Rolling into the Empire was quite a shock for her. The sun was still out, but there was darkness in the sky that blanketed it from end to end and made it impossible for anything more than a dirty, filtered light to get through. She was running too fast to get a proper look around, but the place definitely seemed deserted. She blitzed by entire ghost villages, and while she saw plenty of undead minions, there were scant few living beings, and certainly not that she saw while on her way to Altdorf. The gates were shut, but Estaria found it pretty easy to scale the walls by punching handholds in the rock and launching herself upwards to the ramparts, and then dashing into town before the zombie sentries could react to her presence. No doubt Vlad knew she was coming, but that was her plan.
Bursting into the Throne room, Estaria would come face to face with the Eternal Emperor. By his side, the lovely consort, and three scantily clad maidens by their feet, in a daze, and chained to the thrones.
“Estaria~ Lovely to see you again. Have you come to finally take me up on the offer for a night on the town?” Isabella asked, gently coaxing one of the slaves up and nibbling gently on her neck.
“You thinking eating someone in front of me is a good first impression?” Estaria asked in return, her eyebrow cocked. Vlad looked to his wife, and she let the slave go.
“Better first impression. I have brought you someone. I hope you like it, and that it encourages you to think on my offer of joining me” Vlad spoke, and in came a Count. Minor, from the outfit and lack of proper confidence, he seemed nervous, and the nerves increase three-fold as he looked to Estaria. And the same scale was mirrored in Estaria, if in a different strain.
“Karl” Estaria’s voice was hollow and without any emotion, which seemed to make him even more nervous. Her father was never a man to be nervous, he embodied his namesake with passion and vigor, for every time he came upon an obstacle, he proclaimed he would not disgrace the name of the Emperor, and pushed on again. Maybe reuniting with the daughter he abandoned was too much for this, though.
“Estaria. I...you’ve grown well” he said, lacking any confidence in himself or this meeting.
“So you think turning my father into an undead is going to win me over?” Estaria asked Vlad, flicking her eyes in his direction.
“You surprise me with your tolerance. I fully expected you to say I turned him into an abomination” Vlad commented, admiring his nails for a moment.
“He was already an abomination. You just made him immortal” Estaria cut her father down - metaphorically, at least - with her savage words.
“My, you are a venomous one, aren’t you?” Isabella asked, tittered softly. “We are so going to get along~”
Hex resisted by high Wisdom
“Save you tricks for a weaker willed woman, Isabella. I am here to deal with you and your Vampires. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life. I want you to leave me alone, and I want the deal to be solidified enough that you aren’t going to break it at the first convience” Estaria demanded, her presence filling the Throne Room.
“Ahh, that is for later. If not your father, I have another for you. I always have backups, after all” Vlad spoke, ignoring her request and bringing in a second minor Countess. Estaria’s Wisdom immediately penetrated the glamour, but she then turned that off so she could see who it was, more than just a rotten corpse animated by dark magic. And then, when she saw who it was, her breath caught in her throat. The world rolled and she shuddered, her body shaking uncontrollably as she looked into the woman’s eyes.
“Estaria. I know your father has made mistakes in the past, but we have sorted that out. Come, let us be a family again.” Her mother held out her hand, and Estaria just stood there. Face drained of blood, heart thumping harder than she thought it could ever thump. And then a sudden, purity. A clarity that was beautiful. This purity was beyond anything Estaria had felt before, but she knew exactly what she was going to do with it. Shooting forward like a lightning bolt, Estaria punched a hole through Isabella’s chest, killing her instantly and leaving a gap where her heart used to be. Not that it lasted very long as the body soon rotted away after that. First growing aged and worn, and then slowly dripping away into a corpse, and from there a skeleton. Finally, a few seconds afterwards, the skeleton dissolved, leaving nothing.
The suddenness, and scale of the violence enacted shocked everyone. The hall was deathly quiet, and then, from the depths of hell itself, a scream. A scream of pain, of hatred, of despair and every negative emotion the mind could comprehend. The scream was coming from Vlad, seeing his beloved Empress dissolving from the world.
“You should not have touched my mother” Estaria whispered, looking to Vlad with eyes of blood. It looked like a vessel had popped and was now filling her eyes with blood, covering her sclera with the crimson red, and moving in on her irises and pupils as it reached them. Vlad, was not one to hang around and watch the fantastic ocular art, however, and flitted from his throne, crashing into Estaria and barreling them both through the walls of the throne room. A super-powered tumble tore through the palace, both throwing any strike they could before Estaria got a strong kick in and blasted him out into the street. Free of him, Estaria released the pent up emotions in her with an immense roar, shaking the very windows surrounding them.
Bloody Reparations - Fury unseen in the mortal plane, on top of the boon owed for defeating the Master of the Third Legion, Elouviana Knightsbane, Khorne grants the Purity of Hatred, so that one might enact most terrible vengeance.
Lovely. Well, Khorne was watching the fight, which was fitting. Vampires lived on blood, and Estaria was the Child of Khaine, the Bloody Handed God.
“You vapid, mongrel! You could have been my greatest general, but now I will keep you alive for a thousand years just to torture you for the soul of Isabella!” Vlad climbed out of the wreckage of the building he had been put through, and seemed flushed with power, gliding an inch off the floor and crackling with energy. Estaria wasn’t so hot on the idea of going near that nimbus, and so drew Khaine’s Talon and launched off an arrow.
Divine Entity, damage negated.
The popup was certainly surprising as the arrow clattered off his energy. How did Vlad become a Divine Entity? Though she was strong, she had yet to be classed that high. But then she saw it, his regalia. The Robes, the Staff, the Books, the Crown, and the silhouette of a great Black Pyramid above him. Vlad had, after taking control over The Empire, claimed the full inheritance of the Great Necromancer, Nagash. Added to his own and given The Empire to use as a staging ground for sucking more power from The Winds than had ever been done, he became a thing beyond mortal ken. Maybe not a true God like Ulric or Khaine, but honestly, at his power level, that was merely semantics. Bloodwolf came from the shadows, intent to fight the monster with his Master, but Vlad’s staff crushed it’s skull with a single swing, spilling it’s blood across the flagstones and killing it in an instant. Estaria would have been worried, had she not got a popup telling her that Bloodwolf would be back in twenty four hours.
“I am a God, you understand? A GOD! Your weaponry can not hurt me!” Vlad shouted, raising his staff menacingly.
“Then what’s that?” Estaria asked, pointing to his shoulder, where a thin trickle of blood flowed with almost mocking sloth, and dripped onto the floor. “It might not look it right now, but these gauntlets are the Widowmaker. Doom of Aenarion, Talon of the Lord Of Murder, and most relevantly at this point. God-Slayer” Estaria smirked at that last one, as it pricked Vlad’s heart with fear. Invincibility had a way of making one overconfident, and when danger finally came, it dawned in fire. Vlad wasn’t going to take his death lying down, however, and so thrust his staff at Estaria. The wave of necrotic energy was small and contained, but she got the sense that it was not something to be hit by, Obsidian and high Wisdom would not save her from that. So she moved, like the twin-tailed comet across the sky, she moved through the streets of Altdorf, and then back, her fists clenched and making most impressive impact on Vlad’s face, added to with Second Strike. Though the man, through magic or divinity, was more stable on his feet than the mountains themselves, and he barely shifted from the blow.
Seeing his magic too slow, Vlad brought the staff around and struck out at Estaria, grazing her head as the woman barely avoided it, and with great bodily control, flicked a kick at him while she was twisting out of the way. It was avoided with vampiric agility, but Estaria was not done, planting her hands on the floor and twisting, lashing bladed kicks that he was forced to avoid. In the middle of this, she used Quicksilver Viper along with Second Strike and opened a large cut on his face. Taking advantage of the distraction of the blade biting into him, she span and threw her entire bodyweight and the momentum of the spin. That, was enough for him to be taken off his feet and blown across Altdorf, Estaria’s superhuman strength adding incredible force to the strike. Not, that Estaria had the chance to rest or think. As Vlad was blown away, a tremendous Terrorgheist crashed down. Twice the size of a normal dragon, it had hundreds of Ghouls on it’s back, and they were intent on feeding on the woman below them.
The unfortunate part, was that despite the Terrorgheist’s size and strength, it was an ant getting involved in a fight of beings so far beyond it no metaphor would suffice. Leaping and rolling into a spin, Estaria carved it’s head into meat chunks, and blended the Ghouls with impunity, before looking back at Vlad, who had regained his footing and was back for more.
“Did you send these?” she asked.
“The whole Empire rallies to my defense. I will drown you in bodies if that is what is needed!” Vlad replied, holding his staff firmly and glaring at Estaria.
“I would say, it’s quite a blunder” Estaria then held her arms out, and the massive tides of blood gathered around her, gathering into a tremendous, serrated blade that whirred with potency. A perfect match of Elouviana’s beloved blade. It swung to Vlad, who flitted out of the way with arrogance confidence, and then a smaller, secondary blade cut him deep in his arm. It was here he was alerted to the wave of blades heading in every direction. The massive chainsword was just a distraction, and had since dissolved into an omnidirectional ocean of bladed blood. Vlad slammed his staff into the ground and channeled his full might into a shield of the Winds. It felt like an eternity in a sea that wished to flense him down to his bones. But eventually, the assault stopped, and the blood lost cohesion and fell away. Gasping, Vlad had his shield shattered by an incoming Estaria, and barely reflected the punch with his staff. Having been thrown off balance, Estaria threw herself off balance further and used the momentum to kick him in the face, cartwheeling back to a standing position after the blow.
Estaria then turned, as Vlad rounded to attack her. Grasping one of her Bloodbane arrows, she threw herself towards him, driving the arrow towards his face. The Count recoiled, unsure if it could hurt him but not wanting to lose an eye to find out. Estaria then threw herself forward, flipping and crashing her foot into his skull and driving it into the ground. Rolling back, she crouched and tensed her body. Vlad rose from the ground, buoyed by the Winds and struck at her, the bladed edge of his staff driving forward and punching through Estaria’s chest, as her fist, charged by “Headripper Uppercut” smashed into his chin, and made good on it’s name, tearing the Vampire’s head from his body and launching it into the sky, so high that Estaria could not see it.
The change was immediate, the dark filter of the sunlight dissolved, and the evening light brightened the world again. Estaria had slightly different issues however, and pulled the staff from her chest. It had scrapped her heart, and despite her durability, the staff was that of Nagash. She stood there for over a minute, letting her regeneration close the wounds that were screaming at her, until she stood high and regal again. Her breastplate had been punctured, the dress below it as well, which was obvious, couldn’t have gotten to her heart if it didn’t. Fortunately, it was over a cut, not a full penetration, and so her regeneration dealt with it. Estaria tossed the breastplate away, and collapsed. With Vlad dead, the bloodline would falter and the sudden scorching sun would take all those out in it. Those of his brood would die, those who were not, would lose immense potency as the power that came from him was now gone. Morr claimed hundreds of thousands of souls across the Empire, which might break something, but at this moment, she wasn’t bothered. It was all, over.
