The Homunculus Knight

"The evidence you sent me, Igori, is troubling in the extreme. I will dispatch a coterie of capable agents to aid your investigations into this matter. If their findings match your own, then we will settle this matter with steel. But be aware of the value of Gens Silva's research, and that I am unwilling to discard both it and her, without proof set in stone. No offensive action will be taken against Countess Isabelle unless I personally lead it. I know well your shared animosity and will not see you take matters into your own capable hands. This must be a matter of an overlord's judgement, not a clash between rival houses." - letter sent by Archduke Flavius Gens Dracon to Voivode Igori Gens Suillia

Scapino's plan for Wolfgang to better access Gens Silva's memories had been simple, clever, and yet profoundly insufficient. He'd combined the stolen knowledge of his victims with his own demonic power to craft a stronger proxy, a proxy that once again took the shape of a fly. Something that made the Black Fly think this form was less a jest on his "ally's" part and more a metaphysical necessity brought on by the fae nature of the Deja Lanterna. Still, this fly, unlike its splattered predecessor, was layered in fell magic born from Scapino's own chimeric nature. Making it, in theory, not just a disguise for Wolfgang to wear, but a suit of armor to protect him. However, theory wasn't reality, and right now, the Black Fly's new magical defenses felt less like plate mail and more like a noose he'd idiotically stuck his neck into.

A noose that now tightened as Isabelle Gens Silva squeezed his throat. By surviving her initial strike, Wolfgang's proxy had only better garnered the former countess's full attention. Staring into her baleful red eyes, he struggled against the grip on his neck and what it represented. Here in a mindscape, imagery had power, and metaphors were weapons; Isabelle wasn't truly strangling him, but trying to crush his will with her own.

Voice thick with hate, Isabelle hissed. "Hello, plagiarist, did you come to steal more of my secrets?"

Thinking quickly, Wolfgang decided he couldn't risk a contest of strength and would instead need to rely on trickery to escape. Thankfully, his opponent was both furious and disoriented, a combination that left cracks in her mettle. Forming a dagger out of a memory, he drove the shiv into one of those cracks, striking her with the sounds the Homunculus made when he stabbed the creature in the gut. Isabelle's iron will didn't break, but it did bend enough for Wolfgang to slip free from her fingers.

Stumbling backwards, he next called up a storm of complex mathematical theory and cast it as his foe, like squid ink. With the former countess busy tearing through a cloud of extraneous equations, Wolfgang tried to cut the link between himself and the fly proxy. But to his horror, the link didn't snap; instead, a white-hot needle pressed itself into his brain. Gasping in pain, he doubled over as his mind became jumbled. Where was he? What was he doing? Who even was he?

The dissociative flash came to an end as a bludgeon of psychic wrath smashed into him, knocking his addled consciousness to the ground. Just as Wolfgang remembered his name and why he now lay, face pressed against the surface of a blood lake, tendrils of red slithered around his body and bound him. Vision oscillating between human and insect, he could only watch as Isabelle Gens Silva prowled towards him.

As the last of his pain faded and higher thoughts returned to him, Wolfgang realized what had happened. He wasn't here thanks to a normal psychic link, one easily snapped with the right amount of mental effort. He was possessing a demonically warped fly, and piloting its mind through a fae artifact and into an archmagi's own psyche. In trying to escape without following the correct protocol, he'd suffered a backlash, one bad enough to hurt, but not set him free. If Wolfgang was going to escape, he needed to figure out the mechanics of this magic.

Yet before he could even curse Scapino for not explaining how the lantern worked, Gens Silva kicked him right in the mouth. If they'd been in the physical world, the blow might have been enough to tear his jaw clear off, but here, it just hurt terribly.

"You handle pain poorly; our last confrontation proved that. So I wonder how much it'll take for you to crack and let me drink your mind."

Glaring up at his prisoner and captor, Wolfgang spat. "You tried that before. Do you want to risk the same outcome as then?"

Isabelle's eyes blazed, and he realized, reminding her of the Reaper's intervention hadn't been a good idea, especially since he had no guarantee his newest patron would help again. But to his surprise, Gens Silva didn't lash out; instead, she paused and stared at him with a concerningly, calculating expression. The tendrils of blood wrapping him moved, hoisting him so he now dangled upright like a carcass in a meat locker. Stepping close, Gens Silva examined him, like an aberrant specimen.

"Why are you here? No, better question, how are you here?"

Wolfgang didn't answer, unwilling to give away anything for free, but unfortunately, his silence wasn't as much a hindrance as he would have liked. Musing to herself, Isabelle said. "Your owner, Igori, wouldn't trust anyone with my memories, not even a favored spawn. So the fact that you're the one trying to scavenge inspiration from me means this is happening without his approval."

Tapping her lips with one long finger, she nodded to herself. "And this isn't a normal psychic connection. I felt your abortive attempt to escape me. Even ignoring that, diving into memories in such a subtle but still clumsy way requires special rituals or relics. You've got your grubby little hands on something you shouldn't. Besides my skull, that is."

She'd inferred far too much from far too little. As much as Wolfgang loathed the woman, he couldn't deny her intellect. In waking her from the Deja Lanterna's enforced recollections, he'd unleashed a monster, one he now shared a cage with. Now the question was how to slip through the bars before she sank her teeth into him.

"A craven plagiarist like you wouldn't have the initiative or skill to plot behind Igori's back with any measure of success. Therefore, you've gotten help, probably from the Reaper of Sorrows, but a fell god's aid is never straightforward."

It was a terrible thing watching someone piece together the intricacies of your life from the sparest of clues. Yet Wolfgang had no other option but to sit here and let his foe monologue. She'd stopped considering him a threat, or even a person, just another research subject to hear her musings before meeting an end upon a cold slab.

"But the Reaper's been spending a lot of gate debt recently. Considering how the ashborn at the solstice ball conjured grief demons I'm assuming the attack on Vindabon's wards was that morose bitch's work. That, when combined with how much effort went into manipulating Natalie and turning you into a trap…"

Wolfgang's plaid flesh somehow got even colder as Gens Silva examined him with a gaze sharp as a scalpel. "Well, I'll find out soon enough."

The tendrils of blood holding him became a kraken's grip, and Wolfgang gasped as his ego creaked under the pressure. Stepping close to him, Gens Silva put a hand on either side of his head and joined in crushing him. With that same matter-affect-ness as before, she said. "Did you know some cultures practice a form of ritual cannibalism where the brains of fallen foes are consumed in a rite to extract their knowledge and power? Personally, I always found such a primitive practice woefully inefficient, but right now, I think it's an apt metaphor."

She was going to open his jagging skull and drink his mind! Panic warred with agony inside Wolfgang, and he tried to think of a way out, but his thoughts were growing leaden and slippery. Gone was the confusion and belligerence of earlier; Gens Silva was utterly focused on her task, leaving no gaps his magic might exploit. So without spells to aid him, he turned to words and guile. But before his splintering mind could even hope to conjure some lie or offer that might save him, the pressure on his being changed.

It didn't lessen, by the gods, it didn't lessen, yet neither did it worsen. The vice around his brain was still in place, but no longer steadily ratcheting up the pressure. An equilibrium had been reached between his mental fortitude and Gens Silva's power. Managing to look past his pain and into the scowling face of his tormenter, Wolfgang managed to say. "Yo-you ar-aren't strong enough. Le-let's negotiate.

Isabelle scoffed. "Don't you remember the last time you challenged me? Your mind isn't a fortress to be besieged, but an egg to be cracked open. No, you yet again only persist thanks to another's will."

This genuinely shocked Wolfgang, but in retrospect, it should have been obvious. If Scapino's protections were good enough to stop Gens Silva from swatting him right out of her memories, then they would naturally ward him against anything else she did.

Clearly seeing the impasse they'd reached, Gens Silva let go of his head, leaving him still bound but not longer being crushed. As the pain faded away, Wolfgang allowed himself just a moment to be thankful for the respite before considering what it meant. Even if the former countess couldn't finish him off, she could have kept torturing him out of spite, something she clearly had in droves. So either she really did lack the strength to keep up this pressure out of pure malice, or maybe she had something else in mind. A break from torture was, afterall, just part of the process; fear of what was coming could do more to the mind than knives and fire.

Expression coolly neutral, Isabelle settled back into a metal throne that rose up from the blood lake to meet her. "Your protections stink of the Dark, but your presence here carries whiffs of the fae. What sort of web have you gotten yourself tangled in, plagiarist?"

Wolfgang didn't answer and instead tried to use his reprieve to think of a way out of this mess. While all magic relied on symbolism, sympathy, and synergy, sidhe spells, much like their casters, were exaggerated. The Deja Lanterna had cast him down the rabbit hole of Gens Silva's memories, from where she'd plucked him into her mindscape. Perhaps to escape, he needed to retrace his steps, find the memory he'd entered into, and leave through it? Yes, that seemed the exact sort of dramatic thinking necessary when it came to fae magic. Now the question was how to escape Isabelle's grip and dive back into her memories.

"If you are thinking about escaping, you're welcome to try." Isabelle's word cut through his musings, and as his focus returned to her lounging form, she snapped her fingers. All around them, the mindscape shook as monolithic shapes emerged from the red lake. Hundreds of pillars of dark basalt topped by jagged speartips soon stretched dozens of meters into the air. From the porous grooves marking the oak-trunk-sized spires, strands of sharp metal extruded out, coiling through the air like spider silk guided by an unseen hand. Thousands upon thousands of shining wires reached nearby pillars and wove themselves into solid walls that soon enclosed Wolfgang and Isabelle. Yet, a small gap in the walls remained behind the countess's throne, one that's edges were marked by sharp wires that would surely scourge the flesh of any who passed through them.

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To his utter surprise, the bindings holding Wolfgang fell away, and he toppled forward. Landing on one knee, he looked up to find the gap awaiting him. Glancing around, he found Isabelle and her throne behind him. Such a melodramatic twisting of reality was completely unnecessary, but it reinforced how in control she was.

Isabelle gestured at the opening like she was dismissing a servant. "Go ahead, find the way out of my mind."

Slowly standing up, Wolfgang kept looking between the gap and Gens Silva. "This is a trap."

"Of course it is! But so far, you've shown me nothing to make me think you'd not leap at even the most forlorn of hopes. So, pass through there, take another idiotic risk, and see if you can escape my mind. Then once you've failed spectacularly, and my lesson is beaten into you, we'll talk."

Wolfgang was growing to truly hate Gens Silva. "What lesson?"

She clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Isn't that obvious? That you aren't leaving here unless I let you."

Even the Voivode at his most fickle wasn't this condescending. "And suppose I accept this lesson without facing whatever gauntlet you've arranged?"

"Then you'll agree to my terms."

Blinking in genuine surprise, he took a moment to realize he'd not misheard her. After rolling her eyes at his clear surprise, Gens Silva snapped. "Oh, don't be so shocked. You were the one begging to negotiate the moment the gravity of your situation became clear. So now that it's obvious I can't just take what I want, I'm going to force you to give me something else in exchange for your life."

Only through the long practice born of years of cowering before egomanical vampires and their petty whims did Wolfgang keep his composure. She didn't even bother to dress her words in the barest of decorum, as he wasn't worth the effort. "Even if I cannot escape, my allies will be able to pull me free."

She raised one eyebrow. "Will they? Or will they abandon you as a lost cause and move on to the next scheme to steal my secrets?"

There was an ugly amount of truth in those words, not that Wolfgang would acknowledge it. "Your power isn't unlimited. Eventually, you'll grow weary, and then I'll be free."

"Even if that were true, it's not a winning bet. Unlike your allies, mine won't abandon me. In fact, I'd say they're hunting you down as we speak. I won't even have to keep you contained for long, just a few weeks, and then your neck will taste Cole's axe or Natalie's fangs."

"No one is coming for you. We captured the Homunculus Knight and Alukah as well," lied Wolfgang.

Isabelle actually laughed. "Then you'd not be relying on a mix of fae and fiend magic to pry open my mind! You're desperate! No point in denying it!"

As he forced himself not to rise to her bait, Wolfgang was struck by a sudden notion. Why had she been so eager for him to pass through the gap? In fact, why speak to him with such frankness? If she wanted to trick him or trap him, then surely she'd have adopted a more subtle approach? That is, unless her candid cruelty was part of the trap? Maybe she hadn't revealed her hand out of bluntness, but to distract him from an opportunity?

Looking away from the mocking countess, he stared into the gap in the walls and considered his options. Gens Silva was his enemy, and a fellow vampire; their kind rarely spoke honestly to their allies, let alone their foes. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more obvious the lie became. She'd belittled and baited him into engaging with her to keep his focus off the opening. Well, he'd seen past her trick and would pounce upon this opportunity.

Moving fast as thought, he bolted for the jagged gap and threw himself through it, ignoring the thorny memories that caught on him as he left the former countess, her laughter echoing behind him.

Isabelle had been crafting mazes inside her memory palace since she was a fledgling vampire. In fact, it was one of the first things her sire Lord Archeon Gens Silva had taught her, to do all those centuries ago, as it provided good practice for the mental and magical techniques that went into House Gens Silva's signature abilities. So even after she'd taken Archeon's throne and delved into magics he wouldn't dare touch, Isabelle kept up the habit, going as far as to apply her growing understanding of higher mathematics, microbiology, and dimensional manipulation to these psionic constructs. It was one of these mazes, her prodigal plagiarist had leapt into after she'd warned him not to.

Naturally, she first found this display of spectacular idiocy incredibly entertaining. Watching him scurry around inside a labyrinth he couldn't properly conceptualize like a brain-damaged mouse, had done wonders for her mood. But after five hours of him trying and failing, and trying and failing, and trying and failing, it had gotten very stale. Of course, if need be she'd keep Igori's latest disappointment trapped for nights, even weeks on end, but she'd wanted to avoid that kind of boredom if possible. It's why she'd tried to skip this step and get to the point where he gave in to her demands.

That being said, all signs indicated she'd not need to wait much longer for her lesson to get through to him. He'd been stuck on an impossible staircase for a while now, and the futility of his climb was becoming clear. Stopping at one of the stairwell's four recursive landings, her plagerist slumped to his knees and stared at the ground. While only five hours had passed since he'd left her throne, the odd way mindscapes dilated perception ensured each of those hours was stretched to its limit. Providing plenty of time for him to agonize over the fact that she'd been completely honest about this trap, and he's still hurled himself headlong into it.

As her plagerist recovered enough to start standing up, Isabelle decided to drive another quarry spike into his fracturing will. "Congratulations on making it to the first staircase in under half an hour."

The captive vampire froze and then spun about, looking for her in an amusing if vaguely pitiful display. While she considered staying silent and letting the paranoia fester, other, more blunt options appealed to her. "You clearly don't have much experience in this level of psychic warfare. I'm guessing Igori didn't think you'd survive long enough to make teaching it worthwhile. So let me compensate for that pervert's laziness in terms you'd be able to understand. In this space, I am a god, and you are, as always, a fumbling amateur."

She'd just taken a hammer to the quarry spike and wasn't going to stop until he broke. "While I can understand the practicalities of that truth might be beyond you, let's return to how this all started. You could not evade me while I was in the fugue of memory. So what makes you think you'll fare any better now that I'm fully roused?"

For several long seconds, the plagiarist just stood there, and Isabelle started to wonder if she'd gone too far. But then he rasped out a single lovely sentence. "What do you want?"

The staircase dissolved beneath his feet, and he plunged down to the foot of her throne, landing with just enough force to buckle his knees. Prostrate before Isabelle, he looked up at her, his earlier spite all but washed away by fear. Leaning forward from her throne so she could meet his eyes, Isabelle Gens Silva stated her terms. "I want to speak with your new masters."

He flinched. "I don't know how to contact the Reaper."

"Oh, please, I can do that myself once I'm free. No, I want to talk with whoever is supporting you in the Mundane half of reality. The source of the ritual that's let you enter my mind, and those gaudy protections keeping you alive."

"Why?' he asked, voice heavy with tension.

A sinister smile split Isabelle's face. "To negotiate with them, of course."

The plagiarist found a little misplaced backbone. "You are our prisoner, you don't have any leverage."

Isabelle nodded with all the condescension she could muster. "How perceptive to notice you have no value as a hostage. But how close-minded of you not to see the answer right in front of your nose."

He bristled at this, and she couldn't help but smirk. Finding the right chords to pluck was never hard when it came to Igori's spawn; they all shared their sire's loathing of a condescending attitude. It was an excellent way to keep them off balance and too angry to realize they were being goaded in a certain direction.

"Your allies want my knowledge, nay, they're desperate for it, and yet they never considered the obvious way to get it.' she said, before tapping the side of her head. "Make me an offer."

Oh, if she could have an oil painting of this fool's face. "Yes, you heard me right, now stop looking so stupefied and prepare to deliver my message."

He did neither, instead choosing to keep staring at her with slack-jawed bewilderment. Rolling her eyes at this, Isabelle snapped. "Judging by that pale imitation you call a plague, you've spent some time poking about in whatever notes Igori could save from the fire. So you must know why the Dracon and all his cronies sought my head."

Haltingly, he replied. "You were trying to overthrow the Archduke using forbidden soul magic."

Isabelle scoffed at that. "Technically, that is correct, but missing so many details, it might as well be wrong. My goal wasn't to take Dracon's throne, but to make him and the very gods obsolete by removing the source of their power: death."

Slowly, like a dim candle catching flame, understanding spread behind the plagiarist's eyes. "The Homunculus, you were going to make more of its kind."

"No, I was going to make people more like him. Can you imagine that? A world where the worthy need not fear entropy or any other of the cosmic blights infesting our patch of totality? We would surpass the dragons, jotunn, and even fae! Within millennia, humanity and its cousins would emerge onto the cosmic stage as true players, no longer beholden to shared delusions or ancient curses!"

As this truth and all its glorious implications settled into the captive vampire, he slowly nodded. "You threatened the Duchies' monopoly on immortality, that's why they tore you down."

Isabelle beamed. "Exactly! Good to see Igori didn't completely ruin you. Perhaps I might salvage something of what he sought to squander."

The plagerist didn't flinch or scowl at this latest remark; if anything, he subtly straightened, exactly like Isabelle intended. It was always staggering how a beaten dog could be trained to mistake softer blows for kindness. Now with him suitably primed, she made her offer.

"Your allies desire my knowledge, and I wish to see it used properly. I think that is more than enough common ground for us to negotiate on."

Slowly, the plagiarist got to his feet and nodded. "Once you release me, I'll deliver my message."

Isabelle smiled. "Yes, yes, you will."

That got him to hesitate. Smirking at his clear unease, she explained. "Were you expecting a threat? That I was going to bully you into compliance?"

He offered the tiniest nod, and Isabelle's smile widened. "I don't need to. Now go on and leave, you'll want us to have an agreement ready before those precious to me find you."

With a flick of her wrist, Isabelle conjured a door. Its frame was made of thin avian bones, over which were stretched stained-glass membranes. "Tracking down where you burrowed into my memories wasn't hard. Remember that."

Still too shaken to speak, the plagiarist simply shuffled towards the door, clearly expecting some final trick or trap. None came even as his hand pressed on the portal, and he passed through it. After a few seconds, the sidhe-styled door vanished with a snap, leaving Isabelle once again alone in her own mind. Leaning back in her throne, she took an even more useless than normal breath. This entire encounter had been one long string of gambles, and so far the dice were all landing in her favor, which wasn't hard when you bet on most of the sides. That was another of the first things she'd learned as a vampire: to make sure you benefit from as many different outcomes as possible.

The throne gently melted beneath her, leaving the former countess floating atop the lake of blood, staring up at the empty void above. This was a dangerous scheme, but she'd always preferred taking risks over being left to rot. At worst, she'd have planted seeds of chaos among her foes and made them more cautious about breaking into her mind. At best, her enemies would prove amenable, and maybe even become pliable assets. If that's how this played out, then what might she wring from them? What secrets and schemes would they give up, willingly or not, for a chance to taste a little of what she could offer? Well, either way, this was a good way to spend her time waiting for Cole and Natalie. Hopefully, they wouldn't take too much longer in rescuing her; she really did miss them.