Loosely scattered notes [2]

As Rosalyn waded through the brackish, swampy terrain that flooded the decrepit old hedge maze, the woman reminded herself that she was being paid very well for her trouble. Even then, the smell was almost unbearable, and she only managed to endure it thanks to the cloth tied around her head to cover her mouth and nose. The sky was as gloomy as Rosalyn felt, and she lifted her torch in her right hand a bit higher to see through the wispy fog which surrounded her on all sides in the topiary. Rochester, the forsaken castle, was visible in the distance as Rosalyn looked up; The entire estate was condemned, and for good reason, but people like her were just the sorts that were hired in order to rectify such states of affairs. Coughing quietly, Rosalyn trudged carefully through the water, ankle-deep and tinged lightly with red that would surely only get worse the deeper she went into the wretched place. Ten thousand gold, she repeated over and over in her head, more frustrated at the abhorrent state of the garden she was forced to trek through than whatever was awaiting her in the heart of the maze.

The flame on Rosalyn’s torch flickered and danced in the still air of the hedge maze, as she was careful to keep it from slipping out of her grip and falling into the water. It was a precious tool, especially in this situation. Even with the circle of warm light around her, Rosalyn could hear the humming in the shadows around her and within the hedges as she turned a few sharp corners. Unfortunately, it seemed that the noises were confirming Rosalyn’s initial assumptions about the place: it was the new hive of an entire swarm. Thousands upon thousands of bloodsucking mosquitoes, midges, and whatever other vermin were literally buzzing with excitement to have a chance at the woman. She had, smartly, worn thick leather and wool clothes on this trip, her tall boots preventing her legs from becoming exposed to the water around her feet. The only skin she could afford to leave uncovered was the upper half of her face, which was yet rubbed with a tonic that would kill any pest that touched the area. With ten thousand gold, maybe I can afford to have entire bottles of this stuff… It was after a short while that Rosalyn felt her shins slowly becoming submerged in the water. Wordlessly cursing to herself, she marched through, kicking up the stagnant pool and making it even murkier than before as she quickly lifted herself onto somewhat more solid, muddy ground. As expected, several leeches clung onto her boot leather, their ridges of teeth working in vain at the tough material before Rosalyn lowered the flame of her torch to her leg, causing them to detach in a panic and wriggle into the mud. Groaning, the woman collected herself, looking up and seeing the half-moon in the sky faded by the shadow of the swarm above her. It was only going to get worse from there, and she determined herself to end the hunt quickly before her single puny light became insufficient to protect herself. Frankly, she wished nothing but to burn the entire maze to ash, but she knew that if she did such a thing, then not only would her affluent clients be angry and refuse to pay her, but the queen would likely escape before her death and live on to simply find a new hive and spawn new children all over again.

Rosalyn took a left, her option bringing her to the right and ending in a very blatant and sudden dead end which seemed pointless to the woman. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t ever had the chance to live as a noble, and thus would never understand what drove the upper class to engage in growing these ridiculous mazes, tittering and guffawing as they danced around pretending to be lost in the garden. All Rosalyn saw was overgrown bushes. Her estoc could surely cut through the branches with ease, and she could probably slice her own path to the queen’s chamber if she truly wanted to, but her concern was in not being able to predict what may be waiting around any given corner in such a large and well-sustained hive as this one; the poor folks who had failed to escape the queen’s initial arrival had become food, as Rosalyn had learned from her rich clients who had once called Rochester Castle their home. This meant one thing: the queen’s children were sure to be well fed, and well-along their path towards full mutation. As if summoned by Rosalyn’s inner thoughts, the beast crawling behind her was given away by its chittering and by the splashing of muddy water beneath its hooked feet. The woman wheeled around in an instant, holding her torch aloft and waving it to stun the creature. In the full light of the flame, it reared back and hissed, giving Rosalyn a good look at the thing’s form. It was quite well-dressed; this must have once been a nobleman before it fell to the infestation and was taken over by bloodlust. Its humanoid body was contrasted by its own limbs, which had grown spindly and clawed like a spider’s legs, arms ending in long sickles which were as sharp as the sword Rosalyn quickly drew with her left hand. In a sidestep, she narrowly avoided the thing’s wild lunge towards her, its mandibles jutting from its still-human mouth and biting hungrily. She pierced with her sword rapidly, penetrating the creature’s stomach from the side and causing it to shriek in rage.

Slowed by the swampy terrain, Rosalyn failed to avoid the wild thrashes of pain from the corrupted creature as it waved its arms around while stuck on the end of her sword. Its sickle-like arm caught on her cloak, tugging her off balance and causing her to frantically swing her right arm to find her posture again. Rosalyn, off balance, regained her stance by pulling her estoc’s blade roughly through the monster’s carapaced skin in order to anchor herself. Another hiss of pain erupted from it as Rosalyn pulled her sword from the thing’s body and made a sweeping slash with the weapon, holding her torch out in front of her to blind the thing’s compound eyes. Falling backwards and landing firmly into the hedge behind her, the woman awkwardly disentangled herself as she watched the thing stumble backwards and collapse into the mud, its head removed from its body in a clean cut. Insects around her buzzed and hummed, drawn by the noise and stirred up by her rustling in the wizened branches of the hedge. As she shakily found her feet once more, Rosalyn waved her torch around over her head to deter the swarm, which mostly avoided her still. As she sheathed the estoc, however, she quickly raised a gloved hand to smack at the side of her face; a large mosquito the size of her palm twitched in her grip, having been killed by the tonic on her skin and the strike from her hand.

Rosalyn hurried onwards after flinging the insect into the mud next to its huge hive-mate. Her breath laboured, the woman waded into the water in her path once again, anxious to leave the scene of the fight. That noise probably had not only alerted any other nearby spawn, but also the queen herself. The scenery had become more and more befitting of a hive: the brackish muddy water was now red and swampy, and entire portions of the hedge walls had been ripped and shredded as the mutant inhabitants had seen fit. Rosalyn was also beginning to notice larger and larger vermin, with a leech the size of a cat her most notable discovery as it languished in the mud as she walked on, bloated and unable to wriggle itself after her. Flies the sizes of small birds fluttered around the water, disappearing into the wilting greenery at the approach of Rosalyn’s fading torchlight. After what felt like hours trudging in silence through the swampy garden, with naught but the buzzing of wings to fill Rosalyn’s ears, she finally came upon the courtyard, a large central area in the very heart of the hedge maze which in better days might have been the site of lavish parties. Now, however, she could see tables and benches flung wildly around the area, a few skeletons here and there having been picked clean by the blood-drinking infiltrators. The fountain in the middle of the courtyard, in fact, was positively flooded with red water that was mixed with blood leftover from the initial arrival of the swarm. It seemed to be the source of the swampy terrain which Rosalyn had suffered through, and the woman suddenly wondered where any guardian mutants may have been. This was surely the heart of the hive; she could even see clumps of frothiness in the red fountain which clearly marked that the queen had been laying her eggs here. Rosalyn’s internal questions were interrupted by an eerie voice, emanating from behind the fountain. It was wispy, almost too quiet among the whining of mosquitoes and midges until a few moments later when the sounds seemed to almost halt at the words. A woman’s voice, reserved and yet with a sense of dominant elegance, preceded the emergence of the queen herself. “Finally… the esteemed visitor shows herself before us! My, my, you kept us waiting, didn’t you?”

One could be forgiven for initially assuming the queen of the hive was a human woman. Her entire upper half was wrapped in a tattered pink gown which must have been lifted from the body of a previous victim, and her expression was calm and collected, her soft features like a doll’s. What was more striking were her eyes, large and compound with several smaller eyes dotted around her face. Her arms were long and spindly, helping to drag forward her body which was fully taken by the curse of her species. It was like a giant centipede had attached itself to her body at the waist, and now carried her around across the muddy stone floor of the courtyard.

“Was the welcome party we provided inviting enough for one such as thee?” The queen snickered smartly. “I killed the thing. Wasn’t very friendly.” Rosalyn sneered. The queen frowned right back. “So, we presume you have come to kill us too, haven’t you? Come to cut off our head and burn our poor children and their new home to ash?”

“No, I’m here to send a cake and welcome you to the community,” Rosalyn sarcastically replied. “Vampires aren’t the usual neighbours around here.” “Is that the word humans use for us now? ‘Vampire,’ hm? Sounds wretched.” The queen shook her head, Rosalyn noting her objectively wretched body scurrying to coil up like a snake around the rim of the fountain. “You must have been dormant a very long time. Tell me, why here? Rochester… I always thought this region wasn’t as humid to your kind’s liking.” Rosalyn now had her sword drawn, gripped tightly in her dominant hand as she held the torch defensively in front of herself. “Too dry, too many humans, and too much fire to run into.”

“On the contrary, my huntress friend.” The queen smirked as Rosalyn’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Oh, thou shouldst not give us that look. We can see your sword, smell your concoction you’ve rubbed on your skin to defend thyself. You know what you are doing. As for your question, well… We were surprised ourselves! We found such a wonderful assortment of meals for all of our children, and now it seems humans simply walk right in here for them!” As the queen laughed, the swarm in the sky whined even louder than before, as if they laughed with her. “Besides… they built this place atop us, yes?” The queen smirked again. “We were simply woken up, and did what we had to do. We slept for a century, and we arose to find a banquet above our heads. Would you not partake as well?” “I dunno. Ask me when I become part vermin.” Rosalyn’s eyes narrowed, a thin green gaze piercing from her mostly-concealed face and meeting the queen’s own red stare. “You haven’t had enough, anyways. Your body is still mutated, though you probably only got half of what you need to—“

“To keep our body from rotting away, yes, we are indeed aware.” The queen growled. “The more we drink, the longer the curse is staved away, but the more we will need every time as well.” Her body tensed around the fountain, and she slipped a long arm into the water to inspect a frothy clump of eggs. “And, just imagine the amounts we will have to have gathered for these little ones…” Rosalyn tensed her grip upon her sword as she watched the queen regard her unhatched offspring. If the entire fountain’s-worth of eggs was allowed to hatch, the woman knew that the nearby towns and cities wouldn’t be able to stand against the ensuing swarm that the queen would have at her command. “You really think it will be enough? You’ll have to kill way too many humans, and eventually they’re going to simply send an army to flush you out, just like every vampire nest that gets this big. You’re just another killing machine, nothing else.” Rosalyn strafed as she spoke, the queen watching her slow movements with attentive and numerous eyes.

“Well, apprise us… how many humans have you killed?” The queen confidently grinned, her teeth sharp like needles. “Seven. Every one of them deserved it,” Rosalyn said flatly. “Seven lives are seven lives. A murderer stands before us, on a quest to hunt other murderers. Thou’rt a fool masquerading thyself as a hero...” “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that damn line? ‘Not so different, you and I are…’ Monsters like you never get over how proud of themselves they are with that one, even though the fact remains that I am nothing like you.” Rosalyn pointed with her sword, causing the queen vampire to growl quietly, tightening her body around the fountain. “Such a dour girl. Dost thou not understand this situation?” The queen laughed cruelly. “When we are done ripping you apart, you’ll be just enough blood to stave off this curse of ours…” “I’m done talking,” Rosalyn said with a resigned sigh. “Let’s get it over with.” “Done talking? Oh, thou art so brave and strong, madame! Brave and strong and stupid, just like every little human that we have eaten.” The queen hissed quietly.

Rosalyn had heard enough, and rushed quickly forwards with her torch held aloft and aimed at the queen’s face. The mutant woman hissed angrily, lifting her arms and revealing two more, one pair defending herself and the other reaching to Rosalyn to grab her. The huntress moved much more quickly on the somewhat solid ground of the courtyard, twirling her estoc and succeeding in cutting a few hooked fingers from the queen’s hand, causing the mutant to wail in pain. “Seven lives! Come, huntress… you can repay that death by feeding millions of hungry mouths!” The queen laughed, lowering herself and letting her body unfurl, scurrying around and trying to disorient Rosalyn as the swarm descended from above them.

The woman shouted, waving the flaming torch defensively at a horde of giant gnats which surrounded her. Rosalyn spun in a flurry, angling her sword and piercing into the hazy cloud at a lurking shape which turned out to be the queen, who shrieked in pain at the blade stabbed into her abdomen. Retreating, the monster reared back and whirled her body, slamming the tail-end of her lower half into Rosalyn and sending her into a sloppy tumble to the floor near the fountain. Thinking quickly, the woman moved to lift her torch towards the eggs within the bloody water before the queen was upon her again, wailing in less and less human tones as her arms reached again to ensnare Rosalyn. The huntress made a slash to sever one arm at the elbow, before following with a pierce into the queen’s stomach, causing a reddish-white bloodstain to appear in the tattered dress she wore. With a cry of anger, the queen nevertheless beat at Rosalyn’s chest with another arm, causing the woman to cough painfully, the cloth covering her mouth and nose slipping as the swarm grew angrier by the moment. Feeling mosquitoes and gnats whirring around her face, Rosalyn threw caution to the wind, knowing that it was now or never. Dropping her torch to the ground, she lunged, pulling her estoc from the queen and thrusting once again, piercing the hybrid’s neck and weakening her. As the queen’s mouth began erupting in mandibles, Rosalyn roughly pulled on her sword, and the queen’s head tumbled to the ground of the courtyard as her long, writhing body slumped down, curling up like any other dead vermin.

Distressed by this, the swarm whined in unison around Rosalyn, as she caught her breath. Even now, a few of the flying pests began falling down, twitching on the ground as the connection to their mother was lost. Rosalyn let the rain of insects fall as she bent to find her torch, now hardly a tiny lick of flame and a bit of ember. Cursing, the woman pulled a bit of flint from a pocket, and tried striking it a few times against the stone fountain’s walls. Finally bringing her fire back to some life, she lowered it down, brushing against each frothy clump of eggs and setting them ablaze surprisingly easily. As the fountain burned like a brazier, Rosalyn sighed, watching the eggs burst and melt in the purifying flames. The swarm continued falling, mostly piling near to their dead queen. Groaning in unchecked disgust, the huntress pulled the cloth back up over her mouth and nose, grimacing as a small vermin shaped like a tick scuttled out of the fountain to flee the fire. Crushing it under her heel, Rosalyn turned, finally having had her fill of the sights and smells of vampire hives for one day. They had better make it fifteen thousand gold.