For the Record

“Alright, I’ll take care of it I guess.”

“I deeply regret our insufficiency, my mistress.”

After dismissing Aubrey, I turn to my retinue, whom I recalled from their tasks for this issue.

“Shouldn’t we just kill them the old fashioned way?” Izahne asks.

“That won’t work, without specific types of magic or the light of the sun, vampires simply regenerate, even from particles of dust,” Abaris counters.

Hmmm.

The issue being, of course, that Aubrey’s subordinates investigated the blood-draining attacks on my citizens and found four culprits, all but one among the weaker of their number. The one exception viewed humans exclusively as prey and chose to act on those beliefs. Traditionally, their culture would have them staked out for the sun as an example to their peers, but in the absence of any form of sunlight…

Well. They don’t know what to do with them. Locking them away won’t work, as vampires have a Mist Form Skill or equivalent at a fairly low level. Which, makes them my problem.

“I’ve heard of magic items that can produce sunlight, or something like it,” Omorth grates in his metallic voice. “But I wouldn’t know where to find one.”

Mimir pipes up. “Ah yes, they do indeed exist; unfortunately, they tend to be closely guarded relics of cults of sun gods. Gaining access to one would most likely be quite the undertaking.”

“We forget the tools,” I dismiss.

With a smirk Nyx says, “You wouldn’t be able to Identify them anyway.”

I shrug, and then turn to Pearl. “Does Epione offer a means of exorcising undead?”

“’Fraid not,” she chirps. “The best I have is weakening them with my Aura of Serenity. Maybe I could get something for that if I was a higher level?”

“And the homunculi?” I ask.

“Definitely not,” Abaris says. “The most powerful Skills they have are purifying materials and healing wounds, although some also have one similar to Izahne’s Drain. It’s probably appropriate, considering they’re your priests.”

“And simply Consuming them to nothing won’t be enough, I assume.”

Abaris shakes his head. “They’d still recover.”

“Are you sure? I’ve been told by multiple people that my Consume destroys souls.”

That gets Mimir’s attention. “Wait. You outright destroy souls!? Why would the gods allow that? I defeats the purpose of the Record!”

“I’ve wondered the same thing,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe it’s because I was born as a god, outside of the Record?”

“We’re talking about law and punishment, though,” my consort offers. “Are vampires’ souls destroyed by the sun, or are they just killed by it?”

Abaris answers, “If the records are correct, the sun would not destroy their souls, and they would simply be reincarnated.”

I nod. “Then for consistency, I shouldn’t just eat them. Well, not like I really care, but it’d be a pain in the ash to try to manage this place if the mortals didn’t trust the laws. I’d probably have to do a lot more enforcement myself, and if it comes to that I may as well just Consume everyone. And there’s no way that angry rabbit will let me get away with that when we’ve already gotten this far.”

…

“Wait.”

“Another idea?” Nyx asks.

I nod, while already planning my move.

“Izahne.”

“Hm?” she answers, tilting her head in a way I’m sure mortals would find endearing.

“I’m going to try something. You said sunlight makes you feel weakened, right?”

After she nods, I start speaking a spell. “{sunlight}.”

A blinding flare of light appears from a point in front of me, casting shadows across the walls of my mansion. While everyone recoils from the sudden change, I can feel terror and a little pain from my consort, and so I immediately end the spell.

And I smile.

***

“Goodbye.”

The last of the four screams as their body is reduced to ash and then even that burns away. Unfortunate, considering I was curious if absorbing vampire ash would have any interesting effects.

Oh well. There’s always next time, I guess.

Aubrey is waiting for me outside of the windowless stone building, and as soon as I exit he prostrates himself. “I offer you the deepest gratitude, my mistress. If your greatness is so willing, I beg of you mercy for my brethren… please do not hold the impulsive act of a few fools against us all.”

I’ll admit, part of me does want to expel them all and be done with it, but I’d be sacrificing a lot of competent personnel…

And I have to admit, seeing him grovel like this is satisfying. If nothing else I’m keeping him… it’s not always easy finding subordinates who so thoroughly understand their place! And still, I can’t help but want to exact some kind of punishment from him…

Which gives me another idea, so I manifest my portable throne, cross one leg over the other, and prop my head on one hand.

“Raise your head.” After he does, I continue. “It is my understanding that your kind possess strong regenerative abilities, even to the extent that the loss of your entire body is recoverable. Is this correct? I will permit you to answer.”

Aubrey answers with the deepest reverence. “It is, my mistress.”

I smirk back. “Cut off your right arm and offer it to me. I will permit you to regenerate it after.”

Shock colors most of my retainer bonds, but the vampire leader only hesitates for a moment before transforming his left arm to a blade of blood from the wrist and severing his right at the shoulder. The limb falls to the ground where it lays for at most a second before it dissolves to ash. As I draw the swirling particulate toward myself, I can see that the vampire’s wound is already knitting itself together into a fresh arm, minus the sleeve of his fancy shirt.

I let the vampire ash float above my free hand for a moment before drawing it into myself. “I accept your tribute and in recognition of your loyalty will absolve your people of their transgression – for now. Do not waste my mercy, as I do not offer it freely. You are dismissed,” I say with a wave of my now empty hand.

Aubrey presses his head to the ground one more time before rising and turning to leave.

…And is promptly replaced by Vivianne, standing tall before me.

“Where did you come from!? You definitely weren’t here before!” I snap.

She chuckles. “I never once said I’d stopped watching, but I’m truly pleased that it is indeed you.”

And then out of nowhere, she drops to one knee. I raise an eyebrow.

“Allow me to express my elation at your return, Lady Astraea. Even trapped inside this thing, you remain yourself, and so I will rededicate myself to you. Welcome back, Your Majesty.”

…

Wait, this means…!

“So you’re going to let me into the castle then!?”

***

And she did, too.

Olive very badly wanted to facilitate the moving of my and Izahne’s effects, but I beat her to it by just shoving them wholesale into my dimensional storage. I did however let her teleport us to my new old private chambers.

…Which are much more lavish than the mansion’s, to the extent that it really does look like a simple country home in comparison. The walls are adorned with tapestries depicting my majesty and subjugation of monsters and even other gods whose names I don’t know. It would seem the old Astraea was quite accomplished. Meanwhile the trim and accents are all made of a shiny purple metal that I can feel would be highly toxic to mortals, even to the point of being absorbed through skin.

I LOVE IT.

It doesn’t hurt that the once-hostile centipede monster is following alongside Olive like a loyal butler.

Who promptly tilts her head and rubs her chin.

“What is it? I haven’t even gotten comfortable yet, so this had better be good.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty, but it would appear we have company, specifically one who is seeking an audience,” she answers.

Ugh, fine.

(Hey, if you want to act like royalty, you have to act like whole-ass royalty,) Nyx chides.

Yeah, yeah, I said fine, didn’t I? And look, I’m already heading to the audience chamber!

Despite Olive’s protests I choose to walk there under my own power. I keep relying on everyone for everything… I’m more than strong enough to deal with this myself, and depending on what they have to say I might just end up Consuming whoever the hells is here to bother me in the first place. I thought about just ignoring them, but Nyx wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I did.

“Vivianne. You didn’t let them in yet, did you? Tell me you’re making them wait.”

Without stopping, she lightly bows and says, “Yes, Your Majesty. You always did prefer to let them come to you.”

I silently nod.

But when she opens the door and I enter, some asshole is already in my seat. At least they have the decorum to stand, but then they have the gall to start talking first! I can’t help but narrow my eyes.

“Yo! How’s it going?”

I blast them with the full force of Consume and both of my Auras. “Who the HELLS are you, and why the HELLS are you in this room!?” I snarl.

While they look totally unaffected, the mana I drain from them...

It’s…

DELICIOUS!

[UNKNOWN]

Yeah, I figured that much.

“Yeah so, you should know better than to just, hit your peers with Identify, right? But hey, relax, I’ll give you a pass on that since you’re new.” They lean in place as if against an invisible wall before continuing. “I’ve been meaning to drop in and say hey. Been a minute since we’ve had a new old member in the pantheon, yeah? ‘Specially a new and old member in one!”

I grit my teeth. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Ah, yeah, heh, you’re right! Manners, I never use ‘em so they get rusty, and most of us don’t care about that crap.” They lean into a sloppy bow.

“I’m Dolos and my Domain is Betrayal! By the way, I LOVE how you burned Themis, I’ve been wanting to poke that uppity asshole in the eye for a long time but hoo, you got ‘im good! And he’s pissed too.”

Betrayal? Fantastic. I’m sure having the god of literal betrayal’s attention couldn’t possibly have terrible consequences.