Stray dog
Quickly turning to ash underneath Juniper's clawed foot, Carmilla's body made way for the black fallen soul.
'Well, is it just because I know where all the bad guys and gals are that I happen to come across so many of these high-grade souls or is it just that Roy really sucked at finding them?' Snatching the tasty treat out of the air and stuffing it into her system, the moth sighs before turning around and stepping over to the stuck Forgemaster.
'The fight was fun, too bad I'm on such a tight schedule or I would have played for a bit longer, but hey, things are as they are.' Ending this train of thought with a shake of her head, she arrives in front of the shivering Hector.
Eyeing the terrified human whose legs are frozen to the ground, which combined with his drenched state made the entire experience rather cold, the demoness sizes him up while recalling the stuff she knew about his character from the show.
'He's quite the wimp if I remember correctly. A kid cast out by its parents for pursuing an art that they fear and loath. He then lived far from other people and turned into a naïve man child unaware of how the world works but capable of performing a rather terrifying school of magic.' Looming over the trembling man with short wavey grey hair framing his sharp features, Juniper gets lost in thoughts for a moment.
Staring up into the eerie green eyes looking him over, Hector could only lament how terrible this night had turned out to be as the cold continues to sink into his flesh.
Not only did he get tricked by Carmilla's manipulative words to betray Dracula, his benefactor and friend, which lead to a full-blown coupe. No, she herself also got brutally beaten up and killed by this random demoness that just fell from the sky.
Now at the mercy of this demonic creature, with no allies left as he either betrayed them, or they got killed, Hector feels lost and alone.
Returning to the now, the moth smiles sweetly at the Forgemaster.
She has decided to capture this pathetic human for now and maybe even keep him around depending on how things develop later on.
With that she leans a bit down till her face is in front of his as her mandibles clack a few times.
"Well then, you seem like things haven't been going according to your expectations recently. But no worries, I have decided to keep you for now, so don't worry about dying too much." She says with a smile, before adding with a more sadistic tone.
"But just so that you won't be thinking of running, I will be breaking your knees before throwing you into a basement. Sound good?" Trying to move his frozen legs, the Forgemaster grows even more desperate as she straightens her back again.
"U-um, can we talk about this?" He weakly utters, causing the moth to smirk before placing a clawed, chitin covered hand on his head and rub it like one would with a pet.
"Sure sure puppy, we can talk all you want after I crack those kneecaps of yours and take care of everything here." Juniper coo's, treating Hector's plea like that of a dog wanting to play while letting her sharp claws covered in plenty of dried-up blood glide through his hair.
It's then that the sound of screams, shouts and loads of rubble falling into water caught the duos attention.
Retracting her hand from the human's head and turning to look at the collapsing bridge, on which the forces of Dracula's war council had tried to advance into the city of Braila, the moth can't help but whistle in appreciation.
'So many free souls for the taking.' She thinks while seeing the many vampire soldiers falling into the blessed water and bursting into blue flames because of the devious plan from Styria's forces to rig the bridge so that they can collapse it at but a single command.
Quickly pulling out the Tome from her inventory and flipping it open, she fuels magic power into the item and watches how streaks of souls rush out of the water into the black sea of ink flooding from the open pages of the creepy book.
With each soul added, a shriek echoed out of the cover along with a new face pressing against the sickly green leather.
Watching this with terror in his eyes, Hector is forced to listen to the symphony of shrieks for a whole minute as thousands of new faces now adored the cover and back of the leather-bound tome in the demoness's hand.
'Maybe having my legs broken isn't that bad of a deal if I get to be spared from experiencing their fate.' He thinks as he realizes that the being in front of him could do a lot worse to him than just crippling his limbs.
'*whistle* 1'874! That's a nice bounty for not doing anything but be in the right place at the right time.' Happily gazing into the ink covering the pages, now filled with a big swat of drifting souls, all exuding a rather appealing smell that hinted on the few high-grade souls under them and the overall high quality of this harvest.
'All of them are horrible beings that feed on the innocent to survive. And because they are transformed from humans, they retain their ability to fall unlike demon… for some reason... Also a thing that I should maybe take look into down the line. Anyway, seems like vampires are prime targets to get high quality and high-grade souls from.' Reigning in her straying thoughts, the moth places a hand onto the page, letting it sink into the ink till it is submerged completely.
Then she stuffs all the freshly gathered souls into the system, leaving only the three noble ones, because other than those three, they're all mere side-characters and are of no importance.
She cleans out the book before retracting her hand and storing the tome away.
"Sorry about that, would have been a waste to let this opportunity pass by just like that. But no worry, I'm haven't forgotten about you, time snap those legs of yours." Sadistic grin on her face, Juniper looks back at Hector.
"Wait! Just a moment! I am just a normal human. Without my focus tool I can't even use magic. There is no way for me to escape from a dungeon or even this ice. Do you really have to bother with breaking my legs?" He quickly says, desperately trying to reason with the terrifying creature before him and not get crippled in the process.
Pausing at his words, the sadistic grin is replaced with a thoughtful look instead.
"Hm, well, that works too I guess." She agrees with a pout.
"Just isn't that funny. *sigh* but I have other things to do tonight so I'll just go with that then." Accepting the reasoning, if a bit reluctant, the moth pulls out a transmission mirror to the Forgemaster's surprise before assembling it and home it onto the basement underneath the old magician's tower.
Turning to Hector, she snaps her fingers, causing the ice to thaw off him and instead form a solid cage in the shape of a bared cube around him.
Grabbing hold of it with psychokinesis, she lifts it up and pushes it through the mirror.
Placing the cage down, she walks over and pushes her head through the mirror.
"You're going to stay here. The better you behave the less painful things are going to be. Oh, and maybe make peace with the fact that everyone in the castle is going to die." With that she pulls back and stores the mirror in her inventory.
Done with that, Juniper takes to the sky as suspension bridges get fired across the river and anchored on the other side via metal hooks.
Eager to enact the plan of their great queen, the forces of Styria advance over the bridges and begin to charge towards the castle where the council members had retreated to once the main bridge collapsed with their soldiers on it, all the while unaware that their queen had already died a painful and humiliating death.
Seeing the siege equipment being prepared to smash through the castle gate leading into the main hall, the moth scowls and pulls out a crystal ball with a fiery light in its core.
"Like hell I will allow you lowly fucks to break down MY doors!" Not willing to let those nobodies damage what is soon to be hers, she flings the sphere into the sky before activating the [Sun's Tear], releasing 3 hours' worth of sunlight across the surrounding land, forcing the army of nocturnal monsters to face the judgment of the day.