The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1179: The Bargain (Part One)
Despite everything he’d already revealed, Ignatious wore an expression of deep reluctance on his face as he looked at his young peers from the Church of the Holy Lord of Light.
Diarmuid’s face looked pale and strained beneath his close-cropped beard, and the desserts he’d collected earlier in the evening lay half-eaten and forgotten on his plate as he grappled with the magnitude of the Church’s lies.
For a man who had dedicated his life to the search for truth, rooting out simple human wickedness and greed from genuine heresy, it was as if he’d been thrown from a horse that he had trusted for his entire life. Now, he was caught in mid-air, suspended in the moment between being thrown and impact on the ground, and his dark eyes were locked on Ignatious as though praying that his fellow Inquisitor had a way to catch him before he hit the ground.
But if Diarmuid was struggling, Loman seemed to be completely broken. He was a grieving man who had progressed from outright denial to plaintive bargaining, to a form of lost acceptance that Ignatious had only seen previously on the faces of people who suffered days of torment under the lashes and brands of the Inquisition.
In this state, he was very close to the point where he would confess to anything, and he would accept anything because he had lost the will to struggle against the things that shattered his faith, and Ignatious was afraid that his next revelation would push the young man over the edge entirely.
"I’ve spoken of three sources," Ignatious said slowly, hoping to cushion the blow as much as he could with broad understandings of the truth. "Like springs gushing from the earth, they each give rise to their own rivers. Mothers of the Earth, like Ashlynn, can form their covens. True Vampires, like Mistress Nyrielle, can give rise to generations of progeny. Sovereigns may appoint people to their Celestial Courts," he explained.
"But such people are only one step removed from the source," Ignatious continued. "Vast rivers of power extend beyond them, available to any among the masses with the will and the skill to learn to use that power. We call such people Sorcerers," he said, gesturing to Aspakos, Erkembalt, and Hauke.
"In the Vale of Mists, only a few people learn more than the basics of sorcery," Nyrielle said, taking over part of the explanation when she saw how reluctant Ignatious seemed to broach this topic with the men he would have once considered brothers in faith and service to the same Church.
"Humans know darksteel as a metal that is heavier than gold, harder than iron, and sharper than obsidian," Nyrielle explained. "But it is the product of a vampiric blood ritual. The weapons are only cumbersome and unwieldy when they haven’t received an offering of blood. Once someone has been trained in the ways of making offerings of their lifeblood, the weapons become a living thing, capable of sating its hunger with the blood and death of the wielder’s foes instead of draining the life of the person wielding the weapon."
"Every soldier in Lady Nyrielle’s personal guard learns the use of these weapons," Lennart added, smiling briefly at Zedya, who had also learned the method of fighting with darksteel fighting gauntlets in the fashion of the Clan of the Great Claw.
In the hands of a vampire, the weapons were even more devastating, and Lennart was slowly coming to realize how much more dangerous they were now that he’d become the first of her progeny, but even for ordinary people, gaining the ability to wield darksteel weapons made a soldier significantly more dangerous.
"Others who can learn this sorcery frequently serve as the elite soldiers of the Vale’s forces," Lennart explained. "And they fight aggressively because the weapons they wield have a hunger that must either feed on their foes or turn on the bearer of the weapon."
"No wonder the sealed records said that the enemies of the Church ’fought like demons,’" Diarmuid whispered as yet another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Your weapons demand a certain amount of ruthlessness... And accepting surrender means paying the cost of using the weapon yourself," he realized.
Hearing this made it even more amazing that Lady Heila and Dame Sybyll’s army had so repeatedly called for surrender during the Battle of Hanrahan. They’d been willing to offer up their own lifeblood to their weapons, paying the cost of using them directly instead of slaughtering the much weaker defenders to satiate the bloodlust of their own weapons.
"It isn’t as extreme as you might be thinking," Ashlynn added quickly, lest Diarmuid get the wrong idea. "In the Vale of Mists, people who use sorcery are well aware of the limits of their own bodies to support their sorcery. At a low enough level, using sorcery is no different from doing a day of hard labor, and the body will recover with a hearty meal and sound sleep."
"Outside the Vale of Mists, there are those who practice this form of sorcery in less scrupulous ways," Nyrielle said, smiling knowingly at Ashlynn as she recalled the other activities that left her lover ravenous and exhausted.
"People who engage in blood sacrifice," Nyrielle said in a more somber tone as she returned her gaze to the guests at the dinner table. "They offer up the lifeblood of others instead of paying the costs of their sorcery themselves. Or in addition to the cost they pay. As I’ve frequently told Ashlynn, power must come from somewhere. The price must always be paid."
"It’s the same for sorcerers who attempt to follow the ways of witches," Ashlynn explained. "The rituals are more difficult, but some, like the Cauldron of Flame, will go to extreme lengths to gain access to greater power."
"The sorcerers of the Cauldron of Flame immolate themselves during their training," Aspakos explained, painting a grim picture of the scarred and disfigured sorcerers. "They practice walking on coals, or wearing linen robes that are removed by burning them away. They smoke pipes and cigars to inhale the embers and smoke, infusing it into their very beings, and the most extreme of them will even swallow burning coals."
"In this way, they’re able to form a bond with the element of fire that resembles the Volcano Witch whom they revere," Aspakos said. "They live shorter lives because of it, but to a man they would swear that it’s worth it for the power they gain, and they’re among the most feared sorcerers in the Eldritch world because their power is so great."
"How do the flames of these ’sorcerers’ compare to the Holy Flames of the Church?" Liam Dunn asked. He couldn’t imagine the kind of power that would be worth subjecting himself to such cruel and disfiguring rituals, but he imagined that the gains had to be proportional to the cost, or else these men would pursue a different path. If this made their flames even hotter than those of the Church, or somehow more devastating, then he could see a cold, cruel logic in the decision, even if it wasn’t one he would make himself.
"About the same," Ignatious said with a heavy sigh. "After all, the priests, Templars, and Inquisitors of the Church make sacrifices that are just as great in order to receive their powers. They just pay the price in a different currency that isn’t so easily seen..."
