Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"Wow! Now that\'s a Temple." Ravenna guffawed; it was more ecstatic awe. The rest in the group were struck speechless, and the caravan had stopped moving, at a small hill in the wilderness. From it Rafel and the others glared into the scarlet sunset at the great Keep of white. The Guide accosting them pulled off his wide sunhat.

"How wondrous," said he, in his pupilar eyes some thing of worship. "No matter how many times I see this, I can not relate otherwise to its beauty. The souls in there are the purest in the realm. Bodies that have been touched by no hands. Vessels of the Martyr. Beautiful creatures."

The Guide\'s hands were up to his chest, clutched to his bosom like a praying monk.

Rafel had enough of the outward spectacle. He put his hand, with the gold sceptre forward and closed his legs together, squeezing in the saddle. And the great, brown beast under him began humping off again. It lumbered down eastward from the dusty hill to the looming white towers.

"Good boy." Rafel patted the camel\'s back. At the last second, he had remembered it was not Agamemnon and refrained from much petting.

Dipping in the far west, the sun met with the sand, scattering scarlet light deeply into the vulture country. For a measure of time, one of the escorts: a very close guard of Dementa—an [Adept Survivor] lifted her left hand to finger-read the horizon. Sat upon her own jewelled camel, she said, "it\'s about fifteen minutes to complete sundown on this side of the desert."

"Wait!" Rafel interrupted, "the sun set differently here?"

They had reached the gates of Séltand. White also, moonstone. The girl replied from under a thick turban and face veils. "...yes, but by only a few minutes. Sometimes indistinguishable."

Rafel nodded and she proceeded. "We should be in before total darkness. At night, you can see the flags of the bands, or tell which from which. Some of Grone\'s men use the cover of night to execute harsher punishments," she bit her lip, "we usually find raped dudes out here in the morning. Sétland is sanctuary, but the roads leading to it is not."

Everyone nodded, instantly getting it.

The personal guard drew quickly into the vast compound of the Vestals Seat, leaving the caravan to draw in behind. A small press of bikes whizzed in after. The compound itself was a cross between a nunnery and futuristic satellite town. They passed by a well that had automated levers, a bell tower with a strike that worked by the machination of solar energy, and a windmill that powered the night lights.

Really, there was no magic here.

On a little, pampered grassland west of the compound, Rafel spotted a gathering of habits tending quietly to gardens. They hummed religious songs in a foreign tongue. Avalonic, maybe.

The nuns were a bitter reminder of Rosamunde.

"She would have loved it here." He told Aya telepathically. She reached out with a comforting touch in their mind link.

"Are we doing this?" Corazón asked when they reached the white brick roofing of the Temple\'s colonnade, much like a castle.

"We are."

It was Israfel. His voice was somber. But the bass hit deep. \'For Rosa. For Bruna. Yes, we are doing this. Definitely!\' Only Peitho heard the rest of his statement.

Dementa\'s personal guard was the first to pull off her camel. "Tsk! Tsk!" She clicked her tongue twice and the animal went down, folding its knees under on the sand like a goat. It was then Rafel noticed the woman\'s height. Her [Darkfyre Hijab] hid out a scar that almost shut out completely her left eye. The other was a complete purplish orb in its socket. It moved around eerily. The breeze picked up and the turban covered her face again. This woman was the second tallest in the compound after Rafel.

She had no feminine features whatsoever. If Rafel was asked one adjective for her, it\'d be \'sturdy\'.

But still, he knew she had a pussy. Knowing himself very well, Rafel knew the only creature that could catch and hold his eye were the females of \'all\' species. Emphasis there. He had no gay bone in his body. At all!

"This way." The sturdy woman led on.

The colonnades of the main sanctuary tower was fringed by long Palms bending in the wind. The banana fronds were evergreen and Rafel knew there was an oasis nearby. Made sense to build a Vestal temple next to the only running water spot for miles in this cursed wilderness. No wonder no armies ever came south. The Badlands remained to the bandits—for as long as anyone could remember.

They met more Vestals in the winding archway. And Rafel kept confusing them with nuns. It was the boys walking amongst them in their white garments too that always brought him clarity.

Boys could be Vestals too.

Aya said to him by [Mindsweeper]: a technique of conversation only a Bond and her true Sire could share. "I don\'t know how this girls do it, frankly. If it were only females up in here, I\'d understand. But there are literal penises swinging about in the gardens. I\'d like to see who\'s in charge tell a girl in heat she can\'t drag in the nearest Vestal boy to fuck her good. Surely, there must\'ve been a slip at one point.

These much young adults in a coed facility, with laws on abstinence is demanding trouble." Aya ended shaking her head.

"Ah," Rafel returned, "if only they knew a succubus walked their walls even now."

They both shared laughter in their minds no one could hear. It spilled forth as choked smiles.

The sturdy [Adept Survivor] took Rafel\'s hand the last ten steps to a section ended by double doors, also white. He asked:

"Has any Vestal being. . ." He searched for the nicest way to say FUCKED. ". . deflowered?"

"No. Not it three hundred and twenty years."

"Huh. That\'s supernatural."

Somd Vestals lifted bowed heads at the corners of a fountain, ornate stone vases and grinder pillars to stare at his mild blasphemy.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The double doors suddenly opened, pushed out from the inside. A petite round woman came walking out. She had on normal clothes—as normal as mufti were in the Bonelands—and so big a smile. She ran past their group, thanking everyone in sight. The one thing Rafel glanced from her childlike ebullience was that she clutched tightly to a scroll. Another person walked out. It was a woman so lean in her ghostly apparel she looked odd in it.

Something of a fright; a version of Lost Lady.

This lean stalk of a girl stared out at the woman scurrying off with quiet benevolence. She shared a single trait with Rafel: complete leopard, gold eyes.

"Who is that?" Aya asked beside the sturdy guard.

The female escort rendered a polite face at the long expressions the friends had on. "You guys really know nothing of the Badlands. That right there is the supreme Vestal of the Temple. We call her a Grace at this point. She teaches sacraments of celibacy and faith to the new intakes. Do not mistake her youth—I know she\'s easy on the eyes. But that nineteen year old girl you see was the first Vestal over three centuries ago. She\'s a Priestess of MAGVATH."

Rafel intoned from heart, "the Death goddess."

"Yeah. Or at least she was, at the time of her sacrifice to this barren world. Now she does the will of the Martyr, extending belief to other deities like Visha, Magvath, and the Crone."

"How is she so young?"

The syrupy voice belonged to Ravenna. Her ask was just on Rafel\'s lips. He gave her a small smile downward.

Their sentinel\'s answer was two words.

"Central Core."

"Mind expatiating." Cora added sharply from the back. The other highway escorts and the desert Guide had been left in the general compound lot with the camels. At the time \'sturdy Hijabi\' was leading them away, the fellows had been helping themselves to the Vestal\'s offered urn of water and sweetbread hand-baked just that morning. Only the Guide bothered to feed the beasts. The escorts were Deathlies of Dementa\'s camp and rode bikes anyways. Machines of throttle and horsepower, supercharged in stolen [Druid Ores].

Though it wasn\'t Dementa\'s usual loot, she traded her elegant silk for Grone\'s mystic batteries. And sometimes, Zaftig\'s gold medallions.

But currently, before the double doors, the woman known as the Grace of the Seat, moved forward, interrupting the dialogue before the turbaned guard had a chance to reply what exactly [Central Core] meant. She had knickers or something under the white shroud because even though her robes were translucent, Rafel could see nothing.

\'But then, this... girl has lived three hundred years in this desert temple-palace.\'

The Grace was 7ft tall—it made her skinny figure that much eye-catching. She was beautiful. And her skinny wasn\'t anorexic. She was slim like a roe. A zebra. A supermodel. Because she was supertall. Really, she was the tallest female Rafel had seen since Bloody Mary. Discover more content at empire

He remembered the reptilian kickboxer fondly.

\'Ah, good times. Those were good times.\' He mused. \'Do I miss Emberfall. It\'s mist and quiet weather sobriety.\'

Back then, who\'d known all this shit was gonna happen. Not him!

\'I should have hired myself a Clairvoyant first thing after my ascension,\' he chastised his past.

The voice of their sturdy sentinel broke in: "I\'ll leave you guys to it." She bowed to the super tall Grace, as Rafel wondered why everybody in this brown realm liked white. And just before she hastened back the same way they\'d come, she said, "oh, and I\'m Khalifa, by the way."

"Khalifa," repeated Corazón.

The Hijab hid Khalifa\'s smile. In reality, the silver face veils were a [Shield of Demolition].

Rafel nodded. For once, beside his harem, he saved up a girl\'s name in his head. It wasn\'t because he was an asshole; girls just tended to be much around his proximity—and they died too quickly to bother. Even the ones he did bother about. Khalifa was gone. And Rafel turned his full focus to the 7ft, silver-robed Grace.

He said without preamble.

"What\'s your name?"

The immortal Vestal smiled that same benign smile. It sent her lips a touch fuller. Rafel was drawn to them. He was drawn to her similar eyes. He was drawn to her miraculous ashy hair. Her gazelle body. And sure as hell her long freaking legs.

Seven feet was a long way up for a woman. She fucking carried it well.

"Yes, a man of few words." The Grace of Sétland said. Her voice called Rafel\'s mind back to the Autumn angel, Aelaria Törmund. He wondered if she was she in hiding, yet another personification of glory. The Grace continued, settling their hearts with her words. "Dementa sent word by vulture mail. She said to expect you. Her descriptions fit the eye." She perused Rafel.

Catching the eyes\' of the other girls, she laughed.

"Oh, by Visha! I\'m a virgin, not blind. Come on in."

"You still have not answered my question," came Rafel\'s solid tremor behind her.

At the open doors of sanctuary, the tall Grace turned with a knee-buckling smile.

"I am Indiravasanathārekalee.

I am supreme Mother of the Vestal Seat, undefiled in three hundred years. My friends just call me Indira."

Rafel turned over the name in his head—it was the longest single name he had ever heard. He made up his mind to be the Grace\'s friend. As he followed her into sanctuary with his girlfriends, he set his thoughts on the two things he needed from her: Central Core, and how to win over Zaftig and Grone, the other two Skullriders.

He set his mind like stone. Certainly not on her pristine shroud, rippling in the cool wind from the grounds, which showed for just a fraction of time what an amazing thigh-gap the virgin Priestess had.