There were survivors on that cursed night, Leon was filled with delight. Some of the members in the group was happy to see him and others feign ignorance. What ever it was, Leon was glad. With the registration over, they went to their respective rooms to unload their luggage.

Elle, one of the party members stayed by and had a quick chat with Leon at the fire place. A lot has happen since then. Ever since Dracula’s attack to Shang Wu, only an eighth of the population stayed and those who stayed were those without family or anywhere to go for that matter.

And what of Shang Wu ? Three quarters of the buildings are still in rubble, a Dark Master is running it. Leon leaned back and slumped in his chair, there are times in his mind that he wished he could turn back time to stop this from happening. Elle told him that it wasn’t his fault at all.

Elder Woman :: “Not his fault? This son of Adobel and Montahue is the cause of our misery!”

Elle :: “It wasn’t his fault! We weren’t prepared”

Elder Woman :: “We should have stayed at Zion, at least we were safer there. But look at what happened”

The old woman continued to ramble and pointed fingers at Leon who is now feeling dejected. One of the traveler place her hand on the old woman, it was Javoon’s granddaughter, Agnes. She pulled the old woman away while apologizing to Leon for her actions.

Agnes return a few minutes later and continued to apologize. Leon could see the sincerity of her face but as the apology continued, so too the heaviness in Leon’s heart. To honor those who were gone and to those who survived, he promised to kill Dracula once and for all. A challenging task taking in how Leon was still trying to recover.

Barlowe shouted from the dining room that lunch was serve. Leon, Agnes and Elle went and join the rest for lunch. The children kept pestering the visitors to tell them stories and Barlowe was trying to reprimand them. Those who ate fast were amused and smiled at the kids.

One even invited the children to join him in his room to listen to stories. There were others who kept quiet and spoke very little, much to the sadness of the little ones. Barlowe and Leon learn that they are going to the Vatican to ask for the Holy Order of the Vatican to exorcise the Dark Master living in Shang Wu.

Leon stood up from his place, bowed and started apologizing to all who were there. He then asked if he could join them as they traveled. Shocked by the news, the travelers began to talk among themselves. Some banged the table with their fist, while others got up from their chair and left the dining room. All this and other things happen while Leon was bowing.

Elder Woman :: “You can burn in hell before you join us.”

Young Man :: “Elder Qi, this man is not at fault and you know it. He even tried to protect us when Dracula attacked Shang Wu”

Elder Qi :: “He brought us to Shang Wu, he brought our village back to Shang Wu to be slaughtered”

Young Man :: “Yes he and Queen Sara brought us to Shang Wu. Zion was going to fall and we all agreed to go”

Elder Qi :: “It was a mistake. It was a horrible mistake! You killed my son.. you killed my grandson”

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The Order knew of Tristan’s order to kill Lannister. Though Tristan did not directly kill Lannister directly, the job was done. Some speculated that the Pope wanted Tristan to be in Lannister’s home and activate the sigil to burn all the demons that were there. Other rumors floated but that was the biggest and most influential.

Many of the viziers had asked the Pope to reconsider his statement that was earlier televised. The Pope declined their advise and continued with the story that Tristan betrayed God and the Vatican. With the ever increasing attacks done by Dracula and its Dark Master, the Pope used this to his advantage.

Most people inside the Vatican believed that Tristan did betray the cause of defeating Dracula. They cried out and rallied behind their Pope. And as the Pope continued to spin this tale of belief, he grin ever so slightly.

Meanwhile within the Vatican at the local cafe, two men from the Holy Order talked amongst themselves and the internal strife within the ranks. Morris and Lethde were their names, their position were foot soldiers. Therefore they did not have the sigil engraved on to them.

Morris :: “Did you talk to them?”

Lethde :: “They have agreed but they need to prepare the necessary”

Morris :: “Hmm, we need to do this before we are sent out”

Both of them continued talking, exchanging glances to their sides, making sure no one was listening in to their plan. The cafe was buzzing with commotion as the owner switch on the television. Another city had fallen. This was the 6th city in a span of 2 months and ever since the creation of the blood stones; Dracula’s forces has been increasing steadily. Not that the Vatican wasn’t doing anything at all, they had enough men to make it into a zero sum game.

Yet it is strange that the Pope hasn’t send the forces to quell the onslaught. Most of the troops are sent to protect places which has no military advantage if it was conquered. Morris and Lethde saw this in the past few deployments the other members went for.

Recently some troops were sent to location that has not seen any creatures of the night nor have they sighted any were-beast roaming the area. What was the Vatican doing? Lethde, the younger of the two was known for his wisdom and was to be promoted to receive the sigil.

Due to him questioning the Pope’s attack patterns, the promotion was revoke. Lethde was happy for this incident. There were other members who question this and they were transferred to other departments. Due to his wisdom and also because of Morris’ influence; Lethde stayed in the central department.

Under watched and being place under a 24 hour surveillance, Lethde was feeling rather uncomfortable being at where he was right now. But this was the best place as the surveyors will not do anything in such a public area. Morris and Lethde continued to talking till the late evening before they return to their barracks.

While the above was happening, Leon was helping Barlowe in the kitchen. Both of them receive news that a group of travelers will be staying over for roughly 3 nights. First batch of boarders and they wanted to make their stay as pleasant as it can get.

Steams, smoke and an occasional shouting could be heard. Tomorrow morning will be a good day or so Leon thought as he notice Barlowe sleeping on the kitchen counter.

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The Pope cannot break the will of Barlowe’s father to make the mansion a refuge. However, the Pope has decreed that no financial aid to be given. Thus for the past decade, Aria’s Mansion has been losing money and soon cannot pay the taxes.

Those men were from the Vatican and they want Barlowe to void the will. Removal of the will will allow the Pope to enforce his power and make Aria’s Mansion a training ground once again. Here lies the problem, Barlowe knows that if he did break the will; not only will his father’s mansion be a training ground, the children will be forced to leave.

Furthermore, he can’t guarantee that the children will be safe at another location due to the protective properties of Aria’s Mansion but how is Barlowe going to feed the children and maintain the mansion when there’s no income.

This mansion earn by sending out members of the Holy Order of the Vatican as mercenaries. Those days are now over.

Barlowe :: “And that’s the gist of it”

Leon :: “This land which you own, can’t you live off it?”

Barlowe :: “We can but I still need to pay the taxes that the Vatican imposes.”

Leon :: “Get the elder kids to work, let them go to the restaurant at Gethsemane and be waiters and waitresses there”

Barlowe :: “But…”

Leon :: “No buts. And I am certain that the children would be more than willing to help. You have helped them for so long, certainly they will repay the favor.”

Not left with any choice, Barlowe conceded. Leon took leave and went to his room to rest. Barlowe called the children from their rooms

Barlowe :: “Children of Aria…”

He began to tell his tale and the situation the Mansion was in. The children from the youngest to the eldest asked what they could do to help. Barlowe was moved and said he will let them know tomorrow morning but now is time to rest.

Aria’s Mansion was surprisingly quiet when Leon woke up from his sleep. Some of the children were there and some were well not at home obviously. Giggles could be heard and they were giggles of both little children and of adults.

In the room which Leon walk into, Barlowe was arranging the furniture with his servants. Some of the children were laughing as the grunts that bellowed out of Barlowe. Even his own servants were laughing. Barlowe was a man on a mission, a mission to shift furniture.

After some several tugs, yanks and a whole load of grunts, mission accomplish. Barlowe gave a hug to the children who quickly ran away from the sweaty man. Leon was impressed at how the room looks and proceeded to ask Barlowe what he was doing.

Claps began to echo the room. What a brilliant idea Barlowe had implemented and it might just work. A rest house for travelers before they continue their journey. Leon did not say much as it was indeed brilliant and this should keep the Vatican away for awhile.

Now the elder children who were not at home, they were at Gethsemane promoting the new rest house to the travelers there. They told their story to everyone even to the inn keepers who had business at Gethsemane.

A simple deal, if their rooms are too full; send them to Aria and a small fee will be given. A win-win situation for both. Also, many of the town’s folk at Gethsemane were in good terms with Barlowe and his parents back in the days. Of course they did all they could to help them.

Elsewhere at the Vatican, things were not going well. Ever since Tristan’s betrayal, there has been an uproar. Some of the members of the Holy Order of the Vatican showed their annoyance with what had happened. They were not angry with Tristan betrayal but what the Pope did.

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Serge for one is a sucker for family days, fun fair and events that brings people together. That is why roughly two weeks ago he was at the British International School of Kuala Lumpur‘s Jungle Jamboree.

There was another event which Serge attended before coming here but due to a series of unfortunate mishaps. That post which was once written is now no more. Well back to tonight’s entry.

Read the rest of Jungle Jamboree at British International School Kuala Lumpur (198 words)

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Leon’s mind was running a race. The sigil should have protected Tristan, so why did he join Dracula? Why isn’t the Vatican doing anything? As the newscaster continued, they showed clips of Tristan’s back all burn and revealing his inner flesh.

Did the Vatican burn Tristan because he did not finish his mission and quell the rampage on that night? Leon banged the table with his fist and Barlowe looked and then lowered his gaze. This Tristan person must mean a lot to Leon.

Moonlight was shining the brightest and it was time to sleep.

Crashing and breaking of plates could be heard. Seconds after came crying and a mix of laughter. While preparing breakfast one of the children fell and hit Barlowe who got flour all over himself. Leon who was at the table couldn’t help but laugh at a whitish looking Barlowe.

After having breakfast, Leon went to the town of Gethsemane located to the east of Aria’s mansion. Here he purchased a few armor parts and some whips. Talking to the locals, Leon learn that the people of Shang Wu had held a funeral session for their beloved Queen Sara.

Another news that caught wind and piqued his interest was that Luke, Lucius and Lusive are much alive but are under mind control by Dracula’s Dark Masters. Chances were slim and it was crazy, but Leon had thoughts in his head of rescuing the three of them.

Such craziness would have put him into the mental ward, but with miracles such as Tristan defecting the Holy Order; this is nothing. Paying his wares, Leon bid farewell to the shopkeeper and walked to Gethsemane Park.

At the park stood the remnants of the Tree of Woe. Legend has it that the person who planted the tree cried woefully and it was her tears that gave this tree its holy power. Because of this holy vestige, citizens from all around flock to see the tree before it leaves. One elderly couple talked and were intrigued by the tree.

They said that 10 years ago when they came, this tree had less branches and more leafs on it. Now it has more branches and less leafs, which was a miracle as the couples believed that the Tree of Woe would have been gone by then.

Enough of the stories being told, Leon got up from the bench and walk back to Aria’s Mansion. The words spoken by the elderly couple kept ringing in his ear as he travel the pathway towards the mansion.

Late afternoon and as he entered the mansion, Leon could hear Barlowe being angry. It wasn’t to the children but to a group of three middle age man sitting in front of Barlowe’s work table.

Barlowe :: “My answer is no!”

Person 1 :: “Come on Barlowe, it’s just a signature.”

Barlowe :: [[ banging the table ]] “Get out of my mansion right now”

Barlowe’s guard drag the man out while the other two who were silent left peacefully. Barlowe was fuming and took a deep breath before swapping all the paper he had on the table. The ink bottle flew, his bottle of bourbon broke.

He sat down and notice Leon who was standing at the entrance. Barlowe lowered his head and slouch on his chair.

Barlowe :: “ I’m sorry that you had to see that debacle.”

Leon :: “I know it isn’t my right do ask but can you tell me what is happening?”

Barlowe :: “I guess there is no point in hiding. Sooner or later you will learn about it. Grab a seat Leon, this will take awhile.”

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Barlowe :: “Come now Leon, let us take a walk in the gardens.”

Leon took a cane and followed Barlowe. The Alchemic Whip that he use was destructive indeed. The more he use it to destroy or to exorcise the monsters and demons, it places a heavy weight in him. When he finishes his fight, that weight turns into injury.

He has yet to learn how to get the whip to work without him getting injured as a side effect of it. As Leon walk downstairs, little children were running about and playing with each other. Leon let out a small smile and was happy to see that the children could still be children in such a day and age.

Right now for the time being, even with a deep intention to go up against Dracula; Leon knew his condition would kill him if he went. He was grateful for Barlowe’s hospitality and wisdom. Aria’s keeper maybe a young man but Barlowe’s wisdom is beyond his age.

While the kids were playing in the garden, Barlowe had given a few task to Leon to perform in a span of 3 hours. Some were easy and some were ridiculously hard but not impossible to do. Most of it involved Leon’s back and leg muscles.

Leon could see the benefits and took the task without hesitation. While performing one of his task, a group of children accidentally knocked him over. Raising his hand, Leon was about to hit them before Barlowe grab and stop him from doing so.

Barlowe :: “You can do what you wish to do in the task I gave you. However, you cannot raise your hand against the children, Leon Belmont.”

Looking at his raise hand, Leon lowered his hand. What was he thinking ? To raise a hand against the innocent. Leon slumped into the corner and weep a bit. How long has it been since he lost Sara? Most probably a month has passed Leon by. He was angry that he couldn’t do anything at all and is currently at the mercy of not Barlowe but his own body.

Barlowe stretched out his hand and spoke words of encouragement. True enough that right now Leon can’t do anything but that does not mean he should give up. Leon took his hand, got up and started his task from the very beginning.

It was now dinner time. The children played with the food and made quite a mess. A strong and gentle voice broke out from Barlowe’s lips and the children sat quietly. Though they did play a bit when Barlowe wasn’t watching. Leon was being pestered by the kids as they wanted to know more of him.

He would like to say no but their eyes speak and after having the last few scoops of his dinner, excuse himself and brought the children to the living room. Here Leon began to tell his tale of how he ended up at Aria’s Mansion.

There were oohs, there were wows and there was even laughter and some shedding of tear. After Leon completed his story telling; the children who were in attendance gave him a hug and thank him for the story.

Barlowe was watching from the corner and when the children left, stepped out and clap. He laughed and teased Leon. Both of them laugh and had themselves a drink or two while watching the TV. News of more cities falling to Dracula’s attack has been increasing. Every channel on the television reports it as so.

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Something went wrong with the server, that is the reason why some post are missing from the blog.

We do not know what cause the problem, it could be a plugin or it could be something else. Or it could be a combination of a new plugin which we have installed and the transferring of name servers over to Cloudflare.

All of a sudden our login to the WordPress was disabled. Dashboard was in accessible at all. Thankfully the people from WPWebhost for being quick in restoring old data backups. Still no idea what went wrong and why our admin login went fucked. All because we wanted to make this site load quicker.

How is the loading speed of this website? Well after putting Cloudflare, Pingdom Tools mention that this blog loads at 4.78 seconds. Uncertain if this speed is true as the testing server is in the US and the server of this blog is in the US as well.

Since Dustyhawk :: Broken Mirror is based in Malaysia; the Pingdom tool might be a bit off. Also the latency in this country is bitch. Home connection feels slow when this page loads but feels fast when it is an office connection. Even though both ends uses the same connection speed.

Will be trying out a few more plugin such as W3 Total Cache and a slow asynchronous loader. Again to those who came and saw that the post was 2010, really sorry about that.

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Soon the area which Leon was in was as clear as daylight. Speaking about daylight, the moon was slowly going down and the sun was soon to rise. Just like before, Leon climbed down the jail tower and this time he was busy killing or exorcising the demons and monsters who was attacking him.

Demons, monsters, were-beast and other foul creatures screamed. This whip which Leon was now using is as dangerous as it is on them as it is on him. He was now on one knee and in front of him might be the throne room to where Dracula resides. Leon was breathing heavily and his vision was getting blurry.

He moved forward and place his hand on the door’s handle. While pushing the door open, something gave Leon a good punch in his gut. Causing Leon to lose consciousness. A figure dress in white with a similar colored hood covering the face. The figure turned and face towards the door which is now wide open.

Dracula :: “Come if you dare mortal”

Mystery Person :: “I am not foolish”

With that, the person jump down the castle with Leon still unconscious. Dracula grin and went back to his throne and sat. Though its wife is now dead, the Dark Lord was happy that the blood stones was working fine and the three men who can help produce it; was much under Dracula’s control.

Voice were shouting back and forth. People were running up and down, some were carrying book, some were carrying trays of food. Staring into the horizon stood a young man with a sword at his side.

Maid :: “Young Master, will you be visiting him?”

Young Master :: “Yes I will. Do bring up a pot of tea”

Maid :: “Right away young master”

The young man went up a flight of steps and knocked the door before entering. On the bed lying was Leon who was half upright, back against the bed’s backdrop and he was staring at the children playing in the gardens below.

A knock was heard and the earlier maid had a pot of tea , two cups and a basket of scones with her. The young master took the tray and the maid excuse herself. The young man prepared two cups of tea and invited Leon to have a cup.

Leon :: “Thank you for saving me that night. Master Barlowe.”

Barlowe :: “Barlowe is enough Mr. Belmont.”

Leon :: “Likewise you can call me Leon”

Barlowe :: “And it wasn’t me who rescued you from the Dracula’s tower, whoever that person was, they left you at my doorsteps.”

Looking at Barlowe, he must be telling the truth for there is no way this person could have carried Leon on his own. So who was it that safe him from a pointless death. The place where Leon is now residing is named Aria’s Mansion.

Located near the Vatican, Aria’s Mansion was once the training ground for the Holy Order of the Vatican. Now it is a refuge for the children who lost their parents due to Dracula or by the Dark Lord’s minion.

Barlowe’s parents were the owner of Aria before they fell ill due to illness, leaving him the sole heir to the property and his parent’s possession. Before his father’s death, Barlowe’s old man gave him a will and it was in that will, he was asked to make Aria a safe haven for those who lost their love ones.

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