#【Castles that were so High they Touched the Horizons】Setting Aesthetic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whitecrownsblackthrones-archived · 2 years ago

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The New Camellian Palace, but with an assfuck more detail you did not need:

The Camellian Royal Palace

The Camellian Royal Palace is the new residence of the Royal Li Family after abandoning the old castle for a better position. The new palace was built on a slightly inclining hill, making the land at the back of the palace grounds higher then the land at the front.

Consisting of two main palaces, referred as the Front & Back Palace, that are connected via two much smaller palaces(Called the Tiny Twin Palaces) to make it technically a single building, & an overwhelmingly massive garden.

Despite being a palace, it is styled somewhat in the fashion of old castles, such as having towers fashioned in the architecture of Front Palace, a large wall being built around the palace grounds & it’s gardens(also with guard towers built in), & the use of a drawbridge to be allowed entry & exit of the palace grounds.

The defensive wall of the palace grounds is armed with canons that peek out from gunports & windows, & have round-the-clock guards patrolling the area, as well as a few guards that sleep, eat & live in the towers built into the wall.

Front Palace

Front palace is more for royal affairs & official business, hosting balls & galas, & where guests would be housed; there are parts of front palace that also go underground(2 floor levels worth) & it has the most floor levels of all the palaces.

Front Palace also contains the throne room/ballroom, the banquet hall & dining room, the kitchen & the royal library; as well as varies guest rooms for visitors & other miscellaneous rooms.

The Throne Room & the Ballroom in Front Palace is the same room, stationed to be the first room one enters when coming through the front doors of this palace. Used as both a meeting chamber & party hall, it has two large thrones at the very back of the room, for the reigning monarch & their spouse, elevated slightly by a platform of 5 steps. Chairs are also stationed around the hall & are often moved around in correspondence to what the hall is being used for at the time: when the hall is being used as a party hall, the chairs will be moved towards the walls to make room for dancers & musicians, when the hall is being used for a meeting chamber, the chairs a moved closer to the throne & organized neatly for the attending members. Members attending a meeting will be expected to sit in accordance of rank, with the highest ranking person being allowed to sit the closest to the royal thrones.

The banquet hall is a separate room to the throne room/ballroom, but is directly adjacent to it, separated only by a large set of doors. These doors are typically locked when the banquet hall is not in use for/not ready to serve yet in a active ball to keep guests out/coming in too early. The hall itself is nearly equal in size to the throne room/ballroom, & has a table that can seat up to 45 guests. In the event there are not enough seats for the attending guests, additional tables & seats may be brought in & placed in the ballroom to accommodate guests. Right next to the banquet hall is the kitchen, where guests can observe top skilled royal chiefs cooking courses through a glass window that allows those in the banquet hall to watch. Next to the kitchen, & across from the banquet hall is a much smaller dining room, used for the everyday meals of the royal family. This dining room may also be used to for guests of the royal palace so long as there is a seat available.

The Royal Library is stationed in the second of the underground floors of the palace, allowing for the most quiet atmosphere, prefect for a library; there are few windows in the library because of this. The library takes up the bulk of this underground floor & is tended too by many loyal librarians.

Guest rooms in the palace were typically limited to one or two rooms, sometimes three or four for important or very high rankings guests(like a king or queen). The typical guest room was a boudoir with a connected bathroom, somethings with an additional lounging room or drawing room next door.

Every member of the royal family is given the following rooms in Front Palace:

1 Business Office

1 Study Room

1 Tea Parlor

2 Drawing Rooms

2 Reading Rooms

3 Personal Lounging Rooms

Back Palace

Back Palace is smaller then Front Palace(but large then the Tiny Twin Palaces, with fewer floor levels, & is where the royal family themselves live. It a more private area where only select guests & servants are allowed in.

Ladies-in-Waiting/Gentlemen-in-Waiting & a royal family member's personal company of bodyguards & knights are some of the few people outside of the royal family that are allowed direct entry into this palace.

Typically, the only staff allowed to have a room to live within in Back Palace are Ladies' Maids & Personal Butlers, & they may be made to share a room depending on how many of them there are. All other staff(such as cleaning or waiting staff) live in one of the Tiny Twin Palaces, & must be hand-picked by a member of the royal family to be given entry(the only expectation to this rule are the Head Maid & Head Butler).

Like in the old castle, the royal family still maintains having multiple rooms in their name, that are referred to as ‘apartments’, that they are free to decorate & do with as they please; the amount of which is based on rank of the family member. Though being smaller then the old castle, & smaller then & with fewer floors then Front Palace, the numbers are cut back hugely from the old days & are as follows:

King/Queen - 10 apartments

Crown Prince/Crown Princess - 7 apartments

Prince/Princess - 5 apartments

Tiny Twin Palaces

The two smaller side palaces are mostly used for staff & storage, with both having a single underground level.

Servants of the royal family(maids, gardeners, chiefs, etc...) live in this section of the palace, safe for ladies' maids or personal butlers, who are given a room next to their master's quarters in Back Palace.

Typically, servants living here will share a room with a number of their co-workers(usually with females only share with females & males only sharing with males, though this is not always the case). Though, servants of exceptional service many be given a room of their own.

This is also where varies supplies for the staff & their duties are kept, such as cleaning supplies, gardening supplies, extra silverware, extra furniture, extra staff uniforms & many other things.

Underground Tunnels

There are huge tunnels that go deep under the grounds of the palace & it’s gardens.

This is both used as a measure for the royal family to traverse the palace ground in secret & safety, or even allow them to escape the grounds in secret in the case of a emergency.

These particular exit tunnels is very long & will take the royal family in one of two directions based on which tunnel they take, either to the border of the state of Xu Yong, or close to the sea & the border of the state of Ying-ling.

Staff of the royal palace will also use these underground tunnels to move about the palace grounds faster during large balls or other gatherings that make walking the halls difficult, or if they need to go a long distance(etc: going from the East Gardens to the West Gardens).

(Camellian Royal Palace & Royal Gardens)

The White Camellia Gardens

The Royal Gardens are also called The White Camellia Gardens, both in refence to the kingdom name itself, the kingdom's namesake flower & the majority abundance of white camellia flowers that are grown here.

The gardens are mostly sectioned off into 4 parts, the East Garden, the West Garden, the Front Garden & the Courtyard. The East Garden & West Garden are sectioned off from the palace by fences, & used for different proposes.

East Garden

The East Garden is where flowers, tress & other flora are mostly grown. Of course, there are flowers & trees everywhere in every garden, but this is where the bulk of them are.

There are 3 large greenhouses here, used to grown unique flora or flora that requires certain conditions grow, one of the greenhouses was gifted exclusively to the late Queen, Rosa, which has returned to open use of the staff after her death.

The storehouse that hold the palace's food reserves is also safely tucked into the corner of this garden, which is food harvested from the peasants was collected & stored. In the cases of famine, or other situations that could cause food shortages, the propose for this storehouse is to deliver these reserves with the citizens of Camellia.

West Garden

The West Garden lack the most greenery & flora, as it is used as training grounds, usually either for the royal family, their personal knights, or the knights which guard the palace.

There is a separate building here used as the barracks for the royal knights & guards; which is the only building to have three underground floors.

The royal stables are also in this part of the gardens. Near the royal stables is a smaller, secondary exit to the palace, used only by the royal family & is near a private riding trail the royal family enjoys use of.

Front Garden

The Front Garden are just that: the gardens at the very front of the palace grounds, & are the first things visitors see when entering from the drawbridge.

These are the most lavish gardens, with well trimmed flora, hedge walls, columns & statues for architecture décor, as well as water fountains, the main attraction being the large ornate fountain at the center of the gardens; this fountain is usually filled with camellia flowers to produce a pleasant floral aroma that is favored by the ground's creator, King John.

If one of the royal family was to host an outdoor social gathering, this is where it would be. Tables & chairs would be brought out to accommodated the guests & a stage brought out for musicians to play on.

Courtyard

The Courtyard is the space between the 4 palaces, & is the private garden space of the royal family. They have the freedom to decorate this space as they please.

Only gardeners hand-selected by the royal family are allowed to tend to this garden.

#[Lore; Aesthetic; and Ideas] Musings #『A Royal Degree』Headcanons #【Castles that were so High they Touched the Horizons】Setting Aesthetic #read more for length

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happymetalgirl · 6 years ago

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Periphery - Periphery IV: Hail Stan

Periphery is one of those bands that I think draws way more polarized opinions than they need to. When it comes to them, it's either the big djentheads who appreciate what they do or the rest of the metal world that just can't get past Spencer Sotelo's vocal style. While it did take me a while to get used to, I eventually came around to Spencer's vocals around their second album.

Even though I am now on the fan side of the Periphery dichotomy, I have actually never been much of a fan of their beloved self-titled debut; I've always found to be kind of an overdrawn prototype for what was to come. I gave it a listen not too long ago before this album dropped and it again confirmed my position on it. I did of course find their sophomore effort to be a lot more polished and for the better.

It was with the Clear EP, though, and the subsequent, long-awaited Juggernaut double release though that I really found myself drawn to Periphery, and largely for Spencer's incredible melodies. The band were starting to really find the dynamic between anthemic choruses and crushing djenty heaviness that allowed both of those facets of their sound to compliment each other exquisitely. Songs like "Parade of Ashes", "Pale Aura", and "Feed the Ground" brought the best out of Spencer's slightly scratchy high range through anthemic melodies and set up the rest of the band for the best of the heaviness they had to offer.

The band really set the gold standard for themselves in a lot of ways with Juggernaut though, refining everything that made their sound already great at its best and raising it to a new best. There's djent at its most powerful on songs like "MK Ultra" and "Hell Below", which is absolutely filthy, slow 8-string deliciousness, and the absolutely ripping breakdown of "The Bad Thing" still fucking gets me every time I hear it (and I've heard it a lot). Spencer's highs at the climax of "The Scourge" and his entire performance on the also invigorating melodies of "22 Faces" are absolutely phenomenal as well, and the risky melodic direction of "Alpha" paid off stupendously. Needless to say, I really liked Juggernaut, and while 2016's Periphery III: Select Difficulty wasn't a complete letdown, it definitely missed that divine spark and seemingly the long grooming process that the Juggernaut albums did. It had its moments, but it's still just so overshadowed by the band's magnum opus.

So now a little further down the road from that towering monument of theirs, the band are back with their fourth self-titled album, which is another respectably ambitious effort that seeks to build its own monstrous djent castle on bigger compositions and darker themes. At 63 minutes, Periphery: Hail Stan is quite a beast of its own. Sonically, much of this album feels like a combination of the grandiosity and untethered heaviness of Juggernaut and the rawness and stylistic tendencies of the band's debut LP, and the mixture is, to a degree, predictably mixed.

As much as I love big, ambitious prog metal epics, and I love the idea of kicking an album off with one, the nearly 17-minute, string-backed "Reptile" that starts the album feels so unusually meandering and unnecessarily dragged out for Periphery, and despite the few shining moments in the track, it seems more like the band just wanted to make their longest song than anything else. So while it's not a particularly great start to the album, it certainly comes with enough highlights to not sink it immediately, and it does get better from there. The determinedly deathy, djenty, and eventually anthemic lead single "Blood Eagle" that follows the somewhat misdirected epic finds the band channeling their Juggernaut form into a much more focused and perfected piece than the preceding track, and it very much confirms where the band's strengths still mainly lie. The eerily relevant "CHVRCH BVRNER" subsequently carries the heavy momentum further by upping the speed and even the black metal intensity. Still, the band manage to impressively work in a sweet and fitting melodic vocal hook seamlessly, a testament to their progression as a group and proficiency with their common elements.

The album's second single, "Garden in the Bones", breaks the "kvlt" vibe with brighter, less aggressive instrumentation, hearkening to more ethereal prog metal anthems like "Heavy Heart" and "Priestess" from Juggernaut. I'm surprised the band used it as a single because it's not one of their most impressive contrasts to their heavy style on the album. An electro synth line then opens the following song "It's Only Smiles" much like that of "Alpha", but unlike "Alpha", Spencer's reverting to the debut LP's pop punk melodic tendencies on this song are not effectively balanced and given the vigor they had on the Juggernaut classic. It's not the worst example of the style, but it is the kind of song the band's and Spencer's detractors can point to to feel justified in calling Periphery weak (which is bullshit even just looking at this song in the context of melodic hardcore).

"Follow Your Ghost" follows with more indulgent heaviness but not really much in the way of tasty riffs, unique grooves, or infectious vocal melodies. It's clearly meant to simply juxtapose the lighter atmosphere of the previous track, which it does wel enough at an aesthetic level, but it's a little bit of an autopilot track. The electro beat that starts the next song, "Crush", ushers in an electronically supplemented, bass-y rocker that outshines much of what Underoath and Bring Me the Horizon were attempting on their recent albums. Its a bit long and I wish the climax was a little more climactic, but its consistent infectious bass and the swagger the band are able to pull off with it make up for it.

The following song, "Sentient Glow", is a reworking of a song from a previous side project of Misha Mansoor's and Mark Holcomb's, and it does feel a bit like an outside track that's just been Peripherized. Spencer's ethereal high melody at the song's explosive ending is a nice touch, but I still wouldn't say it alone justifies the song's inclusion.

The album finishes with the angelic and euphorically anthemic "Satellites", which is a bit of a new prog, melodic metalcore power ballad that ascends from atmospheric clean guitar echoes and soft singing into a crescendo of emotive, ambiance-supplemented djent with some of Spencer's most impassioned and impressive high singing atop it, and it makes for a fittingly grand and well-executed conclusion to a similarly massive and ambitious album.

Even where the band so stumble on Hail Stan, they are so tuned in to what they do well when they revert to their evolved form that they more than make up for it. And that's not to say all their musical ventures flop, they do pull off quite a few surprising hits on songs that don't fall within their usual modes of operation. And when they're on their tried-and-true shit the band don't slip up much, showing their focus and full capabilities with their style. It's still not quite up to the level of long-toiled mastery that Juggernaut was, but I definitely want to heap more praise than criticism on this album because so many bands have tried (or half-assed) the kind of reconciling of dense production, orchestration with an older, heavier sound and it usually falls flat on its face, while Periphery have managed to to stay themselves and still channel the best version of themselves even through less familiar means. Unlike the many bands who neuter, malform, or erase their signature essence through forays into bombastic projects like this, Periphery's most vibrant form shined through and kept the background from taking over the album, which is certainly a much more accomplished follow-up to their masterpiece than their previous album was.

Juggernaut: Beta/10

#periphery #hail stan #periphery iv #progressive metal #djent #metal #new music #heavy metal #new album #album review

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the-roanoke-society · 6 years ago

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So uh....I know this might not be the easiest but how about that trip to hell via the gate??

i’m guessing you’re talking about nova and seraphim’s first mission!

step right up–this one’s a bit of a doozy. and decidedly lacking in the aesthetics i had in mind when i first started it and morphed into something wildly different… hopefully the disappointment is more of a dull ache and less of a shooting pain. 

there are also depictions of body trauma and other violence below the cut. proceed with caution.

“lillith gave me a briefing on the way down here but uhm–run it by me one more time.”

seraphim grinned, slipping on her forearm guard. she began, reaching up to adjust the goggles over nova’s eyes, “this particular part of the underworld is, to us, gate point seveny-nine point three. it’s not a part of our hell, per se, but it’s–look, it’s close, hit me up on a day off and i’ll explain the finer theological points. our job today!” seraphim pivoted on a heel, grabbing her bottle of body armor and swallowing the last of it with a backwards tilt of her head, “is to go free the prince. name’s kreuger. not a bad–uhh. well he’s not as bad as who’s overthrown him.”

nova swallowed, shifting. the armor was heavier than she anticipated, but lighter, all at once. not something she’d worn before on any previous run. it was a blood-rust red, matte finished, and was more streamlined than bulky. she figured it was because they’d have to be stealthy. move quickly. move unseen. the only thing heavier were the pistols that hung on their hips,fueled by a cell pack that gave off a faint green glow. 

she also remembered drake and wyvern positively beaming the day before over the tech that currently cloaked their frames. “the place you’re headed’s not exactly human-friendly. think the mojave with a little more punch and a lot more poison. this–” wyvern tapped on the outer shell. “–will protect your skin, help regulate your temperatures so you don’t get overheated.”

“and this,” drake took the liberty of lifting a mask to his face, “will help you breathe. we’ve got goggles to match for eye safety ‘cause gettin’ ocular degeneration over a period of ten minutes once you get back is a mega bummer.”

“don’t you mean macular?”

“nah, this shit’s a lot worse, we gave it a new name.”

“oh.”

but seraphim’s gentle touch on her elbow brought her back. “it’s okay to still be nervous. from what i’ve heard, every time feels like the first time for the few couple of months that you’re jumping. but you’re with me, and lillith wouldn’t send me in with a rookie if she didn’t think you could handle it, which means i already think you’re a badass. we just have to work together, okay?”

nova smiled at the other agent’s earnest expression. she couldn’t help it.  

this was an adventure that she’d been wishing for, for a long time.

“let’s go take ass and kick names. �� wait.”

“close enough!” seraphim laughed as they walked towards the gate, glowing a faint blue around the outer rings. someone had put down stage tape at their mark. it clashed with the long, red rug that rolled out beneath the gate to the doorway.  

“final safety check, equipment secure?” nova noticed wyvern’s voice had dropped a pitch. maybe this was his proper officer tone. she pushed down on her mask, her goggles, taking deep, deep breaths.  

“equipment secure,” she answered him, turning back to meet his eyes at the console at the other end of the room.

“copy. initiating travel sequence. please remain still.”

(”dude we’re not talking over radio, do you still have to say ‘copy’?” “drake shut up!”)

and it sparked. that was the best way nova could think to describe it, even now. like seeing a heart pulsed back from the dead. then the tendrils of white light that branched out from the inner ring, like tentacles looking for each other, right up until they snapped forward, wrapping around the two of them. their feet remained rooted to the floor as they were surrounded by light, and then eventually, lifted.

everything was perfectly silently. that was the barrier building. all of the tethers tying them to their home timeline being carefully snipped, so they could be pulled in. nova glanced at seraphim, who just gave her a swift thumbs up, before there was a violent snap; to drake and wyvern: they were just gone.

but nova and seraphim landed roughly on their feet on rock that looked a bit too much like freeze-dried… well. nova picked her eyes up as soon as she could. didn’t want to look at it. her stomach caught. deep breaths, deep breaths, you’re fine, you’re fine…

but seraphim was hunched over, her breathing sort of staggered, just like hers was. “jeremy, do you have our signal?” her voice was a little weak, hoarse. a little muffled because of the mask. “… good. we’ll signal when we’re ready to be brought back. copy. … and remember to record the thunder game while i’m gone, i think we play los angeles or something. copy for real this time… hey, see, you made it!”

nova just stretched out an arm, which seraphim took, helping her take a few adjustment steps forward. and as nova walked, she was able to take in the landscape that surrounded them–and that seraphim’s gait was a bit stilted.

wasteland. that was the first thing she thought of. a sky the color of a rotted bone. mountains in the distance that weren’t wounded-colored but rather more like aged, rotted wood, jutting up from the cracked, jagged ground. something was coming down from the sky like a faint, soft snow. it was grey. and definitely wasn’t snow.

beyond everything was a faint red glow. like they were standing in a volcano’s mouth, and the rim was wide, wide around them. 

“have you been here before?” nova asked, her tone hushed. the space here was oppressive, closing in, heavy. sort of like a sauna set too high, even with the armor. there was a beat before seraphim answered her.

“… a few times. i wouldn’t say i’ve been through the gate often, but i’ve been often enough to know that i really dislike being brought to places like this, and enough to know i really want us to go to gate point nintey-three point one after this. it’s a wonderful kingdom, el. haven’t been in a while. hope the princess is all right, she said something about a man named ganon before i left last...” her voice seemed to trail off for a second, before she coughed, shaking her head. “not sure why lillith keeps bringing me here. i’m not a prime candidate for jumping. … not like you.”

“not like me?”

the goggles were so reflective that all nova could see when she looked at seraphim’s face was either mask or a reflection of an alien horizon. an unholy horizon. “i may or may not have looked over your file before this. you have… i can’t remember the specific words they used. but you have something in you that makes you an absolute fit for this role. i’d called it god-crafted. a gift from the spirit. other people would call it other shit. but i said what i said.” seraphim nodded, like she was adding emphasis, before turning her face to look at the landscape. “okay. they sealed kreuger underneath the end of the palace–”

“the palace? hell has palaces?”

“my sweet little chicken nugget, all underworlds have more than we’ve been told. and to answer that question, yes. like… c’mere, look, look…” seraphim beckoned her over to a ragged cliff, which overlooked a valley that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

it was like a cradle full of darkness. the only light that existed seemed to be that of fires, torches. candles.

and in the center rose up something that towered over everything, something that–reminded her a lot of maleficent’s castle from sleeping beauty. weird.  

“that’s where we need to go. if i remember from the last time i was here, i know a shortcut we can take, we just have to stay low and stick together. you good? … awesome. follow me. keep your eyes peeled. we don’t want to fire unless we absolutely have to, it’ll draw attention to us that, trust me, nobody will want. “

* * *

it still took them hours to reach the palace. hiking through the worst kind of desert, dodging rogue demonic entities, hiding. seraphim discovered that their armor had built-in cloaking (”were you going to fucking brief us on this or did you just forget?” “… uhm.”) which made it infinitely easier.

it took nova–well, to be fair, she still hadn’t quite gotten over how they all looked. and none of them were the same. each demon was fairly humanoid in shape… except for when they weren’t. and each one had viscera showing where a body part was missing… except when they didn’t, and then proceeded to have way too many eyes or mouths or teeth than any being anywhere had the business of having. and the sounds they made when they walked. if she wasn’t going to ask cherub for something for her bath before… 

“think dinosaur rules,” seraphim had whispered over her shoulder, crouched behind the corner of what nova thought looked a little like an adobe house (not even the ability to become invisible could quite break her out of sneaking behind everything). in fact a lot of the aesthetics of the city–could she call it a city?–reminded her a lot of taos, jemez springs. new mexico. “if they don’t see movement, they don’t see anything.”

“wait, didn’t someone disprove that?”

“lucky for us nobody told these assholes.”

as they snuck further and further into the heart of the metropolis, the aesthetics seem to… shift. from rustic adobe to more alhambra. if she could easily pick out things from her own world to compare all this too, then surely, it was tied to earth somehow, right? “uh, morgan…” nova began. she kept close to her side. the alleyway they were walking down was vacant. seraphim took the opportunity to stretch her neck, roll her shoulders.

“this place looks a lot like this catle in granada…”

“that’s because it–sort of is.”

and there was a bit of silence before: “… i’m guessing i should wait until we get back before i lay into you with questions about how the fuck that’s possible and what the hell that even means.”

“first bath, then a nap, and then i know this great brunch place not too far from the estate, i promise i’ll tell you everyt-!” her voice cut out abruptly and one of her arms shot out in front of nova, pressing her against a wall as something huge, hulking and smoking lurched in front of the opening of the alleyway. seraphim let out a long, shaky exhale.  

“the only place worse than this is centralia…”

“where?”

“put it on our list of sleepover topics. it’s gonna be long. this place tends to do that. although it’s honestly not that hard to sneak through as long as you’re careful and you’ve got the right tech. you just gotta be smart.”

they both carefully started towards the end of the alley, sticking close to the wall. nova thought she could smell something… it wasn’t brimstone, not quite. but close. just as unpleasant. “speaking from experience?” it came out before she could stop it.  

seraphim didn’t answer until they reached the end, motioning for nova to look upwards. the spire of the tallest tower looked a lot closer than it had an hour ago. they were getting close. “… yes. once. once is all it takes for you to learn. i had amy tattoo my left calf for a reason.” 

* * *

it was only when they reached the actual outer wall separating the palace from the rest of the city did the vibe turn a bit more–gothic was an apt descriptor. the spanish vibes gave way to something more once upon a time, something more disney, and somehow it was worse than what they’d walked through. a glossy surface trying too hard to be romantic hiding something insidious underneath, like organs wrapped in plastic wrap.

there were vines of roses along the upper edge of the wall with thorns the length of nova’s palm.

seraphim stared up at the blossoms, “okay. climbing over the wall is a no-go. each of those packs enough poison to kill something three times our size. the front main gate in and out has about sixteen different layers of wards on it and as much as i love our basement boys, i don’t exactly trust their cloaking shields to withstand that this close to the throne room…” seraphim started taking one step, then another, eyes on the flowers, lost in thought.

and nova was, too, up until she remembered: “oh! wait, i have an idea.” she unclipped a small box the color of gunmetal from her belt over one of her back pockets. “i’ve been helping jeremy and joseph with this. we’ve had a few successful test runs, and i think now would be a good time to give it an actual field test.”

“well, shit, okay, you thought of an idea first so we’ll go with that. uh–what is it?”

and nova actually swayed a bit, like an excited child. “i’ll show you. but first, you have to tell me… if you could make a hole anywhere in the wall, where would be the best place?”

that was about the time that they heard shouting, too close to be comfortable. it was in a tongue deep, guttural, with a lot of clicking interspersed. “definitely not here. c’mon, i think i know just the spot.”

after about fifteen minutes of fast-paced creeping, seraphim stopped. nova could see the roof of something like a shack over the roses, which she no longer doubted were circling the entire place. “just on the other side of this wall is a part of the chambers for the staff. i’m positive that he’s under that, and that there’s gotta be a way down there. i don’t think they’d let him starve to death, he’s too useful alive.”

“awesome. okay, stand back, calibrating this is a bit tricky…” seraphim took a few wide strides backwards as nova tucked the nondescript box into the crook of her elbow, but quickly jumped when she realized the agent was doing so to remove her glove.  

“ellie, wait, no no no–”

“i have to have skin-contact in order to activate it, i promise i’ll hurry. call it a sacrifice for the mission.”

as soon as the glove left her hand she very immediately realized that she wouldn’t have a choice. she’d been expecting a burning sensation, and that’s exactly what she got, but it still sort of took her breath away, for the first few seconds. it felt like something that you could almost get used to, if given enough time. almost. seraphim’s own covered hands went to the sides of her face. “oh jesus, okay, go do your thing sugar–”

with her thumb on the top of the box, and with her jaw clenched trying to fight through the persistent stinging, she traced a well-practiced pattern. for a moment, nothing happened. then from the end of the box shot out a circle of light, that landed on the wall in a perfect oval, like an outline. 

“oh it’s so pre–”

seraphim didn’t get to finish. there was a sound like a large rubbing band being strung, almost like a bass guitar strum–and there was a perfectly cut hole in the wall.

 nova was struggling to put her glove back on so she didn’t quite notice how seraphim had thrown her arms out and was just wildly gesturing to nova, to the wall, back to nova, back to the wall, “what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck. oh my god. that was awesome. holy shit. what the fuck did you just do. i just. oh my god. oh my god let’s go i have so many questions when we get back–oh. ellie, you all right?”

she was taking in breaths through her teeth, cradling her hand against her chest. “yeah. yeah. just feels like a really really re-he-eally bad sunburn.”

“well hang in there starkid, as soon as we find kreuger, he can take care of the rest himself. and ah, we won’t want to be here when that happens anyway. pray that nobody’s in here.” she brought up her pistol, “i know i said no firing, but–wait, was that your trigger hand?”

“uh–yeah.”

seraphim took the liberty of taking nova’s pistol of its holster and putting it in her uninjured hand. “as long as you don’t shoot me, this’ll probably work. probably. okay…” her voice lowered. “team break.”

* * *

lillith must have timed their jump on purpose, seraphim reasoned, or had some kind of premonition about how long it would’ve taken them to get to the castle, because right as she pushed open the shack door, there was a single, long gong from far above them. “what was that?” nova couldn’t get above a whisper.  

“given that no one’s in here, i think it’s a feasting hour. all the help’s off serving that absolute fucking batshit son of a--” a huff. “we need to hurry and take advantage of this while we still can. the servants here are the only creatures i pity. … well. they’re at least on the top five.”

nova could see why. the room was rotting away in places, black, black, blacker, an absolute absence of color amidst what looked like concrete and wood. two sets of bunk beds, and the word ‘bed’ was generous. more like just four stone slabs large enough for an adult human attached at different heights to the wall. and that was all, except for a scrap of off-white fabric on the floor.

“but where do they go to the b–”

“trust me, you don’t want to know.” seraphim interrupted, peeling back the rug to reveal a trap door. she sighed, “i know this is the right way, but this seems too easy… you got us through the wall, i’ll be body insurance going downstairs, deal? cool.” she lifted the heavy door, grunting under the weight, revealing a very narrow stairwell that looked like it was carved out of brick. there was a dim light coming from somewhere they couldn’t see, just enough to make the stair landing visible. seraphim shook her hands, taking a deep breath. “here goes nothin’, wish me luck.”

she didn’t get very far.

seraphim put one leg out in space, aiming to awkwardly go down the steps, when her leg jerked hard to one side. she swore under her breath and grabbed nova’s arm, quickly pulling herself up to sit on the floor.

she had a needle roughly the same thickness as a knitting needle shoved through the top of her boot. blood was beginning to ooze from the wounds. “ohhhhkay. i don’t know what else i was expecting.”

“morgan–”

“this is fine.”

“morgan.”

“this is okay.”

“do we leave it in?”

seraphim swore again, this time with a little more enunciation. “no. i don’t know what this is made of and now it’s currently inside of me, so we’re just going to uhm–ellie you have to do it.”

“what?”

“ellie i can’t pull this out you have to do it, you gotta not hesitate and just go for it, i don’t have the g–FUCK.” nova wrapped a hand around one end of the needle and jerked it clean in the middle of seraphim’s rambling, replacing it as quickly as she could with her hands, adding pressure. there were a few moments where the only sound was seraphim’s ragged breathing, which eventually calmed, as she braced her foot against the opening to the basement. safe in nova’s hands. “… thank you.”

“don’t mention it… but what do we do now? is the entire area down there going to be like that?”

seraphim sighed. “probably. and we could stop and look for the way that the help disarms the hallway, or we could do it my way, which will take a lot less time…” she awkwardly shifted up into a squatting position on the floor, staring down into the dark. “and because we did the right thing and properly hydrated before the jump, i should be able to do this even with my gloves on… just gotta focus for a sec…”

seraphim took one huge breath in, and out. ignore the pain. ignore it. we’ll deal with it later.

she held her palm out flat, and then lifted it. as she did, spots all along what they could see of the lower level glowed a faint lavender shade.  

nova’s eyes widened. were… were those all the traps that had been set?

seraphim raised her other hand, and tried to snap her fingers. no dice. she hissed, making an abrupt fist.

what followed was a soft cacophony of things breaking, falling, or shattering.

“morgan that was–oh!”

seraphim had yanked her mask down in time to vomit violently off to the side, rib cage moving erratically underneath her armor. it honestly didn’t make the room smell that much worse. 

“are you–?”

“yeah, just uh–don’t ask me to do anything like that again for a few hours.”

“that was… amazing.”

seraphim threw her head back, laughing roughly. “yeah, we’re both pretty rad, now let’s–let’s go get this fucker so we can go home, i need to go to medical like yesterday.”  

* * *

with the traps disabled, the going down was easy, and straightforward. they crunched over needles, arrows, and metallic shapes as they went. everything around them was like sod, with torches embedded in the walls.  

nova tried not to think about that they looked like arms, eternally smoldering just bright enough to light the way.

“what, no labyrinth of endless twisting hallways? i’m a little disappointed.”

seraphim was trying to not limp but pain spread up her leg with every step she took. shit, shit, shit. she kept glancing to nova’s hand, hoping that she couldn’t see behind her goggles. “for one, they think that the traps will kill or maim anyone not authorized to be down here. for two, if they are authorized to be down here, why waste their time?” their voices were quiet. they hadn’t seen anyone else down here, but…

the torches stopped. and there was a long stretch of darkness before they came to another pair. nova grabbed a hold of seraphim’s arm, and she let her keep it there, up until they entered the rim of a dim glow by a wall of bars.

a cell.

“kreuger.” seraphim began, gently. “… kreuger.”

“hush–exorcist.” nova’s grip on seraphim tightened as he spoke. she had to twist back when she realized she’d almost buried her face in seraphim’s shoulder out of some kind of reflex. he sounded like… the buzzing of bees, the low growl of a monster, with a canyon beneath all of it. she hated it. “i hear you… who is this? this is not john.”

“no. it’s not. enoch has… left our little club, since we last saw each other.”  

as seraphim spoke, voice laced with pain, kreuger stepped up to the light, although nova could see the backlight, inhuman reflection of his eyes before he got close to them. she wished he’d stayed away.

he did look human. almost. limbs a little too long, face a little too angular. his eyes were a solid pink, no pupils to speak of (where did the reflection come from, where did it come from?). he had horns, like a ram, that rose up and wrapped around his pointed ears in a tight spiral.  

he… was hunched over. nova felt a little bad for him, then. somewhere in her chest. like you’d pity a vulture in a cage too small.

“good. i hated him.”

“you hate everyone, kreuger.”

“oh, now, dear lady morgana, be kind. i tolerate you, do i not?”

“you’re going to do more than tolerate me here in a second, we’re here to bust you out.”

“… bust me…?” but seraphim was too busy digging into a pocket by her kneecap, pulling out a small bottle. it was crystalline, marked with a cross. holy water. kreuger’s eyes widened in what might have been surprise. “… you are releasing me.”

“psellus is not the rightful ruler of this place. you are. and i don’t know the intimate details of the politics of this fucking shitshow but you can be damned sure that where we’re from we greatly prefer lawful evil to complete, uncontrollable chaos. now if you give me one second–” seraphim uncorked the bottle and kreuger quickly recoiled back away from his bars; the senior agent hobbled along the length of his cell wall. the metal seemed to dissolve as soon as the water hit it, and then there was nothing.

nova became very acutely aware that she was standing in the same room with what was essentially a demon king.

  this was going to make a good story someday.  

but as he started to walk forward, there was clanking. “… shit. water can’t cut through that.”

kreuger stood to his full height as soon as he passed where his threshold had been. he was easily seven feet tall, and dressed all in black, in–a suit. this guy had a taste for aesthetics, nova would give him that.  

“everything in me is suppressed because of these chains. i do not know where psellus found them…” he had thick, chain link cuffs on both his wrists and around his ankles. it reminded nova of the same stone she’d seen on the ground where they had landed. they were massive. probably needed to be. her heart was in her throat.

“ellie, you still have your box from earlier?”

oh no.

“y-yes.”

kreuger smiled and revealed a mouth full of knives. well, fangs, but they looked like knives, for all intents and purposes. “oh how adorable! and she smells so good…”  

“can you focus that circle into a point? that circle you made?” seraphim tried to make her voice as solid, as reassuring, as possible. because now nova was staring up at kreuger’s face and maybe trembling, and-well.  

now she’d really see what she was made of.

“we–i can. yes.”

“okay. kreuger, you stay still, spread out like this. ellie, focus that thing to a point and cut through his chains.”

“you–you can’t magic them apart? like the traps?”

“oh that was you? excellent work, exorcist.”

“–thank you, your highness. and no, el, i can’t. that level of tinkering–if i tried that again this quickly there’s a good chance i’d rupture an organ. i’ve had lots of practice but there are still things i’m not able to do, not yet. ellie, look at me. … kreuger is not going to hurt you.” her face went to the king himself. “he needs us, and knows exactly what’ll happen if we don’t come home.”

“mmm, yes. how is our dear lillith.”

“she’s fine. ellie, if you would.” she stepped closer to her, muttering by her face. “i know that you’ve already burned your hand once today, do you think you can push through and do it again? if you don’t, then you’ll have to tell me how to do it.”

“no–no. i can do it.”

kreuger assumed a strange position, wrists and ankles spread apart. his gaze made nova feel naked in the worst way.  

and seraphim watched with not a small amount of pure, unadulterated admiration as ellie readied the box, and removed her glove. she was even brave enough to glance at his face once.  

“ready?”

“ready, little solider.”

solider. strange.

and it may have been to comfort her, or it may have been a warning, looking back, but as nova traced a different pattern over the top of the box–her skin feeling like it was being cut a centimeter at a time--kreuger began to talk to seraphim.

“oh lady, tell me–how has your spine been lately?”

“fine, besides the usual. why?”

“oh, no reason. i just know you wish for a certain thing.”

a heavy sigh. “not this again–”

“and you’ll get it. after… a few trials.”

another strum, like before.

kreuger was unbound.

and as soon as he was, the hallway positively lit up. the torches’ light was amplified as kreuger drew in a breath too big for human lungs, and a pair of wings, that hadn’t been there before, stretched and touched the walls with their span. “… thank you. darling little solder. darling little exorcist. i fear i am in your debt. tell me, how can i repay your kindness pending the slaughter of half of my kingdom?”

nova’s hands shook as she clipped the box back onto her belt, and she tried to focus on being able to tell wyvern and mothman how it preformed afield.

seraphim began, “we’ll call you. for now, we just need to get back to our land point so our crew can get us back.”

“oh, allow me.” without warning, kreuger put his hands on their backs, reaching around them. his limbs seem to elongate, to stretch, and nova thought to herself, hm, that’s strange, i’ve never had a hand on my back that was the entire length of my spine before.

seraphim tried to stop him, in her defense. “wait, no, kreuger, if you push us through then we’ll–”

too late.  

drake, wyvern and longma let out high-pitched shrieks as seraphim and nova were launched, unannounced, from the gate’s mouth. they landed roughly on the carpet, hacking, grasping at their masks and goggles to breathe air natural and familiar to the lining of their lungs.

“holy shit! are you guys okay? what happened?”

nova blinked at the sight of the three faces looking down at her. she smiled to the tune of seraphim’s voice.

“we fucking saved the world. … also please call karen and aly we need them like, right now.” 

#seraphim speaks #agent nova #agent seraphim #milky way saints #concerning the hellgate #featuring:#a lot of our basement crew like #technical officer drake #technical officer wyvern #technical officer longma #(and a few handles mentioned in passing.)#canon notes #society notes

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