[Alucard doesn't move as the castle creaks and groans. He simply keeps both of his hands on the floor, and that? That seems to hold some of it together. A little vampiric miracle of sorts, one worth celebrating.
He didn't notice the pit or Sypha's near mis-adventure. He's noticed nothing, and even after it has landed, Alucard doesn't get up. He instead murmurs soft things in old Wallachian to the building, before he asks:]
Belmont, how did you know how to diagnose the castle's ills?
Or- I mean, it's not a ghost. It's nothing that would have shown up in our bestiaries. But it's- just the stuff on the inside, without the outside part. That's kind of like a ghost, just using Dracula's magic instead of the naturally occurring stuff. And ghosts get weird if you're around something like a leyline that interferes with naturally occurring magic, so- you know. Probably not good for it to be around something that can interfere with Dracula's.
[ He guessed, is what he's saying. He guessed what it was and he guessed what was hurting it. It's quite the achievement, but you wouldn't know it to see how awkward he is about admitting it. ]
[The explanation tracks. Hell, makes perfect sense. Belmonts must know of all supernatural things, and so that logically entails ghosts. So that the castle manages to move like a haunted thing clinging to the world well, that's heartbreaking, but it still makes sense.
He pats the castle gently, then stands.]
It's me. Let me see the full of you, and what I can repair.
[ Another set of creaks and groans, through nothing near as violent as the movement, and the entrance hallway expands outward a little. There are doorways where there ought to be doorways, but beyond most of them is more of that writhing darkness. The engine room connects to the entrance, which is not exactly accurate to the way the castle’s layout should be. Inside there is the castle’s heart, withered and stuttering and burning so, so low.
The other room isn’t a room so much as a few spots of things visible in that darkness through a door that ought to lead to the library. Tiny things - a wolf doll, a portrait of Lisa, a simple silver ring. Things that it’s kept, things that it’s strained against centuries of exhaustion to keep, that remind it of happier times.
Other things appear too, in the entranceway. Skeletons, fanged ones. At least six of them, some bones bleached cleaner than others by time. ]
Shit.
[ That explains it. ]
Hey castle - can you hear me? You weren’t hiding in the Abbey, were you? Not really. You wanted to be found, found by people who wanted to steal Dracula’s secrets. Lured them to the Abbey and trapped them there.
[ It gave up its body to make sure that nobody would ever access Dracula’s knowledge without its say so. To draw any enemies to itself and keep Alucard safe. There’s a note of accusation to Trevor’s tone, but even he has to admit - shit, good castle. ]
[It hurts. Not physically, Alucard knows that the castle would never do that to him, but as it unfurls itself, it becomes clear the castle has worked to look after itself. Maybe it was wrong for him to be in the Hold. The castle could have protected him without falling into ruins.
He sees the engine room in the wrong place, but it' not as bad as the things that show through the darkness. Those ache, and Alucard focuses only on the skeletons. Gets up and inspects them, to see if their clothing gives any of their identities away.]
The most loyal of us all.
[They're pained words, sighed as Alucard pokes at one of the fangs.]
[ Sypha pushes past Alucard, at that, while Trevor looks about outside the castle. ]
I don’t think it can ever be a castle again, not any time soon. Not on the outside. It could attach itself to one, but it couldn’t bring it with it when it moved. [ She clicks her tongue, frowning. ] It needs a new body building for it. The old fashioned way - brick by brick. But in the meantime, I can help it a little now it’s out of the church.
[ Trevor reenters, dusting off his hands. ]
Little cottage on the outskirts of some city, lots of places for chickens to sleep, but no chickens. That’s where we are now.
[He's useless, that much is clear. Just here. Sitting in a ruin. Making the other two fix everything. Alucard sighs, walking over to the door Trevor's just headed out of.]
Area's a little too built up to hunt in, but the city proper is maybe an hour's walk. Don't know how many merchants'll be willing to take lira, but worst case there'll be people who need work done. If we need to stay a while, we'll be able to manage. Bigger concern is there's no abbey to keep people from going in here. We're going to need to defend it.
[ He walks out of the door, then turns back. ]
Hey castle, don't let me in for a moment. I want to see the place you've landed in.
[ And he passes through the door again, this time entering the cottage for real. ]
[Alucard lingers at the door, allowing Sypha to explore what she can of the castle's hall. He's sure that built up is nothing to be concerned about, but the city proper? That's what worries him more, and so Alucard waits.
And says to hell with it, walking out of the door to try and understand their surroundings.]
Hm.
[It's strange. Maybe that's a defense already.]
I wonder if this place has some kind of reputation already.
[ Outside the cottage - and it is a cottage now, and not a castle or an abbey, it’s rather underwhelming. A few chicken coops, empty. A post where horses might have been tied once. A few minutes walk through what winter’s left of the wildflowers to the next house down the road. A mile marker indicating that following that road will bring one into a city called Leeds sooner or later. ]
Ah, castle picked a hell of a place to drop itself.
[ Through the doors of the house, if entered normally, is a workshop of sorts. It doesn’t look like it’s seen use in decades, given the amount of dust, but it’s somehow gone unlooted this whole time. Bottles line shelves along the walls. Bones cover a table. Some are human-sized. ]
Doesn’t look like the owner’s been home in a long time.
[The empty coops make sense. Probably long raided by local foxes. Alucard walks over to the post, and he runs his fingers over it. There's a sense of something here, but he's not quite sure what. It's old though. A thread of magic, thin oh yes but still there.
It'll do. And Alucard's about to say as much to Trevor, but then the bones catch his eye.]
The owner probably didn't have three legs either.
[He's drawn to the bones because of course he is.]
The dust is hardly disturbed here too. That's good for our purposes.
[ He turns bottles around. Most are unlabelled, and those that are are labelled with people’s names instead of the contents of the bottle. He’s not going to sniff at the contents to try to guess. ]
Guessing this is a witch’s house. Means we’ll be undisturbed, but means we really, really shouldn’t be seen going in or out. Just because the law and the church won’t do shit about it these days doesn’t mean an angry mob won’t.
[There's a visible flinch at the word witch. A soft mutter of something, because of course. The castle would've chose somewhere else if it could have, Alucard also knows that, so this means they're stuck.
He sighs, running a hand over the fall and patting it.]
I'm fine with avoiding humans. [He says it with too much darkness in his voice.]
[ He doesn’t know the details of Lisa’s death. Sypha probably does, but his own understanding is only that Dracula’s wife was murdered, restarting his crusade against humanity after generations of an uneasy peace. He can tell when a subject is uncomfortable, he just doesn’t have the first clue about why. ]
We’ll still need food. The speaker and I can take care of it, we’ll be careful.
[ There’s no response from the castle other than a slight change in the way the air feels. ]
Maybe it’s easier for it if we leave and go back in. Less of it having to drag us around.
[So Alucard walks out, and again he's greeted by their strange surroundings. England is...he doesn't know what to make of it. It's so damn green, and he's used to dense woods that are almost impossible to navigate.]
I suppose hunting as a wolf will draw too much attention?
Out here? You'll stick out, but as long as we keep an ear to the ground for people complaining about a funny-looking wolf and stay away from people it ought to be safe.
[ He walks out, then immediately turns around to re-enter the building. Sure enough, the door leads into the castle this time. ]
So now- three things. The business with Dracula, the business with London, and defending the castle. [ He looks to Alucard for a moment as if for guidance before coming up with the answer himself. He's still not used to having two-way conversations with the coffin guy. ] We stay here. Anyone aiming to do Dracula Bullshit will be watching for the castle moving. They'll know. We wait for them and see if we can lure them out while it recovers.
Could be. We have barely anything on Spring Heel. He could want Dracula back, to use- I don't know. Use his legacy somehow.
The good news is- right, shit. [ The vampire was asleep when newspapers started happening. ] So- while you were asleep, people started writing down what happens and sharing it about. We wont be able to keep an eye on London ourselves from here, but we'll know if anything big enough for people to notice happens within a day.
Not sure. Don't know how easy you get overwhelmed, and I've never been there myself. But-
[ He looks Alucard over, trying to work out what he'd get overwhelmed by. Th smell? Major danger in London, if what he's heard is true. The weather? unlikely. Noise? Probably not. But people... ]
-I'm guessing it'll be. People-y, if that's a problem.
[Alucard knows that every time he talks, he makes the situation much harder to deal with.]
I'm...I'm barely awake, Belmont. I grew up in near isolation, and the only crowd I experienced murdered my mother. Cities are required for this, but I can't account for how easily I will be able to function in them as a man.
[ He sighs. He wants to say something along the lines of Well Too Bad, This Needs To Be Dealt With, but he can't. Instead he just nods. ]
We'll stay here for now, watch the city through the papers. Try to draw out anyone who feels like coming to us to attack. And we'll figure out how the castle chooses which buildings it can move into and- I don't know. See if any in the city match its needs. It'll be easier, right? If you have the castle to return to?
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He didn't notice the pit or Sypha's near mis-adventure. He's noticed nothing, and even after it has landed, Alucard doesn't get up. He instead murmurs soft things in old Wallachian to the building, before he asks:]
Belmont, how did you know how to diagnose the castle's ills?
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[ That's an entirely satisfying answer, surely. ]
Or- I mean, it's not a ghost. It's nothing that would have shown up in our bestiaries. But it's- just the stuff on the inside, without the outside part. That's kind of like a ghost, just using Dracula's magic instead of the naturally occurring stuff. And ghosts get weird if you're around something like a leyline that interferes with naturally occurring magic, so- you know. Probably not good for it to be around something that can interfere with Dracula's.
[ He guessed, is what he's saying. He guessed what it was and he guessed what was hurting it. It's quite the achievement, but you wouldn't know it to see how awkward he is about admitting it. ]
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[The explanation tracks. Hell, makes perfect sense. Belmonts must know of all supernatural things, and so that logically entails ghosts. So that the castle manages to move like a haunted thing clinging to the world well, that's heartbreaking, but it still makes sense.
He pats the castle gently, then stands.]
It's me. Let me see the full of you, and what I can repair.
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The other room isn’t a room so much as a few spots of things visible in that darkness through a door that ought to lead to the library. Tiny things - a wolf doll, a portrait of Lisa, a simple silver ring. Things that it’s kept, things that it’s strained against centuries of exhaustion to keep, that remind it of happier times.
Other things appear too, in the entranceway. Skeletons, fanged ones. At least six of them, some bones bleached cleaner than others by time. ]
Shit.
[ That explains it. ]
Hey castle - can you hear me? You weren’t hiding in the Abbey, were you? Not really. You wanted to be found, found by people who wanted to steal Dracula’s secrets. Lured them to the Abbey and trapped them there.
[ It gave up its body to make sure that nobody would ever access Dracula’s knowledge without its say so. To draw any enemies to itself and keep Alucard safe. There’s a note of accusation to Trevor’s tone, but even he has to admit - shit, good castle. ]
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He sees the engine room in the wrong place, but it' not as bad as the things that show through the darkness. Those ache, and Alucard focuses only on the skeletons. Gets up and inspects them, to see if their clothing gives any of their identities away.]
The most loyal of us all.
[They're pained words, sighed as Alucard pokes at one of the fangs.]
But you deserve better now.
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I don’t think it can ever be a castle again, not any time soon. Not on the outside. It could attach itself to one, but it couldn’t bring it with it when it moved. [ She clicks her tongue, frowning. ] It needs a new body building for it. The old fashioned way - brick by brick. But in the meantime, I can help it a little now it’s out of the church.
[ Trevor reenters, dusting off his hands. ]
Little cottage on the outskirts of some city, lots of places for chickens to sleep, but no chickens. That’s where we are now.
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[He's useless, that much is clear. Just here. Sitting in a ruin. Making the other two fix everything. Alucard sighs, walking over to the door Trevor's just headed out of.]
Any good food resources?
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[ He walks out of the door, then turns back. ]
Hey castle, don't let me in for a moment. I want to see the place you've landed in.
[ And he passes through the door again, this time entering the cottage for real. ]
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And says to hell with it, walking out of the door to try and understand their surroundings.]
Hm.
[It's strange. Maybe that's a defense already.]
I wonder if this place has some kind of reputation already.
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Ah, castle picked a hell of a place to drop itself.
[ Through the doors of the house, if entered normally, is a workshop of sorts. It doesn’t look like it’s seen use in decades, given the amount of dust, but it’s somehow gone unlooted this whole time. Bottles line shelves along the walls. Bones cover a table. Some are human-sized. ]
Doesn’t look like the owner’s been home in a long time.
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It'll do. And Alucard's about to say as much to Trevor, but then the bones catch his eye.]
The owner probably didn't have three legs either.
[He's drawn to the bones because of course he is.]
The dust is hardly disturbed here too. That's good for our purposes.
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[ He turns bottles around. Most are unlabelled, and those that are are labelled with people’s names instead of the contents of the bottle. He’s not going to sniff at the contents to try to guess. ]
Guessing this is a witch’s house. Means we’ll be undisturbed, but means we really, really shouldn’t be seen going in or out. Just because the law and the church won’t do shit about it these days doesn’t mean an angry mob won’t.
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He sighs, running a hand over the fall and patting it.]
I'm fine with avoiding humans. [He says it with too much darkness in his voice.]
Castle, let us back in please?
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We’ll still need food. The speaker and I can take care of it, we’ll be careful.
[ There’s no response from the castle other than a slight change in the way the air feels. ]
Maybe it’s easier for it if we leave and go back in. Less of it having to drag us around.
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[So Alucard walks out, and again he's greeted by their strange surroundings. England is...he doesn't know what to make of it. It's so damn green, and he's used to dense woods that are almost impossible to navigate.]
I suppose hunting as a wolf will draw too much attention?
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[ He walks out, then immediately turns around to re-enter the building. Sure enough, the door leads into the castle this time. ]
So now- three things. The business with Dracula, the business with London, and defending the castle. [ He looks to Alucard for a moment as if for guidance before coming up with the answer himself. He's still not used to having two-way conversations with the coffin guy. ] We stay here. Anyone aiming to do Dracula Bullshit will be watching for the castle moving. They'll know. We wait for them and see if we can lure them out while it recovers.
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[A white wolf in the full brightness of the moon is how bad things happen.]
Belmont? Do you think that the first two could be interconnected by some means?
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The good news is- right, shit. [ The vampire was asleep when newspapers started happening. ] So- while you were asleep, people started writing down what happens and sharing it about. We wont be able to keep an eye on London ourselves from here, but we'll know if anything big enough for people to notice happens within a day.
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[Spring Heel. Alucard shakes his head.]
I see. The printing press was brand new in my lifetime, I assume that this is a natural outgrowth of the press?
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[ Isn't that right, mister dad's name backward? ]
From what I've heard, he- jumps really high. [ He's not doing a good job of selling this genuinely terrifying vampire, is he? ] So- Spring Heel.
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I...well, I follow the logic, even if it's an objectively awful name.
[But, and this part's important:]
How likely am I to be overwhelmed by the city?
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[ He looks Alucard over, trying to work out what he'd get overwhelmed by. Th smell? Major danger in London, if what he's heard is true. The weather? unlikely. Noise? Probably not. But people... ]
-I'm guessing it'll be. People-y, if that's a problem.
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[Alucard knows that every time he talks, he makes the situation much harder to deal with.]
I'm...I'm barely awake, Belmont. I grew up in near isolation, and the only crowd I experienced murdered my mother. Cities are required for this, but I can't account for how easily I will be able to function in them as a man.
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[ He sighs. He wants to say something along the lines of Well Too Bad, This Needs To Be Dealt With, but he can't. Instead he just nods. ]
We'll stay here for now, watch the city through the papers. Try to draw out anyone who feels like coming to us to attack. And we'll figure out how the castle chooses which buildings it can move into and- I don't know. See if any in the city match its needs. It'll be easier, right? If you have the castle to return to?
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[The first of so many apologies.]
But yes, that'll...I can ask it to start to search that city. See if it can find somewhere appropriate before we even have to move. Will that be okay?
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WAIT SHIT THIS ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRST
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