The hour ticks past midnight, and Market Town slumbers under a velvet blanket of silence. Streetlamps flicker. The wind whispers through empty alleys. The smell of fresh bread and coal soot hangs in the air, remnants of a long day winding down.
Inside the cramped inn room, Vuvi, Penelo, Veena, and Pip stand fully packed. Bags buckled, weapons strapped, satchels cinched with finality.
Maribelle personally checks each of their packs like a drill sergeant doing inspection. "Food. Tools. Bombs. Emergency oils. Backup oils. Emergency backup oils?"
"Check, check and triple check!" Vuvi mutters, rubbing exhaustion from her eyes.
Pip beeps softly, vibrating with anticipation while Penelo clings to him like a frightened backpack, ears twitching at every creak while Maribelle steps to the door and slowly opens it.
Waiting outside, in their nightgowns, stand the innkeeper and her granddaughter, Arienne.
"Sounded like you'd be leaving tonight," the old woman says, handing over a bundle of neatly wrapped provisions. "This world may be mad, but you brought a little hope to our doorstep. Thank you!"
Penelo sniffles as she accepts the package with both arms while Vuvi gives a warm, sincere smile. Maribelle simply nods, while her chest tightens with a mother's pride.
Then Pip tilts his head, beeps gently, and steps forward. The granddaughter beams at him, stepping up and cupping his faceplate gently. She kisses it, lips lingering, whispering, "Thank you for helping me feel alive again."
Pip emits a high-pitched chime and wobbles slightly.
"I think he just blushed," Veena chuckles.
"Impossible," Vuvi mutters. "But also it's Pip. So probably."
They step into the street, boots barely making a sound against the cobblestones after Maribelle enchanted them to make no sound.
The night brings with it a cool, calmly quiet. Too quiet.
"We leave through the Western Gate," Maribelle whispers as they move. "Fast, quiet, stop for nothing."
The group nods as they slink through the shadows of Market Town. They hadn't made it two blocks when a ragged man lounging on a stoop blinks awake, catches sight of Pip, and gasps.
"It's him! The golden one! The bliss bringer!"
"The what?" Penelo stops cold.
A dozen shapes emerge from shadowy alleyways, cloaked in strange sashes and prayer beads, faces wild with fervor.
"Save us!" They cry. "Save our loins, o` golden redeemer!"
"Oh no," Vuvi whispers. "Cultists."
"Just keep moving," Maribelle snarls.
But more arrive, slinking out of shadow, grinning wildly at Pip. He whistles, half nervous of the growing congregation, half smug as they all come out to worship him
A few of the cultists clutch their scrolls while others wave hand-drawn posters of Pip, surrounded by beams of holy light.
One has a banner reading: "His Cums To Save Us!"
Can't even cum. Pip ponders with a disappointed chirp.
Then a student in striped pajamas pops out of a window. "Hey! Is that the divine pleasure construct?! The Blackthorn golem?!"
Within moments, a wave of alchemy students pour into the streets, armed with notebooks, mana meters, and spectacles too large for their faces.
"Lady Blackthorn! Can we please interview you?!"
"What's his chassis made of!?"
"Is that divine pressure venting through his thighs?!"
Vuvi groans, gripping her head. "Why is everyone obsessed with him?!"
Pip does a little wave and the crowd immediately swoons in response.
"PRINCE!" A voice cries out over the gathered faces.
The front doors of the cathedral blast open and Lihona, the Sixth Saint-Sister, flies out in nothing but her sheer ceremonial shift, golden curls billowing, eyes locked on Pip with tearful devotion. "Wait for me!"
Her female knight guard, half-armored and fully panicked, sprints after her. "Sister Liorna! You forgot your… everything!"
She charges barefoot toward the group, arms open.
"We really need to stop collecting these people." Veena sighs as she watches a Saint Sister running through the streets toward them.
By the time they reach the looming Western Gate of Market Town, they have a full procession trailing behind them:
Dozens of ecstatic cultists chanting "Glory to the golden shaft!"
Alchemy students shouting over each other, quills scribbling madly
Saint Sister Lihona, still glowing, still dramatically weeping, trailed by half-dressed royal knights, trying to form a protective cordon
"Okay, I'm freaking out a little." Penelo whimpers, hiding behind Pip, who is now vibrating like a tuning fork.
Veena hisses at a particularly bold student who tries to scan Pip's pelvis with some kind of crudely built device.
Maribelle steps up to the gate guard. "Open the gates."
The guard blinks. "By whose—" She hands over a badge radiating authority. Old-school war-era authority. The guard pales. "Y-Yes, ma'am."
Meanwhile, the students and cultists begin clashing, arguing over access to Pip. and Vuvi.
"His miracle belongs to science!"
"He was sent by the Great Mother herself!"
"Step aside, I have a degree!"
"Your degree is useless if your soul is empty!"
Lihona drops to her knees.
"Why is there so much anger?" she cries out, weeping. "He should be a bridge of unity and compassion. Not a wedge born of mortal desires."
Her knights, swords drawn, begin shouting for calm uselessly as the ground grows more out of control.
"ENOUGH!" Maribelle's voice thunders over the madness. She pushes Vuvi and the others toward the opening gate. "Get moving. I'll stall them."
Vuvi hesitates.
"GO!" Her mother snarls.
Vuvi nods, grabbing Pip's hand. "Everyone, let's go!"
Vuvi, Pip, Penelo and Veena all turn toward the gate, preparing to break into a sprint.
But then the sky cracks. A flash of crimson light tears across the stars like blood spilling across a canvas.
Everyone freezes in place. Students, cultists, knights, even Maribelle. All of them gasping and gulping as they stare in growing horror.
The air suddenly grows heavy, wrong. tainted with the unmistakable sulphury scent of the Demon Lands.
Then it rips open completely. A rift. A fracture in reality. The sky itself shears apart like paper, exposing a swirling void.
And from that void descends five figures.
First comes a tall, flamboyant demon-kin man in a purple suit, flipping through a conjured fan as he floats down silently.
"What a mess of mortals. Don't get too close." he mutters from behind his fan.
Then a colossal figure in a tailored obsidian suit emerges. Impossibly broad-shouldered, crimson eyes cold and serene behind a monocle.
"I wouldn't dare." he sneers.
Next, a woman made of smoke and curves, dressed in shining leather, gliding effortlessly in front of a massive, floating scythe that hums with malicious emergy. She says nothing, just raising a smokey brow with an unimpressed sigh.
Beside her descends a child, a girl with sugar-pink pigtails and a star-tipped wand. Her innocent giggles echoing across the rooftops.
"Look, Mama! There's lots of them!" she laughs, delighted at the scene below her.
Finally, the fifth figure oozes out of the void. Lihona falls to the ground, face pale at the sight of her.
Alchemy students scream. The cultists mutter prayers. And Maribelle curses, loudly.
They all watch in awe and apprehension as she descends.
Tall. Pale. Beautiful beyond reason. Eyes like sunsets bleeding into oceans. Hair white as starlight and adorned with a crown that shimmers with demonic power.
The Demon Queen.
Vexena.