Legacies and Darkness (Castlevania 64/LoD)

[Jim Starluck]

First post reserved for eventual Table of Contents/Cast of Characters/etc.

 

[Jim Starluck]

Level 1: The Forest of Silence


Stormclouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon and rain poured down in sheets. Thunder rumbled ominously. Lightning split the darkness with blinding flashes every so often.

It was, as the old saying goes, a dark and stormy night.

Deep in the midst of this chaos, below the branches of an ancient pine forest, a young girl fought her way along a muddy path.

'I'm a fool,' she thought.

Her blue-grey hair, pulled back into a tight bun to keep it out of the way, was at odds with her youth. She wore a plain, dark blue schoolgirl's uniform which was by this point soaked through and hemmed in mud, while her soft-soled shoes and stockings were ruined nearly beyond recognition. Her arms crossed tightly for warmth, but she still shivered almost non-stop.

'Trudging all the way out here, no idea what I'm up against, no coat or an umbrella to shield me from the elements, and not even enough food for one night. What was I thinking?!'

She was so lost in thought that she didn't notice the path -- or what was left of it -- turn to the right. Nor did she notice the rapidly approaching gully. It wasn't until her foot failed to touch ground that she finally looked down to see the steep slope below her.

There was just enough time to think 'Blast!' before she tumbled down it head-first.

The drop was mercifully short -- just long enough to tumble head over heels once. The girl landed face-down in a large puddle, drenching her clothes and skin even more. Thoroughly disgusted and fed up with the rain and mud and darkness, she picked herself up and glared back at where she had fallen from, as if it were all the gully's fault.

Lightning reached down like the finger of God and struck a tree not far from the edge, instantly setting it aflame despite the rain. The girl screamed and fell backwards into the puddle as the burning pine began to fall straight towards her. She scrambled backwards, desperate to get away. The tree's top struck the far side of the gully, suspending it above her like a bridge. Burning sticks and pine needles rained down around her, hissing when they met the sodden ground.

The girl stumbled to her feet and ran down the gully until she spotted a tree whose roots had formed a little cave in the bank. She crawled inside it for shelter. There she huddled miserably, arms wrapped around her knees. 'That's it,' she thought to herself, 'I'm turning around and going home. I can't take this anymore!'

'What home?' came the answering thought. A long moment passed, punctuated only by the relentless downpour outside and the echoes of distant thunder. 'It's gone, in case you've already forgotten.' Another long pause. 'Or maybe you haven't. Maybe you're just pretending that your life hasn't come crashing down around your ears.'

The girl shivered, and this time not from the cold. Memories, recent ones buried deeper than they should've been, stirred in the back of her mind. She tried to shove them back into the depths where she wouldn't have to look at them, but it didn't help. It never did.

'You can't change what's been done, Carrie Fernandez,' continued the stubborn corner of her mind. 'No more than you can change what will happen in seven days if you fail. Running back to the orphanage now won't save you--not for long, anyway. The Dark Lord will rise unopposed and within months, weeks perhaps, his reign of terror will begin. Do you truly think anyone will escape from that? Wherever you are his forces will find you. You will be tortured or... worse... and killed. Even if you fight, your power will not save you forever. This must be done now, while you still have a chance to stop it.'

'But what if I can't?' Carrie thought back. 'I'm just... just a little girl.' She gritted her teeth at the hateful words. 'I've no training; I don't know how to use this power beyond what few tricks I stumbled on myself. What can I hope to do against vampires and demons?'

'Don't forget... you are a Fernandez,' her mind answered sternly. 'The Gift is your birthright. The family's legacy runs stronger in your veins than in generations. Your skills aren't much now, but they will grow. No training could teach you what you will know by instinct when the time comes. Even the Dark Lord will fear your power in time.'

Carrie just shook her head, raindrops flying off her hair.

'It's your responsibility. You're not about to go running off on it because you're scared.' Absently Carrie thought that this particular corner of her mind was starting to sound less and less like herself and more and more like her Nana... and with that thought the floodgates burst and the memories and tears came pouring out in an unstoppable torrent.

The old widow had always been firm, especially when Carrie tried to weasel out of chores like she had back at the orphanage. Carrie hadn't minded much, though. Nana always treated her like an adult, especially when she lived up to her responsibilities. She never talked down to her like she was stupid, or talked to other adults about her as if she wasn't there, like most adults did. When it was cold in the winter, at night with all the day's tasks done, Nana would bundle her up in blankets by the fire, make hot cocoa, and tell her stories about her Fernandez ancestors...

'That's the worst part, isn't it?' The voice came again, but now it was gentle, softened by sympathy. 'You had the power, but it wouldn't awaken until it was too late. Soon enough for revenge but not soon enough to save the one you loved. Not soon enough to prove you're not just a little girl.'

The sob ripped its way out of Carrie's throat despite every effort to hold it back. 'I'm sorry, Nana. It's all my fault.'

'Nonsense, dearie. It was my choice to take you in, so any responsibility falls square on my shoulders.' The voice in her mind seemed to laugh bitterly. 'Besides, we Yehudim have been persecuted just fine on our own for centuries; we don't need girls with magic powers to help us start now.'

Even through all her grief and tears, Carrie couldn't help but chuckle at that. It was just like Nana's sense of humor--darkly sarcastic and self-depreciating. She sniffled. Rubbing her nose on her sleeve, Carrie missed the old woman even more.

'Don't you worry any about me. You've got a duty to look after, a chance to prove to the world that you're not a little girl anymore. Get to it, dearie. I'll be watching over you as best I can.'

Carrie's head snapped up. 'Nana?!' she thought. There was no reply; the voice had fallen silent. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 'Thank you, Nana. I won't let you down.'

She got to her feet and strode out into the rain, letting it soak her to the bone and rinse the muck and mud away. She stared up into the furious sky. 'Whatever awaits, I have no regrets.'

Lightning struck again nearby, and thunder bombarded the forest like a salvo of artillery fire. The next flash found Carrie back in the tree-root cave.

'Then again, it couldn't hurt to wait until morning.'

*~*~*​

Reinhardt Schneider strode down the forest path, events of the last month weighing far more heavily on his mind than the weather. He had known since they were boys that his brother, Diedrich, did not put much stock in the family heritage and never took their training seriously, yet the profanity-laced tirade had still shocked Reinhardt to his core. Despite the clear omens, Diedrich had dismissed the entirety of their family history as superstitious nonsense and their late father as an imbecile obsessed with fighting imaginary monsters. The two brothers had nearly come to blows, and parted bitterly.

That had been three weeks ago.

Reinhardt had returned home just long enough to don his father's armor and take up the ancestral family weapon, then set out on the hunt. His journey had taken him down the mighty Danube, to the riverport town of Turnu Severin. There he had left the river and headed north, deep into the Romanian forests.

Traveling along country roads from village to village, tales of dark creatures had increased steadily. With each tavern it seemed another child had gone missing in the night, or another grave had been found dug up from the inside. The townsfolk had been taking many traditional precautions: burying the dead upside down so if they awoke they would dig "up" only to go deeper, leaving piles of grain so they would be compelled to count each one until dawn came and smote them, and of course garlic in prodigious quantities. None of it seemed to be having much effect. It was almost as if an intangible aura of darkness had settled across the region.

He was getting close.

Finally, just a few days after crossing the southern arm of the Carpathian mountains, Reinhardt found an old man so terrified he could barely speak. It had taken long hours and many drinks before he finally pried the tale from the greybeard's trembling lips: a monstrous castle emerging whole from the depths of a lake high in the Carpathian foothills, on an island where none had been before. He was old enough to remember the last time such a thing had been spoken of, forty years earlier, when darkness had descended upon the land and foul creatures had roamed and killed at will.

The old man hadn't spoken the name of that dark castle's master aloud. No amount of drink could make him go that far. Reinhardt didn't need to hear it. He already knew.

The Dark Lord of Transylvania, Count Dracula Vlad Tepes, had once again risen from the dead.

Reinhardt had set out at dawn for the place the old man spoke of. Already overcast, the sky grew ever darker the closer he drew to his destination. Now, with the rain pouring down and lightning ripping from cloud to cloud, he was finally here.

The path he had been following abruptly ended at a rocky incline. He slid down it.

Beyond a pair of trees, Reinhardt spied torchlight flickering. He took a deep breath and crossed himself; a moment of prayer before he entered this unholy realm. "Courage... don't leave me," he muttered.

Reinhardt strode towards the distant light. As he neared the trees, one was struck by lightning and fell, burning, across his path. Not in the least deterred, he circled around the fallen tree and continued on. No sooner had he done this when the second tree was likewise smote by the heavens. Reinhardt had to leap backwards to avoid being crushed. He glared up at the sky, daring it to strike again. The clouds only rumbled ominously and continued their torrential downpour, as if mocking him.

He walked around the second burning tree. Ahead, a path led to a stone wall with a massive wooden double-door. As he approached, Reinhardt noticed two forms lying on the ground to one side of the muddy path. He examined them cautiously, as nothing -- especially corpses -- was beyond suspicion this close to the Dark Castle.

One was a skeleton, cleaned of all flesh but still intact. Reinhardt frowned at this; if the corpse had laid out in the open long enough for the flesh to rot, then scavengers would have inevitably scattered the bones as they fed off it. Yet this looked like something from his father's anatomy classroom.

The other was far more recent, probably only a day or two old. By his dress Reinhardt guessed he was from a nearby village. The middle-aged man's skull had been caved in with great force, probably by a blow from a blunt object. Reinhardt knelt next to the man to close his cloudy, vacant eyes.

Behind him the bare skull slowly rotated, looking toward Reinhardt with its empty eye sockets. Slowly, silently, the skeleton rose from the ground. Its movements were awkward, like a marionette raised by strings. When it was finally upright it seemed to settle into itself, as if a weight once again rested on its shoulders. It took one step towards the kneeling vampire hunter, raised the femur bone it carried as a club high, then brought it down with frightening speed--

--only for it to jerk to a halt as Reinhardt spun around, his gloved left hand catching the bone-club well short of it meeting his head. For a long moment, as rain poured ever downwards around them, steely blue eyes locked with empty sockets. Water dripped off the end of the club into his face, but Reinhardt barely flinched.

The skeleton tried to pull its club back, but Reinhardt tightened his grip as his other hand moved to his hip and the weapon hanging there. As he loosed it, movement in the corner of his eyes caught his attention. First to one side of him, then the other, skeletal fists broke through the mud. Skeletons pulled themselves out of the ground. Each of them clutched a bone-club like the first, and they moved to flank him while he was still occupied.

Not wasting any time, Reinhardt yanked hard on the bone-club, jerking the skeleton towards him. Foe now off-balance, he leaned back on his left foot and snapped his right leg forward to sweep the legs out from under the monster. It tumbled into the mud beside him and he planted his right foot on its spine. As it squirmed under his boot, he glanced over the other two skeletons, formed his plan of attack, and acted.

Reinhardt's right arm blurred and the Belmont family's ancestral holy whip, the Vampire Killer, lashed out in anger for the first time in generations. The tip of the holy weapon coiled around the leg of the skeleton to Reinhardt's right. Smoke began to rise from where the blessed leather coiled around bone animated by dark magic. A heartbeat later Reinhardt pulled back on the whip, yanking the skeleton off its feet to land on its back in the mud.

The third skeleton charged at Reinhardt from his left. As it drew near and raised its club, he sidestepped neatly and kicked its legs out from under it. The third skeleton fell straight on top of the first skeleton with a clatter of bones. Before it could rise he drove his right foot down into its back with all his weight, wrapped the end of the Vampire Killer around his left fist, and garroted the skeleton with the whip. It thrashed as the sanctified leather burned at its cervical vertebrae. Reinhardt gave a mighty heave, and with a loud crack the skeleton was decapitated.

As he shoved the headless skeleton to one side, another flash of lightning illuminated the second skeleton climbing to its feet. He quickly repeated the garrote with the first skeleton, which had been partly driven into the mud by his weight and that of the the third skeleton. This one broke easier, and Reinhardt rose to face the second skeleton as it charged at him. He waited just long enough for it to commit to the charge, then sidestepped just as he had with the enemy before it. While it slowed and tried to turn, the Vampire Killer lashed out again and snatched the bone-club from its fleshless hands.

Undeterred, the skeleton advanced more slowly so he could not use its momentum against it. Raising its hands, Reinhardt saw how its fingers had not only been sharpened almost into knives but glistened with more than just rainwater -- a greenish tint of some sort. Presuming them poisoned at the least, he stowed the Vampire Killer and drew his long hunting knife. The skeleton lunged at him, but he parried its dagger-fingers aside, once, twice, then a third time before it gave him an opening.

He battered its weak guard aside. Reaching out, Reinhardt grabbed its collarbone and hurled it bodily -- or at least skeletally -- to the ground. The hellish puppet landed face-first in the mud and began to rise, but he straddled its shoulder blades, one knee pinning each arm to the ground. Holding the knife over his head with both hands, he brought it down with a wordless yell, driving the point precisely into the gap between vertebrae.

Beneath him, the skeleton stopped thrashing and fell limp.

Reinhardt sighed in relief. Rising, he sheathed his knife.

Then something heavy and blunt smashed into his head, and the world spun around him.

"Verdammte scheisse!" he shouted, stumbling away from whatever had hit him while his vision swam. The portion of his brain that was not consumed in blinding pain noted that it must have been a glancing blow; the aim thrown off by his movement as he stood. He fumbled for the Vampire Killer as he shook his head to try and clear the stars swimming in his vision.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the landscape for a heartbeat and he saw his attacker. The other skeletons, the ones he had thought eliminated when he wrenched their skulls free with the Vampire Killer, were back up and moving despite their decapitations. Reinhardt groaned. He hadn't known they could do that. At least it looked like the last one he had taken out was staying down.

"Alright, du hurensohnes," Reinhardt said as he readied the Belmont holy whip once more. "Let's try this again."

*~*~*​

When Carrie finally roused from her uneasy sleep, she found herself in the close embrace of two old friends:

Wet and Cold.

Wet was being particularly clingy today; Carrie hadn't know it was even possible to smell 'wet' so strongly until now. Shivering from the chill, she sat up as best she could in the tree-root cave and was greeted by yet another longtime companion: Soreness, borne from sleeping curled up in the dirt rather than in anything remotely resembling a real bed. It had been so long since she'd slept in one of those that the warm comforters Nana had buried her in almost felt like they'd been a dream.

There was a dim, grey light outside, and she could no longer hear the accursed rain. Her dress still clung to her like a second, clammy skin. As she stretched to try and relieve some of the pain, she reminded herself that Nana's bed had to have been real.

Her dreams were never that pleasant.

"Got to start moving," Carrie muttered to herself. "Body heat and all that." She clambered out of the tree-root cave and stood in the gully for a minute, wringing what water she could from her dress as she looked around. The gully stretched away to either side. A thin, grey fog drifted along listlessly, content to be dragged wherever the wind's whim would take it. In the distance she could hear a fiercer wind howling, albeit muffled by the forest and the fog.

Shivering once more Carrie raised her right hand, palm up, and willed the Gift within her to awaken. It took a minute, as if the magic was tired and sleepy from disuse. She silently cursed herself for not practicing more. Finally, a tiny glowing blue-green orb flickered into life above her palm, humming quietly like a wine-glass when one rubbed the rim. Barely more than a candle's flame, it wasn't much but it would do.

Carrie dipped her left index finger into the orb as one would dip a pen into a bottle of ink, and came out with a smaller mote of light clinging to her fingertip. She pressed it to the skin of her palm and drew a circle around the orb, a thin ribbon of light following her finger's path. Cupping her hands close, she began to whisper to it in the language Nana had taught her -- the language of her ancestors, the language the Gift understood. She spoke words of guidance and seeking, words of stability and control, and finally words of beginning.

At the last word, the drawn ring flared white. It lifted up off her skin to surround the orb, like the rings of a distant planet. The blue orb began to spin, and then spiral outward, and then finally snapped to the ring like iron to a magnet. It ran around the ring a couple of times, slowing gradually, then moved with purpose. It swung around to the 'front' of the ring, the side facing directly ahead of her and then wobbled slightly to the left before coming to a stop. She turned from side to side to test it. No matter which direction she faced, the orb swiveled to point unerringly down the gully, away from the fallen tree she had fled from last night.

Smiling for the first time in days at her success, however small it might be, Carrie set off down the gully. After a short distance she found she had to spend most of her time watching her footing, as the gully was strewn with roots that seemed to grasp at her feet and fallen branches from the previous night's storm. Every now and then she glanced at the compass spell, still floating above her right hand, to verify she was heading the right direction.

Eventually the gully broadened, joining what seemed to be a larger series of gullies with rough stone walls. She stepped gingerly around a pair of downed trees that had been burned by fire so recently they were still smoking; probably the result of the storm's lightning strikes, like the one she'd narrowly avoided last night. The fog beyond them abruptly began to clear. Carrie gasped, clasping her hands together and extinguishing the compass spell in the process.

To one side were what could only be a pair of hastily-dug graves, covered with loose dirt and rocks. Beyond them loomed a stone brick wall with a pair of immense, wooden double-doors firmly shut against intruders. Off to the left of the doors, a young man had his back to her as he tried -- with great frustration -- to start a fire with wood soaked from the night's rain.

The man paused.

He must've heard her gasp, Carrie realized.

Slowly, the stranger rose and turned cautiously, one hand moving to his hip. Carrie's heart raced, but she stood her ground. After all, how was she supposed to stop Dracula if she got intimidated by what looked to be one regular human? Willing herself not to show signs of fear, she tried to study him, assess if he was truly a threat or not.

The man had red hair, cut short save for a single braid that stretched down to the back of his neck. He wore a plain long brown coat, with what looked like some kind of leather vest underneath. Light armor, maybe. From his belt hung a number of implements, including a large hunting knife and a whip. The latter was clearly what his hand had been moving towards, though it hesitated while he studied Carrie just as she was studying him.

After a few moments, and clearly seeing that her gaze had rested on the weapon, he let his hand fall away from it--but not too far.

Carrie realized they'd been staring at one another in silence for a minute now, and hesitantly cleared her throat. "Uh... hello?" she ventured in Romanian, nervously.

"Good morning," the man replied in the same tongue, nodding to her. Carrie noted a distinct German accent. "A bit unusual for a young girl to be so far out into the woods, isn't it?"

Carrie blinked, frantically tried to think up some kind of story, then figured it was useless. "I suppose it is. I could say the same for you," she replied, figuring that going on the offense was better than nothing.

The man merely smirked at this. "I suppose you could." He glanced back to the fire he'd been trying to light -- Carrie noted he kept her within his peripheral vision -- then back at her. "Please" He gestured towards a thick log that had been laid down to act as a seat. As she slowly approached, he circled around to the other side of the fire ring and resumed attempting to light it. Carrie glanced down to where he had been working before and counted at least a dozen spent matches in the mud.

After the man had spent a few minutes grumbling to himself in German -- which she guessed he thought she couldn't speak, given some of the curses he was uttering -- and had gone through another three matches, she spoke up again. "May I try something?" she asked, leaning forward to see over the pile of wood.

The man looked up from where he'd been about to light a fourth match, then shrugged. "If you've some knowledge of fire-starting, then please, be my guest." He offered her the matchbox.

She shook her head, and instead slipped forward off the log to kneel on the stones of the fire-ring. Leaning forward, Carrie placed her right hand on one of the largest logs and willed the Gift to wake. It responded more eagerly this time, already roused from the earlier use. As the man watched with a puzzled look on his face, the Gift's characteristic blue glow began to leak out from between her fingers. He let out a startled oath and took a step back.

Carrie paid him no mind, instead leaning forward to whisper to the Gift, this time with words of heat and drying. The wood beneath her hand began to hiss and steam as water evaporated, but the Gift protected her. She felt only a warm sensation on her skin, like the sun's heat on a bright summer day. She whispered words of power and strength, and the glow intensified. The entire log she was touching began to hiss and steam, and finally flames erupted outright beneath her hand, spreading quickly along its length as she drew back.

Carrie smiled and let the Gift sleep again, enjoying the warmth from the growing flames. Then she looked up and her breath caught in her throat, for the man's eyes were wide with surprise and the whip she had seen before was in his right hand, ready to strike. She scrambled backwards, tripping over the log-seat. "N-no, please, let me explain!" she stammered out.

The man shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then settled into a determined frown. He raised the whip high, and Carrie threw up her arms to shield herself. When the whip cracked impossibly loud, she let out a small scream... but no blow ever landed. She slowly lowered her now-shaking arms to see it stretched taut mere inches away, the tip wrapped around a low-hanging tree branch behind her.

"Touch it," the man commanded.

"Wh-wh-what?" Carrie stammered out. "What do you mean?"

"Touch the whip," he said, "and I'll know if you are a threat or not. If you don't, I'll have no choice but to assume you are one anyway." His voice was granite, and Carrie didn't dare argue it further. She reached out slowly, with one trembling hand, towards the still-vibrating whip. Pausing just before contact she swallowed, closed her eyes, braced for pain or something, and then wrapped her fingers around the whip-cord.

Nothing happened.

The man heaved a great sigh of relief, and she looked over, confused, to see him relax his stance. "Alright, that's good enough. I'm sorry if I frightened you, miss, but this close to the Dark Lord's castle one cannot afford to take chances with strange people."

Carrie blinked, drawing her hand back as the whip went slack and he coiled it to stow on his belt once again. "I... what?!" she exclaimed. "What are you talking about? How does me touching a whip change anything?!"

He held the coiled weapon up. "This is the Vampire Killer, a holy weapon passed down by my family for centuries. If it so much as touches a creature of darkness, it will burn them much as you burned that log there." He nodded to the fire. "Since it did not react to you, that means you are an ordinary human, albeit one possessed of a very unusual talent, and not a dark creature using a human guise to lure me into lowering my guard."

"Oh... I... uh..." Carrie blinked as she absorbed the explanation. "I suppose that makes sense." She pulled herself up back onto the log-seat, as the man pulled another thick log over for his own seat on the opposite side of the fire. They both sat, staring at the flames, her shooting him nervous glances every now and then. When he seemed to judge the flames hot enough, the man reached down and picked up a rucksack that she had not noticed before. He withdrew several pieces of dried meat, and began rigging some kind of array with sticks to heat it over the fire.

"Wait a minute," said Carrie, having thought his words over. "So you trust me now because I touched your Vampire Slayer, but why should I trust you? How do I know what you told me wasn't some load of hogwash?"

The man looked up from his task and smirked. "A good question. One most would not think to ask." With one hand he reached inside his vest and drew out a small golden cross that hung around his neck on a thin chain. He held it up in front of his face. "No vampire or other creature of darkness can stand the sight of a holy symbol such as this. It would have much the same affect on them as the Vampire Killer, though not as strong." He held the cross close, murmured what sounded like a few words of prayer, then stowed it back inside his shirt.

"And of course everyone knows that vampires don't like crosses," Carrie admitted, wariness fading.

"Yes," the man replied as he set the meat up over the fire. "That, and other folklore like it, are what keep most of the people alive and safe out here, in the wild regions where darkness is still strong." He sat back, apparently pleased with his work, then groaned as he realized something. "Ugh, Father would be appalled at my lack of manners. I'm sorry, miss, I never introduced myself. I am Reinhardt von Schneider, last heir to the house of Belmont."

"Oh! I'm Carrie. Carrie Fernandez."

"Fernandez?" Reinhardt raised one eyebrow curiously. "Now that would explain a lot."

"You know the name?" Carrie asked, sitting up straighter in surprise.

"I know it quite well. Your family and mine have a long history together, and even intermarried at points." He gave her a thoughtful look. "I'm guessing, based on this and your talent, that you're here for the same reason I am."

Carrie nodded, having come to much the same conclusion. "If your reason is to stop the Dark Lord's ascension, then yes." She sighed and looked down into the flames. "Though I don't know how much good I'll do. I don't have much experience with the Gift yet."

"Well, I'll not turn down aid at this point, even if it's inexperienced. Besides," Reinhardt said, "a Belmont warrior and a Fernandez sorceress working together have been able to defeat the Dark Lord before. I can think of no better companion to have on this mission." Carrie couldn't help but return his earnest smile.

The moment was ruined when her stomach rumbled loud enough for the whole forest to hear. Carrie blushed and glanced down at the strips of meat now sizzling over the fire, the smell heavenly after a nose full of cold wetness all morning. "I, uh, don't suppose I could have a few of those?"

Reinhardt laughed gently. "Certainly. You'll need to keep up your strength on a mission like this." He passed one of the sticks with a few strips of meat skewered on it to her. "Careful, they'll be hot." As she blew gently on the food to cool it, he cast an appraising eye over her. "I take it you did not put a great deal of preparation into your journey?" he asked when she wolfed down the first piece of meat eagerly.

She swallowed and looked off to the side, embarrassed again. "You would be correct, Herr Schneider. As I said, I don't have much experience in these kinds of adventures."

"No shame in being a beginner," he said comfortingly as he took his own meat from the fire. "The last group to infiltrate the Dark Lord's castle consisted of one veteran and five complete amateurs, and they managed to vanquish him with... relatively little difficulty."

Carrie swallowed another bite, then raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by 'relatively little'?"

"They only had to slay three minor vampires in the Dark Lord's service, and then ambushed him as he was returning to the castle from abroad," he said. "They slew him as he slept in his dirt-filled coffin. An impressive use of tactics. Normally they would've had to fight their way through the castle, filled with all manner of deathtraps and dark creatures, to reach the Count."

"Is... is that what we're going to face?"

Reinhardt swallowed a bite of his own. "Mmm. Not sure yet. We'll have to see how well his minions have prepared this time, how much power they're using to raise him. His servants and defenses have varied widely. That time I just spoke of was one of his weakest points in the last several decades, but it was also before the Great War." His expression grew grim. "He inevitably strengthens when death and human suffering fill the world, and that would have bolstered him substantially. Otherwise he might not have risen again for another century."

"I see." she said.

They ate in silence for a few minutes after that.

"At any rate," began Reinhardt after he finished his last mouthful, "we should at least take stock of what you do have, if only to determine what you'll need."

"Oh. All right." Carrie pulled the small bag hanging at her side into her lap. "Let's see... a few biscuits from the last inn that let me stay the night, a half-full flask of water--pardon me for a moment." The flask she pulled out and took a short drink from it to wash down the meal, then continued, holding up a crumpled fistful of bills. "A few hundred lei -- though what good they'll do out here I haven't a clue -- and a German-to-Spanish pocket dictionary."

Reinhardt blinked in mild bewilderment at this quick and frank assessment of her belongings. "Why the dictionary?" he asked after a moment.

Carrie pulled the book out gingerly and looked down at it. Its pages were well-worn and many were dog-eared. "The Gift only understands the tongue of my ancestors. If I want it to do anything more than provide light and heat, I need to give it instructions, so... I'm learning. I don't know much yet, but enough to perform a few basic tasks."

"Ah. Good thing to have, then." Reinhardt pondered for moment. "You're right in that the money won't be of any use from here on in. The biscuits will do well enough for food, at least for a day or two, and we can refill the flask from one of mine. I'd suggest a weapon or two, but your magic will probably be your best defense if it comes to that." He reached into his pack, and pulled out a paper-wrapped package. "Here, take this. More of the meat like we just ate, in case we get separated."

Carrie took the package, but eyed it warily. "Won't it spoil?"

"Not soon. It's cooked and dried, so it should keep well. Excellent traveling ration."

"All right." She packed her bag again. "Now what?"

"Now, we figure out some way through that gate," said Reinhardt, rising and shouldering his pack. "I tried to open it last night, but it seems to be shut tight."

Carrie rose as well, and the two of them walked over to stand before the door. The wall towered above them, significantly higher than the trees around it. The massive wooden doors alone were easily ten meters tall and heavily reinforced with iron bands. Dominating the door was a metal seal decorated with an elaborate coat-of-arms.

"Are you sure it's even locked?" asked Carrie. "I should think that doors these big would take many men to open."

"Actually, gates like this one were usually kept well-oiled and balanced such that they opened easily." Reinhardt said, "They were never relied on to be simply hard to open. They had to be barred deliberately, and even then it was their thickness that was their strength, not their weight." He looked up and sighed. "Of course, if the gate is barred from the other side then we're wasting our time."

"If all else fails I suppose I can just set fire to the wood, but it'd take a long time to burn," Carrie mused, rubbing her chin with one hand. "Have you tried seeing how far the wall extends?"

"The terrain gets rough and I wasn't able to explore very far last night, but I couldn't see an end to it." Reinhardt looked from side to side and rubbed the back of his head. "We're out on a high peninsula here, so it's entirely possible it runs all the way out to the cliffs on either side."

Carrie hummed thoughtfully. "There's something about that seal that bothers me," she mused, tapping her chin with one index finger.

Reinhardt looked back up at it. "It's the Dark Lord's coat-of-arms. I'd recognize it anywhere."

"Let me try something." She took a few steps forward and pulled out her pocket dictionary again. Flipping it open to one of the dog-eared pages, she scanned down it with her finger, murmuring to herself quietly. She flipped through a couple more pages before finding what she was looking for, nodded to herself and put the dictionary away.

Looking up at the seal from where she stood directly beneath it, Carrie raised and cupped her hands. Calling the Gift up was again easier than before, and in a moment a fist-sized orb of light was shimmering in her hands, humming musically. This one seemed almost eager; it twitched and fizzled as she held it. Lifting it close to her lips, she whispered the tongue of her ancestors. "Asciende y ataca el simbolo del mal," she told it, and it seemed to pulse in acknowledgement.

She held it out and the orb lifted off her palms, rising up until it was level with the center of the seal. It paused, then with a strange chirping sound hurtled forward into the seal with impressive force. The entire door shuddered with the impact, bowing ever-so-slightly inwards, but Carrie paid more attention to the seal itself. When the orb struck it crackled with eldritch lightning, and the entire seal pulsed with the blue light of Carrie's Gift. It radiated outwards from the point of impact, following the lines of the coat-of-arms... but formed several other symbols as well, where the seal appeared blank otherwise.

"I knew it!" Carrie said with great satisfaction. "I think it's been reinforced by sorcery, but it must only work against physical impact. A few more of those and it should break, and then we can open the door easily." She cupped her hands again to repeat the spell.

"Wait a moment," said Reinhardt, stepping forward. Carrie lowered her hands and looked at him, puzzled. "You're still learning, correct?" She nodded, not quite certain what point he was driving at. "Then it may be a good idea to practice while we have a chance."

Carrie frowned, but nodded and turned to face him fully. "All right. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, to start with, how quickly can you conjure up your magic?" he asked. "It seemed to take quite a while both times you used it, and in a fight any enemy will be quick to exploit that limitation."

"It can vary," she said. "If I've not used the Gift in some time, it can be sluggish to respond. Before this morning I hadn't used it since last week, and it took the better part of a minute to wake the first time."

"Like a disused muscle," Reinhardt said, nodding. "In that case you should be able to exercise it, make it stronger. Can you call it up, but dismiss it without using it?" In lieu of an answer, Carrie held out her palm, willed a tiny bit of the Gift up, then closed her fist around it. There was a sound halfway between a quiet pop and the fizzle of a doused candle, and the light between her fingers vanished.

"Good. Whenever you can spare the attention to do so, try to call it up as quickly as you can, then dismiss it and repeat. With luck you'll be able to do it a bit faster each time." Carrie nodded eagerly. "Try to make sure you do this at least once a day, if only so you don't let it lie idle for a long time."

"That makes sense," Carrie said, nodding again. "What else?"

"When you give it commands, do you need to whisper them so carefully?"

"Oh. Um, I suppose not," Carrie replied sheepishly. "Mostly that's because, well... people don't tend to react well to it, so I try to keep it quiet and unnoticed when I can."

Reinhardt sighed. "That I can understand. Still, you won't need to worry about offending anyone around here, so you should be able to speak louder and more directly. You might also try using more concise instructions, as every moment you spend speaking is one an enemy will spend trying to kill you."

Carrie tried to suppress the shudder at that thought, and only partly succeeded. "Okay. How about this?" She looked up at the seal, then raised her right hand without turning, palm facing the door. After a few seconds the blue-green light of the Gift blossomed, and she called out "Ataca!"

Without hesitation the spell-light leapt from her hand to slam into the center of the seal with even greater force than before. The door trembled again, and this time the metal of the seal crackled with bits of arcane lightning for a few moments afterward.

"Much better," said Reinhardt, nodding with approval.

Carrie smiled, took a deep breath, and called up the Gift once more. The spell-orb seemed a little bigger and brighter this time, she thought, but perhaps that was just her imagination. "Ataca!" she barked out again, and when the spell-bolt slammed into the seal this time it burst into flames. Rather than melt like it should have under intense heat, the metal instead burnt and crumpled like paper, flaking to the ground as ash. Carrie beamed at Reinhardt as the gates began to swing inward, no longer restrained by the seal. She looked forward again, through the opening gates... and then up.

And up.

And up.

While fear paralyzed her body, Carrie's mind snapped back to a time years before when Nana had taken her to a movie theater. It had been the first time Carrie visited such a place. They had seen an American film about a huge and monstrous ape, which was captured and taken back to the city only to escape and run amok. Carrie had been awestruck by the film. With such vivid effects, it had felt like the monster was right there in the theater.

The creature that towered above her now reminded her of that mighty ape, but this thing was stripped of all flesh; only the colossal skeleton remained. It was hunched over, much like an ape, yet still stood at least five meters tall. Had it been upright it would've barely fit through the gate.

At first she hoped it was only what it looked like -- the inanimate remains of something long dead -- but as she stared up at it, the huge skull tilted to look down at Carrie. Its whole body flexed as its balance shifted ever-so-slightly. It opened its lipless mouth and bellowed a deafening roar from lungless ribs. Raising a single immense bone club the size of a tree-trunk, it prepared to smash her to a pulp.

Carrie's paralysis wore off just enough for her to scream in terror as the bone-club came rushing down. An instant before it hit, a great force struck her left side. Suddenly wrapped in strong arms, it carried her out of the weapon's path. It was only after being released that she realized Reinhardt had tackled her and saved her life. Before she could speak, he was back up. Whip and long knife now in his hands, he moved away, yelling at the huge skeleton.

~*~​

Advancing through the gate with thunderous footsteps, the monster glanced at Carrie before Reinhardt cracked his whip in its bony face. It snarled and turned its full attention towards him, letting him lead it further away from the stunned girl. The huge skeleton roared and tried to smash Reinhardt with its club, but he leapt nimbly to one side. It raised the club and tried again, only for him to dodge back in the other direction.

Reinhardt braced himself to dodge a third time but instead the monster brought its club around, low to the ground in a sweeping motion. Thinking quickly, he spun on one heel and dove over it. The world slowed to a crawl as he felt the gust of wind from it passing inches below his face, and the slight tug when it brushed the tip of his boot. When time snapped back to normal, he hit the ground hard, tumbling to a prone position.

He began to pick himself up, but from the corner of his eye spotted the club raised again. He desperately lunged forward, barely carrying himself clear of the blow. The giant growled and raised its weapon yet again, and this time Reinhardt doubted he could avoid it.

"Ataca!"

A brilliant blue-green spell-bolt struck it in the side of the skull. The creature snarled and staggered sideways, pawing briefly at its head with its free hand.

Carrie knelt in the mud, one arm upraised and palm outward, with the other bracing her forearm. She looked surprised it had worked so well.

Her eyes went wide as the immense skeleton turned to face her.

It raised the club again.

"Move!" bellowed Reinhardt, getting to his feet. "Don't stay still for an instant!"

Carrie scrambled to her feet, slipping slightly in the mud, and took off running a split-second before the club came down with a wet muddy splat where she had been. As she ran, Reinhardt spied the light of the Gift growing within her clenched fist. "Good instinct," he murmured to himself as he retrieved his hunting knife and the Vampire Killer and started moving back towards the monster.

Glancing over her shoulder, Carrie twisted her arm back and yelled out "Ataca!" again. Reinhardt briefly despaired that her aim wasn't pointed anywhere near the skeleton... but his eyebrows shot up when the spell-bolt twisted in mid-air, wheeled about like the most agile of sparrows, and struck the skeleton square on the breastbone, checking its advance after Carrie.

The skeleton staggered, shook its head, and then bellowed its rage. It took three long strides towards Carrie and drew its arm back to swing its club again. "Down!" yelled out Reinhardt, left behind by the creature's speed. Carrie had been glancing back over her shoulder again and saw it almost at the same time. Shrieking, she dove to the ground just in time for the club to sweep over her tiny form... and then keep going to smash into the trees lining the gully.

Three of them began to topple towards Carrie.

The girl had rolled to the side almost as soon as she landed, so she couldn't miss the pines coming her way. Eyes wide, she snapped her hand up, Gift already burning bright, and called out "Mantenlos lejos!"

Almost faster than the human eye, a spell-bolt leapt from her palm, split in three and struck the trunk of each pine. Instead of smashing or burning, the blue light wrapped around the tree-trunks like a collar. First their fall towards her was halted, then they tilted back the other way, and finally they fell straight into the skeleton, knocking it flat on its back. The roaring monster thrashed about, trying to get free, but only succeeded in knocking two more trees down onto itself.

Reinhardt had the opening he'd been waiting for, but rather than attack right away he stowed his weapons and reached into his coat to draw out a thick and sturdy glass vial. Opening its wire-frame lid he withdrew the much smaller, thinner vial from inside, and the clear liquid within it began to glow blue. He smiled thinly at this, remembering his father's tales of his own adventures.

Carrie, having clambered to her feet, cautiously edged along the wall of the gully, keeping her distance from the trapped and flailing monster. Once clear of it she jogged over towards Reinhardt. "What do we do now?" she asked, eying the skeleton warily. It continued to thrash and roar in frustration, but the combined weight of the trees seemed too much for it to easily throw off.

"Stay clear," he replied.

Reinhardt drew back his arm and threw the vial with all his strength. The thin, frail glass vessel tumbled end over end through the air, contents glowing brighter as it neared the skeleton, and smashed itself against one of the tree-trunks. The water inside glowed almost as bright a blue as Carrie's Gift. Whatever it touched -- trees, sodden earth, and especially the bones of the skeleton -- instantly burst into roaring blue flames.

"Scheisse!" Carrie stumbled backwards. She raised an arm to ward off the heat, but lowered it when she realized she wasn't actually feeling any. "What was that?!"

"Holy water," he replied. "It reacts with the dark magic that permeates everything here: the ground, the trees, the air -- plus of course our friend here -- and burns with a righteous fury. It won't hurt us, though, or even feel warm. Only creatures of darkness will taste its wrath."

"All right. So now what?" asked Carrie. The giant skeleton was down but clearly not out; thrashing where it burned under the trees and snarling in something akin to pain. She was worried that all they were really doing was making it angry.

"We move on," said Reinhardt, and matched words to action by turning to go, striding purposefully towards the open gate.

"What?" asked Carrie, puzzled and glancing nervously back at the skeleton as she moved to follow.

"We don't need to beat it, we just need to get past it," Reinhardt explained as they crossed the threshold that had so recently been barred. "We can't get bogged down by every enemy we cross paths with. If we hold our ground, they'll overwhelm us with numbers. We have to keep moving, keep adva--"

Anything more he might've said was drowned by the terrible roar that erupted from behind them. There was a mighty crash, and Carrie and Reinhardt turned back just in time to see one of the burning pine trees fly past the open gate to smash itself to pieces on the far side of the gully.

"Run?" asked Carrie in a very, very small voice.

There was another crash, and they looked up to see the monstrous skeleton perched atop the gate. It had abandoned its bone-club and gripped the stonework with both hands. It glowered straight down at them, and it was still on fire.

"RUN!" agreed Reinhardt.

~*~​

They both matched actions to words, sprinting down the gully. The skeleton roared again before leaping down at them like a fiery comet. It landed in their wake with a crash that made them stumble and immediately bounded after them on both feet and knuckles.

Just as before, Carrie kept glancing back over her shoulder. This meant she saw the creature veer left after Reinhardt, and raised the spell-bolt simmering in her left hand. She managed to gasp out "Ataca!" between breaths and the bolt leapt from her palm. The shot went wide at first, but pivoted mid-air to strike the side of the skull just before the creature could swipe Reinhardt's legs out from under him.

The skeleton stumbled sideways in its gallop, slamming into side of the gully. It shook its head as if to clear it, then locked its dead gaze on Carrie. Rather than charge after her, however, it leapt up the slope of the gully and then up into one of the trees. It gripped the thickest branches with both hands and feet like an ape. The ancient pine groaned and bowed under its weight, but did not break. The last of the blue flames flickered out as it climbed.

While it clung to the tree with one hand and foot, the skeleton reached down with the other foot, plucking a large boulder that had been perched on the edge of the gully, and passed it up to its free hand. Carrie was too busy diving to one side to see it actually throw the boulder at her. There was an incredibly loud crash behind her when the boulder slammed into the wall of the gully with as much force as a cannonball. Carrie covered her head while she was briefly showered in mud and stone chips. As she lifted herself up on trembling arms, she heard a wordless yell and the crack of a whip.

Carrie's mud-splattered face snapped up. She saw that Reinhardt had the Vampire Killer wrapped around the skeleton's ankle. Heels dug in, he prevented it from lifting a second boulder high enough to reach with its hand. The tug-of-war didn't last for long, though. The skeleton dropped the boulder, freeing it up to yank Reinhardt right off his feet and send him flying half-a-dozen meters. Then it reached down to grab the boulder again, only this time it was looking at the dazed Belmont scion instead of at Carrie.

She got to her knees just in time to fire a spell-bolt that smashed into the monster's elbow mid-swing. It snarled and the throw went wide, bouncing in the mud to Reinhardt's right. The skull swung around to glower at Carrie, and she just knew it was time to start running again.

Carrie lunged to her feet and sprinted further down the gully, glancing back over her shoulder once more. She got a glimpse of the skeleton crashing to the ground at the spot she'd occupied moments before, and beyond it Reinhardt beginning to get up. When she looked forward again, she gasped and slid to a hasty stop.

The gully ended abruptly in a sheer cliff face. Just a few more steps and Carrie would have plunged headfirst over a drop so deep, she couldn't see the bottom through the lingering morning mists. She remembered Reinhardt's words about them being on a peninsula, and guessed that she had just found the end of it.

Carrie took a few shaky steps back from the edge, but then heard the renewed thunder of the huge skeleton bounding after her. Without any room to run forward, she cut left, running along the cliff and towards the opposite side of the gully. As she ran she threw out another spell-bolt from her left hand, not even bothering to look back. There was a growl and the clatter of bones, and she got the sense of the monster sliding to a stop behind her, not quite far enough to go over the edge. Then she reached the side of the gully and stumbled up the rocky slope as quickly as she could.

She squeezed between the first few trees before the skeleton slammed into the gully wall, making her stumble with the force of its impact. She caught herself against a tree, but quickly pushed off and moved around it. Behind her the skeleton roared, deafeningly loud at such a close distance, and hammered its fists on the top of the slope in rage at her escape among the dense pines.

As she rounded the next tree, Carrie stopped in sudden dismay. Only a few meters from the edge of the gully, the ground rose up into another rocky slope, this one much taller. With the cliff to her right, the skeleton behind her and the rock wall in front of her, the only way left to go was left which would eventually leave her cornered against the gate-wall.

She spun around at the sound of groaning wood behind her. The skeleton was wedging its hands in between the closely-packed trees, pulling them apart. It didn't have any muscles to clench, but the way it stretched it was clearly exerting itself. As she watched, the tree-trunk nearest to the cliff let out a loud crack and twisted a little. Then another; the whole tree shuddered and tilted outwards. One final, ear-splitting crack set off a series of smaller ones, and with a groan the tree tumbled out into the void, disappearing into the mists almost immediately.

Carrie backed up until she was pressed against the rock wall, while the creature went to work on the next tree, breaking this one down faster and sending it over the edge just like the last. With an opening made, it reached forward with one massive arm, clawing at her. She shrieked in terror and tried to press herself even closer to the wall.

The skeleton's shoulder caught against another tree and its hand stopped short. It growled and pawed at the earth, fingers digging furrows wide enough plant in, then withdrew its arm and went to work on the offending tree.

"Ataca!" The creature snarled when the bolt hit it square on its brow and lunged at her with one arm again, but was still blocked. It rumbled and glowered at her, and went back to ripping the next tree down. She called up spell-bolt after spell-bolt, blasting it straight in the face over and over, but the monster just ignored them to keep tearing down trees.

When a third was broken and tossed over the cliff it reached for her again. This time its claws got close enough that she could've touched them had she just reached out a little further, but again it raged at being stopped short by the densely-packed pines.

"Herr Schneider!" She called up the Gift again, for all the good it did. "I could use some help!"

~*~​

Behind the creature, Reinhardt quietly crept closer. In one hand he held his knife, while clamped between his teeth was a leather strap from which another vial of holy water dangled. The smaller skeletons he'd fought the night before had only stopped moving once their spines had been severed, roughly between the cervical and thoracic vertebrae. With the monster occupied, he stood a good chance of being able to scale its back to deliver the holy water directly to this area, bringing it down for good this time.

When it crouched to rip at the base of another tree, it brought its hip-bone low enough that he felt confident he could make the jump. Steeling himself, Reinhardt dashed forward and leapt--

--only for the skeleton to lash out with its left foot and slap him aside, the skull never so much as glancing in his direction. He landed hard, dropping the knife to cradle bruised and broken ribs.

The skeleton ignored him, ripping another tree down to fall across the width of the gully.

~*~​

"Reinhardt!" Carrie screamed as she saw him struck down. She grit her teeth, glared at the skeleton, and raised both hands to call up the Gift with a rage she had not felt since that fateful day three months before. She pulled and pulled at it until it hurt, until the power she kindled in her heart started to scorch. The spell that ignited between her clawing hands dwarfed all the mere bolts she'd called up so far; a turquoise sun that roiled and burned, with twin rings of arcane fire spinning around it.

"See how you like this one, pendejo," she growled, panting with exertion, and thrust her hands forward. "Ataca fuerte!"

The spell-blast launched with enough force to slam her back against the rock wall, and struck the skull just as the creature reached forward one last time. The skeleton howled in pain and stumbled backwards, clawing at its head with both hands. Between the creature's skeletal fingers, Carrie could glimpse traces of eldritch lightning arcing around its skull. It dropped to one knee as it whimpered and cringed, and for a moment she let herself hope.

But it stopped whining, slowly lowered its hands and locked its dead eye-sockets onto her. It began to rise once more, growling with barely-contained rage. Carrie lifted her hands again and tried to will the Gift to light, but it barely sputtered. She'd pushed herself too hard, too far.

The skeleton took a step towards her.

There was a tremendous bang and a burst of blue fire erupted from the side of the skull. The creature jerked staggered sideways, lifting one hand to its head again. Carrie blinked in confusion, looked down at her hands where the Gift was no brighter than a candle, then looked up again in time for another fireball to burst.

The monster lifted one hand to shield its head as it turned to look back down the gully, in the direction of the gate. The next shot took it square on the breastbone instead.

Then Carrie spotted the figure stepping out of the mist a few paces from the dazed Reinhardt. It wore a grey cloak, hood raised so she could not get a look at the face. In its hands was a revolver, shiny and silver. As she watched the gun thundered again, catching the skeleton in the forehead and snapping its head back. Another shot followed rapidly to the chest. The skeleton staggered backwards, its feet caught on the last tree it had knocked down. A sixth and final shot caught it square in the face...

...and it went tumbling backwards over the cliff with a roar.

*~*~*​

Author's Note:

Cross-posted here from SB/SV.

This is a story I wanted to write from the moment I first played this game. The very first draft I wrote during my Junior year of high school, and awhile ago I rediscovered those notes, cringed, and decided to try again.

Fair warning: I don't know how rapidly I'll be updating this. It's taken me years just to get this much written. I'm hopeful that as I get into the habit it'll come easier, but I can't promise anything.

Also, thanks to this game being exiled from Castlevania canon, I am taking that canon as more of "guidelines" than actual rules, and will be changing things around however I like.

Thanks go to Aleph, for helping me plan out the battle scene so many years ago now I'm not entirely sure she remembers it, to my friend Vash for helping with the Spanish for Carrie's spells, and to Lavanya Six for proofreading & editing the final version of the chapter.