"Hmm." "Ah." "Hmm." "Fresh oil." "Anybody home?" "Warm." "That's weird." "I can hear you." "I'm armed, and a lot less happy than you are... so you want to stay well out of my way." "Whoa!" "Oh!" "Ha!" "Reflexes like a cat." "Oh!" "Unh!" "Oh." "Either someone left a statue of a Speaker down here, or..." "Cyclops!" "Stone-eye cyclops." "Right out of the family bestiary." "God shits in my dinner once again." "Oopf!" "Come on." "Come on!" "You're dead!" "Stop and notice you're dead." "Ugh!" "Bastard." "Ew." "Granddaughter, then." "Ah." "I wish Speakers wouldn't do that." "What?" "Dress the girls like boys." "It's safer when we travel." "What happened?" "You walked into a cyclops." "Turns you to stone with its eyeball and feeds on your terror while you're trapped in your own body." "Did... did you climb on me?" "Mm, a bit." "That was rude." "Excuse me?" "Who are you, anyway?" "I met your grandfather." "He wouldn't leave the city until he had your body." "I came down to recover your remains so the Speakers would go to safety." "But the Sleeping Warrior is still down here." "There is no Sleeping Warrior, just a cyclops waiting for people stupid enough to go looking." "It's a trap for gullible Speakers." "You're not popular around here." "The old wisdom says the tomb is guarded..." "Yeah, yeah." "Come on." "Time to go home." "Your people think you're dead." "The least you can do is set that old man's mind to rest." "He thinks I'm dead?" "He wasn't much wrong." "Killing a cyclops is the only way to restore a victim." "Didn't think I'd manage it." "Who are you?" "Trevor Belmont." "But the Belmonts fight monsters." "I'm out of practice." "Let's show you to your grandfather, and then you can come down here and get killed again." "Deal?" "Very well." "I'm Sypha Belnades." "I don't care." "Oh!" "Thank you." "Mm." "You're welcome." "I failed to find the Sleeper." "I'm sorry!" "Oh, hush." "Hush now, my angel." "I very much doubt there's anyone down there." "It's probably a booby-trapped legend." "There's someone wriggling with pleasure in his coffin right now thinking of people like your girl walking into the cyclops he left down there." "Or perhaps there is something down there so important that it must be guarded by monsters." "Your Messiah isn't down there." "And what makes you so sure?" "You Speakers carry information down through the generations." "We Belmonts pass things down as well." "Do you remember what we saw down there?" "Metal veins pumping hot liquid?" "Torches that light by themselves that exactly fit descriptions written by my great-grandfather." "Descriptions of the inside of Dracula's castle." "I don't know what's down there, but it's not a messiah." "I'll leave you all to it." "No, no... nonsense." "Please, stay with us for as long as you like." "I cannot begin to repay what I owe you." "You're leaving tonight, remember?" "Well, uh, yes." "Until then." "Right." "I'll come back later." "See if you can find some beer." "I could pee in a bucket and tell him it's beer." "Sypha, he saved your life!" "He's rude." "Uh, careful." "My knife hand's not too steady." "I could slip and take your eye out." "The Bishop of Gresit requests your kind attendance at the church." "I don't think I'm allowed into churches." "The bishop says he'll make an exception in your case." "No." "Seriously." "I realize you're trying to menacingly abduct me, but I'm excommunicated." "The bishop said to tell you that the terms of even major excommunication mean that you are obliged to appear when summoned by the Church." "Well, shit." "Look, if I enter the church and catch fire or something, it's your fault." "I am the Bishop of Gresit." "You're not from around here." "No." "I'm originally from Targoviste." "I was an aide to the archbishop." "How did you divine that?" "Well, you're not running away screaming like the rest of the locals, for one thing." "From you?" "From the baby-eating freaks of nature who apparently raid Gresit every night." "I'm here to save Gresit." "And how do you intend to do that?" "I brought you here to answer some questions, not ask them." "Well, tough shit!" "How exactly do you intend to help these people by killing Speakers?" "The Speakers brought these troubles upon themselves." "One cannot live without God... quite literally, in these days." "You think the night hordes came because people weren't religious enough?" "And you were at Targoviste?" "The Archbishop had certain... interests that I believe compromised his ability to protect the city and the country." "I was sent away long before Dracula came to Targoviste." "We disagreed on matters of clerical discipline." "But you were there for the burning of Dracula's wife." "I heard all about that." "Oh, yes." "I arranged it, in fact." "The woman was a witch." "And there can be no doubt now that she consorted with the devil." "She even married him." "I see." "And I'm here to be disciplined?" "Not as such." "I have a gift for you." "Your life, Belmont." "Take it and go." "Tonight, the Speakers will be dealt with, and then Gresit will be secure." "I refuse, however, to toil so hard for the soul of this city with an excommunicant heretic within its walls." "You could undo everything by your very presence." "My God." "You really believe it, don't you?" "You will leave Gresit by sundown, or you will not see the morning." "Do I make myself clear?" "Despite the crimes you've committed against my aides, despite the crimes your family has committed against God, you will walk safely until sundown." "My family committed no crime." "You people simply decided we were wrong to defend this land against the supernatural." "And now..." "You Belmonts have never understood the power of the Word of God!" "The people of this city are mine and our Lord's now, and they'll do as I ask in His name." "By morning, no Speaker will defile these streets, and you will either be gone or be dead." "Do you understand?" "Yes." "Do this thing for me, and the matter of your excision from the church will be something we can discuss." "No offense, but you are just a bishop." "Excommunication came from a little higher up the ladder." "Targoviste is gone." "The other great cities are lost or losing." "Gresit will be the last major city in Wallachia." "To all intents and purposes," "I will be the church." "Trevor!" "Join us." "Sure." "By the way, you're all going to die." "What?" "The current bishop of this place is..." "Well, he's beyond insane." "Over the top and into new lands of just snake-fuckingly crazy, and convinced that the salvation of Gresit lays in you people being torn to pieces by a mob." "When?" "Before the sun goes down." "By his logic, you have to die before the night creatures conduct their next raid." "What happens if we stay and survive?" "Well, then the night creatures will come anyway, and the church will blame you, and it'll start all over again." "This feels wrong." "To be driven out for a lie that will doom these people, it is not a Speaker thing." "We had an agreement." "I don't think it's a Belmont thing, either." "I don't care." "You need to leave, and leave now." "I don't think we can leave these people, not in their time of need!" "These people believe you're causing their time of need!" "Only because they are being misled by the Church." "Does one run away when someone tells lies about them?" "What have the Church said about the Belmonts?" "That you have been corrupted by dealings with the supernatural, that you mock God, that you are threat to the common good, and that evil follows wherever you go." "And what did you do in the face of that?" "I didn't run away." "Really." "So, what are you running to?" "Did you have a destination in mind?" "Are you calling me a coward?" "No." "I am calling you defeated, Trevor Belmont." "You fought your battle and you decided you lost." "We didn't have a choice." "Perhaps." "But we do." "We carry with us the accumulated wisdom of this great country." "We will use that to fight our battle." "You'll lose." "We might well lose." "But, if nothing else, we might show someone that, although battles are won and lost, there is a larger war at stake." "With Dracula's armies?" "No." "A war for the soul of our people." "Because if we truly are the sort of people who will kill one another at the behest of a madman's fantasies," "Then perhaps it is right and proper that things from Hell should rise up to wipe us out." "It's time for those of us who fight that war to stand up and be responsible, Trevor Belmont." "You should leave now." "No." "You're leaving right now." "Where are the Speakers?" "I've put them somewhere safe." "I swear it just moved." "You defend evil." "Give them to us!" "Shut up." "What?" "Shut up." "You're not getting the Speakers." "You're getting no blood today, so shut up." "Unh!" "You will give us the Speakers so that we can save this city." "This city's lost." "It was lost when you and the rest of your scum moved in." " Ow." " And what?" "You are here to fight us?" "You're here to convince the people that nomad black magicians are good for Gresit, and it is the presence of men of God that brought the night hordes upon us?" " You know..." " Silence!" "Look at you." "You're a wreck." "You stink." "You can barely keep your eyes open." "What do you expect to achieve against us?" "Absolutely nothing." "So you're going to die for nothing?" "For people you don't know?" "I don't know any of you, but that doesn't matter, does it?" "My family, the family you demonized and excommunicated, has fought and died through generations for this country." "We do this thing for Wallachia and her people." "We don't have to know you all." "We do it anyway." "And it's not the dying that frightens us." "It's never having stood up and fought for you." "I am Trevor Belmont of the House of Belmont, and dying has never frightened me." "Good." "Aah!" "Ooh..." "There he is!"