Parroquia San Luis Gonzaga, Valparaíso
Uttercold (-46°C/-50.8°F)
After a quick and nondescript breakfast—Enheduanna’s dinner was delicious, but it’s not the same eating the just-cooked meal in a fancy, thermally-regulated room, and eating the leftovers at a drab parish house dining table…hmm?
My feet stop mere steps away from the door to the room where Seigi Nomikata currently rests. Ortrud and Maria are caught by surprise and almost crash on my back.
“Javier?” Ortrud voices her worry.
“Nah, it’s just, I saw…”
The two just walking around the corner and out of sight were Elisabeth and Isolde. Did they come out of this room?
Not bothering to reply to Ortrud, I walk the final steps and knock on the door.
“It’s me,” I call out, not quite sure of who I’m expecting to answer.
“Javier? Do come in, it’s alright.”
(BGM)
The other side of the door reveals the warmth of Oliver Drake’s jewel lamps, improving the comfort level just a little bit above the frozen hellhole that is the current Valparaíso. The people in this room need it, that’s for sure.
Seigi Nomikata sits on the bed, his body mostly wrapped in thick wool blankets while trying to eat some sort of porridge (puree?) out the wooden spoon in Fiore’s hand (metal spoons get too cold). Naturally, Fiore, too, is protecting herself from the cold with a thick blanket over thick clothes.
Nomikata…is a sorry sight. In my former job, I heard a lot of tales of sailors rescued after being a stranded at sea for weeks, or even months. That’s the image I get from the man on the bed: thoroughly famished, pretty much skin and bones. That’s why he gets the gemstone lamps—he probably lacks the nutrients to self-regulate his temperature.
“Mr. Seigi? Look, we have visitors.”
I’m…not sure he is even aware of us—oh, no, he is raising his head to look at us.
“…yes. Sorry, I…”
“No, you don’t need to push yourself if it’s too hard to talk,” Fiore tells the man who seems to have become deathly still after speaking a single sentence fragment. Then, he shakes his head, the motion slow, almost machine-like.
“There is…a lag between my mind…and my body. It’s hard…to do things.”
I see. He’ll need some time to get used to that. Well, hopefully it won’t stay like that forever, but…
Fiore seems to read my expression, because she takes the word next.
“Mr. Seigi took metaphysical damage—damage to his soul, which is also projected onto his body. This is completely beyond my expertise.”
Yeah, it would be too much asking of Fiore to just have all the answers. However…
“Wasn’t Isolde just here?”
“Uh, no? I haven’t seen them this morning.”
I can’t keep the frown off my forehead at that answer. So…Isolde and Elisabeth were standing at the door, and slipped away when they heard us approaching? What are those two up to?
“Hmm…” It is Ortrud who knees by the bed, intently studying Nomikata’s appearance. “Is there anything else you feel? Any specific discomfort somewhere in your body?”
Nomikata needs a while to turn his head from me just past the door to Ortrud now by his bed in front of Fiore. The way he stares at her makes it unclear whether it’s the delay keeping him from answering right away, or just sheer reluctance to do so, and Ortrud seems to think the same.
“…right, I get it, the uniform. But I’m not ditching it before the weather goes back to normal,” Ortrud poutingly declares, crossing her arms in front of—or rather, underneath her bust.
“She’s with me,” I say, not quite happy with how that sounds. Heck, Ortrud herself chuckles at the words.
Stop smirking, Maria. Little brat.
An indecipherable grunt escapes Nomikata’s lips. Some seconds later, he turns to look down at his own hands on his lap. It is strange and annoying how every single thing he does happens just past the point I would normally expect, in just the right way to test my patience. I wonder if the others feel similarly.
“Mr. Seigi, would you like to continue eating?”
Nomikata does not turn towards Fiore; not now, and not a while later. He does reply, though.
“…please.”
Fiore seems to have gotten a read of Nomikata’s “delay” even before the man himself. She brings the spoon to his mouth at right about the same time he opens his mouth.
It is…a disquieting scene. We don’t even know what that Mummu’s endgame was. Obviously, he wanted to use the Grail, but then when that failed, he used Nomikata’s alchemy to create that egg thing that felt like a Grail, and it was doing something to the sky. Could he have done the same if he had possessed me instead? Was Nomikata simply a target of opportunity, and I the lucky one who was spared? It gives me the chills.
Maria, who has been quiet the whole time, walks over to the small, very-much-boarded window and leans on the wall next to it, also crossing her arms in a more impatient than defensive gesture this time.
“Fiore, I can tell you’ve been busy, but have you put some thought into what we talked about…?”
The former mage shakes her head with the graceful slowness with which she seems to do everything.
“Well, I would lie if I said I haven’t, but the only idea I came up with seems a little…”
Maria seems to not mind the obvious hesitation and doubt in Fiore’s voice and expression.
“Hey, it’s better than nothing.”
“I would appreciate having an idea of what you two are talking about,” Ortrud points out. I have to say I agree.
“Last night, while you were having fun with the Nazi girls, Fiore here was getting me up to date with everything you talked at dinner with Enheduanna.”
She just had to go and put it like that. I’d rather not look at Fiore right now. I don’t know how Ortrud can let the words just flow past her like water; I’ll have to ask me to teach me her ways.
“The more we know about her, the more we understand about her, the better to figure out how to beat her. Right now, there are two big questions I still haven’t been able to answer. The first is why she has the pen. We already talked about that last night. The second is Nazi tits right here.”
“Huh?” The ‘Nazi tits’ in question very naturally utters.
“You and your damn siblings, yes. Senta asked her, didn’t she? Why did she make you? The Fourth Reich didn’t really need you, and she’s not really the type to go through that effort just to give fucktoys to Wiligut and Kammler.”
“Maria and I couldn’t reach a conclusion last night, so we decided to sleep on it, but, really, the only answer I can think of…”
“Is…?” Maria encourages the ex-mage.
“…motherhood. She just wanted to be a mother—no, listen to me for a moment,” Fiore quickly requests upon seeing very much the same look plastered on everyone’s faces. “I didn’t say a good mother. The thing is, while she is connected to life and fertility, Ishtar is not particularly what modern scholarship calls a ‘mother goddess’. Creation is not a notable element of her mythos, nor is it her giving birth to other gods.”
She presents her hands like scales.
“Same goes for Enheduanna: as far as we know, she did not have children. She may have followed a vow of chastity her entire life, devoting her body to the gods. That is why I can conceive the possibility that she merely wanted to exercise her life-making prerogative, both as a god and as a woman.”
Nomikata mumbles something I don’t quite catch and, by the looks on the others, I’d say nobody did. If I had to hazard a guess, it kinda sounded like ‘Nina’.
“But, it’s not like she gave birth to us,” Ortrud counters. “We’re homunculi. We were literally born in a big glass tube.”
“Perhaps what mattered to her was the act of ‘creating life’,” Fiore conjectures. “Perhaps she is not even capable of authentic motherhood. Perhaps the very fact she is not connected to motherhood either as goddess or priestess means that, as a Servant, she completely lacks any maternal instinct.”
She shrugs almost dismissively, as if giving up on explaining a bad joke.
“Or perhaps we’ll never know.”
In the end, a lot was said, but nothing was concluded. Even after discovering The Maid’s True Name, she remains unfathomable.
Maria groans at the apparent futility of the whole discussion.
“So, in the end we don’t really know anything new…well, I guess I’ll have to figure something out myself somehow.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
(BGM)
“Enheduanna…”
Nomikata speaks again, his head hung low looking at his lap, or perhaps not really at anything.
“She wields…both the Dance…and the Word…” He says, his voice flat like an old, damaged record. “Even if you can match her Dance…you can’t defeat…her Unconquerable Sword…unless you overcome…her Divine Name…”
The redhead’s body sways dangerously on the bed, as if the muscle movements necessary to speak were enough to threaten his balance.
“Not a battle of magic, or power…a battle…of conviction…”
We all remain silent for a while, as if expecting Nomikata to say anything else. When it becomes clear that nothing more is to come, Fiore is the first to move. Together with Ortrud, they grab Nomikata’s body before it hits the nearby wall.
“What the hell was that?” I sound like a dumbass, I know.
“I do not know, but Mr. Seigi needs to lie down,” Fiore states. “He cannot control his body properly. He has to lie down before he hurts himself. Miss Ortrud, if you would be so kind.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got this.”
Maria has remained silent this whole time, her brow furrowed as she pushes the entire world away to dive into her own thoughts. They still spill out of her mouth, however, as if she needed to voice them so that they won’t fade into oblivion.
“Her Divine Name…? If it’s ‘Ishtar’ then it’s obvious, but he said ‘Enheduanna’…” She shakes her head. “But, she doesn’t have a divine name; it doesn’t have the—well, she does have the dingir sign, but not at the beginning.”
“What are you mumbling, Maria?”
The girl has the gall to make a shooing gesture, like I’m some bug pestering her.
“It’s hard to explain without writing the cuneiform,” she nonetheless explains, albeit never really looking at me. “Divine names always start with the dingir sign. It is a specific definer sign that indicates the name belongs to a divine being; it looks like an asterisk, kinda. Enheduanna’s ‘an’ is written with the same sign, but that doesn’t count; it has to be the first sign, which is not actually read.”
“An asterisk? I remember an asterisk.” This gets Maria’s attention. Actually, Fiore and Ortrud are also listening. “When I was trying to destroy Mummu’s magic in the sky, Enheduanna contacted me, and a bunch of symbols showed up in her stead. Same when she was restoring Nomikata’s body, the same symbols appeared—well, I think it was the same symbols. And I definitely remember the asterisks, because they’re the only ones I could figure out in all that nonsense.”
“The dingir sign? Really? At the start of the word?”
“Yeah. Well, at the start from the left, if that’s what you mean.”
Maria is still frowning, slowly shaking her head.
“No, but, giving herself the dingir wouldn’t do shit by itself…”
It seems something clicks in Maria’s head.
“Come with me.”
I don’t really have a choice—Maria pulls me away from the room, her insane Servant strength making it trivial for her to literally manhandle me with a single one of her small hands. Fiore and Ortrud look a little taken aback by the sudden act, although that doesn’t stop Ortrud from hurrying after us.
Soon enough, we’re back on the rooftop, the reason becoming obvious when Maria kneels in front of a patch of snow to draw cuneiform.
“Here!” Maria exclaims when finished. “Javier, were these the signs she showed you?”
“Uhh…” I scratch my head at the indecipherable nonsense on the snow. “Look, Maria, you cannot expect me to remember those symbols. I…I honestly don’t know. They look the same, but…there could be something different, I’m not sure myself.”
Maria clicks her tongue. She looks like she is about to say something, but stops herself with her mouth half-open. Instead, she closes it, and takes a deep breath. Ortrud is not coy about inching closer to me for the warmth my divine flame provides.
Maria, for whatever reason, looks up at the sky. The aurora that painted it with all sorts of cold tones is gone, leaving only a drab grey canopy. There are no stars, no sun to be seen in this frozen realm.
“The sky…”
She all but freezes again on the top. By now, I already know to associate that stillness with her inner communication with Saver.
“Javier, let’s try one last thing,” Maria then proposes as she hastily wipes off the cuneiform on both edges, leaving only the middle part.
“Focus on the triangle at the end. Was it—”
“Was it really there…?” I find myself saying even before Maria can ask her question. “I might be remembering wrong, but…wasn’t it more to the center? I think I remember that, because it was a big triangle, or she at least drew hers bigger, I dunno.”
“No…” Maria is shaking her head, her exorbitated eyes seemingly shuddering as her mind runs laps outside of my comprehension. She is talking to Saver inside her head even more now, until she nods to herself, seemingly having reached a shared conclusion with the ancient demon.
“It was a different sign. It was a different sign!”
The girl jumps to her feet, excited for whatever reason.
“She changed her name! She changed her fucking name, and engraved it on the World as a divine name! That’s her trick! That’s how she—fuck, that’s so dumb! It only works because that’s how her magic works; literal ‘Divine Words’!”
Maria then realizes we are not partaking of her excitement, and this apparently makes her ruffle her own head in frustration.
“Look, it’s not hard to get—you, Nazi tits; your name’s Ortrud, right? Like the evil bitch from Lohengrin. Imagine if every single woman named Ortrud had that witch’s powers, just because they had the same name.”
“Fuck no, that would be horrible,” Ortrud jokingly comments.
“Well, that’s how Enheduanna’s Age of Gods magic works: to us, language is just a convenient tool we use to describe the world around us, but to the people of her era, language was something greater than reality itself, because it was the tool the gods used to create the world,” Maria explains in an effusive voice, far more like the girl I met at the hostel before the world froze. “And just like her gods, she defines everything in reality by how she writes it! And that includes herself!”
She is clenching her fists like she is about to jump in utter joy and celebration.
“She rewrote the name ‘Enheduanna’ with different signs that gave it a new meaning! A far more powerful meaning that just ‘ornament of heaven’!”
“And because the World already recognized her as divine through her Goddess Metamorphosis…” Ortrud, who is obviously less lost than me by now, adds her own musings to Maria’s frantic explanation of a sort. “…that’s just cheating. She could use her Divine Words to declare exactly what kind of god she wants to be.”
“It has nothing to do with her being ‘also Ishtar’,” Maria adds, nodding eagerly at Ortrud’s input. “I’m sure it’s easier for her to get away with shit if she sticks to ‘being Ishtar’—that’s probably what she did in life, so that’s her ‘legend’. But, she could probably convince the World to let her reproduce any god of her pantheon! That’s how she got the pen!”
“And she’s doing it with just magecraft!” Ortrud trembles. It’s probably not the cold. “Age of Gods magecraft, sure, but still…!”
“Exactly,” Maria retorts, the word sounding almost vicious to my ears. “It’s just magecraft. You realize what that means?”
There it is. It hasn’t been that long, but it still feels like forever since I last saw it: that fire in her eyes.
“I can win. I can win!”
Well, would you look at that. Anybody can see it: there is light in her eyes, there is a blaze there. I might not get the details, but she has found a path, a light at the end of the tunnel. She has found hope, and that’s everything I need to know.
“Well, I don’t really get it, but I don’t need to get it, either,” I admit. Does the fact that I can say this without feeling bad about myself mean I’ve grown up a little? “I’m just glad you’ve got your confidence game in order.”
For whatever reason, this makes Maria’s face alight with the brightest of smiles, almost like a little sun in this frozen hellscape. She looks even younger than her real age, like a child who got herself stuffed with her favorite candy. Really, this girl should be fighting anybody.
“Anyway, no need to stay out here longer than necessary. Let’s go back inside and explain to Fiore why we ran off on her and Nomikata like—”
We are interrupted, frozen in place by the most unexpected of sounds. There is an additional bizarreness on how well it fits this stage, yet it nevertheless comes out a complete surprise, and all the more unsettling for it.
(BGM)
Wolves. It is perhaps the last sound you want to hear when walking alone on the snowy wilderness.
“Was that…the Herald?” No, even I know that’s a stupid question. There is more than one animal, and the sounds, potent as they are, nonetheless come from very far away. It is unfortunate, but Maria’s smile is gone, replaced with the intense stare of a soldier expecting imminent violence. Her hand clenches a sword that is not there (yet). And Ortrud…
“Ortrud?”
She looks…immensely sad.
“Remember what I said about staying away from Senta?” She speaks quietly, as if fearing being heard by the distant predators. “Forget that. We need to talk to Senta, now.”
She doesn’t waste a moment and starts walking back to the church’s bell tower ahead of us.
“Werwolf was her project, after all.”
*** ***
(BGM)
Saying that everybody is gathered for our strategy meeting would be lie. Naturally, the Drakes are not involved, and Father Scherer has taken over Nomikata nursing duties so that Fiore and Marco Ahrens can be here. However, another person shines by their absence.
“Where’s Liria?”
Of course, I’m not the only one who’s noticed. The others share glances and frowns, trying to figure out when anybody last saw her.
“I haven’t felt her presence around for a while,” Maria admits. “But she’s an Assassin, so that doesn’t really say a lot.”
“Ah, the corpse demon left with the water girl a while ago.”
We all turn to the Herald with varying degrees of confusion and exasperation. Most of us then turn to Senta, his Master, hoping we don’t need to tell her what we need.
“Uhh…” The homunculus girl does not seem quite comfortable being the center of attention right now. She’s really avoiding my eyes, like wow. “Shielder, can you give us more details? Who is this ‘water girl’?”
The scarred Servant shrugs.
“Dunno. We noticed her coming this way, but Assassin said she would handle it. I didn’t think it was a problem; that girl didn’t seem very strong. Even her scent of divinity was very faint.”
A ‘water girl’ with a scent of divinity…
“Magda, huh…”
Maria Magdalena Vyhmeister came here on her own? Without Diego? That…maybe it’s just the tension of everything that’s going on, but that seems mighty suspicious. And why did Liria decide to go with her? I mean, Liria is a Servant, so I don’t think she has anything to fear from Magda, but…
“I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t think we have the time to dwell on this,” the Japanese mage/wrestler says in a firm, steeled tone. “We can only trust Liria knows what she’s doing.”
“Yeah, we have our own problems to deal with. Senta?”
Again, Senta hunches her shoulders and tries to make herself smaller when all the eyes fall on her. There is more than embarrassment there. If I have to make a guess…it’s guilt.
“Werwolf was not really my idea. Ahnenerbe developed the formula for induced lycanthropy in the last year of the war based on the Japanese Unit 731’s experimentation on the Ainu peoples to activate the ‘Lupine Factor’.”
Maria groans with utmost disgust.
“Look, we don’t need the gross details of the Nazis’ fucked-up experiments. Senta, you’re telling me the Fourth Reich has actual werewolves?”
The bespectacled girl nods slowly.
“Skorzeny’s werewolves could only be produced from people of the right bloodlines: the descendants of the Benandanti, the Neurian Scythians, and the wolf-men of the Icelandic sagas. My job was to develop a formula that would work on anyone…or at least anyone who would survive it.”
“How many.” A question that doesn’t sound like a question. Right now, Senta is like a criminal in the interrogation booth. It feels like there should be a one-way mirror between the kitchen and the dining room.
“…a dozen. But, Ortrud said New Asgard was flooded with magma, so I don’t know if they all survived that…”
“Don’t do that, Senta.”
Yes, the shitty Isolde is out for whatever reason.
“You’re trying to downgrade the threat so that the monkeys will hate you less. Don’t do that; you know the Werwolf lab was one of the most secured and sturdiest chambers down there. I’d bet not a single drop of magma got even close to them—ow!”
Ortrud clears her throat after slapping the back of her sibling’s head.
“The way they put it aside, Isolde’s right this time. We have to assume the worst-case scenario: we’re dealing with the entire squad here. Including their leader.”
“Leader?” Sakura wonders. “You don’t mean Berserker, do you?”
“No, the werewolf leader,” Senta explains. “Or rather, the ‘alpha’. He took better to the formula than the others, and came out all the stronger for it. And they were…” Whatever it is Senta is trying to say, it obvious makes her very uncomfortable. Unfortunately for all of us, Isolde has no such qualms.
“They were all local criminals ‘extracted’ from jail for Senta’s experiments, so they already followed a hierarchy of sorts to begin with.”
Maria groans again, while the others remain wrapped in an uncomfortable silence. At no point in my life, I ever expected to be part of a discussion on human experimentation. Certainly not at the hands of a woman I…
“So, what can we expect from these ‘werewolves’?” Sakura inquires, perhaps trying to keep the conversation moving to avoid overthinking things.
“What you would expect.” Surprisingly, it is Marco who answers. “Superlative physical prowess, a predatory mindset and hunting pack tactics. They’re also surprisingly stealthy for their size. At least if they’re like the werwölfe of Skorzeny’s ‘Division Lüneburg´.”
Senta confirms Marco’s presumptions with a single nod.
“They can’t use magecraft?” Sakura continues.
“No.” This time, Senta provides the answer. “There was no time for that. Besides…”
“You have to be at least smart enough to wonder why we didn’t use them in the previous days,” Isolde interjects. “They’re not reliable. They can’t be trusted to follow orders, and almost impossible to teach. That’s why they were held in suspended animation…until now, I guess.”
“There’s no need for reliability if their only command is to hunt and kill,” Ortrud points out.
Again, silence ensues for a bit. I mean, what are you supposed to feel when you learn that Nazi werewolves are out to kill you?
“So, I take it the question is whether to meet them out on the streets, or ready ourselves for a siege?”
“No,” Marco promptly refutes. “A siege is not an option. There are civilians here, and we can’t forget the Werwölfe are not the main threat.”
He grunts, glancing at Maria and me for whatever reason before resuming his speech.
“The main enemies are four: Enheduanna, Archer, Wiligut, and Hexensoldat I.”
“Based on his words last night, we can kind of group the first two together,” Sakura notes. “Archer will try to prevent anybody from reaching Enheduanna.”
“You don’t need to think about that,” Maria declares, again crossing her arms as she leans on the nearest wall. “I have to fight Enheduanna, so I guess I have to beat Archer first.”
(BGM STOP)
Again, a tense, heavy silence. It’s not just one, but two Servants Maria has to overcome today. It is the epitome of shame that drops its burdensome weight on the rest of us, who can only dump that unbelievable duty on her.
“Maybe…Shielder should go with you?” Senta proposes, but Maria shakes her head.
“That guy seems to have an advantage against beasts. I don’t think the puppy can win against him.”
“I can kill him.”
(BGM)
Garmr’s voice is quiet and serene. It is not even conviction that fuels those words. It is a statement of fact, as natural as saying that one plus one equals two.
“If it’s just that Archer, then I can kill him,” he says, and it really sounds like it’s a result already decided. Nevertheless, Maria still shakes her head.
“Yeah, that’s fine and all, but without you, there’s no Servant to fight Wiligut. And no, Javier definitely doesn’t count.”
Yeah, it sucks, but I have to agree. I don’t think I’ll be able to repeat the kind of stunts I pulled off yesterday. I really pushed it back there. If I tried the recreate the pseudo-Linga, the flame might just leap out of my body for good while I still need it. That thing has a will and a drive to do one specific thing. I’m holding it within myself with the promise that I’ll let it do it once everything is over.
Unleashing the full flame before Enheduanna is defeated…would be counterproductive, I feel.
“We’d still have Liria,” Sakura points out.
“She’s not here, though,” Maria retorts. And therein lies the problem: can we count on Liria for whatever strategy we come up with? Why did she choose this of all times to slip away, and with Magda, even?
“That Nomikata monkey hard-cancels Wiligut’s nigredo, but I guess you can’t count on him right now,” Isolde states in their insufferable voice that makes it clear they enjoy our tribulations.
“Javier can also negate the black flame,” Senta reminds. “But Wiligut has more than that…”
“He hasn’t even shown his Noble Phantasm,” Ortrud also brings up.
“What would that piece of shit’s Noble Phantasm even be?” Maria then ponders. “The Gotenstock?”
Marco chuckles. “You even know about that, huh.”
“Like I said, I’ve read a lot.”
“I…don’t know,” answers the youngest Hexensoldat. “He does have it; we’ve all seen it in his hand, but we don’t know if it’s his Noble Phantasm.”
Noticing the ignorance on mine and others’ faces, Maria takes the duty of explaining things.
“It’s a carved, wooden cane with a golden, head-shaped pommel Wiligut was known to carry with him all the time. Supposedly, it was inherited from his grandfather by way of his father, and it wasn’t a support for walking, but a magical wand.”
“He didn’t have any cane when we fought him,” I comment, and Maria snorts.
“Maybe he thought he didn’t need it.”
“He was not Wiligut at the time, remember?” Ortrud brings up. “He was ‘Isolde’.”
“Don’t ask me,” retorts the afore-mentioned Hexensoldat. “That was Mummu, not me. But from what he told me, it seems the Berserker’s Mad Enhancement really got in the way.”
“In any case, Noble Phantasm or not, Wiligut is a Servant, and you need Servants to defeat other Servants,” Maria declares. “Even if it’s a piece-of-shit Nazi lunatic.”
Maria shoots a rather accusatory look at Senta, who already looks miserable enough.
“Actually, just what else does Wiligut have in store down there? Should we expect another fuckin’ Haunebu?”
Senta shakes her head, her head hung low to look at nothing but the floor. She is already flanked by Ortrud and myself, and when I notice her pathetic hesitation to take my hand, I just take hers myself. Damn it, Senta, if you need to hold my hand for moral support, just do it. If only on this regard, I want you to learn from your sister.
“Ortrud said New Asgard was flooded with magma, so it’s hard to tell how much still remains.”
She squeezes my hand, probably more for herself than for me. Do whatever you want, just don’t break any bones. I think I’ll need those today.
“Isolde is right: the Werwölfe are probably all unharmed, so expect all twelve, including the alpha. The soldier generator, on the other hand, must be down. It was too large to have been spared. Any etheric soldiers remaining must be ones already made that survived the magma. Wiligut won’t make any new ones. As for any more Wunderwaffen…”
At this point she turns to Ortrud, who grimaces at becoming the target of Maria and Marco’s inquisitorial stares.
“Yeah, yeah; Senta handled the human experimentation, I was Kammler’s assistant on weapons development.”
“And we were everyone’s nurse and Wiligut’s fucktoy.”
“Nobody asked, Isolde.”
“And Elisabeth here was just a doll that only looked pretty and did nothing,” continues the bitter homunculus, centering their spite on their youngest ‘sibling’. “You know, I always wondered: why did Wiligut and Kammler never fuck you? I guess Enheduanna messed with their heads or whatever.”
“My job was to ensure the obedience of the other Hexensoldaten through the threat of their unmaking by my eye.”
“I fucking knew it!” Isolde’s triumphant exclamation is laced with vitriol. “Fuck Wiligut, and fuck that so-called ‘mother’ of ours! Pair of shit-eating hypocrites! Wiligut should’ve raped her instead; bet my ass she’d give birth to the reincarnation of Hitler.”
“And here I was bothered by Maria’s potty mouth…” Fiore murmurs when she thinks nobody can hear her. Sakura is trying to maintain an attitude fitting the gravitas of the morning’s situation, but Fiore’s words made her lips quiver a little bit.
“By this point, I don’t think your ass has any value, Isolde.”
The blonde Hexensoldat gapes at Elisabeth like she has grown a new head. Even Senta and Ortrud, who had been busy wincing and leaning on each other after Elisabeth’s callous declaration, find the strength—or rather the shock—to look at her after that roast.
“What Ortrud was trying to say, until crudely interrupted by Isolde here,” the one-eyed brunette calmly continues, as she hadn’t just incapacitated our annoying prisoner with only a few words. “Is that there probably remains enough equipment worth mentioning. The Werwölfe should be equipped with the same firearms wielded by the etheric soldiers, with bullets that can harm spiritual entities. There should also be an additional Siegfried power suit, though I don’t know if Wiligut is even capable of operating it.”
Elisabeth looks at Ortrud for confirmation, and the latter nods.
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
Isolde clears their throat, apparently having recovered from the unexpected verbal attack. Or perhaps it was a chuckle; it could really be either.
“You have never explained to us how the Fourth Reich could dig such an extensive network of tunnels under these hills,” Fiore brings up. “Their size makes it very hard to believe they could have escaped discovering, but then again, this is Enheduanna we’re talking about…”
“It’s not like she had to ‘dig’ then, though,” Ortrud corrects. “To my understanding, she just used her Divine Words to materialize a specific mystery. I mean, she has territorial authority over this entire nation as the Goddess of Venus.”
(BGM)
“Territorial authority…?” Fiore repeats, sounding both surprised and mystified. “How…?”
“The flag,” Elisabeth answers instead of Ortrud. “The star on the flag of Chile is Venus.”
This…is true. The five-pointed star in the Chilean flag is inspired by the guñelve, the Star of Arauco, a Mapuche symbol in the shape of an eight-pointed star representing Venus as the morning star.
“It is a symbol recognized, respected, and honored by the people of this land,” Elisabeth continues. “As the goddess of Venus, Enheduanna, as Ishtar, has rendered herself ‘goddess of Chile’.”
“Yes, but that does not explain why specifically here, in Valparaíso,” Fiore insists. At this, Ortrud chuckles.
“Are you familiar with the work of Jean Robin?”
Maria makes a face of utter, undiluted repugnance. Marco has the quintessential ‘you can’t be serious’ face right now.
“God! No! Seriously! You can’t be—Operation Orth!? Seriously!? You have to be—ugh…!” Maria turns away from us to bonk her forehead on the wall again and again.
“How…” She whines between hits. “Just, how…”
“Jean Robin is a French writer—”
“Apologize to real writers, Nazi tits.”
Ortrud ignores Maria’s comment and continues her explanation for the ignorant ones in the room—Fiore, Sakura, and yours truly.
“He’s a conspiracy theorist, mixing aliens, Nazi occultism, mythology and pseudo-history to create outrageous stories he claims are real. Operation Orth is a book he released in 1989—again, claiming it is a narration of real events, as narrated to him by their protagonist. Among all the bizarre things that happen in that story, the protagonist ‘Pierre’ is captured by a ‘Black Order’, apparently to recruit him. They take him from his native France to Valparaíso aboard a flying saucer, and there—or rather, here—they show him that they have built a tunnel network that stretches under the Andes and perhaps across the entire globe.”
“Yeah, yeah, and they built a mausoleum in Tierra del Fuego with the mummies of Hitler and goddamn Raoul Wallenberg, because those two were best buddies and the Holocaust didn’t fucking happen!” Maria interjects with something that is just a step away from murderous rage. “I know the stupid fuckin’ story, Ortrud! How does it—”
“Caster,” Elisabeth interrupts. “She had the power to grant written stories that nebulous quality we call ‘mystery’.”
“And Enheduanna’s Divine Words can turn mystery into reality,” Ortrud finishes. “There. Q. E. D. Can we move on to things that matter now?”
“Like Hilde…” Elisabeth proposes, and the tension shared among the Hexensoldaten is so palpable and real that the rest of us cannot argue with them. Even Maria chooses to just click her tongue, curse under her breath, and shove her anti-Nazi sentiments aside to refocus on the challenge ahead.
“…fine.” Maria raises her hands in a pacifying gesture. “Sorry ‘bout that…”
“No,” Marco interjects firmly. “Never apologize for rejecting those ideas, Maria. It is people like you who will ensure those tragedies won’t be forgotten after those who lived them are dead and gone.”
Marco, if only in part, is speaking for himself. He was both a silent accomplice and eventually a victim as well.
“Yeah,” Ortrud then says, unusually quiet for her. “Look, we do…well, I guess we can’t really say we understand, but…I don’t know ‘bout The Great Isolde here, but I think at least Senta and I recognize the facts. We’re not endorsing Jean Robin, or Savitri Devi or the Landig Group or any of those other fools.”
“Or Serrano,” I mutter for no real reason. Now that I think of it, Miguel Serrano, my great nation’s most famous neo-Nazi, was part of a pro-Nazi occult order that practiced kundalini yoga. If Serrano was a mage, he’d have used magecraft very similar to Ortrud’s.
I…am not sure what to think about that.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Maria acknowledges, her words partially drowning Isolde’s ‘harrumph’.
(BGM)
Fiore, who has wisely remained detached from a discussion in which she has no place, finally chooses to intervene.
“We really should resume our original topic. I believe we were going to hear about the first of the Hexensoldaten?”
“Yeah.”
Of all the artificial ‘siblings’, it is the rotten one who takes the word.
“If you look down on that one, she’ll crush the whole lot of you,” Isolde declares in a wicked, taunting voice that shows they revel in the turbulent emotions bubbling in this room. “She was designed to be a modern-day Valkyrie, using that crazy runic reinforcement to boost herself to stupid levels.”
“Rather than a Valkyrie, she’s just a mage killer,” Ortrud adds, apprehension clear in her voice. “Out of the whole bunch of us, she’s the one who was truly made to fight, and kill.”
“And that’s why I have to intercept her.”
We all turn to Senta, who looks like a dry leaf that could be blown away by the slightest gust. She’s looking at Maria.
“If left to her devices, she’ll go straight after you. I’m sure you can beat her, but you already have enough problems as it is; you don’t need another obstacle to tire you out before you reach Enheduanna.” Senta nods to herself. “Hilde already hates me for messing with her when we fought yesterday. If I show up in front of her, she’ll set her plans aside to try and kill me.”
“And we’ll take her out,” Ortrud then adds. “We already have a plan…sorta kinda.”
“We have to do this,” Senta continues. “The Hexensoldaten…we were never really a ‘team’, but we’re disbanding today nevertheless. And we’ll resolve our affairs by ourselves.”
I…am not entirely comfortable with this. We’ll basically have to split: there’s Maria going to the top of the hills, Ortrud and Senta looking for their eldest sister, and the group going after Wiligut. We don’t know if the werewolves will come straight here, or intercept any or all of those groups. We have to protect Ricardo and the Drakes here. And there’s still Diego and Magda out there, unless Liria intends to…get them out of the way.
“Is everybody here in fighting shape, even?” Elisabeth ponders, and Isolde snorts.
“Says the useless one who can’t do shit.”
“Not like you intend to help us, either,” Ortrud chides in.
“Of course we’re not helping, why would we? We’re getting the fuck away from here as soon as we can. No matter which side wins, we also win as long as we stay alive. You go get yourselves killed fighting impossible odds, for all we give a shit.”
That’s right. This person is not our friend. They won’t even be our prisoner for much longer, without the means to keep them from slipping away.
“Isolde, I do have a question,” Fiore suddenly intervenes. “Why did you not flee last night, when Elisabeth was the only one guarding you?”
Isolde’s reaction is…strange. They become tense, flinching away just slightly as if put on the spot. They glance at Elisabeth who…is also a little bit rigid, and not quite looking at anybody with her sole exposed eye.
“L-Like we could flee with that mutt and the whore keeping watch!” Isolde then whines, turning away from Elisabeth and gesturing towards Shielder. I cannot be the only one who can tell they’re hiding something, both Isolde and Elisabeth. There’s also their behavior just earlier, when I went to Nomikata’s room.
“You two, just what are you two—”
(BGM)
We all feel it. Nothing really changes, at least inside this room, but every single one of us feels it and tenses on the spot. Something invisible, intangible, appears to have filled the world all of a sudden. There is something in the air; something heavy, dense, thick, yet completely detached from our senses. I don’t even know what to call it; it’s an energy, a force, or a vibration…no, it’s…it’s just change. The unexplainable knowledge that something is different. It’s like replacing a single lightbulb in a ship’s deck. The ship remains identical, but I know something has changed.
And I know everybody else feels it. My natural distrust of them makes me look at Isolde, but they look as confused and surprises as everybody else. If anybody has a different expression, it’s Maria.
“She’s started.”
When Maria darts out of the dining room, we all follow her, even after she opens the parish house’s small entrance door, forcing us to bear with an onrushing torrent of subzero winds. I instinctively summon the flame, which envelops me like a second skin, emitting relieving warm for the people around me. Unfortunately, it means I have to let go of Senta’s hand.
“Knock it off, imbecile!” Isolde complains, much to my surprise.
“You think you have energy to spare? Save it for what really matters…”
Their voice trails off when their eyes settle on the sky, and I completely understand after I do the same. I’m sure we all make for a dumb scene, dumbfoundedly gazing up at the new sky that now covers frozen Valparaíso.
“What now…” Sakura mutters, sounded already tired before the final battle has even started. As if the sigh of this new, vivid aurora had completely sapped her energy. A sky frozen in unending night. We see stars for the first time in days, but the sight is neither relieving or comforting.
“This is just a message,” Maria states, her voice as steeled as the look on her face. “She doesn’t need any of this flashiness. This is just a message: ‘If you want to stop me, you better get moving’.”
Yeah. We have never played on our terms. We don’t get to decide when the bell announcing the final battle rings, she does.
“That doesn’t look like a message to me,” Fiore comments, pointing at the brightest point in this surreal vista rich in colors mocking the boring uniformity of frozen Valparaíso, as if the colors of all its graffiti and all its old houses and rooftops had found a new place in this unending night. Yet the aurora pales before the pristine star that outshines all others, despite not being a star.
“Venus…” Marco murmurs, as if the word itself were a curse.
Perhaps it is instinct, but my eyes seek not Senta or Ortrud. They meet Maria’s. I don’t know what my face looks like right now, but she looks…no, serene is not the word. Her face may look calm, but her inner tension and the encroaching pressure of what she must face is betrayed by her body and her posture. But, what can I say to her? Good luck? Break a leg? That’s just…
“Maria…”
“I know, I know. ‘Just live’, right?”
When she extends her closed fist at me, the only right and proper thing to do is to bump it with my own.
“Right back at ya, brother.”
It feels…weird to be called that by Maria—wait a goddamn second.
“Knock it off with the ‘fart siblings’ thing already.”
Maria just grins, like the free-spirited child she should’ve always been.
Perhaps things will be alright, after all.
If I haven’t completely lost track of time, today should be the 28th of July, 2015.
*** ***
Warning!
This is a Locked Save Point.
If your quest reaches a Dead End, it may only resume from this point.
*** ***
FINAL SETUP
There are four fronts for your consideration in this decisive challenge.
- Maria will follow Alemania Avenue to reach the top of Valparaíso’s hills and Enheduanna’s temple, well aware that Archer will stand on her way. This is the one front of which there is no doubt as to what will be found there.
- Senta and Ortrud will separate from Maria halfway up the hills to attempt to intercept Brünnhilde, who they expect will go after Maria.
- This front consists of those who go on the offensive to confront the simulacrum Servant Karl Maria Wiligut before he and his minions reach the church.
- This is not really a combat front, but instead those appointed to look for Liria and/or the Vyhmeister siblings.
For each character, state the number of the “battle front” to which you wish to deploy them. Of course, you may also choose to have a character stay at the church by declaring as much. Maria Westinghouse, Senta, and Ortrud have their positions predefined as noted above.
The characters you can deploy are:
- Javier Lucero.
- Sakura Edelfelt.
- Fiore Forvedge.
- Marco Ahrens.
- Servant Shielder (Garmr).
- Elisabeth.
This author wishes you wisdom and success.
Originally Posted by Faux, July 20th 2019
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A wise and beautiful woman who exudes an aura of grace. She is a sly, cunning, manipulative person who always gets what she wants, whether through trickery or ruthlessness. Her own fighting abilities are low, but she should not be trifled with. What does she ride? Men, of course!
