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There was no pearly prescence or familiar voice that came. It was only a thought, a seed of a plan that seemed to grow quickly in her mind. A secret long forgotten that one of her brother's would bring with him. It was with clarity that only solitude can bring that she realized what she must do with that secret. Maybe this rite of passage wasn't anything but the time to reflect on her family, to reflect on what being a matriarch really meant. A kind of peace filed her that she had not known she was searching for. She felt sure that her family's future was secured. The secret alone would bring them protection or help against any threat if it ever came, and the proof her brother would bring would be even more. That was the thing about being a matriarch to this type of family, mutally assured destruction was a weapon she could wield if it came to it. Because the deal, that first deal had been built on an elaborate lie, a secret truth of theirs tha didn't actualy exist.

The night was darker than most, not a star in the sky. The grass was damp with dew as her hooves moved through them without a whisper. But this was not the silence of night that was never truly silent with the stirrings of creatures and life. This was the silence of death, as though as sheet had been thrown down across all sounds making them cease to exist. Something was not right, not even the graveyard was silent in this way. This was the silence OF the grave or rather in the grave. Something prickled on the back of Kirke’s neck as she moved through thicker and thicker dew.

When Bastianna came through the door, she knew that her sister had a plan. Sabine popped her shoulders as she listened to Bastianna outline all the things they would be doing in the coming months to prepare for the arrival of their kin.

She would be in charge of making sure there were ample escape routes in their home and out amongst the graveyard. She would also be tasked with making sure weapons would be easy to find if you knew where they were. There, of course, would be the things she’d have to travel and retrieve in preparation for their siblings---the things that couldn’t wait like the livestock her brothers would require or the bones from several other graveyards that their sister would need. If Bastianna was correct, and she was almost unerringly so, then the first of their siblings to come would arrive before the end of summer.

Bastianna's very bones were tired after her night-long vigil, but she explained in detail the plans she had for this place. For the most part, Sabine listened adding a recommendation here and there. Funds would have to be gathered, trips made, and even a few small favors called in to prepare. It was the foundation of their new life and they could not be more careful. But she knew that Sabine had been building in conjunction with the standards set forth by their ancestors since the beginning of their very first mausoleum.

Kirke had wandered into the room where Bastianna and Sabine stood. She listened intently as Bastianna went over the plans for the building and protections. The outer walls were largely finished and they had begun to lay the stones for the floor. It was a painstaking process of both making the stones and then placing them and drying them. There was blood mixed in the mortar along with bone dust and herbs that Kirke neither knew or understood.

The windows would be given collapsing stone to shut if they ever needed it. The foundation stones that Sabine had helped her lay were not just on the surface. Most places they went thirty feet down. Her room floor was largely made of dirt but it was still impossible to tunnel into because of the ground work laid fair below.

Sabine explained in detail the tunnels that she had begun.. The outer foundations of the building could not be dug under, the stone work went at least thirty feet down. Beneath the altar in Tunde's vast room would be the largest entrance to the catacombs. There was a trick lever that made the stone move and sent you down a tight spiraling staircase to the catacombs beneath. There Sabine had been digging with the help of Kirke, Bastianna, and their familiars--using some of the creatures that they would later use for sacrifice to carry out the dirt.

He was the more devout of them all, she wasn't sure if it was that he had true faith or if he just liked the ritual or excuse of it. Tunde though, was quite devout---the true believer

Bastianna made sure long stout wooden beams were cut then moved in during the secrecy of night. Each beam was used to support the earth around them while they enforced the catacombs they built. The tunnels were dug, spiraling out in numerous directions with concave little spaces to put a body, supplies, or provide a rest point.


Then there was the bricking. Each wall though lined with stout beams was also enforced with stonework. Most of the places it was done it was for the sake of structure to enforce rather than anything else, but there was some places like the bone cells that were not only made for strength. There were three bone cells. Each was elaborately lined with the finest stonework and usually layered. The bars to the cells were made of bone that they had a metalworker encase in bronze.


She had also agreed secretly to make them the weapons they wished with no questions asked. There were more than they were likely to ever wield really, but they had to prepare for weapons to be lost or broken in fights.

Kirke's plans took more forethought. She and Lovey had built a drying rack then traded for salt to be able to store food longer. Most of what they would use would be eaten fresh, but the extra would all go towards the winter---and towards any inevitable disaster.

In her heart she knew that her family could at best be described as shady, but they were her family. They were everything to her. She'd heard that others had referred to them as devils or morally bankrupt, but how could they be when they loved her when no one else would? There was no purpose that she served that couldn't have bee fufilled by any old minion. She had value and worth because of who she was rather than she could do and no one would ever make her think otherwise.