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After Maka burns Rasputin’s head to ashes, Fin silently eyes the body for a couple of minutes. Satisfied that the bastard appears to be truly dead, he lets out a light sigh, searches the corpse for anything of significance, also recovering any salvageable arrows still stuck in the body…
"Third, back in the main entry area, I saw some stairways leading up to an upper level. I don't know a lot about vampires, but I'd like to make sure they didn't sneak upstairs to regenerate and plot more mischief. Fin should take Saki and scout around up there."[/b]
Fin nods, turns to Sakitu, murmuring, ”C’mon, Hlao-roo, looks like we’re going on a vampire hunt…stay behind me, just in case…”
He walks west back to the entrance, quietly and warily heads up the stairs to the eastern bell tower to check it out first…
Winter stays near Selena’s pile of clothes, staring at Quasit.
Maka, still leaning lightly against Bulvi, finally let her body relax. The fire in her veins had cooled, leaving only bruises, burns, and the deep, creeping ache of exhaustion.
Her gaze wandered. :ast Rasputin’s remains, past the still-humming machine, to the ashen remnants near where Winter stood watch. A small, blackened pile of cloth. No body. No sign of struggle. Just scorch marks and silence.
Her brow furrowed.
Then her stomach dropped.
“…Selena didn’t leave a body.” The words came quiet, barely more than breath.
She swallowed, her hand tightening slightly on Bulvi’s shoulder for balance, or comfort.
“Does that mean she won’t be able to come back either?”
Kalchine nods and reverts to his normal form. He grabs Fin's arm before he can rush away.
"Just in case," he says.
Then, he turns his critical eye on the rest of the group and can see that Bulvi is in the roughest shape.
He then pulls in energy from the positive energy plane to continue the process.
He pulls out a wand from a bandolier that he wears across his chest.
"That's the last of my magic for the day but I can use this," he says.
But then he hears Maka's words and his blood runs cold at the implications. His mind races with thoughts about how they might overcome this obstacle.
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“…Selena didn’t leave a body.” The words came quiet, barely more than breath.
She swallowed, her hand tightening slightly on Bulvi’s shoulder for balance, or comfort.
“Does that mean she won’t be able to come back either?”
”What?” says Quasit. She obviously hadn’t considered this possibility. She goes to the edge of the magic shield and looks around carefully, very aware of the fox familiar staring at her like lunch.
”I don’t know…” she finally says, looking over at Kalchine helplessly. ”I think the person who would have known was Selena…. Or Rasputin.”. She puts her hands on her hips, chews her lower lip and breathes out heavily. ”Well damn.” she finally says.
Maka simply started crying. It wasn’t quiet. It wasn't pretty.
Her nose ran, her face twisted, and every tear that spilled from her eyes hissed into steam as it hit her fire-kissed skin. Her shoulders trembled, her whole frame shuddering from exhaustion, grief, and the simple, brutal weight of the day. Of everything.
But Maka didn’t flinch from it. She didn’t turn away. She didn’t even try to hide her tears. She just stood there and cried.
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Quasit crosses her arms uncomfortably. What was there to say to Maka? Her own feelings were more akin to dull shock and denial. A slight nausea. She wished the fox would stop looking at her. What do you expect me to do??” she wanted to ask it.
She sneaks a look over at Chest Thumper. Not for the first time she wondered how much of this he understood.
Was Selena actually Baba Yaga’s granddaughter? What did that mean even? She’d always meant to ask the little witch. Would a loyal granddaughter warrant a favor for her efforts?
She looks at her feet, waiting for the shield to come down.
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A subdued Fin stops for healing when Kal grabs him, nodding in appreciation to him…
Upon hearing Quasit and Maka, talk about Selena, he stops again. ”You might wanna check Silver, Q…I could be wrong, but I think I recall Selena saying something about always leaving some part of her on Silver for reincarnation purposes…or something like that…”
He shrugs and then turns to go with Saki to the east tower for a vampire check…
The eastern tower has three coffins in it, as well as some corpses that have clearly been drained of blood.
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As they make it up the stairs of the east tower, Fin turns to Sakitu…
”Jackpot, three coffins for three vampires, Hlao-roo. Father trained me at an early age in fighting undead, t’was an occupational hazard…when they receive wounds enough that would kill a normal creature, vampires flee to their coffin to regenerate…but they’re vulnerable for about an hour before their regeneration kicks in so we should have plenty of time to stake ‘em…but they’ll only be dead as long as the stakes are in place…Bull and I will need to carry their coffins down later and expose them to sunlight…that should kill ‘em permanently…”
Fin will do the coffins one by one while Sakitu stands by with an offensive spell prepped if needed. He’ll retrieve a silver tipped arrow, open a coffin, drive the arrow thru the vampire’s heart, rinse, repeat till all three are done…
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Quasit lets Maka cry into Bulvi's arms for a minute or so. Sometimes a girl just needed to lose it for a bit to regain her balance-- gods how well she knew that. Then she finally turns around and touches her friend on the back.
"Fin's right. There might still be something we can do to bring her back. Maybe she left some hairs or toenail parings with her fox, I don't know. If we free Baba Yaga, she's definitely gonna owe us a favor."
"But we still need to find her and free her. We still have a job to do. Let's search the bodies. Maybe Rasputin is carrying around a magic whatzit that grants wishes."
"Kal, I think a few hits from the magic wand is a good idea. I'm probably gonna have to disable this machine like I did the terminals. I think I can do it, but it might zap me or someone else in the teeth a few times along the way. Bulvi's regeneration ring should have him fully healed in a few hours."
Maka didn’t speak at first. She just took a few deep gulps from her magic jug, the warmth of the sake cutting through the bitter lump in her throat. She wiped her nose with her forearm, then offered the jug to Quasit with a tired, but genuine smile. "You're right, let's get to work!"
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Kalchine remained silent as Maka wept over the loss of her companion. There was a lump in his own throat but he'd learned to subsume those feelings early on in his career as a soldier in the wars back on Triaxus. It was a lesson that they all had to learn or break.
"Even if she didn't leave anything behind with Winter, Winter may be a strong enough connection to bring Selena back," he says.
"I don't entirely understand familiars but I know they have a very strong connection to their masters."
He gets to work with the wand, beginning with Quasit.
Then moves on to Bulvi.
Then, himself.
And finally, Chest Thumper.
As Quasit finally gets the idea of what happened to Selena, Winter starts digging through the pile cloth to pull out the pouches, especially the one with a few snacks to munch on in the meantime.
Winter seems distinctly unhappy with the giant ape, but it being gentle, she decides not to bite it and instead shoot pleading looks at the Kalchine.
There are indeed vampire corpses in the coffins, and staking them seems like it works (as much as you can tell given they're corpses either way...).
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After staking the last of the vampires, Fin looks to Sakitu and gives her a tired wink. ”That’ll do for now, Hlao-roo…if Bull’s healed back up, we’ll come back and see about exposing ‘em to sunlight…”
Upon their return, he nods to Quasit. ”Found the vampires, staked ‘em, Q; when Bull’s healed up, we can carry ‘em down from the tower and give ‘em a sunbath…”
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”Found the vampires, staked ‘em, Q; when Bull’s healed up, we can carry ‘em down from the tower and give ‘em a sunbath…”
"You checked both towers?" asks Quasit. "Sorry... good work. Thank you. We'll definitely do that in a bit."
"Gods, look at me. Rasputin is dead, we might be about to finish our mission, and I'm still so paranoid I'm practically shaking. You'd think I'd be feeling some relief, but I keep expecting some other super villain to barge in here and start disintegrating us. Or Rasputin to somehow reappear as a mongo powerful monster ghost who can just wish us out of existence. And I can't even process Selena being dead. In spite of her creepy fox staring at me. What's its name anyway? I can't even remember."
She pulls out the blueprints again. "And just look at this mess. This is so far out of my league it isn't even funny. I manipulate tumblers in locks with picks. I can't even really imagine how to go about properly disabling any of this. The best I can figure is to just somehow sabotaging that power source back there and hoping I don't get vaporized."
"Maka, I've changed my mind. Gimme a slug of that plum wine. I think I need it."
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Quasit nods. "That'll work. I want to search every corner of this place. Maybe Rasputin was sleeping up there and keeping diary about the girl he had a crush on, I don't know. I'd almost like him better if he wrote bad poetry. Or something that relates to his plot, or Anastasia, or the machine, or Elvanna. Maybe he took notes on a criminal conspiracy. He's arrogant enough to do that. I bet he planned to publish a book about it. 'How I did it.' by Grigory Ass-hole Rasputin."
"We'll be as ready as we can be if Rasputin comes back again. Or if another threat presents itself," Kalchine reassures Quasit. "I am cautiously optimistic that this is a victory, though."
After he has healed her, he simply rests his hand on her shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.
"You disabled the towers and didn't think you could do that. Now, you'll disable this, even though you don't think you can do it.
"Every problem doesn't have to be solved at the same time. Just do the next right thing."
Maka handed the magic jug to Quasit with a smile. “Kal’s right. You’ve pulled off harder things on less sleep and more blood loss.”
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Quasit nods in resignation at the words of Kalchine and Maka and takes a long drink. "Right." she says, trying to think positively. "If a knob like Viktor can build it, I can certainly break it. That's way easier, right?"
She rolls up the blueprints for the time being, tucks them into her sword belt, and reaches out toward the magic shield again to test for its continued presence. Finding it still there for the moment, she begins rifling what's left of Rasputin's corpse, looking for magical goodies.
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Rasputin has a number of pieces of gear: a fine dagger and revolver, an amulet, a belt, a cassock, and a headband. All but the weapons radiate magic. The headless Cossack also has a number of items: a scimitar, a revolver, a lance, a belt, and a ring. All but the lance radiate magic. The three vampire brothers had nothing of interest on their bodies.
Bulvi gave Maka's shoulder a gentle squeeze before kissing her on the temple as she cried. Selena was always chastising and nagging but he seemed less frustrated with her than many of the others a lot of the time. He hoped she had some trick up her sleeve or they could find something. However long she was going to be gone he'd miss her... at this stage he accepted she really had been killed, sneaking around to leave them under the assumption that she was dead this long, it would be uncharacteristically cruel... unless perhaps it was just being done to Quasit.
He gets to work with the wand, beginning with Quasit.
Then moves on to Bulvi.
[dice=Cure Moderate Wounds]2d8 + 5
After the first whack of healing Bulvi shook his head "Thats enough, by the time I get to the coffins I'll be healed. Save further charges in case we need them."
Bulvi turned his attention back towards Maka. "I'm going to head off Fin.. I would take it as a personal favour if you didn't get into any fights while I am gone, that fight was too close." He drew her into a hug.
Shortly after he'd turn to Fin and starts reloading his pistol. "Alright, let's get stuck in."
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Quasit stows the loot from Rasputin and the Headless General in the bag of holding, for later evaluation. She also retrieves her manacles and puts them back in her pack.
Then she makes her way over to the tumbled pile of church benches and pulls one back up into a proper position so she can sit on it. She begins to pulls off her armor and weapons, then uses her waterskin to dampen a rag and begins to wipe the blood, sweat and soot from her face and arms, then unbuttons her shirt just enough so she can reach in and wipe down her armpits and shoulders. She also liberally pours water over her head, rinsing out her shaggy mop of hair with her fingers, then smoothing it back away from her face and over her ears. All this takes several minutes, after which she swivels around and lays down along the bench, her hands crossed behind her dripping, reclining head. She stares up into the high ceiling, trying to clear the horror and adrenaline of the morning from her mind, at least for a little while.
Kalchine watches Quasit make some impromptu ablutions, though when she unbuttons her shirt, he is careful to look away.
He's too keyed up and still trying to figure out a way to tackle the Selena problem to rest himself and he restlessly, aimlessly paces around Chest Thumper.
The frost ape, like Quasit, knows to take a break when the opportunity arises and having his brother fidgeting around him interrupts his tranquility so he shoves him away, his one handed push making Kalchine stumble several paces.
Kalchine scowls then makes a large gesture which Chest Thumper returns which Kalchine then returns again, leading to a vigorous but silent exchange that only ends when the frost ape turns his back on the triaxian and the triaxian stalks off several paces.