To her dismay, the odd, sexually charged mental pictures kept popping up. Every time she dropped her guard at that. She felt she should have caught on sooner, but it wasn't until the fourth or fifth incident that it occurred to her Lamya was responsible. Apparently the demon was taking vengeance for Trixie's previous offense, and in a very creative albeit perturbing way. Trixie could only hope she got bored with it sooner rather than later.
'I won't,' Lamya promised.
It was hard, but Trixie managed to resist the urge to start arguing with her again, and ignored the demon instead. It would only provoke the disturbingly tantalizing scenes Lamya was painting in her head, and Trixie couldn't let herself be distracted.
Thankfully, it wasn't long before she was out of the manor and out in the estate grounds. A sinister mist engulfed the normally tranquil grounds, giving her pause for a moment or two. She forced back memories of keening hounds and the death and rot that accompanied it, then resumed her forward progress. There was nothing on the grounds that she couldn't handle, and she had Lamya as added insurance. Letting the ghosts of her past deter her now would be foolish.
As she scurried down the path, she was surprised to note that the lamps in the workshop where still flickering, which meant they were still working. There was no denying Rathus and Titus were a pair of workaholics, but they were normally asleep by this point. They took their rest as seriously as they took their work, so the fact they were still up could only mean they'd come to the same conclusion as Trixie, which also meant they'd be extra jittery tonight. Knowing that even the slightest snap of the tiniest twig could very well trigger a chain reaction leading up to a potential explosion—depending on what materials Titus was messing with—or something even worse, Trixie stepped carefully.
"Out for an evening stroll?"
In her effort to avoid the shed or making any noise that could startle its occupants, Trixie had failed to notice Orval's approach. His voice caused her to jump, and she had to clap her hand over her own mouth to stifle a scream. Once she had calmed her beating heart somewhat, she rounded on him.
"Don't sneak up on me like that!" She hissed.
"I wish you'd practice what you preach and extend that same courtesy to my men," Orval replied, folding his arms. It was all Trixie could do to keep herself from rolling her eyes at him. "Seriously, is it completely necessary to harass the patrols? I could understand once, maybe even twice, but every single night? Don't you have anything better to do?"
"For your information, those men have really shaped up since I got here," Trixie scoffed. "Frankly, you should be thanking me! Since I started my training, they've become at least twice as vigilant! So what if Captain What's-his-face soiled himself?"
"What are you up to this time?" Orval covered his face. Trixie kept her smile about his evident exasperation to herself as she wondered if it hurt when he pinched his nose that tightly.
"Practice," She replied smoothly with a swish of her tail. It wasn't a complete lie. The guardsmen were excellent test subjects for her developing skills in stealth and subterfuge, and she had every intention of testing her ability to slip by them undetected.
"Don't you ever take a break?" Orval questioned.
"No rest for the wicked," Trixie shrugged. So saying, she hurried past and ignored his grumbling as she went. No doubt he was spouting some nonsense about her needing to be more lady-like.
Once she was a safe distance from Orval, Trixie released a breath and steeled herself for the encounter to come. Emerick's estate was near the far boarder of the palace grounds, so she reached the perimeter walls quickly and without further incident. In the darkness provided by the wall's shadow from the dim moonlight, passing beneath the patrolling guardsmen was child's play.
That night marked two weeks from the time Emerick hosted that tea party and they'd had the misfortune of crossing paths with Vicky for the first time since the fall of the Honey Pot Institute. Knowing the persistent stalker as well as she did, Trixie was certain Vicky would make a move that night, and she was confident she knew the location where she would strike. Now, it was a race against the clock to reach her before she was apprehended by the palace guards. There was not a doubt in Trixie's mind she would be captured if she didn't intervene.
To anyone without intimate knowledge of the palace grounds and their workings, one section of the perimeter wall seemed a very appealing option for infiltration. Thanks to the stretch of forest on either side of it, there were parts of the wall that were completely overgrown and consequently provided lots of cover. The volume of guards patrolling that segment of the wall was light, compared to the rest of the perimeter. Finally, the cherry on top from Vicky's standpoint was that it was conveniently close to Emerick's training grounds and by extension the work shop.
What Vicky couldn't know was that the forest was, in fact, a hub of paranormal activity. For some reason or other—Jacoby had probably explained it at one point but Trixie tended to tune out his lengthier lectures at this point—the forest possessed a dense concentration of spiritual energy. Consequently, it attracted the souls of the departed, gentle and malevolent alike.
It was likely there were wards and enchantments in place to try and contain or dispel the undead, but from what Trixie understood spirits could be pretty tricky to deal with. Unlike the corporeal undead, like zombies, ghouls, or the legion hordes, most wards weren't effective at containing or restraining ethereal entities. She wasn't familiar with specifics, but it had something to do with the netting effect of the spells and effects of plains, and a whole lot of other mumbo jumbo she didn't really understand. Whatever the case, only death hounds, demons, or very skilled exorcists were capable of contending with disembodied souls like ghosts, wraiths, shades, poltergeists, and so on.
This, of course, meant that the few guards patrolling the walls were highly vigilant, top of their class, and high level sorcerers and priests to boot. Furthermore, there were less on the walls because there were more patrolling on the ground, and all of those guards had death hound familiars. Trixie had learned all this the hard way her first night sneaking out.
'And why aren't we just letting the guard capture this psycho?' Lamya questioned.