in the entirety of the Holy Empire.”

Marcus’ eyes widen at that confession. He’s a little surprised, but the next confession she drops in his lap is even more surprising by far.

“Truth be told, your warning, while appreciated, was as unnecessary as your bloodshed. I knew of the Vampire Hunters from the moment they stepped foot within my borders. The Order might think that they are clever, and to be fair, some of the techniques they’ve devised to hide from my kind are even passable. However, they are a few centuries too late to conceal themselves from me.”

They arrive at a pair of large, heavy-looking double doors. Before Marcus can offer his strength, Camilla reaches out and pushes them open with seeming ease. Marcus can only watch with forever widened eyes as the large, thick doors slam into their respective walls, giving away just how strong she’d have to be to move them with such ease.

Of course, he doesn’t have long to worry about that, since he’s suddenly more worried about what lies beyond them. He’d thought… or perhaps foolishly hoped, that Camilla was taking him to his party. But instead, the ashen-skinned woman has brought him to a laboratory.

“You see, there was never any danger to my people, not from the hunters. I had them well in hand. In the end, the only blood spilt was yours… and theirs. No others were injured in their capture.”

He doesn’t know what to make of most of the strange contraptions he sees around himself. Instead, Marcus chooses to focus on what she just said. And, well… call it his brush with death, or call it his innate nature, but he just can’t be bothered with subtlety.

“Your people. What are they to you, exactly? Are they just a resource to be used up? Sacks of blood, to be consumed as the Hunter tried to claim?”

Because Marcus really didn’t know. The man he’d spoken to, before shooting him in the fucking chest, had seemed quite sure of his beliefs. He hadn’t been lying to Marcus, and he hadn’t held a single shred of doubt regarding the things he’d said. But at the same time, Marcus hadn’t caught even a whiff of the horrors that the Hunter had tried to claim were happening while he’d been in Thornswood. Yet to be fair… Marcus had also spent most of that time in his room, with Beth being the closest thing to a local he'd had by his side.

Maybe the fact that she was a recent immigrant meant that she hadn’t been brought before the Baroness yet or something, who could say? Marcus didn’t know… and he had to know.

“Of course not. What would be the point? What would I gain by using up their lives so frivolously? They are exactly what they are… my people. I shepherd them. I guide them. I let them live their lives. They pay tribute to me as their Baroness, but not in blood. There’s no need for it… after all, people like the hunters always wind up serving themselves up to me on a silver platter all the same.”

Here, Camilla turns to him directly. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye she’s standing before him… almost looming over him despite Marcus being taller than her.

“Their flesh will serve my experiments quite well, in fact.”

Marcus freezes in place. For the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s back on the streets of the Capital, just a poor little orphan facing down bullies in the form of his fellows and the city guard alike. He can’t even move as Camilla smiles at him thinly, her eyes darting down to his scarred chest. In that instant, the Baroness exudes more menace than Marcus had thought possible. Enough that he finds himself stiff with terror of all things.

“Your own flesh is certainly interesting. I was most impressed with how long you lasted with one of their cursed quarrels buried in your heart. But then… I suppose it makes sense, given your status as the Destined Hero.”

He has to… move! His mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. His fingers twitch, but are far from forming a proper fist. He tries to will his body to take a single step, but beyond some tremors in his muscles, nothing happens.

“You know who I am, of course. Baroness Bloodstone. The Dark General Camilla. And yet… still you came to me. Still you came to Thornswood all alone. A single Priestess by your side, rather than the armies of the Church that you could have called upon. You, the Destined Hero, have put yourself in my power. Foolish. Very foolish.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! He needed to fucking MOVE, damn it! He refused to die scared, he refused to go down without a fight!

Finally, Marcus lets out a roar, breaking whatever mystical hold the Baroness had on him. As he tears free of the fear Camilla has instilled in him, his hands rush up, aiming for the Dark General’s neck. In an instant however, she’s no longer there, disappearing in a flash before chuckling from behind him.

Except, when Marcus spins around again, it’s as though he’s looking at a different person. Appearance-wise, Camilla looks the same as she did before. However, that aura of menace and evil that she exuded… it’s vanished in an instant, replaced by a macabre smile and her purple eyes dancing with delight.

“Of course, Little Ro told me all about your strange predicament. And so did Volupa’s daughter. Dark Lord AND Destined Hero at the same time. How… intriguing…”

The way she positively purrs out that last word sends a shiver down Marcus’ spine. However, even when he tries to speak up, he finds he can’t get in a word edgewise, as Camilla lifts one hand and does the Dark Identification Sign… before lifting up the other and doing the Light Identification Sign. Having already seen Sepia do the same thing, that part isn’t that surprising.

What’s surprising is when she brings the Identification Signs together, Light and Dark mixing in her hands and then forming a pair of… of spectacles that she places upon her face, resting them on the bridge of her nose where they affix themselves as she stares through them, studying him closely. Humming and hawing, the Dark General Camilla slowly circles around him, even as her magical goggles whir and click, spinning through configuration after configuration.

“Interesting… very interesting…”

Following her with his gaze, eyes wide as saucers, Marcus finally finds his voice, finally manages to get a word in edgewise.

“You… what are you doing? HOW are you doing that? The Light and Dark Signs… you just… what did you just do?!”

Straightening up for a moment, Camilla scoffs and then grins at him, baring impressively long fangs in the process.

“Light? Dark? I’ve been alive longer than those terms have been around, Marcus.”

A shiver runs up Marcus’ spine. Longer than those terms had been around?! The Vampire Hunter had called Camilla immortal, but Marcus didn’t think he’d understood. Just… just how old was the ashen-skinned woman standing in front of him?

“As for how I was able to combine the two signs… simple, really. They were always meant to be combined. That’s knowledge that’s been lost by both sides over the years, however. For them, the Identification Signs are exactly what they sound like. Ways for them to check what Job someone has, to keep an eye on things. But that… that is their basest usage.”

And here, Camilla smirks slightly, looking down her nose at him.

“I should know. I invented them.”

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A/N: The next few chapters are going to be a whole lot of big reveals. So look forward to that! Hopefully I've set everything up so the pay off feels earned and legitimate. Since this is my first ever original novel, be doubly sure to let me know if you think I fucked that up somewhere along the way.

As always, I hope you all enjoyed and definitely let me know what you think!