Chain 230: Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow

Chain 230: Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow

Location: Castle Dracula, 2035
Identity: Prisoner
Drawbacks: [+600] Chronicles of Darkness, Destiny of Darkness, Left Behind Again, Who Wants To Be The Lord Of Evil?, An Empty Tome

[Free]      Big And Friendly
[Free]      You're Not Alone
[100/1600]  Let Me Explain
[200/1600]  We Didn't Forget You
[1000/1600] Heir to the Castle
[Free]      Endless Pot Roast
[Free]      What Is A Man?
[1200/1600] Compendium
[1500/1600] Chaos Ring
[1600/1600] Trevor Did It First: Demona, Conspiracy

Back to Dracula's castle again, it would seem. I wasn't really a fan of this whole course of events - even less so, though, as I found myself reduced. I'd lost Galatea. I'd lost Demona. I'd lost the entire fucking Conspiracy. And now I was reduced barely above the level of a baseline human being, albeit a very well trained one, and I was inside the belly of the beast. Practically unarmed,

This meant that I was just actually having to WORK a little bit instead of just outright rolling over everything in my way. I'd been around for long enough that I had contingencies even for situations like this, even if the magic would have been costly and limited- wait, chaos ring? Then even though my magic potential was stuck at a low point, I could just use it pretty much endlessly.

And so I tore my way through the castle, each room and floor giving me a little bit more of my power back. I rapidly went from fighting the undead and monstrous hordes on a semi-even level to very much NOT doing so, returning to the aforementioned state of 'rolling over everything in my way' in a hurry. Not only that, but I met others who were in the castle as well. Some friendly, some not. Some new, like Soma, who had no interest in the whole thing. Some older - who would have expected to run into the local Alucard here?

And then I started coming across statues of the Conspiracy.

All this time, they'd been bound by the castle. The Conspiracy had been frozen into statues, but by the point I'd found them, I was able to fix them and restore them to life. Would have been quite draining at the time were it not for the chaos ring, but that's as well as anything - and each of them was able to point the way toward a couple more of their number. It felt more like I was achievement hunting, trying to locate them all, but I'd be damned if I left any of them behind.

Some of the hostile folks in the castle were... really not friendly, either. Aside from the creatures of the night that wanted to kill me, or subsume me, or seduce me into evil, or whatever else they wanted... there were folks like, say, that Graham character who was convinced he had all the power of the castle in his hand. Or the other three people who were convinced of the same and were working in concert to exterminate everyone else in the castle before they had their own reckoning. Perhaps they would have been successful, if they hadn't had to deal with dozens of the Conspiracy at first, and later, hundreds, until their full number of one thousand was restored.

Once I had sufficient power, I took the souls that Soma had gained for myself; best to keep him from being bound by such a terrible fate. If he was to have Dracula's soul, it was better for him to be a blank slate, to live his life without a cloud over his head. And as such, I slew every other pretender to Dracula's throne who refused to step aside. Not so the power would be mine, no, but so it would belong to no one. Until there was no enemy left but Castle Dracula itself.

After I'd severed its connection to the chaotic realm and the shattered ruin returned to reality rather than being insubstantive in the eclipse... at the heart of the Castle, I found Demona and Galatea. I hadn't expected this, I'd thought them lost forever. Instead... it seemed that Dracula hadn't killed them but instead had bound them to the heart of the castle itself. And despite his being very, very dead, their own powers were being drained to manifest him.

I would like to say that we had a discussion over the nature of good and evil. Of mercy and punishment. I would like to say that the battle was pitched, that the shade of Dracula was an opponent unlike any other. I would in fact like to say a great many things about that conflict. But in the end, none of these things are true. I'd gained nearly all my power back in the fight through the castle, and I'd had my Conspiracy adding their prayers to me.

Dracula's shade may have been many things, but quite frankly, a mantra-enhanced strike to his shadowy heart was sufficient to dispel him.

After that... I freed my girls from the castle and all of us departed, hoping never to see the damned thing again, but for some reason the damned thing continued to resonate with me. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity, but it felt like I'd bopped a misbehaving dog on the nose and now it wanted to make it up to me.