Loudest Dungeon: Ch.1 - A Baleful Beginning

Pain

That was the first sensation Lori Loud felt. Pain, the kind deep in the bones past the muscles where every movement, every breath, sends a dull throb throughout the body and up the spine where it all culminates into a headache. There was nothing fresh about this kind of pain, there was no stinging or screaming, this was the kind of ache that veterans dealt with in their eighties that made them groan when they had to stand up, the aches of a person who had been dealing with past forgotten injuries for decades.

She was also a little hungry, but she'd deal with that later.

After lying on the ground and groaning for a few minutes the blonde teenager's eyes fluttered open and she hissed in pain. Seriously, what the hell? She may not have been the fittest person on earth but at 17 she was at least spry with youth, right now she felt like Pop-Pop, dragged down by the weight of age and a life of hardships. Also the weight of the steel armor cuirass, pauldrons, and cuisses, that probably had something to do with it.

Lori groaned and strained against the weight of her armor, though she was surprised to find it didn't weigh nearly as much as she-

Wait, what the fuck?

Lori's eyes snapped open and she stared at her shoulder guards, then she angled her head down to stare at her chest-plate, then the steel boots on her feet. This continued for five whole minutes, Lori checked out every last detail of her new apparel from the leather straps of her dingy armor, the rough-hewn gloves her delicate hands were encased in, to the frankly ridiculous red-and-white striped outfit under the armor. For all intents and purposes, Lori Loud looked like something that stumbled out of a Renaissance Festival.

When Lori was done looking over herself she looked down to the left and saw what seemed to be a shield, an arm-mounted heater shield to be precise, with a three square design on it that depicted two separate black and white squares at the top and a yellow and black striped design below. Beside the shield was a mace, a ball of hardened iron studded with spikes attached to a long red handle. The spikes weapon and shield both looked to have seen better days and Lori couldn't tell if the spikes were red from rust or past...stains.

Lori decided she had enough of looking at weapons and turned her gaze to the road in front of her. Well, road might've been stretching it. In its heyday it was probably never even a road, it was barely a street, more like a dirt path that after what she could only assume had been years of neglect resulted in a patchwork of weeds, vines, stones, and grass covering it near entirely. Beyond that to either side of her was a forest, not that Lori could really see because the light seemed to be dark, not nighttime but definitely twilight, an all pervading dusk that gave just enough light to be foreboding but not nearly enough to be useful in any way. Lori peered into the darkness of the copse of trees nearest to her and could distinctly make out some shuffling in the brush.

She turned her eyes away from the forest. Nothing for her out there, nope, no sirree.

Lori sighed and once again looked over herself, then back to the weapons, then back to herself, weapons again, before taking a deep breath, holding it in, and then letting it out slowly, a calm serene smile crawling its way across her face. This was fine, everything was fine, Lori was perfectly happy with the events that were currently unfolding. This was just a dream, just a weird dream and everything was going to be fine, all she had to do was pinch herself and then she'd wake up ba-

"Ow, God damn it!"

Lori rubbed the portion of wrist between the glove and shirt she pinched and bit her bottom lip. Then she stopped, and pinched herself again. Then again. Then she felt the gloves, felt the clothes on her skin, felt the heaviness of her armor and the way it pinched her gut when she bent forward to far, felt the way her muscles ached and the way her head hurt.

Then Lori screamed.

Lori considered herself the calmest of her sisters (a lie), she considered herself the most rational of them too (a gross exaggeration), many times she also considered herself the most worldly, the most experienced, indeed, the smartest (all blatant fabrications). But there comes a time when limits are pushed, lines crossed, and boundaries broken and the only proper response is to sit on your tush and scream your little heart out for mommy to come and save you. That's not to say Lori's reaction was childish or even unwarranted, waking up somewhere one didn't fall asleep, or finding oneself abandoned in a forest covered in rustic armor and garb from a bygone century, are all perfectly valid causes for concern. However, surprising absolutely no one, mommy didn't show.

Lori's only stopped her wailing when her throat gave out and she could only let out half-strangled gargles. Tears clouded her vision and she couldn't see anything, turning her head frantically from side to side as her ragged breathing drowned out any other sounds she might glean from the forest surrounding her. Mewling and trembling the girl stood on her shaking feet, stumbling slightly from the armor whose heaviness she was unaccustomed too (but again to her surprise it wasn't nearly as heavy as she suspected it ought to be). The teenage girl whimpered and tried to call out again but her cries soon turned to hacking coughs as she stood there and cried.

"You alright there, Miss?"

Lori whipped her head around and wiped her eyes. Standing in front of her was a strange man, and it should be said that even if the man wasn't a stranger he would still be quite strange by all accounts. The man might've been tall once but age and infirmity had stooped him to a slump. His face was haggard, with heavy brow ridges and wrinkles all the way down his long jaw. The old man was bald on top but still had dirty clumps of hair sticking out the sides which connected down to a short, unkempt beard. His mouth seemed trapped in a permanent, deranged grin and his hands clutched the air and tapped their fingers with a nervous energy, always moving as if not of his control. The man's clothing must have once been something beautiful to look at, the aristocratic trappings and designs not lost on Lori, but they and their owner had seen better decades, the purple cloth ragged and the collar torn at the fringes, covered in stains and dotted with holes. But what caught Lori's eyes, and what frightened her the most about this stranger, were his eyes. Or most precisely his lack of them. Though he peered at Lori and seemed able to see her, deep shadows cast by his brow utterly concealed his eyes and made it seem like he had none.

All in all he was a ratty looking thing, playing all the part of a diseased beggar, or homeless cannibal, and Lori remembered her brother's warnings about their camping grounds having deranged tree people and...

Oh God, where was Lincoln? Where was Leni? Where were her sisters? Where the hell was she!? Feeling the onset of another panic attack the huffing blonde took several strides back and pointed a shaking gloved finger at the strange man.

"S-stop! Not one step closer!" Lori screamed.

The man, who hadn't moved a muscle since Lori turned around and didn't seem intent on coming any closer anyway, simply put his hands out, palms outwards, placidly, his grin growing wider and wider. Oh God that grin, the way it moved, like his skin was stretched too tight and when he smiled too hard it would just come apart at the stitches, things crawling in the open seams of exposed flesh...

Lori shook her head and glared at the man. 'Keep your head clear,' she muttered to herself, 'don't get distracted, don't let him see that he gets to you, don't get scared now.'

"W-who are you? Where am I?" Lori shouted, trying to swallow her fear with her spit and stop stammering like an idiot.

The old man simply sighed and tapped the side of his head with one of his eerily long, bony fingers.

"I'm the Caretaker." He simply intoned, then he thought about it for a minute before nodding, seemingly pleased with his answer.

Lori wasn't buying it.

"What caretaker? Where are we?"

"Your caretaker," he replied, and Lori felt a shiver crawl right up her spine when she heard the finality in his voice as he said it. "As for where we are, well we're on the road. And as for why, well you're here for the same reason I am, you were summoned, and so you came. Simple as that, really."

The Caretaker and Lori both stood there and stared at each other, him calm and still as a stone and her with bunched fists and hunched shoulders.

"That, literally, made no sense."

The Caretaker barked out a hollow laugh at that and Lori flinched at the sudden noise.

"No, I suppose it doesn't. But take heart young one. It will, very soon."

And with that the old man turned on his heels and began to hobble along his way. Lori watched him go with a pit of apprehension nestled deep within her gut. The man made it about six paces before he looked over his shoulder at her and motioned with his head to follow. Lori stayed right where she was and the man turned around again after another five steps to see she wasn't budging.

"Well come on then!" he snapped, and Lori couldn't help but start when she heard the sudden ferocity of his tone. "The master detests tardiness," he said, his voice suddenly shifting back to the low, almost kindly one it had before.

"Like, why on earth would I go anywhere with you?" Lori snapped, and planted a foot in the ground to show she meant business.

The Caretaker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, he was too old for this shit.

"Because you have to. The Master called out to you, and you came. He asked you, he told you to come, and now you are here, now you have a job to do. I know its scary, taking on new responsibilities like this, you're afraid you won't measure up no doubt, that you're not up to snuff. But you know what I see when I look at you, conviction. You're not the sort to just stand here and admit defeat."

After that strangely rousing speech the creep turned around and began to once again hobble towards a dark mass taking shape in the gloom.

"Also I'm about to leave without you, so if the desire to honor family agreements doesn't appeal to you, not being stuck in these woods at night might do the trick," he called over his shoulders.

Lori huffed and stood her ground. Scary as this forest might be her mother didn't raise an idiot, rule number 1 was don't follow creepy men and Lori wasn't about to break that rule now. And what was all that talk about honoring family agreements, and that 'Master' of his, definite red flag there. Option 1, the man was insane. Option 2, he was a murderer or someone who would sell her to this Master guy. Oh no, Lori wasn't going anywhere.

Somewhere off to her right the bushes began to shake and a high-pitched scream that sounded something like a man's howl mixed with the squeal of a pig rang out in the night air.

Then again it was getting dark soon and this kindly old man did offer her a ride, at any rate it'd be rude to refuse such a gracious offer. Lori made to follow the old man, stumbling only once in her armor, but she didn't get very far before the glint of metal on the road drew her eyes. The mace and shield, lying there where she left them. Lori hesitated only for a second before reaching down to pick them up, the heft of the metal in both her hands felt oddly reassuring and she moved her shoulders around in their sockets. It felt good to have a little protection she decided, and made her way through the dark after this 'Caretaker'.

After a few paces Lori realized the foreboding shape she saw earlier took on a far more familiar, though no less gothic, design. It was a fancy carriage, straight out of a fairy tale book, though one definitely more suited for, say, Lucy's tastes than her own. The whole carriage was black, with red curtains illuminated by the dull glow of a candle inside the rider's section. The carriage was being pulled by two enormous horses, each of them also a dark color, and judging by the way they stamped their hooves and snorted either very irritable...or very scared.

The Caretaker was already in the rider's seat, the lashes held tight in his leathery hands as he shushed the horses. Lori carefully traipsed around the brutes and looked up the Caretaker, he didn't look directly at her but his gentle smile belied a smug satisfaction at Lori's willingness to finally comply, however begrudgingly.

"Good to see you made up your mind, now hurry up my dear and get inside, you'll catch your death out here."

Lori caught the subtle warning and was tempted to ask if that was a threat before the rustling of the tree line behind her cut her off and she dashed into the open door of the carriage, slamming it shut behind her.

Lori breathed deeply and sat down on the velvet seat cushions, uncomfortable in her armor but also strangely at easy, at least she'd have some protection when this lunatic tried to shiv her.

"Get comfortable now, we've got a ways to go, and we still have more passengers to pick up yet." The Caretaker said, before clicking his teeth and snapping the whip in his hands. The horses leapt forward and the carriage started with a shock that nearly sent Lori out of her seat. The going was only rougher from there, the road was in serious disrepair and the horses labored under the burden of the carriage and the lash of their driver.

As the carriage lurched along the path Lori tried to keep her balance and her head straight. 'Right, so I'm not home anymore, let's get that out of the way right now,' she thought to herself, 'I've woken up in an abandoned forest, I have no idea where, I'm wearing old-fashioned knight armor, and I just got in a carriage being driven by a crazy man.' Lori straightened her back...then slouched and let out a breath through her pursed lips.

"Right, I've gone insane, that's literally the only answer here."

"Oh, I certainly hope not," the Caretaker chirped from the front seat, "you'll find your job is difficult enough with a sound state of mind, though I personally find madness to be a pleasant change of pace."

Lori ignored the old man's quip and put her head in her hands, groaning and rubbing her temples she thought out her current course.

"Right," she said to herself, "First things first, gotta find out if the others are here, find my kids." Lori slowly looked up, nodding her head and smiling lightly. "Yeah, that's it, find them, then find out where we are, find out how to get home.

"Are you talking to yourself? You know what they say about folks who talk to themselves."

"Will you literally shut up!"

"You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means."

"You think you could be the silent kind of creepy old man? Ya know, the kind that just stares at people and rubs his hands like he's thinking about something dirty, could you do that for me?"

"No need, we're already here."

And just like that the carriage gave one final lurch that sent Lori sprawling to the floor. She slowly got to her feet, groaning and glaring bloody murder.

"Gonna LITERALLY twist that old man's head off," she snarled and kicked the carriage door open. "Hey, what the hell's the big idea!?"

"Lori?"

Lori blinked and looked from the driver to the road and saw two oddly dressed figures standing near the carriage. Both were definitely women, or rather young women like her, maybe even younger though they each cut a strange figure.

The first girl was only slightly shorter than her and wore similar armor to her own, though instead of breeches a tattered dress waved about under the cuirass. A red ribbon was tied around her midsection and spikes adorned her cuisses and pauldrons. Her face was covered by a hood though Lori could see strands of resplendent blonde hair cascade down the sides. In her gloved hands Lori could see the girl held an iron club, which like Lori's own mace was also covered in spikes designed to crush and tear. If Lori had to describe what she was looking at, the term 'battle nun' for some reason came to mind.

The second girl was even shorted than the first, no more than a teenager Lori suspected, though she was dressed in a Victorian-looking era jacket, distinctly men's style too. Like all their clothes her's were dingy and ratty and her breeches were covered in dirt stains. Along the belt Lori could see a scabbard, though the cutlass was currently in her right hand and in her left she held a flintlock pistol. If Lori had to guess, this girl had the look of a robber to her, and this opinion was only corroborated by the red bandanna covering her lower face, but just leaving enough to expose the purple eyeliner and short-cropped brunette hair.

"Luna? Leni!?" Lori cried, leaping from the carriage and running as best she could in her clunky armor towards the girls. The nun threw up her hood and the radiant smile of Leni Loud shone out like a beacon in the gloom, while Luna pulled down the bandanna and flashed her older sister a grin. Both girls ran towards their sister and the three embraced on an abandoned dirt road, and though Lori still had no idea where she was she now knew where at least two sisters were.

The three girls cried and hugged, secure in the knowledge that though they were alone they were alone together. For a few moments their talking filled the air as they each tried to talk over each other, shouting out greetings, assurances, but most of all questions. Working themselves up into a frenzy, Luna and Leni both tried to ask their sister just what was going on, but alas Lori could not speak gibbering idiot. Annoyance finally overriding protective instinct, the oldest Loud girl took several steps backwards and gave a shrill whistle. On pure instinct the other two gave a reaction that would make Pavlov proud and snapped to attention, while Lori glowered at them like a drill sergeant.

"One at a time!" she barked, and Leni's hand shot up while she strained with a burning energy.

Lori sighed and pointed at her sister, "Yes Leni?"

"How are you doing Lori?" Leni asked, genuine concern on her face.

Lori smiled at her sister and chuckled a little. "I'm a little frazzled Leni, but I'll be fine. I'm just glad you're okay."

Leni nodded at that, any concerns of hers seemingly met as she immediately squealed and walked up to the two horses pulling the carriage.

"Careful, luv," Luna called out, then turned back to her older sister. "What's going on here Lori? What's up with this forest, and who done us up in these new digs?" she asked, gesturing at the outfit she was wearing.

"I have no idea Luna," Lori merely grumbled, before her eyes hardened into a glare and her mouth set into a scowl. She turned around to the carriage, seeing the Caretaker tried to reign his horses under control as the beasts tried to sidestep around Leni who looked very determined to hug them.

"But I think I have an idea who might."

And with that Lori marched her way back to the carriage, Luna nervously on her heels, peering all around her into the woods. The Caretaker shouted something illegible at Leni, who now had one of the irritable equines in a headlock as she nuzzled it affectionately, before he noticed the other two and grinned.

"Everyone present and accounted for?" he asked, and Lori snorted.

"Yeah, now spill the beans old man, why are we here?"

The Caretaker chuckled and reached into his robe, rummaging about for a few seconds before pulling out a letter. He barked out a laugh and leaned down from the side of the driver's seat, holding out the letter to Lori who hesitantly swiped it from his claws.

"What's this," Lori asked him, and the Caretaker shrugged. "It's your calling card, the Master left it for you. Very specific instructions mind, said to give it to the oldest specifically."

Lori wanted to argue but Leni's pawing at the letter pulled her back to the situation at hand, and she opened the envelope at the behest of her sisters, reading its contents aloud.

>Ruin has come to our family.
>You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial, gazing proudly from its stoic perch above the moor.
>I lived all my years in that ancient rumor shadowed manor, fattened by decadence and luxury, and yet I began to tire of... conventional extravagance. Singular unsettling tales suggested the mansion itself was a gateway to some fabulous and unnameable power. With relic and ritual, I bent every effort towards the excavation and recovery of those long buried secrets, exhausting what remained of our family fortune on... swarthy workmen and... sturdy shovels. At last, in the salt soaked crags beneath the lowest foundations, we unearthed that damnable portal of antediluvian evil. Our every step unsettled the ancient earth, but we were in a realm of death and madness. In the end, I alone fled, laughing and wailing through those blackened arcades of antiquity. Until consciousness failed me.
>You remember our venerable house, opulent and imperial, it is a festering abomination. I beg you, return home, claim your birthright and deliver our family from the ravenous clutching shadows of the Darkest Dungeon.

Lori blinked and shook the letter at the caretaker. "Is this supposed to be a joke."

The Caretaker scowled at the impudent brat before him. "No joke," he hissed, and Lori felt like she might've overstepped her bounds as she took a few steps back. "Your ancestor wrote that, left it for me to give to you, called for you to come get it. That's the way this works, no other way."

The three girls all looked at each other, confusion clear on their faces.

"Our ancestor?" Leni asked. "So, like, Pop-Pop gave us a mansion?"

Lori sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "No Leni, ancestor means someone way older than us, older than Pop-Pop."

"Oh. Sooooooo...our Great Pop-Pop gave us a mansion?"

"...Yes Leni. Great Pop-Pop gave us a mansion."

Leni squeed and started jumping up and down, clapping her hands. Bless her heart but Lori couldn't stay mad at her sister, annoying as she could be at times. Luna chuckled at her sisters actions before leaning over to her sister.

"This sounds like a trap sis, or at least a scam. The Louds ain't exactly opulent last I checked, since when has dad or mom ever even mentioned an ancestor, rich or not. And that doesn't explain why we're here, or what's with the armor and weapons. I'm kinda freaking out here Lori."

Lori nodded and pulled her younger sister in for a side hug, breathing deeply and trying to calm down her now slightly shaking sibling. "I don't know what's going on her Luna," she said, "But I promise I'll protect you two, and I'll get us back home. But for now it's getting dark, so let's just get back in the carriage-"

Lori turned around to see that the carriage and the Caretaker had both just up and vanished.

"Oh, you gotta be shitting me," Lori muttered, ignoring Leni's gasp at the swear. She walked forward, arms held out wide as she took in the grand and beautiful sight of absolutely nothing. "No, really, this is just fan-fucking-tastic! Just disappear, alright, not like we know where we're going, some caretaker you are asshole!" Lori screamed up at the sky and started kicking the ground and stomping her boots into the dirt road.

>Brigands have run of these lanes, keep to the side path, the Hamlet is just ahead.

Lori stopped her tantrum for a second and stood still, then smacked the side of her head as if trying to dislodge the dour, masculine voice she just heard in her ears. 'Oh great,' she thought to herself, 'now I'm going crazy!' And so Lori resumed her thrashing with renewed vigor.

Luna was currently having her own mental breakdown as her mind shut off from the sheer nope happening around her, Leni looked at the ground and kicked her feet, absent-mindedly swinging her iron cudgel about. She hated it when Lori shouted and cursed. She looked over to see Luna shivering and her big sister instincts took over. Leni walked over and wrapped up Luna in a big hug, and it seemed to do the trick as the younger girl leaned into the reassuring grasp of her older sibling.

"Oi, whut's all 'dis then?"

Lori stopped her kicking and sighed, turning her eyes over to Luna and glowering.

"I'm not really in the mood for you British accent thing Luna. Also go drink some water or something, you sounded like a thirty year old man just now."

"Oi, you callin' me an invalid you tart?"

Lori's eyes widened and she tensed up, her attention focused just behind Luna and Leni and the two other girls slowly turned around. Behind them stood a man, a gruff looking fellow, broad bodied and covered in leather armor, with a green hood covering his head. What really caught the girl's eyes though, were the short swords the man was holding in each hand, the man twirled them expertly in his grasp and loosened up his shoulders, flashing a wicked grin at the three young beauties in front of him.

"Imagine me luck, eh? I'm out havin' a stroll and I spy three be-yoooootiful lasses all alone on the road."

Leni grabbed her shaking younger sister and quickly started walking backwards to Lori who ran in front of them and started waving her mace around in what she hoped was a threatening manner.

'Piss off, leave my sisters alone!" Lori screamed, and the man sniffed and scratched his stubble.

"'Could do with a bit less attitude mind, rudeness that's what this is," the man huffed, then a cruel grin scrawled its way across his face and he made a chopping motion with his swords. "Might need to teach you birds some manners," he hissed, and started marching forward.

"W-wait," Lori screamed, backing up while trying to keep her sisters behind her. "We don't have anything, we're not even from here, you could help us." It was a desperate plea but Lori knew she had precious little else to do, with nothing to bargain with she was out of options. Predictably the man responded with a harsh cackle.

"Help you? Help meself more like, and you're all alone you say? Well then, guess no one'll be coming to your aid then. Right, lemme just run a little plan by you, nothing concrete mind, just spit-ballin' here."

"Alright."

"I'm gonna kill ya."

"Uh-huh."

"Then I'm gonna take yer valuables." The man spread his arms out and grinned.

"That plan literally sucks."

"Well, yes, from your perspective it might. But from my end the whole scenario seems the most sensible maneuver, luv." The man winked and gave her a cheeky grin before running at them with swords held aloft.

For Lori it was all in slow motion, the man charging, the swords rushing at her face, the screams of her little sisters. Her little sisters, without Lori who would protect them. This man was going to kill her, but more than that he was going to kill them. That didn't sit right with Lori, oh no, that made her mad.

That made her angry.

Lori's face set into a ferocious scowl and she screamed, charging forward to meet the man's own charge. The villain didn't seem prepared for his quarry to fight back and was further shocked when the young woman's shield collided with his body and sent him sprawling in the ground several feet away. Lori's breath flowed out of her in ragged gasps and pure fury radiated from her body like steam, she gripped the mace in her right hand tightly and bashed it against her shield, the clanging set up a nice backdrop to her screams of bloody murder. Luna and Leni's jaws dropped and their eyes bugged out, they knew their sister wasn't someone to be messed with when she got angry but they didn't think she was capable of that! And for once, Lori's fury was welcome, it made them feel safe. Their big sister was going to protect them.

The brigand cutthroat groaned before hauling his stinking carcass to its feet. He had underestimated this lass, thought her armor and weapons were only for show. He snarled and sliced his swords together. It'd be the last time he underestimated Lori Loud.

The brigand roared and ran forward again and just like last time Lori meet his charge pound for pound in steel and fury. Sword clashed against shield and Lori swung her mace at the man, catching him the left arm. The ancient weapon did its job, iron spikes driven by a ball of metal 3 pounds thick tore through flesh and crushed the bone of the arm as it rended the arm. The brigand howled and dropped his left hand sword, kicking out and catching Lori with the heel of his boot in her gut. Lori's armor bore the brunt of the attack though she still staggered backwards and gasped. The man fell to his knees and let out a torrent of curses as he gasped in pain and clutched his bleeding appendage. Lori caught her breath and marched forward to the kneeling cutthroat who looked up at the woman and tried to smile through the pain.

"Any chance for clemency?"

>Dispatch this thug in brutal fashion, that all may hear of your arrival!

Lori roared and swung her mace at the man's head. The resulting explosion was spectacular, a spray of gore spread out over the road as the man's head wasn't so much caved in as it was shorn from his very shoulders, showers of brain matter and skull fragments sprung forth and littered the ground for meters around and a torrent of blood surged from his open neck and showered Lori in a crimson baptism. The body shock once, twice, then collapsed in a broken heap at Lori's feet.

The red in Lori's eyes slowly faded and her breath came back to her. She idly wondered if she had really swung all that hard to warrant all that when the full weight of what had just happened crashed down on her like a tsunami. Lori had just killed someone. Oh God she had murdered someone. It was in self-defense and he tried to hurt her sisters but dear God the man didn't even have a head anymore! Lori's shield and mace dropped from her hands and nausea crawled its way up her gut to her throat and she started retching. Her stomach didn't even have anything to offer so the poor girl just dry heaved as she screamed and sobbed.

It was too much, it was all too much. It was too much when she woke up all alone on the road wearing armor, it was too much when a creepy old man got her in his carriage, it was too much when her sisters got dragged into it, and it was too much when some man tried to kill her. Lori had just murdered a man, and what sickened and scared her the most was how easy it was, how good it felt to get stuck in like that. The way her blood boiled, the way her muscles ached when she blocked and swung, the sheer exhilaration she felt in the thrill of battle, the life-or-death stakes. How she felt when she smashed her mace into that man's head as he begged for mercy he wasn't about to give himself...

Lori fell to her knees and curled up with her head in her hands, her sobbing degenerating a ragged coughing fit as she sat in the blood and dirt. How long she sat there Lori couldn't say, but before too long she felt two pairs of slim but strong arms wrap around her and hold her tight. Leni and Luna didn't say a word, they just held their shivering sister tight against their bodies, lending any support they could be it physical or emotional. Lori sputtered and hacked her lungs up until her chest was sore and tight and her tear ducts had nothing left to yield. Her breath was raw and frayed as Lori tried to calm herself and straighten her back. Leni's arms wrapped around her body while Luna's grabbed her left arm and palmed he lower back, slowly the two sisters brought their guardian angel in iron armor to her shaking knees. Lori took a deep breath...and let it out slowly. She shrugged off her sisters and knelt down, grabbing her shield in her right hand and her mace in the left.

>Continue the onslaught. Destroy. Them. All.

"Let's go," Lori muttered, and started down the trail.

Luna and Leni watched her go, awe, reverence, and a little fear in their wide eyes as they stumbled after her into the darkness.
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The song of steel crashing against steel rang out in the night, an acrimonious caterwaul that rang throughout the forest for miles around, howls of rage and pain the allegro to the din of battle.

"For Christ's sake Luna, SHOOT HIM!" Lori cried, her shield held in both hands as she tried to block the flurry of blows from the cutthroat in front of her.

The trio of sisters had walked down the road for barely a few paces when another brigand charged out of the bushes and bull-rushed Lori. The man looked like he could've been the first one's twin, there was literally no difference between him and the first bandit physically, from the armor, the two swords, right down to the stubble on his chin. The only thing differentiating them was that this one didn't seem the talkative type, he seemed more like the murder them quick and steal their shit type. The man's heavy mass sent Lori sprawling in the dirt and if it hadn't been for Leni's quick reflexes with her cudgel her adventuring career would have been cut short then and there. Acting on instinct the sweetest Loud lashed out and caught the man in his chest with her weapon, knocking the wind out of him and bruising the flesh. The man lashed out and caught her across the face the handle of one of his swords as he wheezed and sputtered. Luna caught her bawling sister and dragged the two of them away as the brigand came to his senses and marched over to the still downed Lori. The oldest sister sat up and rubbed her head, groaning in pain until she looked up and gasped when she saw the cutthroat bring his swords over his head and then down. Reacting on instinct Lori didn't formerly possess the teen grabbed her shield and deflected the blow. This continued for some time, the villain would bring his swords up and hack down at Lori, trying to nick her in the arms or cleave her head, and she would parry him with her shield. It was a desperate struggle, one which Lori could gain no ground, her own arms cried out from the abuse as every strike sent a shock down to her bones, the flurry of his blows so fierce she couldn't even grab her mace and defend herself. There was no escape, Leni was hurt and Lori was incapacitated, that only left...

"Luna! Your gun! Shoot him!"

"What!?" Luna shouted, her eyes bugged out and face pale as she cradled her whimpering sister, her own face swollen and bruised.

"SHOOT THE MOTHERFUCKER!"

Luna's eyes flickered between the gun holstered to her side and her older sister, pinned on the ground underneath a maniac trying to cut her to ribbons, several times in quick succession, her breath quickening and hands shaking. Luna's mind was numb as she fumbled at her holster, hand trembling as she held out her flintlock pistol and pointed it at the man trying to kill her family. Luna's whole body was shaking but her attention was focused solely on the cutthroat. Luna's breath steadied, her grip became firm, her aim focused on the man's head as he turned his gaze over to the teen, eyes wide when he saw the gun.

"Gonna Light 'em Up." Luna whispered.

The gun went off with a sound of thunder, Luna's grip was perfect (though she had never even held a gun before, much less shot one) and the gun managed not to go flying out of her hand or break her wrist. The man wasn't so lucky, the bullet tore through his skull, exploding out the other side with a shower of gore, his right eye was sent flying and the left side of his head decompressed as the contents of his skull leaked out the gaping hole. The brigand's body fell on its side in a slump and Lori shot to her feet and stumbled over to her already mewling sister.

Luna's own moment wasn't nearly as long-lived as Lori's, though that's not to say it she wasn't cared for. Lori wrapped up her little sister in a hug and cooed into her ears, rubbing her hair and kissing her hair as she uttered words of reassurance. No, Luna was not a monster, no she wasn't going to jail, yes, she was a murderer. it was self-defense, he was going to hurt them, she had to defend herself. But they had to move, Leni was hurt and there were probably more highwaymen lurking nearby and they would've heard the gunshot, they needed to move now.

Lori shook her sister out of her reverie and picked up her other sister, the poor girls perfect face had been marred by the monster's weapon and a disgusting red and purple bruise covered her left cheek, a little blood trickled out of her mouth's corner and Lori hoped none of her sister's teeth were knocked loose. That would have to wait though, they needed to get out of these woods first and back to town. No, Lori didn't know for certain there was a town ahead but she wan't about to let doubt get to her now, she needed to be strong for them.

So she grabbed her sisters and shoved them forward down the road, they grumbled out protests but Lori cut them off with a snarl. They could argue with her and hate her all they wanted, but as God as her witness Lori was going to get them out of here.

And so the girls continued on their way, two of the stumbling along as the other marched, two of them wide eyed and scanning the treeline while the other stared straight ahead with a scowl. As the girls carried on down the path they saw further signs of a bandit infestation along the road. Wrecked carriages, dead horses, luggage strewn about, and the corpses of men and women killed for their possessions piled up in the dirt. It was the first time any of the girls had personally seen such carnage and Leni started to whimper when Lori snapped at her, telling her to keep her eyes on the road and to keep marching. Luna tried to follow her sister's advice when she spied something glint in the fading light (when was that sun going to set anyway?) and made her way towards it despite Lori's sputtered outcry.

"Luna! Get your ass back over here!"

"Woah, check it dudes." Luna muttered, turning around to show her sisters a large purse clutched in her hands. Luna walked over them and opened it up to reveal the leather pouch was full of gold coins.

>A fortune waiting to be spent...

The sisters all crowded around their prize, slack-jawed and bug-eyed, never before had they seen such treasures. Lori tore her eyes from the bag and slowly turned a suspicious gaze down each side of the road, before reaching out and pushing the bag into Luna's chest.

"Wait, we can't take this. That'd be stealing, and stealing is wrong," Leni cried, turning her nose up with a huff and planting a foot in the ground.

Lori rolled her eyes and scoffed at her sister. "Oh yeah, all these dead guys sure need the money," she snorted, nodding her head at the pile of corpses nearby. She turned to Luna and offered her a rare smile. "Good job Luna, keep an eye out for more, we'll need them." Luna grinned back at her sister and was about to say thanks when Lori suddenly scowled and reached out to grab her bandanna and pull her close. "Don't ever do that again," she hissed, and reached out to grab Leni's ear before she hauled her sisters back onto the road.

>Leave nothing unchecked, there is much to be found in forgotten places.

Lori groaned and rubber her head. The voice wasn't letting up, somber and just vaguely menacing it lingered in the corners of her mind, ever-present and always watching. She briefly considered asking her sisters if they heard it too but though better of it, they had enough to deal with as it was. No need to make them think she was going crazy.

The girls continued on like this for what felt like hours, Leni complaining every step of the way about her sore face. Luna wanted to grab up her sister in a big hug to make her feel better but Lori was having none of it. Desperate to get her girl out of the forest Lori pushed them on like a slave driver, snapping at every question and pushing them forward when they started slowing down. Luna wanted to fight her, but she knew her oldest sister was just looking out for them. She was just as scared as they were, probably worse 'cause she had to be scared for them too. Didn't mean Luna appreciated being shoved around though, and she made sure to voice her displeasure every chance she got. Lori would ignore her and tell Leni to just be strong, they'be be in a town soon enough and someone would look at her face for her there. Leni sniffled and nodded her head in a rare moment of understanding, opening her mouth to say something when the sound of distant laughter cut her off.

The girls all flinched and fell to the ground, but the noise wasn't getting any closer. Lori held them tight and told them to hush before she started creeping along the road. Her sisters followed suit and after a few minutes of this the laughter grew more boisterous and the girls could make out a light ahead. As they crept ever closer the sight of a camp yielded itself, a bonfire in the middle and two more bandits sitting around it. One was a scrawny chap, similarly clad as his fellows but instead of two swords the man wielded a blunderbuss as long as his forearm, he was sitting on a treasure chest and telling a bawdry tale of boisterous bar maids while his fellow clapped his knees and bellowed with every wave of his hand. This second fellow was enough to give Lori pause, he was a veritable mountain of muscle, a giant of a man with forearms as long as she was tall, even when sitting on the ground he was as tall as his fellow brigand. He wore a similar green hood as his fellows but had no armor aside from a leather wrapping around his gut, and clutched in his left hand was a three-ball flail, each iron ball as big as Lori's head.

>An ambush! Send these vermin a message: the rightful owners have returned, and their kind is no longer welcome.

Lori swore under her breath and tried to think. There was no way they'd be able to take on that brute, and that other fellow with the gun? They'd have to double back and try their luck going around them, that was the only way-

The crunch of stick cut off her trail of though and her head whipped to the right to see Leni's elbows leaning on a broken twig.

"I'm sorry!"

"Leni."

"I didn't see it!"

"Right, who's out there?"

Lori's blood turned to ice when she heard the brigand shout and she turned to see both men and stood up. The bloodletter was even taller now that he was on his feet, Lori had to guess he was about seven feet tall and about half as wide with those massive shoulders. The fusilier was standing beside him, eyes no doubt scanning the darkness ahead of them.

"That you Jerry?" The walking mountain hollered into the dark.

The gunman sneered and spat on the ground before aiming his gun right at Lori.

"Nah, jus' vermin."

Lori reacted on pure instinct, shoving Luna to the left as hard as she could and tackling Leni as she rolled to the right. As soon as she moved the ground where her body had been exploded into a shower of dirt as several bullets pelleted the dirt. The man swore and pulled out his bag of lead to reload.

"Damn, missed 'em."

"S'alright Jim, I got 'em." The bloodletter hefted his flail and began walking forward, and to Lori's horror he was making a straight line for Luna!

Lori leapt to her feet and charged for the large brigand, the man turned heard her and turned around, raising his flail above his head. Lori didn't see this though, all she saw was red as she opened her mouth and bellowed, a deep and guttural cry that shook her to her core. The brigand wasn't expecting it either and actually took a step back, faltering ever so slightly.

"Christ alive what the fu-"

The rest of his sentence came out in a strangled gasp as Lori closed in and rammed her pauldron into his chest, the force of the blow not enough to send him to the ground but more than enough to knock the wind out of him. Lori fell to her feet and brought her mace around, crashing into his head where it embedded into the man's skull. Lori let out a victory cry that caught in her throat when the man's ham-sized fist collided with her face and sent her flying back. Lori groaned and staggered to her feet, terror in her eyes as she watched the giant stand up straight and tear her mace out of his head with a sickening pop. The man looked right her and chuckled through a broken jaw and an eye dangling from its socket, tossing the mace aside.

"Take more than that to put me down."

And with that said he lumbered his way towards Lori, whipping his flail around in wide arcs as Lori tried to dodge in her cumbersome armor. Alas, Lori was not yet totally used to its weight and she stumbled at a critical moment, and she could only watch as one of the flail's iron balls crashed into her chest and stole her breath with a strangled gasp. Pain filled her every being, like nothing she had ever felt before, Lori was fairly certain she heard something crack and the shirt under her armor felt wet. Lori gasped in pain and was forced to her knee, looking up through the tears to see the man raise the flail over her head, intent on bringing it down.

"Leave my sisters alone!" Leni screamed, rushing up to the bloodletter's side and swinging her cudgel. In a spectacular sense of combat prowess Leni had never before demonstrated she aimed her weapon not for the center mass of the man nor for his gut where the armor would protect him, but for his side where the spikes on her beating stick rent his flesh and tore through his body. The man howled and half-assedly swung his flail at the girl who quickly side-stepped the attack. Because Leni had come from the right the man had to use his left hand to try and stem the tide of blood flowing from his wound, the same hand he was using to wield his flail. Leni came back and swung her studded cudgel at his head, and brought it back for another hit, then another, then another, all the while screaming bloody murder as she worked the man's head into a fine paste that showered over her and Lori. It was an awesome demonstration of violence and if the man's head wasn't currently being ground into mash he might've learned an important lesson on the power of love or how family triumphs over adversity or some shit. As it was, Lori could only watch with stars in her eyes as her younger sister brutally murdered a man, and oddly enough she felt pride at the sight.

>Prodigious size alone does not dissuade the sharpened blade.

The shot of a gun quickly tore her from the sight and she saw and heard Luna swear and lower her gun, it seemed while she was preoccupied Luna had been diverting the attention of the fusilier, keeping him from taking potshots at her sisters. When she missed her latest shot Luna decided that instead of trying the lengthy process of reloading she'd charge forward with her sword raised. The brigand saw her coming and swore, dodging her strikes while he poured lead into his blunderbuss. Lori was already on her feet, leaving Leni behind as she went to work rearranging the bloodletter's joints into interesting shapes, charging for the man and pausing only to grab her mace.

Everything went in slow motion. Luna tried to swing her sword but the brigand leapt backwards and caught her in the gut with his boot when the sword passed. Lori screamed as tears billowed out of her eyes when the man swung his blunderbuss right at Luna. She was so close, just a little closer, just a little close, please God in Heaven just a little closer!

The sound of the gun firing was deafening. Luna was sent flying backwards, blood pouring out of her like a river as her chest exploded. Lori caught Luna's eyes as her baby sister hit the ground, open but not seeing, grey and glazed over. Lori howled in pain as she collided with the brigand, mace forgotten as she took his head in her gloved hands and dug her thumbs into his eyes, popping them and watching the juice pour out of the sockets in rivulets. She brought his head up and smashed into the ground a dozen times until she felt the back of it crack open like an egg, she leaned down and bit his hooked nose off and spat it in the dirt, she brought her fist up and smashed it down into his face again and again and again until there wasn't anything left and all that was left was blubbering jelly, bubbles pooling in the open pit of blood where his mouth was. Lori watched the vermin below her quiver and mewl through his broken head, feebly trying to reach up and stem whatever it could. She watched until the fizzing stopped, the whimpers die, the struggles stop, and the body go limp.

>Decimated!

Lori felt like she was dead, she staggered to her feet and turned around to see Leni leaning over their sister, her face in Luna's open wound, covered in her blood, arms wrapped around her. Lori limped over to her sisters, wheezing from the pain in her chest that felt like nothing compared to the growing pit of nothing inside her right now. She stood over the two and saw that Leni appeared to be kissing the gaping hole in Luna's chest.

"What the hell are you doing," Lori heard herself ask, but for the life of her she couldn't remember actually saying it.

Leni whipped her head around and Lori flinched at the sight. Leni's eyes were wide and red from tears and anger, her teeth were bared like an animal's, that wound from earlier was still there, but what really made Lori's eyes sting was the blood that covered Leni's face. Her own sister's blood.

"WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M DOING, I'M TRYING TO KISS IT BETTER!" Leni screeched. The two sisters held their gazes before Leni's face slowly broke and oh dear God she was broken, she looked so lost and broken right now as the tears ran down her soft cheeks and she turned back to her fallen sister. "It's all I know to do," the poor girl muttered through the pain in her voice, and she brought her hands up to the hole and bowed her face back down to give another flurry of kisses.

Lori broke too, the pitiful sight was just too much. Luna was dead. Her sister was dead, she didn't protect her, she couldn't save her. Lori failed, and that broke her. She sank to her knees and brought her hands up to her face, her own wretched sobbing joining her sister's.

Leni moaned and her hands grasped the ragged edges of Luna's wound, desperately trying to pull the flesh closed, trying to bring her sister back. Anything. Please. Please come back Luna. Leni's cries became a hacking fit as she grabbed her baby sister and pulled her tight against her in a bear hug. "I want my baby sister," she whimpered, "I want my baby sister, I want my baby sister, I want my baby sister, I want my baby sister, please please please, give her back, give her back, give her back."

Something happened.

A bright glare caught Lori's eyes and she looked up to see Leni glowing through her tears. Lori wiped her eyes and her mouth formed an o when she saw Leni engulfed in a brilliant light, a majestic incandescence that radiated sheer power, a golden inferno that spread over Leni like a wave and into Lori's eyes. She had to look away, Lori shielded her eyes from the light and turned her head and didn't dare look back until she could feel the heat of it dissipate, like a cloud covering the sun.

Luna coughed.

Lori scrambled forward on her hands and knees until her face was right in Luna's chest. The wound was gone, the armor looked like it had never even been damaged, the blood had been washed away by the light. But most importantly Luna's chest was rising up and down. Lori looked at Leni (and duly noted that her face was no longer bruised) who was still crying but this time a quivering smile was scrawled across her face and she was casting her eyes skyward as tears cascaded down her face.

"Thank you," she whispered to the sky. "Thank you."

Luna coughed again and sputtered, then she moaned and tried to wipe her eyes. Her beautiful eyes fluttered open and she looked up to see her older sisters looking down on her, all tears and smiles, and she couldn't help but grin back.

"Man Leni, you sure got an Invisible Touch, huh girl?"

Leni laughed and brought her sister into a bone crushing hug, unleashing a flurry of kisses on Luna's face who could only grin and bear it and maybe tear up a bit herself as she tried to return her sister's affection.

Lori felt like she wasn't even real anymore. Her little sister had just been snatched from the claws of death right in front of her, it was no less than a miracle, maybe even divine intervention. A quivering finger reached out and touched Luna on the shoulder, grounding Lori in reality and she gasped and smiled and the water works just came back on.

Luna looked over to her other sister and flashed a cocky grin. "Sorry for scaring you there sis, guess I just wanted to play the hero."

"You idiot!" Lori screamed, wrapping up her two sisters in a hug and holding them tight. The two girls returned her affections and squeezed her back. Their family was together again, snatched from the jaws of oblivion and delivered whole again on the other side, and they'd never be separated again.

This sentiment lasted a whole six seconds before the pain in Lori's chest became intolerable and she flinched, then shoved her way out of the group hug with a yelp.

"Oh no, Lori, you're hurt," Leni cried, bringing her hands up to her sisters wounded chest. "Here, let me help." Leni closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, sticking her tongue out, deep in concentration she put an almost unbearable amount of pressure on Lori's wound and hummed to herself. This continued on for a minute until the poor girl opened an eye and glanced up sheepishly at her big sister.

"Did anything happen?"

Lori snorted at her sister's antics and kissed the top of her precious head.

"I think I'll be fine Leni," she gently chided, wincing as her sister helped bring her to her feet. Luna walked up and swung Lori's right arm over her shoulder while Leni carried the burden of the left. Lori glanced forward and nodded with her head. "Don't look now girls, but I think we're almost there."

The two girls looked off into the horizon. Beyond the forest and a mile off was what looked like a hamlet, and further ahead, looming over the town like a foreboding specter, was a great manor.
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"Well this sucks."

Lori didn't exactly appreciate Luna's attitude at the moment but that's not to say she didn't agree. The hamlet had looked miserable even from a mile away and now that they were actually standing in it Lori didn't have words to describe it. The time of day wasn't exactly helping Lori's mood either, the sun had been setting for the past 15 hours and only now that they had actually made it too town was it getting dark. There was also the small matter of the gaping hole in Lori's chest, that she hadn't bleed to death Lori couldn't even fathom but she decided to file that same issue under the folder of "Don't Give a Shit" right next to "What's With This Armor" and "Why Do I Know How To Use This Mace" and who could forget, "Why Is My Great Pop-Pop Talking To Me And How Do I Get Him To Shut Up."

Lori cast a side-long glance at a dilapidated wagon near the entrance of the Hamlet...

>Women and men; soldiers and outlaws; fools and corpses. All will find their way to us now that the road is clear.

...And like a broken record there he goes again, his ragged voice echoing in her head as he ranted on about stupid shit she didn't care about.

Actually now that Lori got a good look at it, that was the same damn stage coach! The Caretaker was nowhere to be seen, but Lori had some choice words for the wretch when she next saw him.

The only one who's mood didn't seem sour was Leni, her infallible spirit shining through even here as she "Ooed" and "Awwed" at every ramshackle building, dour faced peasant, or dog sized rat that scurried by them muttering something about...warpstone? That was also going in the folder.

"It's not all bad," the ditzy blonde said, "at least we got those shiny rocks from that treasure chest."

Lori hissed at her sister to shut up through her teeth before quickly glancing at the sallow-faced peasants around them. Leni was indeed correct about earlier, after Luna's near-death experience the girls searched through the chest the brigands were guarding and found it full of emeralds, gold bars, and more of those gold coins. The treasure was being kept in a sack Luna found on the bloodletter's mangled corpse and was swinging heavily at her hip.

If any of the peasants heard the outburst, or even cared, they didn't show it. These people looked utterly broken, meandering about in a daze with blank eyes and open mouths like zombies. Aside from giving them either disinterested stares or glares from open doorways and alleys none of them had even really acknowledged them, hell the only person that had even talked to them was the gate keeper.

Lori breathed out of her nose as she remembered that fun exchange.
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The girls had been stumbling about for what felt like and was in all honesty probably hours down the road, making their way to an imposing wall that jutted out of the countryside like an exposed rib. The sisters counted their lucky stars that they hadn't run into any more bandits on their way as they limped up the enormous gate that barred their entry into the hamlet they saw earlier from the hill. They stopped at the barred entrance, the gate had to be twelve ft. tall and enormous wooden spikes were driven into the ground around it, facing the road in an obvious threat.

>Welcome home, such as it is. This squalid hamlet, these corrupted lands, they are yours now, and you are bound to them.

'Thanks Great Pop-Pop,' Lori thought to herself bitterly. Most ancestors at least had the decency to die before their descendants knew them and leave something neat in the will. Their ghosts also didn't generally haunt said grand-kids. At least Lori was taking insanity far better than she expected she would, not that it was any consolation of course.

"How much you wanna bet they've been having bandit troubles?" Luna quipped, and Lori was about to tell her to shut up when another voice cut her off.

"Who's out there?" a male voice rang out, still distinctly English but not nearly so gruff or strong as the brigands from earlier.

"Us." Leni shouted back, and Luna and Lori could only stare at her.

"That a fact?" Lori could see a shape emerge from on top of the gate, a sentry from the looks of it, the man was dressed in a constable's outfit and waved about a baton lazily. "And who might be Us?"

"Just some travelers sir," Lori called up. "We've been on the road a while, our carriage was stopped by bandits and we had to fight them off. Please let us in, my sisters are hurt and I'm kinda bleeding down here!"

The lookout nodded his head slowly and brought up his hand to his chin.

"Right, but how do I know you're not bandits yourselves?"

Lori's mouth dropped. "What the hell are you talking about, that makes literally no sense!" She shouted up at the man, face red with frustration. "Do we look like bandits too you!?"

The man scratched at his stubble and pointed at them with his club. "Well, no. But this are tough socioeconomic times! I'm just saying, I wouldn't blame you lasses for turning to a little banditry to get through the month, I get it. But you gotta realize that these things have a way of catching up to you. One minute you're stealing some rich lady's pearl necklace and next thing you know some animal-themed vigilante is beating the shit out of you."

"...Were you going somewhere with this?"

"Not really. Here, let me get the gate for you."
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Lori groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. Just remembering the whole thing gave her a migraine. Was everyone around here an idiot? Lori's question was immediately answered when a crazed hobo darted out of a pile of human refuse and came shambling up them, covered in dirty, stained rags and his beard down to his testicles.

"The End is Nigh!"

The three girls just stared at him while his own dusty eyes, milky with cataracts, stared off into space, arms held aloft over his head and fists clenched.

"What end?" Luna finally asked.

"THE END! The one set into motion since the dawn of time, far before the stain that is humanity infected this planet like a blight. The all-consuming, all-knowing darkness will wash over us all like the tide, scrubbing away the unclean that is existence itself. The very same End your ancestor sought to hasten when he still had control over our wretched hovel!"

"Wait, how did you know we were brought here by this Ancestor guy?" Lori snapped, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Yeah, did you know our Great Pop-Pop?" Leni questioned.

"Aye," the man sighed, arms now wrapped tight around his emaciated frame and eyes still staring in separate directions, neither of them even in the same general direction as the girls. "He was a real asshole." And with that said the revolting creature dropped to his hands and knees, crawling off into a nearby open door like a spider, raving about the End Times and generally acting like a nuisance.

The three sisters watched him go and stood there for several seconds after he disappeared.

"Well, that happened," Luna muttered.

"Great Pop-Pop wasn't a nice guy," Leni murmured, genuinely disheartened by the news.

Lori growled and jostled the two sisters still holding her up. "Hey, girls, not to be a bother a bother or anything, but I'm still kinda bleeding here."

Luna snorted and jostled her back. "You've been bleeding out for hours now, try not to put yourself Under Pressure here sis."

Luna and Leni laughed at that while Lori grumbled and winced at her sister's antics. The trio wandered around the town for a while after that, and Lori had to say, she wasn't impressed. It seemed the more she saw of this place the worse it got. The architecture, an odd mixture of classic Victorian gothic with some catholic themes haphazardly tossed in as well, got increasingly more bizzare the closer they got to the mansion; Lori was pretty sure she saw a few people in robes chanting and bowing before a statue of a giant tentacle before they caught the girls staring and carted off their idol. Hookers and barely clothed tramps stood on street corners, sneering and whistling at anybody who caught their eyes. Naked street urchins played in piles of fish heads and fought tooth and nail with emaciated hounds over discarded offal while men laughed and bet on the fights. Drunkards stumbled around and released the contents of their stomachs over the road wantonly, hooligans openly brawled in the streets, battered women howled on the steps of decayed buildings, the whole place reeked of despair. At one point the girls passed by a graveyard, the numerous tombstones crumbled and covered in vines while wolfsbane bloomed in the well-fed soil, ironically it was the place in the Hamlet that looked alive. Kneeling in front of one of the graves was a stocky bald man with large round glasses atop his nose and a short beard. The mole-like creature shuffled off when he caught the girls staring at him and Lori shivered in disgust.

>Most will end up here, covered in the poisoned earth, awaiting merciful oblivion.

Lori grimaced at every sight and felt a pit in her stomach. The place was sick, diseased, dying in front of her, had been dying for some time and either nobody cared or it was so far gone anybody who did had given up long ago. A few quick glances to her sisters faces confirmed Lori's fears that this was starting to get to her sisters as well. Luna's face was scrunched up and tears leaked down from the corners of her eyes, her jaw was set tight but Lori could hear her mumbling something about finding the damn hospital over and over again. In contrast to her sister, Leni was all smiles, but Lori had known Leni long enough to see how forced they were, how Leni's eyes focused only on the ground, never wavering or glancing at the insanity around her, but what worried Lori the most was how her sister hummed to herself, trying desperately to drown the noise out.

After an hour of wandering around the labyrinthine hamlet the girls found themselves back at the center of the town, where a old cracked statue covered in vines of what looked to be a priest embedding a sword into the ground greeted them. Lori groaned and shook off her sisters despite her protests, she took a deep breath and stood as straight as her wobbly legs would hold her and hobbled over to where two peasants were engaged in conversation.

"And that's when I noticed the bloke wasn't just ugly, he had gills! Also fins, and sharp teeth, and a fish head. Kinda embarrassed I didn't see any of it before honestly."

"Hey, fuck-face!"

"Yes luv," the man said turning around, though the smile on his face dissipated into a frown when he saw some blonde teen geared head to toe in armor standing in front of him. "Hold on a 'tic, you ain't me wife!"

Lori scowled and cracked her knuckles. "No, but I'll beat you like she does."

The man genuinely smiled at that and wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? What're yer going rates?"

Lori's fist launched out and caught the man smack-dab center in his ugly mug, spinning him around on his toes causing him to fall face first into the mud. The man's companion looked down at his friend and let out an impressed whistle, then turned his head to Lori and pointed to his grinning face.

"Can I be next?"

"After you tell me how to get to the hospital."

The man frowned and scratched his scalp. "The sanitarium? Oh, that's right next to the abbey." The man pointed in front of him and Lori turned to see a run-down pile of rubble. The building was two stories tall, though the ground floor seemed to be a concrete wall, built on top of it and connected to the ground by a flight of stairs was a house with a cylindrical tower sticking out of its side. Both structures had seen better days, half the damn tower was gone and the crumbling fixture was kept up by wooden support beams. The house wasn't any better, there was no door to speak of, a gratuitous hole in the wall was barred with wooden planks, and the whole thing was riddled with cracks. There was also a little well in front of it and honestly it was the only thing that looked like it actually worked in the whole damn town.

"Yeah, we all been seeing you girls trudge about, wondering why you was never stopping by."

Lori wheeled around and pointed a shaking finger right in the man's nose. "You mean to tell me we've walked by that stupid things a dozen times now an none of you though to point it out!" she screamed, face and eyes both red.

The man simply shrugged. "Figured you jus' wanted to do a bit of sight-seeing first."

Lori screamed and drove a gloved fist into the man's stomach, getting a sick thrill of satisfaction as he wheezed and fell to the ground in a slump next to his unconscious friend. Lori turned and hobbled back to her sisters (ignoring the man's strangled "Thank You") and saw that they had both crowded around the old statue. As she came up behind them Leni turned to her and nodded to the statue with a smile.

"Look Lori, it's Great Pop-Pop"

Lori blinked and turned her head up to stare at the mass of concrete and interloping vines. The man's face looked worn and haggard, his nose crooked and brow heavy not from age but stress more like. Even his statue looked ready to keel over. Lori saw Luna was reading the plague at the statue's feet, and she leaned down to get a look herself.

>Here we commemorate our lord, The Ancestor
>Not sure why seeing as we all hated the prick.

Touching. It was no wonder the town wasn't exactly throwing out the red carpet for them if they all knew they were the so-called descendants of this Ancestor. Lori was just happy they didn't currently have an angry mob running them out of town what with how much they seemed to hate this guy, though honestly she couldn't see anyone in this town mustering up the energy to do something even that strenuous.

The only question left, of course, was why they hated him. What did their Ancestor do to make the whole town curse him, was he responsible for the state of things around here, and if so how? Well, okay that wasn't the only question. Other such pertinent topics would include, "Where the hell are we and how did we get here?", or maybe, ""Just who the hell is this Ancestor of ours we've never even heard about?", but Lori had honestly given up hope of ever getting a straight answer in this hell hole. Say, that's an idea, maybe they're in hell and they just don't know it yet. Sure looked the part at any rate.

>In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings.

Lori decided that instead of voicing her concerns she'd instead tell her sisters the location of the 'Sanitarium' as the man called it. Luna predictably threw a hissy fit when she saw how close it was but Leni was just happy they found it. The three girls hobbled up to the building, Lori cursing at every step and wondering why a hospital wouldn't have a ramp, until they made it to the open hole whoever owned the place passed off for a door. The three girls nervously looked at each other before slowly crossing the threshold, necks craned as they peered into the dimmed halls.

"Yo, anybody there!" Luna called, and her voice echoed through the seemingly abandoned building.

"Please, our sister needs help," Leni called out.

"I'm literally bleeding out here!"

Lori pushed her sisters aside and shuffled into the hospital, glaring to and fro and she searched for a doctor. Lori shambled down the hallway with her sisters hot on her heels until she made it to a broken down door with the label 'Office' carved onto the side. Lori sniffed and pushed on the door with a finger, the rotted old thing fell off its hinges and collapsed to the ground. Lori waded her way through the cloud of dust that rose up, coughing and waving her hands as she looked about the office. The whole place was just as ramshackle as the outside of the building. Blueprints of the human body littered the ground, tomes of maladies and ailments were strewn about, broken glass littered the floor while their strange contents leaked into the wood, and a human-sized pile of wine bottles was heaped behind a desk.

Lori made her way over to the mound when the pyramid of alcoholism started to quiver and shake, the bottles cascading to the round in a shower of glass. Lori flinched at the noise and gripped her mace tightly when noises began to emanate from the center of the mass.

*snort* "Huh? Whuzzat?"

With the crash of glass falling to the floor a woman arose from the temple of liquor. She was a meaty, stout thing, broad shouldered and heavily knuckled. She wore a strange headdress that looked like two triangles coming out either side, like most of the people Lori had seen thus far, convenient shadows covered her eyes and gave her an ominous appearance. Her attire was plain, a long blue dress and white bib with a knot of rope tied around her midsection, Lori suspected it was probably common nurse attire for the weird-ass Victorian times she and her sisters seemed to be stuck in.

The woman looked at Lori and snorted again. "Right, what's wrong with you?"

'Oh God please tell me she isn't the doctor,' Lori thought to herself

"Oh God, please tell me you aren't the doctor," Lori said right to the woman's face

The woman muttered and walked around the desk, wading through a sea of wine bottles to stand before Lori.

"Doctor's a strong word, but I like to think I'll get there soon enough," she slurred.

>The front line of this war is not in the dungeon, but rather, inside the mind.

'Yeah, you'd know all about Great Pop-Pop.' Lori sighed and pointed to her chest. "I got hit with a flail and it hurts. Fix it."

The "doctor" leaned in close and examined Lori's dented and blood-stained armor, nodding and hmming to herself.

"Yeah, okay, that checks out." If she noticed Lori's unamused expression she didn't give it any heed. "Seems like an easy fix. Let me just get my saw and we'll get you on the operating table." The woman walked over to the cabinets and Lori chuckled to herself dryly.

"Okay, see, I thought I heard you say saw. But you didn't, of course you didn't, there's no reason why you would need-

"Aha, found it!" The woman reached into a drawer and pulled out a rusted saw covered in pink stains.

-Oh God you're not joking."

Lori started backing up and her sisters got in front of her, blocking the swift approach of the deranged doctor who tutted and wagged her finger. Her crooked smile spread ear-to-ear displaying yellow teeth and black gums, shadows still covered her eyes and Lori shivered in disgust and fear.

"Come on then, none of that now. I don't see why you're getting so worked up, it's just a bit of surgery. Now hold still."

The woman quickly advanced and held her saw aloft, a guttural cackle scrawling out of her throat. Luna screamed and Leni moved herself in front of Lori's chest.

"What in the name of Einshtein ish going on in here!?"

Everyone in the room stopped as a muffled but familiar lisp echoed into the office. Lori whipped her head around and saw a strange figure standing in the open doorway. The voice sounded feminine but you wouldn't have been able to tell based on appearance. First of all, they were short, only three ft. tall, and covered in a long robe that dragged along the ground behind her, a satchel and several globes filled with a glowing green liquid tied around her waist. What really caught Lori's attention though was her mask, long and crooked and shaped like a beak, it was one of those old-fashioned plague doctor masks you'd sometimes see in a Renaissance Festival, with a hood covering the top of the head and a wrap of cloth shielding the mouth. The strange, short, gremlin waddled into the room and began to fiddle with the mask, pulling down the cloth and removing the mask to reveal...

"Lisa!" Leni lunged from Lori's side and wrapped up her baby sister in a big hug, kissing her flustered face in a shower of affection. Lisa struggled in her sister's grasp fro a few seconds before sighing and deciding to simply acquiesce to Leni's demands.

"Yesh, yesh, it'sh good to see you too, my dear shibling," Lisa huffed, but Lori could see from here she was blushing and a small smile had tugged up the corners of her lips.

Luna laughed and helped Lori over to the group hug as well, Lisa blushing as her older sisters fused over her. The young genius would usually claim human interaction was below her, but she was still four and thanks to her attitude it was rare to receive such affection, and recent events had greatly increased the poor girls need for sisterly comfort.

Lori sighed and squeezed her sisters closer to her. She had found another one, though it confirmed her fears that all the others were probably here at least she knew three were safe. As Lisa curled up into her neck Lori felt nothing could ruin this moment, not the creepy town and its residents, not the voices in her head, not even the saw currently pressing into her side.

Oh God Damn It.

The moment was thoroughly ruined as all the sisters started screaming and flailing around, trying to get Lori as far as possible from the unhinged woman who kept shouting at them to go in the waiting room and wait for their sister to get out of surgery. After a minute of shouting, swearing, and a plethora of vaguely threatening gestures Lisa finally managed to get a word in edgewise.

"I can asshure you Doctor, my sishter is not in need of an autopsy, merely some light bandaging and what-have-you's."

The doctor looked pretty downcast at that and pointed the saw at Lori's gut. "You sure you don't want me to rummage around in there, might find something you didn't know about," she said hopefully.

"No, I'm pretty sure my guts are fine thank you," Lori snapped, and the woman moaned and sadly walked back to the cabinets to grab some bandages and deposit her saw, whispering good-night to the tool and giving it a kiss.

As the Doctor cleaned and dressed the wound, and Lori had to admit that despite the insanity she did a good job, the three girls talked and discussed their current predicament.

"Temporal dishplacement," Lisa said matter-of-factly, pushing her glasses up. She caught her sisters empty gazes and groaned. "We've be taken shomewhere we shouldn't, another dimenshion entirely I'd wager, one where the normal laws of biology, physics, and common decency no longer apply."

"And the whole Ancestor thing?" Luna questioned

"Look, I may be a genius but I don't know everything. At least not yet. I've been trying to research this phenomena but I'm lacking proper reshources. When I woke up alone in thish place dresshed in such ridiculoush clothing I was speechless. As I explored the town everyone said I was the deschendant of thish dour Ancestor fellow. That they insisht on treating me like I'm the inheritor of thish God awful hovel is source of endlessh irritation!" Lisa spat...literally.

"When are you going to fix my hospital you hack?" The doctor quipped, then flinched when she caught Lori's glare.

"As I was saying, thish whole scenario is beyond even me. I tried to gain access to the no doubt vast shtores of information held in our anceshtral manor, but this strange man called the Caretaker barred me entry."

"Wait, Caretaker?" Lori snapped, brushing the nurse off and leaning towards her little sister. "Ugly old guy, bald with a beard, always smiling like a creep?"

"Er, yes. He said the manshion was my birthright but I wasn't allowed inshide until you and the others arrived."

Lori snarled and shot to her feet, if she wasn't so angry she would have been shocked to find her wound was no longer bothering her.

"That ass left us out there on that road! I got a bone to pick with him, we're going to that mansion." Lori shouted, stomping her way out of the office.

"Oi, what about my payment!" The Doctor cried as the girls filed out of the building behind their oldest sister. As the dust settled behind them the Doctor threw her arms up and screamed. "Buncha tarts! Just as bad as He was, mark my words!" The woman fell backwards into her booze pile and lifted one of the bottles up to her mouth...then pulled the bottle from her lips and brought it to her eye. The woman groaned and threw the bottle across the room.

"Empty!"
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As the girls made their way throughout the town Lisa relayed her own experiences to her sisters. Upon waking up in the Hamlet dressed as a plague doctor the toddler at first assumed she was dreaming, though this impression didn't last upon stumbling on her robe in the first three seconds and scraping her knee. From then on the pint-sized genius ran about screaming in circles while villagers watched as they drank their beer until she tuckered herself out. After that she sat in the dirt for a good hour, her brain in overdrive as it went over every possible explanation for the scenario she had found herself in. She didn't really get anywhere but the adrenaline she felt had left her comfortably numb and the girl got up to ask one of the drunkards where she was. After a long-winded exposition concerning her hitherto unknown ancestry she was directed to the skeletal remains of a looming mansion, where she encountered the completely unhelpful Caretaker who in turn directed her to the Sanitarium where she would hopefully get some answers.

When Lisa finished her story the girls told her theirs and Lori handed her genius sister the note the Caretaker gave them before he disappeared. Lisa read the note over and over as they walked until the story took a darker turn as they came to the part where Lori killed the brigand that accosted them. Lisa was shocked, but Lori's relief her baby sister took a deep breath and patted her on the knee, informing her that she understood Lori had to make a hard decision and she didn't hold it against her. The further news of Luna's and Leni's homicides served to further damper her spirits, but it was Luna's death that made her stop walking.

Lisa looked up at her older sister with a mixture of shock and fear, tears already threatening to spill out of the sides. Luna immediately noticed this and picked up her baby sister in a fierce hug, shushing her and kissing the top of her head as she whimpered into her neck. Lisa was stunned, emotions weren't her strong suit yes but she wasn't a machine, she did love her siblings and this news that one of them had nearly died...

Leni tried to cheer her sibling up by mentioning that she had magic powers but this did little but confuse the tyke more. Lisa tried to wave off the light as a stress-induced hallucination, but Lori plainly told her that Luna had a gaping hole in her torso when she was shot and after Leni's little light show Luna was alive again and the hole gone. For once Lisa was left completely without an explanation, and the child prodigy surprised her siblings by completely accepting Leni's magic explanation.

"I'm a schientist," Lisa explained through her sniffles, "I accept that their are occurrences I do not fully understand at this moment in time, and I musht take steps to rectify this. Until then I can only accept that shomething undocumented did indeed happen, I have sheen enough strangeness of late to not rule out Leni's hypothesis."

Lori was impressed at Lisa's maturity and Leni was just ecstatic her little scientist believed her. Merriment slightly reinforced the girls made their way towards the grim specter of a building that leered over the town, Lori was honestly surprised it didn't just fall over onto the Hamlet itself. The opulence of the palace set a stark contrast to the overall condition of the town, Lori doubted her Ancestor ever went to bed hungry in his life.

>This sprawling estate, a mecca of madness and morbidity. Your work begins…

As the girls walked up the steps to the massive front doors Leni skipped up to the imposing threshold and knocked gracefully. Luna told her that wasn't how it was done and proceeded to smash her fists against the mahogany. Lori called them both idiots and grabbed the gargoyle door knocker and brought it down several times each with a loud bang. Lisa "Ahemed" and leaned out from Luna's arms to ring the doorbell, causing the other girls the rub their arms sheepishly.

"I said I'm coming!" A voice thundered from the other end of the door, and they slowly creaked open to reveal the emaciated carcass of the Caretaker leaning against the door frame, eyes still shadowed and smile still stretched wide and tight.

"You didn't say anything," Leni pointed out

"Yeah, we knocked," Luna snorted.

"I was taking a shit," the Caretaker stated matter-of-factly before turning on his heels and hobbling inside the mansion, gesturing with his hand that the girls should follow inside. The three girls all looked to the oldest for reassurance, Lori looked at them and flashed a grin before walking inside after the strange man.

The quartet quietly followed the man out of the foyer and down a hall, Leni took note of the ragged curtains and dust everywhere, Luna whistled at the acoustics, Lisa duly noted the impressive architecture, but what caught Lori's eyes were the portraits of the Ancestor and the stain glass windows, each of them depicting odd scenes of violence and insanity; in one the dead were rising from their graves, in another a disgusting mass of flesh twisted into the shape of a pig, in that one sailors were making deals with the unseen things from The Deep. Lori shook her head and tried to dislodge these thoughts from her head, she focused instead on the shambling thing in front of her.

"So, why'd you leave us on the road old man," she snapped, and the other girls sans Lisa flinched at the accusatory tone in her voice.

The Caretaker didn't even bat an eye. "You needed to know the stakes," he simply stated.

Lori glared and slowly shook her head back and forth.

"Not good enough, we got attacked, my sister almost died."

The Caretaker giggled at this and waved his hand.

"That's hardly a concern," he muttered, "I would have just bought another."

Lori's face went beet-red and she gripped her mace tightly. For a second she was tempted, oh God was she tempted. He wouldn't even see her coming. It'd be easy, like breaking a toothpick.

Leni must've added mind-reading to her recent repertoire because her hand was suddenly on Lori's, soothingly massaging it and bringing the mace back down to its holster on Lori's belt. Lori looked at her younger sister and the pretty blonde simply nodded her head and mouthed the word no. Lori snorted and continued walking after the man, and shortly afterwards they all found themselves out of the hall and in a waiting room, an inferno already burning in the enormous fireplace, fighting back the gloom and illuminating a sizable library of ancient tomes. Lisa seemed pleased by this and immediately went to work examining the books while the other three stood around and watched the Caretaker as he meandered about, lighting candles and muttering to himself. Before long he turned around and smiled at the girls, face still obscured despite the light.

"Right then my dears. You've all done well so far, but your journey is far from over. I see you have questions so I'll just get down to it. Bedrooms are upstairs, there are two bathrooms upstairs and two down here, and the kitchen is on the other side of the lobby, I'll go scour the local peasantry and see if I can't drum up some cooks and maids for you girls, can't have royalty doing all that themselves, no you'll be much too busy to concern yourself with such matters." He winked at them and clapped his hands before turning around and making for the door.

"Wait, no hold on!" Lori shouted, and the Caretaker turned with a "Hmmm?".

"You aren't leaving yet. Where are we, what are we doing here? I know our Ancestor left this place for us but what is this job we're supposed to be doing?"

The Caretaker looked at her for a few seconds before barking out a laugh, slapping his head with a taloned hand.

"Cor, but I can't believe I forgot," he chided himself. "You said it yerself lass, this is your town now, and your Ancestor asked you to come so you could set right what he broke."

"What, like the town," Leni chimed.

"Place does look pretty run down." Luna observed.

The Caretaker shrugged. "I mean sure, fixing the place up would make things easier for you in the long run. But what I meant was fighting back the all-hungering corruption eating away at the seams of reality itself. There's also the matter of undead hordes raising the countryside, the disgusting cannibalistic swine-men he created and ultimately discarded, the festering abominations lurking in the woods, the brigand army he hired that pillage the Hamlet from time time also need tending to I suppose, then there's the eldritch horrors from The Deep he tried to cheat, they're still mad about that, and that's nothing to say about the vampire court lurking near by, you'll have to see to that as well. But, you'll be happy to note I've compiled a to-do list for you girls, its not much yet but I'll add to it as you go along."

The Caretaker rummaged through his robe for a few seconds before pulling out piece of parchment with hastily scribbled instructions scrawled on its side. He chuckled and handed the note out to Lori who made absolutely no move to grab it as she and her sisters all stood blank-eyed and slack-jawed. The awkward exchange continued for a minute until the Caretaker shuffled towards the eldest Loud and gingerly shoved the paper into her left hand and gave her a pat on the head before he quickly shuffled out of the study.

The door slammed shut behind him and Lori could hear the Caretaker's cackle from the other side.

{The End}