Despite things beginning to look dire for Corym and the GroveStaff’s reclamation, Lavinia felt satisfied with herself, her performance to be specific. The entire reason she meant to meet with Ulx after equipping her new— and hopefully, long lasting gear— was to test her capabilities against the only Demon benchmark she’s had.
The Lord Crimson of the Trirax, a Prime. Having heard it from the demon himself, she’s certain she’s surpassed the Trirax in respect to Demonic Essence and its abilities. A true battle might say something else but Lavinia chalks the possibility of losing against Ulx as an advantage of his age and experience. There are many things she’s learned in only the past weeks that he’s known for years and that doesn’t include his magical repertoire.
Most demons are older than I am though…maybe…
Lavinia shakes her head free of self-doubting thoughts. She may be young but her strength as a Vampiric Demon more than makes up for it, after all, she’s already nearing the next tier of her demonic ascension and Ulx, however ancient, remains at Crimson.
A nagging thought persists, reminding her of what happened to Seraph, what happens when all ESQ is lost. A loss of tier and level. An eternity regenerating from nothing but a Soul Crystal. Thinking about it, Ulx may wield abilities from tiers beyond her knowing if he’s ever experienced Essence death.
Still, she stifles such thoughts and takes the evidence of their little mock battle as a go ahead to continue advancing. Ulx only used mana and while he may as well have defeated her had he gone all out, the purpose of the exercise was practice. Promethus will only use mana after all.
Lavinia is satisfied with her new gear as well, the boots, vambrace and cloak all performed as advertised. The cloak especially as it took on the brunt of Ulx’s spear without caving, though she felt the blunt pressure through both cloak and the demon hide shirt she has underneath, the fact she stands unscathed is brilliant.
The swift boots brought a measure of peace to her thoughts of hunt and battle. All the boots required of her is a sliver of Essence, barely enough to coat her fist for a [Reais Smite] yet perfect for igniting great boosts of speed from the crystals embedded in its heel. A worthwhile expenditure considering with it she can spend Essence and blood where it’s truly needed; offense.
The vambrace has to be the most complex piece of equipment she’s worn. Deran said it acts as a storage for mana and true enough she senses the little bits siphoned from Ulx’s attacks swish about within it, bonded by intricate runes and sigils carved into its golden-bronze face.
This is the first time she’s had mana, at least in the sense of carrying it around like an object rather than wielding it as a force. The latter will have to wait until she retrieves the GroveStaff, Deran promises there’s a way to manipulate mana even if she wasn’t born with inherent control over it. She believes him; he’s the only demon not to disappoint and so she will bide her time until she’s ready to use mana against Henry. At the moment, the vambrace acting as a cushion against magical attacks is well enough for her.
And thus, with everything as it is and should be, Lavinia moves her focus to improvements—
[Available Essence Points— 14]
Faith:41
Agility: 31
Intelligence:27
A greedy part of her says she should wait until she returns to Corym and absorbs the remaining two Crimson Crystals and six Pinks that Ulx provided. Perhaps she will move up a level, its well overdue even considering how Essence-starved she was.
But she dismisses the idea as well as any plan to return to Corym before she's done in the forest. Her fangs ache and thirst for fresh blood, for a new hunt and she may well find one alongside a Crystal or two if she’s diligent. As nice as it feels to have Ulx hand her Soul Crystals, the idea of subsisting on the product of his efforts doesn’t sit well with her, especially when it concerns a hunt. She can fend for herself and she will.
Now, what to invest in.
Lavinia’s eyes gloss over [Agility] and she immediately sets concern for it aside. Thanks to her boots, discovering Blood Strengthening and the rudimentary use of Essence to augment her movements, Lavinia isn’t short of options to help improve her rapidity. It might be a good idea to invest a little in it for the sake of improving the performance of Perks like [Crimson Blink] and [Blood Art: MistForm] but otherwise there’s little use. She’s assigned [Blood Art: MistForm] as a last resort, escape at all costs kind of Perk and it will be wiser to invest in attributes that will ensure she avoids such a scenario in the first place.
Attributes like [Faith] and [Intelligence]. Right then and there Lavinia decides how much she will invest in each, with [INT] getting 10EP and [FAI] getting 4EP.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
It’s the best move she can make at the moment. Both [Reais Smite] and [Wave Shot] benefit from any investments in the [FAI] attribute and while she’s all for doling them out on prey, there is another Perk beyond them that bears as much potential for destruction and ruin.
[Blood Art: Kinesis]
An [INT] attribute Perk and one she’s neglected due to its high Essence cost. Despite how little she’s used it, it shows great promise and as Ulx and the entire world seem to taunt her for her slow coming to understanding, a high [INT] attribute will serve to straighten things out. Both in concerns of her confounding world and in her own potential.
Despite investing the greatest deal of EP into the attribute, not much changes about her perception of the world like it did last time. Or perhaps everything has changed and she’s slow on the uptake, whatever the case, she intends to test out her improved attributes on prey within the forest, drain them of blood and fill her fangs panging demands.
All that’s left now is…Ulx.
He’s walked in silence beside her as she treks in aimless thought since their mock battle ended. Without any further use for the Trirax Prime, his silent and diligent company begins to prove annoying. She wonders why he still lingers, the Kimpe must be decimating his goblin fodder now, they can only fend them off for so long, right?
Shouldn’t they have some sort of command? Lavinia considers asking him straight up why he isn’t heading the front line assaults for Corym but her mind produces a plausible, yet severely condescending answer instead. He’s following you so you don’t go getting lost again.
Insulted by her own thoughts, Lavinia growls and asks, “Don’t the goblins need you to command them? Won’t the Kimpe kill them all?”
“Hm? Yes, well, the Kimpe have more battle ready demons, Simak serve Jelvun as well but you see Lavinia, this is a siege.” He says, a single open eye gazes into the thick foliage with hidden purpose and a growing glee, “I need only station my goblins around Corym and wait, any demon seeking a way out must fight through a horde of monsters that won’t net them a single point of Essence. In a battle of attrition, I win.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” Lavinia mutters in thought. Her experience with monsters and humans more than matches this. Each time she encounters prey that gives nothing but blood, it is often a tough battle that leaves her with with injuries spend Essence healing. “What about the demons burning the forest? Jonn said something about Promethus summoning them to find the camp, won’t they?”
Here Ulx puts on a sly smile that reminds her of Jonn, “Have you ever wonder how there’s a forest in the middle of nothing?”
“Briefly, when Jonn asked me in those exact words.” Lavinia manages a matching smile as she guesses the reason behind such a mystery will be a favourable one.
“Well, what did he say?”
“I didn’t get to answer, Deran was outfitting me and I needed sleep.”
Ulx lets out a satisfied breath, “It’s an interesting thing to know of. A rich part of Corym’s history as old as the Stelc itself, perhaps older.”
Lavinia squashes her rising urge to rip and tear throats and listens.
“The other Primes and I style ourselves in the image of the Elder Demon behind the Corym’s creation. The first Prime.”
Lavinia snorts at that, “The Prime Prime?”
Ulx catches her meaning and chuckles, “Yes, the Prime Prime. The first demon to wish for peaceful coexistence. He built Corym and many other cities like it, though few retained his ideals without his oversight.” Ulx glances at Lavinia, squinting with concern as he considers his next words, “You may not like this fact but it is our history. Corym was built with human occupation in mind.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, the first Prime had allies in humans and other mortal species. Texts reminding of this point in history are…sketchy, it was a time of war and division and so keeping records was...less a priority. Nevertheless, what I’ve gleaned from the texts implies that he wished ascendance to immortality for mortals within his domain, for all creatures to have a peaceful life and afterlife.
“The forest was planted around Corym for the sake of mortals, for them to forage, hunt and build because unlike immortal demons and long lived monsters, their lives waned without blood and flesh to fuel their existence. They’d literally die if too much time passes without a meal, ridiculous.”
Lavinia doesn’t find it so. Her fangs ache and her veins sing of thirst, begging and demanding a feast of blood and Essence. It's a relatable desperation.
“But of course, this is Reais and regular life cannot flourish so brilliantly. It was an Elf that had captured a demon capable of manipulating plant life that initiated Ruishia’s growth. For some time, humans, demons, monsters and all lived in harmony, at least, as harmonious as one can live during all out war.”
“So…the forest is a demon?”
Ulx grins, “It used to be, just as the first Prime used to walk amongst us and now exists in realms beyond our reach. I think he took it, as well as many of his trusted companions to said realms. What I know for sure is that, like the Stelc, we’ve been given instructions on how to commune with the entity that’s become Ruishia.”
Lavinia blurts out the obvious next question, “Why can’t it kill Jelvun? Or Promethus? Why isn’t the Stelc crushing them?”
Shaking his head Ulx sighs, “Such things might be possible if I could have communed longer with either of them. The Stelc’s major role is transport, it’s always been used to teleport demons through waypoints, between cities or within the forest itself. And Ruishia, well, all I managed to do before Promethus stole away the GroveStaff was alert it to the dangers, whether it heeds my warning or not, I’m not sure. But so far we’ve come under no harm, so things may be well.”
Squinting up at him at the mention of her staff, Lavinia is tempted to ask more but quickly decides its pointless. It won’t change the fact that it is lost to Promethus and she has to crush his head to have it back. Instead she inhales and looks out to the direction she’d spotted a scattering of prey while she was using her MistForm.
But before that, a better question comes to mind, one she should have led with in the beginning but was far too concerned with preparing for battle to think of.
“What do you know about my curse?”
Again, Ulx grins down at her, “You really have changed, I thought you’d never ask.”