Liliana had thought the storm would be the worst thing they would run into in their flight from her invaded home, but she had been wrong. The storm had eventually subsided, but the countryside of Stensia had become a twisted zoo. Liliana noted that every passerby had something reshaped about them. The bodies of roving vampires had the wrong silhouettes, always with too few of something, or too many. Anatomically improbable travelers raved prophecies of stone and sea at them as they staggered in diagonals.

Their trek had been long, lasting deep into the night - the werewolves had torn through her horses and zombies both, leaving them to walk. But now, finally, Liliana, Gared, and (haltingly) Dierk, had arrived at the monumental door.

Lurenbraum Fortress soared above them, a stark cliff with a citadel that protruded directly from the rock face. Higher up, the utilitarian architecture softened and elongated into tiers of ornate leaded windows, each one with its own floating chandelier of twinkling candles. In many of the windows, vampires peered down at them, wearing gleaming ancestral armor.

Liliana gestured for Gared to knock.

Gared gawked at the door's height. "You really know the lady of the house?" he asked.

Dierk, for his part, made a gurgling noise. The man's neck was broken, so his head rested at a weird angle and his throat looked lumpy. But at least his legs had gotten him here, and at least his arms had been capable of carrying the spent witchbane orb. Gared's long coat was strapped tight around Dierk's midsection, doing its best to hold the remainder of the dead man's insides in. Liliana raised her hand slightly, and Dierk squared his shoulders, but his head still dangled to one side. The desiccated tongue wouldn't stay completely inside his mouth, contributing to the gurgle. Liliana shrugged.

"I make it my business to know those who wield power," Liliana said. "As does she."

( Gared banged on the door and stood back. )

[Taken and only minimally adapted from "Innistrad's Last Hope" by Doug Beyer. Follows this. NFB, NFI, OOC is wonderful!]

Rain hammered against the windows. A flash of lightning illuminated bare stone walls and a couple of shambling corpses. A boom of thunder followed half a breath later. Getting closer, then. Good. She needed the lightning, and the storm matched her mood. She sat on a high-backed stone chair, brooding.

How did it come to this?

Every path she sought toward freedom only seemed to lead her to more closed doors, more dead ends to escape. She'd made demonic pacts to make herself ageless, undying, at the paltry cost of a soul she was hardly using anyway.

Her breath no longer steamed, even on cold nights like this one.

But demons were harsh masters, and soon she found herself working to subvert her pacts, to kill her demons - to have immortality and freedom both. And so...the Chain Veil.

It whispered to her, even now, from the hidden pocket where she kept it. With it, she had killed two demons, lords among their kind. With it, she had once more commanded armies of the undead to nearly rival the hordes she had controlled with a thought before the Mending, had kicked a hole in the walls of heaven to spite angels that would damn an innocent soul to the Abyss.

But the Veil...

She could no longer bring herself to wear the thing on her face, to feel its silken-soft links against her skin. She hated touching it. But when she tried to get rid of it, it stubbornly clung to her skin and the pain for attempting was unbearable. Too many hours in Innistrad, working with Olivia's geistmage, in an attempt to suborn the Onakke spirits within the Veil, to turn them to her will. Too many hours that ended with her gasping on the floor, whimpering in agony as their laughs echoed inside her head.

But using it was worse.

( A familiar voice )

[Cut up and taped back together again from "Liliana's Indignation," by Kelly Digges. NFB, NFI, nine million thanks to chef_chocobro whose awesomeness cannot be codified by mere words. Comes after this, comes before this.]