Blood Magic - Golden Trio Era

73. A New Court

Eudoxia had kept her promise. Before the Council even gave an answer, the leaders of Clan Hecata had reached out and pledged loyalty. They always were one of the most unified clans so it was no surprise to Amy that the entire bloodline had soon sworn loyalty. They were a relatively small clan but extremely powerful. They were perhaps the most skilled necromancers and we're exceedingly rich. They managed an intricate web of corporations and crime syndicates. Amy thought they were quite distasteful but she couldn't help but admit that they would be useful.

Herpo and Eudoxia had also wasted no time reconnecting. They were inseparable. They explained to Amy that they had been partners before Herpo even rose to prominence. She was a witch and helped Herpo create his horcrux. She, however, saw a different path to immortality at the unfortunate cost of a loss of witchcraft. Even after she had been turned, they were still partners. Partners in the persuit of power. Partners in life. Partners in love. When he died for the final time before his restoration by Amy, his horcrux had been lost. His followers could never recover it and died in the persuit of it. Eudoxia eventually gave up hope and dedicated herself to her clan, rising to now sit at the very top of it.

Amy, The Court and the Hecata all agreed that they would need a new location for her seat of power. She wanted The Court to remain a secret and didn't want to use a Hecata holdout to not align herself completely with them in the public eye. She wanted a callback to the roots of vampirism. The great monuments dedicated to the original vampires still stood proudly in Egypt. She would build a new temple there. A new city eventually. It would be an extension of the old and also an improvement on it. A bridge between the past and future.

She had learned a ritual from Osiris' tomes. It would block the sun locally, ensuring the vampires could live without worry.

She and Herpo apparated her lovers, members of The Court and some Hecate leadership to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was night time. Those that could fly did so, the others were carried. They flew deep into the desert until they found a large, relatively flat area. Once Amy landed, they joined her.

"This is the place." She declared.

Hermione and Helena nodded and started working on the spells to hide the area from outsiders.

The others all joined Amy in the ritual she had learned. She taught them the process, a number of people were needed for it. It also involved a lot of blood sacrifices, Hecata agents brought a continuous supply of new victims. It was grim work. Amy sent Luna off on an errand, she knew the girl would be uncomfortable with this. Hermione, Helena and Pansy had been desensitised to the cruelty of vampirism. The pooling blood would evaporate into a mist and rise into the sky. The bodies were burned in a great fire. The ash joined the blood mist in rising into the sky. Over time they noticed swirling clouds gathering overhead, they were streaked with black and red.

When the sun 'rose', they didn't see it at all. The entire sky was blotted out with an enormous swirling black and red cloud. It was pitch black. They all cheered that it had been a success. It would require no further maintenance.

She transfugured sand into a obsidian obelisk to signify the centre of her new settlement. A short distance away, Helena worked on placing a stone circle so they could travel there easily.

If she was building such a large monument, Amy wanted her palace to at least serve a purpose. She wanted it to act as a conduit for breaching the veil. Ideally, she wanted her city to be a meeting point between life and death. A place of true immortality. It would be a long process but she was certain that she knew a starting point. Obsidian was a stone with incredible magical potential and could easily be focused into necromantic energies.

She would have four giant obsidian ziggurats built surrounding the central obelisk. She hoped that she would be able to use them to channel enough energy to tear open the veil and open a door to the afterlife. There would be more to it but, for now, it was as good a starting point as any.

The Court and Hecate would procure as much obsidian as possible. Meanwhile Herpo would stay and transfigure it. He would also be the one building the structure. The girls would help when they could but they still had school to attend. He would use magic to turn the individual pieces of obsidian into one giant structure. The buildings would be one 'piece' of obsidian, joined by a central giant bowl with the obelisk at the centre. It was a project more ambitious than any of them had ever seen. Herpo was deeply impressed. With Eudoxia at his side again and a groundbreaking project before him, he felt millenia younger.

When they returned to The Council, they noticed a clearly hostile atmosphere. Partly towards her but also towards each other. Eudoxia had already warned her that the discussions were very heated. A civil war was brewing among the Camarilla. A number wanted to seperate from the legacy of the ancients while others were loyal. Some saw Amy as an upstart, others as the legitimate heir of Osiris. Some wanted to maintain independence, others recognised that their safety lay with the new order.

When she entered the council hall, she was set upon by the wolf-like representative of clan Gangrel. He couldn't even land one blow before Pansy had cruciated him. He writhed on the floor. The councillors watched in shock at what had happened. At what was still happening. After a few minutes, Amy raised a hand to signal Pansy to relent.

She squatted to the chastened vampire.

"This is the response of your clan?" She asked.

He just snarled and rose to his feet. He didn't make eye contact as he stepped around her and left.

Amy hummed. "Anyone else?" She asked.

The Brujah representative stepped forward. He glared at her but knew better than to attack.

"The way we see it, you're a tyrant in the making. We want no part of your 'order'."

Amy nodded, poker faced.

He grunted at her apparent apathy.

The Tzimisce representative approached with a haughty attitude. Amy knew their clan was very fractured so she expected to take their response with a pinch of salt. Regardless, from what she had heard, they had no place in her world anyway. They were too sadistic, too selfish.

"We, likewise, have no desire to exist in your world. 'Equality' with mortals?" He sneered.

Amy again stoically nodded.

The Tzimisce man simply stepped around her and left..

"The Ravnos representative left earlier." The Ventrue councillor declared. "The rest of us have agreed to join you. Some of us are more united than others but we will all work to bring our clans into agreement."

Amy smiled. She was pleased by how many had decided to stay.

"Excellent!" She declared with a clap of her hands. "When you are ready, gather your people and speak to Herpo. He will take you to the founding of my new palace. That will be the beginning of my new capital. Eventually we'll have a hall build for each of the clans. He will contact me and I will be there to meet you. I'll be able to discuss with the leaders of each of your clans what you need of me and I of you."

Over the next week, construction was proceeding at an incredible rate. Each clan sent groups of leaders to meet Amy in her new capital location. They were all awed by the swirling sky and the darkness it brought.

The Ventrue, Nosferatu and Toreadore were very fractured clans and would take a lot of work to unify. Frankly, they were some of the least important clans to Amy anyway. Their specialities lay in exploiting or remaining hidden to mortals, skills that were useful in the past but less so in Amy's future.

The Banu Haqim, Lasombra, Tremere and Followers of Seth were all very unified and presented a united front. Amy was happy to have all of them. They all had skills that Amy could make use of, they were some of the best warriors and sorcerers among vampirekind. The Banu Haqim were also the bloodline of her 'sister' Ammit and the Lasombra of her 'sister' Kebechet. Together they were the three bloodlines from Anubis.

The Malkavian were... Malkavian. They had the vaguest of power structures. Each individual followed their own 'reality'. It would ultimately be up to each individual where they stand. Amy trusted that they would flock to her eventually. Their ability to see 'behind the curtain', to see truths others don't see should bring them to her in time. They would be useful. Their borderline prophetic abilities were incredible if you could understand them.

She was pleased with her new alliances but couldn't help but feel that she'd opened a new front on her shadow war.