Emily groaned as she slowly opened her eyes. The afternoon sun pierced through the gap in the curtains, flooding the room with light and bringing a stifling heat. The covers had turned into a furnace, and she kicked them off with a sigh. Sprawling across the queen-sized mattress, she stretched, her muscles grumbling with a satisfying ache.
Climbing out of bed Emily threw on some clothes and headed for the door to her room, the scent of something delicious having woken her from her fitful slumber.
Opening the door to the common room, Emily found Ashe and Nox seated together, chatting quietly. Between them sat a large plate piled high with skewers of meat, their rich aroma filling the air.
Ignoring the hush that came over the room Emily padded over and swiped four wooden sticks of meat for herself. They tasted like smoked pork with ample fat, it wasn’t hard to tell this was the same pork-like meat Ashe had once shared with her.
It was only once she had finished the first one that Emily looked up to everyone else in the room.
Nox held an empty stick out to Cupcake, who was still licking her mouth clean of the sweet sauce that basted the rich meat.
Ashe on the other hand had her full attention on Emily, an amused brow arching at her.
“Seven in the morning you said, right? Well, it's almost afternoon at this point.”
Emily just shugged while she worked through the second morsel, but when Ashe's gaze flickered over to the small table Emily glanced over to follow it.
She noticed the documents were in the same place she had them left last night, but with an additional page sitting next to them.
“That page blew off the top of the stack last night, but don’t worry no one touched it”
Emily felt a gentle restriction around her throat but walked over to the page and frowned as she noticed familiar handwriting. The simplest language was used to break down a summary of what was going on in the main stack of documents. Almost as though someone had spent the night going through it and making a cheatsheet for her but Emily knew that was impossible because she had told them not to touch it.
The contact tightened more only loosening when Emily glanced over at Nox and Cupcake.
“Don’t feed her too many. We don’t want her thinking she can just laze around all day and not earn her keep.”
Nox grunted and kept feeding Cupcake causing Emily's face to twitch. His hand was trembling but her attention was drawn to Ashe before she could ask what was going on.
“Emily there is one more thing before you get going… The wandering fangs…some of them are inside the city, but you also have to know that many were captured on the final leg of our journey. I didn’t have time to speak to you last night but Selia was one of those.”
Emily hummed.
“By who? You arrived a couple of days ago, right? Kael will surely get them out”
Ashe hesitated as she glanced away.
“We were attacked by one of the five pillars of Sam’eth, the Black Core to be exact. Their members are known for capturing people during war times and using them for religious conversion… the last time I saw Kael, he was fighting a powerful member of the core.”
Emily paused, the skewer mid-way to her mouth.
Kael had been caught? That would have had to be a fairly powerful individual to be able to put him down. Even more so if they did it non-lethally, it was always harder to capture someone than outright kill them.
It was a shame really, as Emily had been warming to the abrasive man.
The memory of the sky being parted by a laser of black light popped into her head. It probably would have taken someone of that strength to take Kael down.
Emily shook her head and looked into Ashe’s eye.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ashe bit the inside of her lip.
“Well, they are not gone yet. If we can rescue them there is still a chance they will be okay.”
Emily had a feeling this was coming and shook her head.
“We can’t, we haven’t even found the people in the city yet-”
Ashe’s nostrils flared and she held up her hands.
“Wait! Don’t answer yet. Like you say, let's just find our people in here first. We can discuss everything else later.”
Emily frowned at the woman. As far as she was concerned, their loss was unfortunate but acceptable. Alex was inside the city, and that was all that mattered.
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Selia had been an interesting companion, but not enough for Emily to risk her neck. She opened her mouth to say as much, but the words didn’t come.
Ashe’s eyes—wide, pleading, brimming with something Emily refused to name—made her hesitate. She hated the way her stomach churned, how guilt tried to take root despite her better judgment. With a sharp exhale, she looked away, the skewer in her hand suddenly tasteless.
“I think you already know my answer, but if it makes you feel better we can discuss it later.”
Honestly even saying this much annoyed Emily, why hesitate, she wasn’t going to compromise on this.
Turning towards the door, Emily grabbed the stack of documents and walked towards the exit.
“I’ll be back later, don’t go outside if you can help it”
Nox chose then to speak up.
“Don’t worry, I got this. How do you think we got the food? I’m fast and most people don’t even question why an Adept is running around the streets.”
Emily hummed non-committedly and opened the door to step out. When the door closed behind her she paused to sigh and scratch viciously at her bed head.
When she glanced up at the statue of Ariandel she pushed off the door and headed toward his tower, grumbling to herself all the way there.
It took longer than she’d expected but she once again found that black and gold tower.
When she stepped up to the door, she fully expected it to open up for her but when it didn’t she tried knocking on the stone wall.
A groaning sound of stone on stone came from beside her and looking around she noticed a set of stairs protruding one-by-one from the tower wall. It looked like the tower was inviting her to climb, so she began to follow its lead and ascend the tower.
As she climbed the last twenty or so steps began to recede into the stone again, so there was no backing out of this now unless she wanted to jump down.
Finally getting to about the fifth level, the stairs even out, and a level platform popped out as a doorway opened and Emily stepped in.
To her surprise, the first person she saw was not Ariandel or Citta, but in fact, a frail-looking woman leaning on a cane with a rather grumpy look on her face.
Behind her were three more robed individuals.
One of which she recognized as Connor, the man from the night brew shop. The other two were another human male and a red-skinned giantess
Emily then spotted Ariandel at the back of the room, he was sitting in the only chair in the large chamber flicking through documents. Stacks of books lined the walls behind glass cases and several tables filled with vaguely humanoid shapes under sheets became apparent.
It was like a study slash laboratory. There was one corner where Emily noticed several benches full of tools, most looking like they were straight out of a horror movie.
After taking everything in Emily noticed Ariandel was looking up at her, and contrary to his words he did not look happy to see her.
“Wonderful to have you join us, Miss Emily.”
“Good to be here. I wasn’t aware we would have company.” Emily shot back
“Ah, that was more your doing than mine,” he said.
Emily’s brow rose at the man.
“Well, what did you expect? You went down to a popular gathering spot of scholars and blabbed your mouth off that I was conducting an experiment, so I had no choice but to let some of them in on my work. Luckily for you the contract was upheld or I would have known.”
Ariandel’s eyes never left Emily as though searching her face for something. She remained cold and detached as he continued talking.
“Luckily they will all be of great help in these final stages. So much so that even if you had not said anything, I would have probably invited them anyway. No, the problem now is what you did at the rusted gauntlet yesterday.”
Emily’s brow rose at that, he was well informed.
“Barely a full day has passed since I invited you into the fold and I’m already getting worrying requests from the guards. Luckily the man you killed was a Mage Bane or we would be having a very different conversion. Suffice it to say that I dealt with it, but I would ask that you be more careful in the meantime, is that understood?”
Ariandel eyes glowed a dull red sending the source in the tower into a state of disarray, irradiating everything in the chamber. Emily felt the wave of power caressing her skin like that of a sunburn. However, it didn’t seem to have the effect the Mage was hoping for, instead, Emily’s new body felt content. Like a lizard basking in the sun.
Emily rolled her neck in comfort and shook her head.
“I hear you Ariandel and will do my best, but if this was meant to be a warning then you’ll need to try harder next time. Especially when you neglected to mention the external requirements of doing dealings in your city. Suffice it to say that our contract ends in a week.”
Ariandel’s eye remained locked on Emily as though sizing her up, but eventually, a small smile appeared.
“Ah in all the excitement it just escaped my notice. Apologies it shall not happen again, I do hope you are not too angry with me.”
Emily snorted tampering down the growing annoyance she felt for this man.
“Ah not at all, I’m even considering taking a page from your book in future dealings. But as things go, let's learn to be more transparent with one another.” Emily said, a genuine smile appearing on her face.
This caused a couple of snickers to arise from the people in the room.
A dark look flashed across Ariandel’s features as he glanced at them but it was gone just moments later. He had been trying to pull rank on her but all he got from this exchange was someone more than half his age scolding him.
“Be that as it may, you will still owe the city two pentagrams by the end of this week. I’m ever so sorry you have to deal with this.”
Emily’s face twitched losing the mirth she had moments ago.
“It should be one.”
A hungry smile appeared on Ariandel's face as he shook his head.
“I’m sorry but they are packaged together, two is the minimum. Do let me know if you need any help with affording your contact, I would be happy to buy you out of it.”
Emily ground her teeth together.
“No need, I’ll have the money in two weeks. In the interim, I wish to know what you have learned about my request.”
Ariandel smoothed out his robe and a smile appeared on his face.
“Ah yes, your request. I have managed to find out that the name you were looking for has indeed entered the city, but is still under investigation. They are linked with several suspicious individuals and it will require some convincing on my part to get them released. But worry not, I shall have him out soon, as long as you uphold your end of the bargain.”
Emily nodded. She had made sure that the requirements for Ariandel were strict. He had to find, secure, and reunite her with Alex as soon as he was able to. The problems with the contract came from interpretation. If he used the exact wording of the runes in the same way Emily had done, to hand off the documents to Ashe then there would be trouble. Fortunately, Ariandel had already shown her that she could not trust him so now the fun part was figuring out how to fuck one another over with this in mind.
“Enough talk. Let's get the introductions out of the way. My friends this is Emily, her origins are from the Weeping itself. She has decided to devote her extensive skills in blood magic to our aid. Now allow me to introduce everyone before we begin…”
Blood points: 309