Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower by Shadow Crystal Mage (MNLAAV: ARLTDx Dark souls)
Latest Update:April 26, 2023
Summary: Maria Campbell remembers an old life. A life bathed in blood. A fishing hamlet. A research hall of many floors and many patients. And a stranger who insisted on corpse-fishing... AKA, that fic where a grimdark DLC boss is reincarnated in fluffy otome-land and still acts like she's in a FromSoftware game. (Bloodborne/Hamefura post-Dark Souls setting crossover)
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13654825/1/Maria-Campbell-of-the-Astral-Clocktower
Word count:650k
Chapters:312
Chapter 1:
Maria remembered the day after her father left. She had awakened from strange dreams of blood and death to find that, in her sleep, she had unlocked the memories of her past life.
For the rest of the month, she had nightmares.
Such was the inauspicious beginning of the rebirth of Hunter Lady Maria, once of Cainhurst, formerly of the Healing Church.
…
When the nightmares of memory passed, no one noticed any significant change. After all, what was there to notice? She was still the noble bastard Maria Campbell, who had been born with Light magic from her mother having had a dalliance with some passing noble. The young Maria who lived a life of love with both parents had refused to believe it. Her mother loved her father! She would never do such a thing!
The reborn Maria remembered the practices of Cainhurst and reflected that her mother might not have had any choice in the matter. She was fortunate to have been allowed to live.
They drifted apart. It was to be expected. Hazy as her memories were, as if through a veil of dreams and nightmare, they were the lifetime of a grown woman. The cursed blood that flowed strongly in her veins had let her live long, while retaining her youth, and those decades all the way up to her death and her death had all but swept away her second childhood. The rumors and insinuations of the peasants– other peasants– were beneath her.
She said so to her new mother, but the woman only flinched, unable to look upon her, and eventually Maria let it go. They lived as two strangers within the same house, doing their share of the work and related by blood but not really together. In truth, it was in these moments of simple chores that she was able to lose herself in her new life. She was just Maria Campbell doing her chores. It was hard work, but it was a good hardness, of honest labor and clean work and no one was hurt, nothing was defiled.
Carrying only guilt from a life already past, Maria found a semblance of peace.
…
The Academy was little like Byrgenwerth. For one, it was more a place of teaching than learning. The young, naïve nobles who attended did not possess the single-minded focus of the Choir of the Healing Church, nor the cautious eagerness of the few scholars of the lakeside college that had used to visit with Master Willem. They had come to learn. Or rather, to be informed of things already known, and tested on their ability to retain this knowledge after a year's time.
Try as she might, Maria found no locked doors, no smell of blood, of bile, of seawater, or the strange scent of moonlight. There were no suspicious disappearances of students, no jars of eyeballs in any of the lecture halls or libraries. There was only the rustle of books, the scratching of pens, and pretentious children playing at being their betters.
Maria ignored the whispers and not-quite-under-their-breath-enough remarks as she dutifully applied herself to her studies, of how she thought herself above them, of her mannish trousers that she preferred to skirts, of her not belonging in this place. She had never belonged. Not in Cainhurst. Not among the Hunters. Not at the Choir. Why should this place be any different?
The arcane arts taught did not rely on blood in any measure, nor upon the strange runes whose providence she had never properly learned. She had eventually gotten used to her blood, now so thin and wan, would dry strangely after just a brief exposure to air. There was no sweetness when she tasted it, whether the blood was hers or another's. Magic was a thing inherited like the color of one's eyes or hair, not of insight gained by strange experiments or deciphered from ancient lore found in buried crypts. Talk of the supremacy of blood was figurative instead of literal.
Others might disagree, but they lacked the proper knowledge to know the difference.
Eventually, the strange meritocracy of the Academy bestowed upon her a place in the so-called student council in recognition of her efforts. She had no objection to the other admitted members of the council allowing their friend to enter the council's chambers. They seemed set on it, and united in their opinion. There was no point in opposing them for no reason. If they wished to play at politics and privilege, then so be it.
The Lady Claes was pleasant enough, and reasonably well-behaved compared to some of her peers, despite how much she distracted the other members of the council. Maria resolved to be polite and simply ignore her.
…
Why was Lady Claes seemingly obsessed with Maria's non-existent love life? Was this some kind of dominance play, showing off her many lovers in comparison to Maria's? No, she kept asking if one of her lovers had garnered Maria's notice. Was she… a pimp? What sort of hold did she have on not one, but two princes' of this realm that she could offer them to Maria? Maria pretended ignorance, deflecting or distracting as needed. Thankfully, Lady Claes was easily distracted.
Still, the distractions never lasted long. While the two did not even so much as exchange nods in the hallways, in the student council room, unless one for her harem distracted her, she would always eventually turn her attentions to Maria.
Wait… was she perhaps trying to add Maria as a lover, using her hypothetical interest in one of the men as some sort of lure? Were blonde lovers perhaps some sort of status symbol? Though Lady Claes already had the third prince. Perhaps she desired a matched set?
Maria resolved to avoid the young woman for the time being. She had no desire to be some noble's plaything.
…
Some nobles attempted to accost her at lunch. Maria dealt with them, finished her food and filed a report as a member of the student council. While their elements were better suited towards martial use, unlike her Light magic, they apparently did not expect her to fight back. Perhaps they were used to peasants allowing themselves to be used for a noble's enjoyment? Maria did not know. Regardless, they were obviously unpracticed in the martial use of their own ability, unable to react in time when Maria threw the last piece of her midday meal's bread in their face to stun them and struck out with her gathered strength, as all hunters learned to do. Fortunately, she was unarmed and holding back, thus the fist that could torn through flesh, broken bone and slain a beast in one strike merely knocked the wind out of them and left them bruised inside and out.
Fortunately, Lord Claes was passing by at the time, and she was able to ask him to watch them in case she'd broken a rib while Maria went back to the student council room to file a report.
Maria resisted the urge to lick the blood on her torn knuckles. It would be thin and lifeless, she knew.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13654825/1/Maria-Campbell-of-the-Astral-Clocktower