The Crimson Tale of Conquest

Looking at her newly forged weapons Lucilla couldn't help but feel herself being drawn in. Anastasia hinted at these things possibly having some sort of abilities, but since stuff made from Angelic and especially Demonic steel was so rare, she didn't have much information to give. The only clue Lucilla had was old records of the Hero's weapon from the past couple millennia.

Unlike when she first received them, she could feel a bit of Miasma contained within. She assumed that came from the deaths of the two spies she witnessed earlier that day. There wasn't a lot, and it was slowly fading away, but that didn't stop the strange feeling permeating inside her when she looked at them. Almost like a dark abys in the palm of her hands, and if she were to blink, she would be swallowed up by it.

Despite that, she found comfort in the feeling, reminding her that she was still alive in this world and that she still had a desire to live. She was about to sheath the blades when Morella walked into the room, when she spotted Lucilla sitting on the floor she smiled. Stepping into the room Morella approached Lucilla and sat down beside her but wrinkled her nose when she saw the blades and felt the Miasma leaking from them.

"We're going to have to find a way to block the leaking Miasma in the future" Morella spoke watching Lucilla sheathing the blades and giving them to Maisy to store away. "They're fine for now; that much Miasma won't harm anyone, but if that thing continues to absorb more in the future, it'll quickly become a problem."

"Maybe a hide of a Dark Dragon could help?" Lucilla suggested. "Or even a Light Dragon."

"I don't know the market rate of those items, but I'm sure they're extremely expensive and hard to get."

"If we can convince Judieth, it's necessary, I think we can get her to pay for it. Even if she doesn't have the money now, she probably has a lot of stuff she can sell."

Currently the only sure way to make sure Miasma can't leak out was to give them to Maisy to put in her small dimensional pocket space. Without her, Lucilla would have to carry around a mind-altering device that could throw any area she was in into chaos. Not a great way to stay hidden. This meant she would still be using her old daggers when necessary and only use her new blades in isolated location if possible.

"You're probably right, though I do believe you'll also be making her upset dear." The water Nymph said with a sigh as her younger sister essentially treated the doctor as a wallet. She then looked Lucilla in her Crimson eyes before diverting the conversation to the topic she wanted to discuss in the first place. "Anyway, I came to talk with you about Sara."

"... Why?" Lucilla asked confused.

"You've been very... worried about your own feeling regarding Sara lately have you not?"

"I- I mean... sure." She stuttered in response.

"I've been pondering about this lately and what Lady Nielia had said." The older sister started. "I have come to the conclusion she was lying."

"... What." Lucilla said as anger coursed through her facial expression slowly formed into a smile, which looked more like a mischievous smirk.

Noticing this Morella quickly corrected herself. "Not completely lying, you definitely marked Sara with a Mana signature like a mother would, it's just that it's not exclusively used by them."

"What do you mean?"

"Years ago -I think a little over one hundred I believe- I happen to be acquainted with a monster, and they explained some things about themselves. They were sadly killed, but it was a wolf type monster that gain the ability to speak and one of the things they told me was how they marked those in their packs." Morella said before going into lecture mode.

The explanation she gave Lucilla, in summary went like this: Marking things with Mana for monsters is the equivalent to how normal animals marked things with pheromones. There wasn't much of a difference between the two, and the explanation the Nielia gave them the other day was enough for now to understand what's about to come next.

The Mana mark that the Eastern Forst Guardian was probably talking about was what experts in the field called the mark of protection. The mark itself didn't actually protect the ones with it like some magical barrier, but it did let the rest of the pack know who they needed to escape from danger first while the stronger ones took out the approaching threat. The mark is given to not just the children from their mothers, but also the injured or sick. Any monster that was unable to fight within the pact would be protected by the heathy and stronger monsters that have their own mark depicting them as the protectors.

Meaning Lucilla just considered Sara as someone she needed to protect. The young girl was her student so it made sense that Lucilla would unconsciously consider the girl under her protection. If she didn't, she wouldn't have bothered with Sara at all outside of her duty as a teacher. She wouldn't even be helping her right now.

She did want to keep Morella and Yuki safe as well, but unlike Sara, she considered them on equal footing as her. As a result, she probably hasn't marked them the same way she did with Sara. Judieth unfortunately never crossed Lucilla's mind as someone she would want to protect. Even if she had an appreciation for the doctor and wished her well.

"Based off how amused Lady Nielia was acting when she told you marked Sara like a mother would her child, she probably purposely left out all the other information to mess with you." Morella concluded. "I don't think she expected it to cause you so much mental anguish as it did though."

The smile on Lucilla's face had grown as her older sister finished talking. "Hehehe, if she wasn't so terrifying I would kill her myself." A half-crazed giggle escaped her from her. She was furious, but she couldn't do anything about it and that just made her even angrier.

To calm herself she decided to make a quick prayer to Ovana, which only lasted for a few seconds, but was enough to clear the smile from her face. Since she started praying to Ovana every night it has become something of a therapeutic meditation recently. She didn't do it every time she was upset, since she usually had something to take her anger out on, but at times like this where she couldn't physically punch something until she felt better, she would pray.

Praying to Ovana reminded her of the moon, and she always felt calm under its light, which is why Morella waited till Lucilla finished praying before speaking again. "I know Lady Nielia can have a... difficult personality, but why were you so stressed about this in the first place?"

"I'm not sure myself." Lucilla answered with her normal cadence. "I guess the thought of being a parent suddenly made me panic?" Her mind flashed to her own mother before Sara took her place. "Also, I would just be an awful caretaker."

"You are doing a decent job at being a caretaker right now dear." Morella responded.

"Sure, leading a twelve-year-old into a battle is the definition of great parenting." She responded sarcastically

"This is a special and complicated situation, and it was her own decision."

"Sigh, sure." Relented Lucilla. "Speaking of Sara I should continue her training. Thanks Morella, I appreciate this conversation."

Smiling Morella answered by saying, "You're welcome, dear. Good luck and have fun."

"Thanks, but I'm not doing this for fun. I'll see you later though, love you." With that Lucilla left the room searching for her student.

_________________

With the sun setting in the west the 'MS Ann' landed in the lake withing the 'Fay Forest'. Just like last time Lucilla and the others traveled through the Forest itself for an hour before arriving at the white sanded shore where the Arch Angel Nielia was located. Lucilla resented the fact they had to take such a roundabout way to visit her instead of coming directly from the lake.

This time Lady Nielia was sitting on her golden throne with royal blue cushioning from the start. Her long blue dress catching the light of the setting sun behind her, as her rainbow-colored hair seem to glow in a colorful array from the light. The mischievous smile of hers was prominently on her face as she saw Sara and Lucilla come into view.

Like last time, after passing a certain point, a great pressure assaulted everyone but Sara causing them to stumble. The grin on the Arch Angels face grew wider at seeing this, finding Lucilla very amusing. It was rare for someone significantly weaker to adjust so quickly to her presence. Judieth was to be commanded too, but her strength made her slightly less impressive in her eyes. Even then Judieth still seems to struggle under the pressure more than Lucilla despite this fact.

"Welcome back children. I hope you bring good news, no?" She said out loud, while still feeling as if her voice reverberated insider their heads.

"Yes, we did." Lucilla spoke stepping forward. "We got Anastasia's permission and new weapons to fight the Hero."

"Excellent. May I see these weapons to make sure you actually have something to withstand the Hero's blade?"

"Sure." Lucilla said as Maisy handed her the twin blades and Sara unsheathed her two daggers from behind her back.

When she saw the Demonic Steel Nielia stood from her throne, and before Lucilla knew what happened, had her blades was taken from her as the fifteen-foot-tall woman stood in front of her. She inspected the blades, then looked at Lucilla with a look of bewilderment. The last time she ever saw someone use Demonic Steel weapons was when Eldon Vesh came for her head. He nearly killed her before the first Hero Oliver intervened and saved her life.

She's sure there had been other Demonic weapons used by people throughout the years since then, but since they never approached her Forest and try to kill her, she has no other comparisons other than Eldon. Her curiosity of why Anastasia would give such weapons to the child in front of her grew, along with wondering why she even accepted it in the first place. If she could, she would've gone straight to Anastasia herself and demand what in the world was she thinking.

"Why do you have these?" She questioned her eyes narrowing in Lucilla's direction. "You realize that these blades can drive you mad, correct?"

"I'm aware of how it can affect people, but...," Lucilla then proceeded to explain Anastasia's theory about her possible simi immunity to the effects of Miasma.

"Hm, it's not unheard of someone having some resistance to Miasma, though I'm sure none of you ever heard of it before." Nielia said after listening to Lucilla's explanation.

"You are a curious child, while not a unique ability to you, it's so extremely rare I doubt that many mortals have any records of it." She continued. "Well, this will certainly hold up against the Hero's weapon.... You may have these blades back, but I'll be watching you carefully."

She added a bit of force with her last statement causing the Silver haired woman to sweat a little under the pressure. Judieth observed from where she stood, mentally noting down how Lucilla seems to always have rare but known abilities. This meant they can do research on them, even if the information is limited. Since Anastasia had personally worked on these blades herself, Judieth thought about asking her for information about Miasma resistance first.

"When should we be expecting the Lord and his army to attack." Cristian asked, wanting to inform her people of the time frame as soon as possible. "They show up tomorrow, right?"

"Ah, about that. They are moving slower than expected, we still have about three days before they show."

"So, what do we do in the meantime?" Sara mumbled.

Hearing her student Lucilla turned to her. "We can train more; we got many lesser elemental spirits here and they can act as a replacement for the actual element you want to train."

"I can help call them, but I can only really call water spirits." Morella chimed in.

"That's fine, we can try seeing if she has an affinity for water first." Lucilla said.

"It appears that you all have an idea of what to do for now. I must depart for now, but I wish you good fortune." Nielia said as she snapped her fingers and disappeared in a flash of blue fire.