The Vampire & Her Witch

Heila and Ashlynn had to remind themselves on more than one occasion to continue eating as Captain Lennart and Virve narrated the intense battle to capture the Tangled Tower. While neither of them had been present for the confrontation between Nyrielle and High Lord Hamdi, Inquisitor Ignatious had been very forthcoming with Nyrielle’s inner circle of loyal soldiers and servants from the Vale of Mists about what happened.

"I’m still struggling with this bit," Ashlynn said at one point during the narration. "Lady Nyrielle took an Inquisitor as one of her progeny and he’s been living in exile this whole time?"

She knew, intellectually at least, that Nyrielle had been at her coldest and most cruel in the years following the death of her parents but she never imagined that Nyrielle would take a member of the Inquisition as one of her progeny, just to inflict immortal suffering on him as retribution for what he had done to one of her first forty-seven progeny.

"I spoke with Inquisitor Ignatious last night, my lady," Heila added. "He’s quiet and he defers to Madame Zedya in all things, but he seems to have a genuine reverence for Lady Nyrielle."

"I’m told it wasn’t always that way," Captain Lennart said. "Evidently, he destroyed the south tower of the fortress in the Vale in a fit of rage when he discovered what Lady Nyrielle had done to him. Now, it seems like he’s a different man, and Lady Nyrielle said that he used his Holy Flames to burn High Lord Hamdi’s flesh all the way to the bone."

"I see," Ashlynn said, pausing as she wrestled with the implications of taking one of the Church’s holy inquisitors captive. Or rather, turning him into a strange sort of ally. "I’ll speak with him myself in the coming nights," she finally said. While she had many questions, including how a vampire could call down Holy Fire on another vampire, Captain Lennart couldn’t answer any of them and her curiosity would have to wait.

"After the battle, Lady Nyrielle arranged a summit of local Eldritch Lords and notable figures," Virve said, taking over the explanation so her captain could finish his meal. "From comments she made, I gather that she expected any other vampires we reached out to would resist us in much the same way that High Lord Hamdi did."

"Isn’t Hamdi the sire of Lady Nyrielle’s grand-sire, High Lord Torbin?" Heila said, blinking in confusion. "I thought they were on good terms. She wanted to bring him to visit High Lord Torbin’s tomb..."

"I think the reasons are something you’ll need to hear from Lady Nyrielle," Virve said helplessly as she licked a few stray drops of sauce from her claws. "But after the battle at the Tangled Tower, our plans changed. Lady Nyrielle asked us to show visitors how she’d imprisoned Hamdi at the top of the tower where the sun could penetrate the cracks between boards of the pine box she trapped him in."

"Everyone understood the message," Captain Lennart said. "None of them had the power to fight back against High Lord Hamdi if he set his sights on their domains, so seeing him fall to such a wretched state made it clear that Lady Nyrielle couldn’t be resisted."

"So she demanded a tribute of soldiers?" Ashlynn asked. When Nyrielle had left, Captain Lennart had less than twenty soldiers under his command, but when they returned, Nyrielle’s army had swelled to more than a thousand soldiers and likely just as many servants and skilled tradesmen.