—
His entire body feeling as though it were floating in the air, Gustave now saw that the process of entering his mind palace—or divine kingdom—did not pull in only himself. His maids, Cerys, and the three fallen gods were being sucked inside with him as well.
Emerging from the earth and onto the streets of his steampunk metropolis, he created for himself a solar-powered skateboard—a Solar Surfer—and rode it toward the quarantined side of the city.
Seeing his maids, Cerys, and the three fallen gods squirming in fear, surrounded by tall walls, all kinds of automatons, and mounted weapons, he waved his hand to send them on their way before approaching the first members of the Coin Club.
"Gustave… Gustave, what was that? They looked so scary…"
"Y-yes, Your Highness. What was that? Isn't this the mind palace you talked about? Why are there so many moving objects? I-it's like the city is alive…? Every corner and every part of it. At most, I can only command one or two imagined living creatures before getting exhausted."
Turning to Cerys and Delilah, Gustave answered, "That is my defense system. The details aren't important. What you need to know is that the more deeply you understand something you wish to imagine, the easier it becomes. Now come. Let me show you the gathering place of the Club."
While adding to himself, 'And restore these fallen gods with the residue of Ethereal Plane Ether Power. Maybe with it, they'll be able to heal the four of you to full health.'
So producing five Solar Surfers so that they could fly alongside him, Gustave noticed that because he had never cared much about the "aliveness" or vividness of the metropolis back when he re-created it, the city still felt jagged—like an incomplete illusion.
Not wanting this place to feel like merely an illusion but a real, living city, he decided to do something about it.
With a wave of his hand, he created numerous constructs that bolstered both the defense and the aesthetic of the place. Even the river that flowed through every part of the city now housed its own ecosystem: mechanical frogs forging their own eggs to reproduce, and swarms of fish that consumed fallen bolts and gears to duplicate themselves.
"Your Highness!!! Are you sure this is just a mind palace?! It feels like any other city! Even now there are people made out of brass and copper! Look there—some of them are going into a bank, and some are entering a pet store! And…"
Smiling in amusement at Delilah's amazement—at his creation, imagination, and understanding that made this metropolis feel like a real place—Gustave couldn't help but think.
If their mind palaces, or divine kingdoms, were connected… or perhaps even assimilated into one… it might become something capable of bolstering their creativity—just like that last prayer he had made out of pure bullshitness.
"The society of orchestral music that wields enlightenment."
He speculated, guided by instinct and Ritualistic Magic, that such a place could become far more sophisticated—something akin to Mount Olympus for the Greek Pantheon or Asgard for the Norse Pantheon.
But he also knew that by assimilating them, both he and whoever joined with him would lose full authority over their respective mind palaces.
Since he understood that when two dreams combine, they cease to be dreams and instead become a convergence projection, he dropped the idea. He still wanted his independence—and full authority over his own divine kingdom.
But maybe he could find a middle ground—one that could serve as a platform for collective ambitions and the personal desires of individuals.
So, thinking hard on how he could achieve that, Gustave suddenly remembered that, guided by instinct when approaching this question from the Ritualistic Magic side of things, the kind of person who could help him was an oneiromancer—someone with the gift of dreams and mind.
And considering that, unlike the Tarot Club Klein created, he wanted his own club to house many people so he could turn the strength of the collective into tangible Power no matter how high his Power level rose in the future, he needed an oneiromancer who could pass their gift down through their descendants—like Corinne Tilly.
Because he knew that this thing he wanted to build could not be maintained by a single oneiromancer alone, he needed someone whose line could continue administering the platform no matter how large it became.
So, considering that Corinne Tilly would have a descendant in the future named Condwiramurs Tilly, he knew she and the entire Tilly family were the perfect candidates to become the operators and moderators capable of hosting many divine kingdoms.
Coming out of his contemplation, Gustave and his party finally arrived at the Coin Club, where every member would gather later.
Performing a superhero landing after a flip—since in this place he could do anything—he said to everyone present, "From now on, after you chant the incantations of this place, you will be transported into this circle beneath me."
"Gustave! That's… that's so cool! Teach me how to do it, will ye?"
"Later, Cerys. Later…"
After briefly showing off to Cerys—because he couldn't wait to try it in real life now that his physical body was fully athletic—he refocused and reminded them how to enter the club.
"But before that, you need to register your Coin Protocol—or CP—Address. So each of you, create a coin that represents yourselves. Manifest it on your finger, and press it against this coinprint-scanner machine."
Producing his own coin—which looked like Dogecoin, complete with a dog's face similar to Knickers—Gustave, while pressing the coin, couldn't help but think of the mangy little recruit, knowing the puppy was probably not even born yet. His thoughts, however, were broken by Cerys's question.
"Gustave! What's that ye've made?! What kind of coin is that to ye?!"
"Oh, this? This is just a brass coin I dubbed Dogecoin. So… have you already picked your own personally crafted coin?"
"Oh?! Ye picked a dog for the face of your coin?! Then I'll… I'll pick a bear, with copper material! I'll name it… Bearbcoin!"
Having a matching pair of brass and copper materials—just like typical steampunk craft—Gustave laughed and said, "Nice… We've got a matching pair of brass and copper, Cerys."
"Hahahahaha!"
Now, with everyone creating their own versions of coins, Gustave led them through all kinds of rooms, eventually arriving at the star observatory he had planned to upgrade.
This upgrade—now possible thanks to the intuition he had gained through Ritualistic Magic—was meant to let the observatory pierce the veil of the Ethereal Plane, allowing him to spy on the gods and draw just a small amount of its power without fully anchoring his territory there.
And now, he intended to use this star observatory to siphon Ether Power into the fallen gods, giving them enough strength to speak, and eventually enough Power to restore his maids' missing limbs in the real world—a way for them all to help one another in their time of need.
But suddenly, the ability he had always considered useless from the Dawnwalker path—[Focus Mode], far weaker than his [Knowledge] Beyonder ability—flared to life. It rang in his mind like the chittering shriek of bats, pushing his intuition forward and warning him that siphoning from, or even spying on, the Ethereal Plane was a very bad idea.
Feeling a strange mix of nervousness and unease—because so many of his abilities now relied on intuition, something he had never liked since intuition is not based on established fact—Gustave tried to reason it out. Eventually, he accepted this part of his life as well: he was no longer just a human and a Beyonder, but also a Dawnwalker.
Thinking it through, he deduced that siphoning from the Ethereal Plane might even unravel parts of the history he had already altered. Since entities in the Ether could eventually observe and interpret the "blurred" history he had forced into superposition, siphoning might give them a trail—turning the blurred into the traceable.
So he sighed with a heavy heart and eventually settled on using only the Para-Elemental Plane to siphon Power for restoring the fallen gods. His intuition flared again the moment he considered using the ordinary Elemental Plane, warning him that it was just as dangerous as the Ethereal Plane.
From that, he deduced that the Elemental Plane also housed countless beings on par with the Ether gods. Finally understanding why the Aen Elle—or more precisely, their elven sages—always used the Para-Elemental Plane to breed their hounds instead of the Elemental Plane, Gustave chose the same path, treating it as his own kind of magical oil deposit.
These Para-Elemental realms blurred the boundary between the physical world and the metaphysical, making them far safer for magic-capable individuals to draw from, since they usually had no true "owner" capable of defending or claiming the realm.
With the basic deductions complete in his mind, he clapped his hands, shifting the entire room the way the Ancient One would twist the Mirror Dimension.
He then began restructuring the star observatory according to the patterns he had seen burned into the pathways of his own blood flow across his brain—patterns that appeared whenever he contemplated siphoning Power from another plane of existence.
Telling his maids to place the fallen gods into their respective circles, Gustave once again chanted in Elder Speech—words that simply felt appropriate for the occasion—while occasionally inserting mathematical diagrams of star constellations into the observatory machine above the fallen gods, the only strictly logical part of the ritual.
Then, beginning a sequence of martial movements—copying the bending stances from the Avatar series: fire, water, earth, and air—he circled the room, guided entirely by feeling and intuition. At last, he finished by pressing his palms together in an Anjali Mudra.
"ARRRRGHHH!!!!!"
"Nehaleni, Veyopatis, Morrigan! Hang in there just a minute! The Power of the Para-Elemental Plane is crude—I can't find a better source!"
"Son of Steam! Just me—just pour it into me! I don't know what we agreed to or why, but we already planned for all the Power to go through me!"
[7th Madness Barrier: 20 → 18.]
[Controlled Madness: 0.]
Knowing that the gods might exist across past, present, and future—and knowing they held knowledge he did not—Gustave simply followed Nehaleni's instruction.
In doing so, he left Veyopatis and Morrigan with barely enough Power for them to speak, realizing that mortals—except Ciri—cannot handle such a large amount of Power, or it would strain them to the point of likely making them explode.
And so, with the most agonizing, guttural scream he had ever heard—now understanding why so many gods chose to dwell in the Ethereal Plane instead of the Para-Elemental, the safer and more hidden realm—Gustave channeled every shred of Power he had siphoned, after stabilizing the other two, into Nehaleni, the goddess of luck and concealment.
With a sound like the heavens splitting open, Gustave saw the full glory of Nehaleni—drenched in violet blood—break through the ceiling and pierce the barrier of the Ethereal Plane, becoming a goddess once more. As she ascended, he saw her leave glittering dust of her Power upon his four maids, who were temporarily blinded by the intense light.
Exhausted by the ordeal, Gustave was cast out of his divine kingdom and hurled back into the real world, alongside the one he had brought into the metropolis.
Seeing his maids' bodies regenerate in an instant, he couldn't even congratulate them, for he watched his own body move on its own—turning toward yet another chilling sight in his life.
A pale, corpse-like figure, self-mutilated until only skin and bones remained like a sickly, dying individual, with eyes glowing yellow and black sclera surrounding them, exuded an uncanny presence. Every twitch of its movements radiated silent, carnage-filled lethality—this being before him made him shudder from head to toe.
Yet, for the time being, he could not feel fear, as his body was under the control of the highest vampire in the world. He could only stand as the creature approached, its elongated claws stretching toward his head.
Suddenly, his cheeks were grabbed by the Unseen Elder, who inspected him from left to right, even prying open his mouth to examine his fangs. Gustave then heard a single word—"Allowed"—fall from the Unseen Elder's lips before the ancient vampire vanished from sight, leaving only Regis, Orianna, the Queen of the Night, and Dettlaff standing before him.
"Oh my… this is… exquisite… Hmm… the blood… difficult to classify… sweet, yet with a hint of bitterness… Now that he has joined our kind… would this be considered cannibalism? How intriguing…"
"Narcissa… Let me emphasize once more—I am showing you this not because it is merely interesting, but because it is essential for the preservation of our kind. You may scoff at the notion of Tedd Deireadh, assuming we will all return when that day comes, yet my friend Villentretenmerth has deigned to inform me that the balance between Order and Chaos has been disrupted, and the future remains uncertain for us all. So, Narcissa… I ask you: treat this with the seriousness it deserves, will you?"
"Regis… oh, Regis… where has the wild, untamed man I once knew… vanished to…?"
"People change, Narcissa. Time erodes what we once knew into something entirely different. Even vampires such as ourselves are not spared the cruelties of time. Moreover… I had thought that, of all people, you would wish for that period of my life to have passed."
"Yes! But do try not to become too extreme… such excess! Anyway… we have had this conversation a million times. Now… I am off. Oh yes, I almost forgot, my dear boy… come to Madame in Vizima when you have the time, will you? I wish to teach you… how to become a man…"
"Hey!!! What are ye doing, trying to kiss him?! He is my betrothed! Stay away from him!"
"Hohoho… such a feisty one, aren't you… how about—"
"Narcissa."
"Alright, alright…"
With the Queen of the Night—whom he now knew was named Narcissa—gone, and realizing from her calling him "boy" that Regis had apparently not told them his real age, Gustave raised an eyebrow, suddenly noticing that their sense of smell was no longer working against him.
Beginning to suspect that his Elder Blood [Recall] ability was potent enough to fool Higher Vampires, whose senses could supposedly detect the quantum signature of a "soul," he could not linger on the thought for long, as he was now being stared at by the two Higher Vampires, Orianna being the first to approach.
Inspected by Orianna, who looked at him with a motherly warmth that made him shudder, he was unsettled by the strange and uncanny way the Higher Vampire acted—leaving only Regis as the seemingly normal one among them. He felt even more repulsed when Orianna, while gazing at him warmly, began caressing his cheeks as if a mother were showing love to her child.
"I will prepare you meals from time to time so that you can grow up healthy, alright, little Gustave."
"Orianna. No."
"Oh, alright then. In that case, I just wish for you to grow up healthy and strong, little Gustave. And visit me in Toussaint when you have the time. There are many games and toys at my place—you're going to love it."
Shuddering at Orianna's affectionate expression of love, Gustave was then very gently kissed on the forehead by her, while Cerys—who had wanted to gatekeep him from any kiss—remained paralyzed, unable to move.
With one final gentle caress and a last "See you soon, sweetheart," he was finally freed from Orianna's grasp.
Now, seeing Dettlaff's vampire mannerisms, he no longer felt unsettled. Compared to the Unseen Elder's silent, carnage-filled presence, the Queen of the Night's sultry, lustful voice, and Orianna's motherly affection, Dettlaff's herd-like behavior felt almost normal, making this encounter seem tame in comparison.
Hand on his head, petting him like a little cub and messing up his hair with the most uncanny and ugly smile he had ever seen—utterly unsuited, shattering the image of Dettlaff he had known—Gustave was then shoved a bunch of strange contraptions, which he guessed were toys for vampire children from their homeworld.
"..."
"Come, Regis. To Nazair. You need to teach me how to do it."
"Pardon my brief visit—and equally brief retreat, Gustave. I shall explain everything in due time. Ah, and here—Villentretenmerth has crafted the new one. This version, unlike the last, will not feel like lava whenever you evolve. Now… I must take my leave. There is much to attend to…"
Ignoring the bracelet given by Regis, Gustave instead probed Dettlaff. "Mister Higher Vampire, did you by any chance know a woman named Syanna?"
"No. Why?"
Seeing Dettlaff shake his head and smile at him warmly, Gustave retracted his earlier comparison, shuddering at the sight of Dettlaff's teeth.
Categorizing Higher Vampire mannerisms—no matter who they belonged to—Gustave found them all unsettling, except for Regis. He then reminded Dettlaff, "In that case, be careful around women, mister. Or just be careful around my human kind in general. Some will try to use your kindness for their own benefit."
"You are not human."
"No, that's not what I meant. I meant my human side, more specifically."
"You are not human."
"No, I know I am a Dawnwalker. It's just because… you know what, just be careful around humans and their ambiguous hearts, mister vampire."
"Hmm."
"Dawnwalker, huh? That's a good name."
Seeing both of them turn into mist—the last two Higher Vampires in the vicinity—Gustave couldn't help but feel weak in the legs, collapsing to the ground as his chest pounded wildly after surviving this unsettling ordeal.
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References may break immersion. Just go ahead to the next chapter.
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References
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I'll look for the exact reference later when I have some free time, because I'm on holiday.
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Corinne Tilly and Condwiramurs Tilly, an apprentice of Nimue, do not have any confirmed lore connection. However, since they share the last name Tilly and both possess Oneiromancy abilities, I think CDPR may have referenced Condwiramurs Tilly when creating Corinne Tilly in The Witcher 3.
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Knickers appears in Thronebreaker when the map is in Aedirn, if I am not mistaken.
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The Queen of the Night doesn't have an official name, so I took the name from one of the Passiflora strumpets. When Regis mentions her in the books I think he is referring to a female vampire who broke his heart, although the book never clearly states who she is.
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Don't think too much about the distinction of Higher Vampires. In the books, it is never stated that there are generalizations of True Higher Vampires like Regis and Dettlaff, because only Regis appears in the books in a way that could be categorized like that. Everything else is a creation of CDPR.
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Yes. Vampire behavior in the Witcher lore is unsettling to humans because they only mimic humans—they never truly become human. Only Regis is able to resemble a human so closely. Vereenna, for example, would just stare at Geralt intently, not understanding that for someone to be considered "normal," they need some small conversation to break the ice.
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