CHAPTER 1 – FEAR IS A HOLLOW LOVER
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New Hades – Settlement of the Unchained – Erebus
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Rebecca Trumane, the Governor, the Demon Queen, sat at her desk going over her daily reports sent from her communication and organizational nerve center. It had been two days since the Dungeons had begun. She currently had twelve different squads hired by the three neutral Factions to delve and complete Dungeons in their name. It consisted of extremely complicated contracts under the System that allowed their Factions to get credit for the Dungeon completions. The Academy, the Consortium and the Issian Corporation were the largest contributor to New Hades’s coffers. All three wanted to stay competitive on the Faction Leader board but they themselves did not have enough powerful combat Classes to field more than one or two teams to do so. It was pivotal to the Unchained’s own climb.
So far she’d stayed out of hiring her people off to contracts more dubious in nature to Factions which would hurt their reputation on Erebus such as the Sanctum and Unhallowed, the Abyss, the UNC, the Enlightened, The Unhallowed, and the Endless Star. They offered lucrative contracts that would have helped their bottom line immensely but it would have been a short sighted and short lived tract of profit. It involved taking slaves, killing innocents and doing all sorts of unsavory things. It was a path that would have led to extreme animosity from the Temple, Wild Tribes, even the Draconian Empire surprisingly, who abhorred slavery. The real detriment in her mind though was pissing off the Shadow’s Conclave and Umbra Mortem, both of whom were at her doorstep. Still she wasn’t stupid. She didn’t just downright reject their offers. She assuaged their egos and told them she didn’t have the forces currently to fulfill the contracts. It was an exaggeration but not a direct lie. She was to a certain extent limited in the forces she could use, at least for now.
She only had two elite teams, one led by the Captain that she charged premium rates for who could actually take on Iron Ranked Dungeons but she only allowed them to be leased for one week with two weeks off so they as a Faction could finish Dungeons. She had several reserved Elite teams, mostly Rare Classed with at least one Title she had kept to themselves for specifically that same intent. She refused to see the Unchained slip at all in the Rankings. In fact she would like to see them move up from the 13th Ranking but that in itself would be difficult being who they were.
The Unchained was the Multi-Versal home of Mercenaries for hire. It was how they made their fortune and how they’d become as powerful as they were which was only growing in power now that they had taken her training methods and created a spy/assassin Sub-Category of Members. They already had an entire planet dedicated to the specific training and were pulling insane numbers to their rosters from all the highly skilled assassins that were defecting from the Shadow Conclave. Strangely, the other Faction who were legendary as assassins for hire, the Mors Immatura, had also gone through a complete about face in their agenda foregoing all assassin contracts. Her Handler nor anyone else had zero clue as to why while the Conclave was very forward in their message of returning to their original mission of altruistic support of the downtrodden.
The big difference between the two Factions was the Immatura was made up of one race, the Dokkafur, the White Witches, so there were zero defections from their organization. They were religious fanatics and were loyal creatures to not only their own people but to some new burgeoning religion that was burning its way across their empire referring to someone called ‘The Mother’.
She’d just gotten all this info from her once a month consultation with her Naga Handler. It was only once a month as the cost was too prohibitive for the Faction with the Sanctuary still up to do more. She’d solidified many connections at the World Council and turned away others, the largest of these the Sanctum which made her a bit nervous. The Iron Lord was up there with the War Crow in people she did not want to irritate and she might be forced to work with the Faction and the man but for now she’d put him off with empty platitudes and butterfly eyes and provocative use of her curves. Unlike what she’d been told by her handler about the Sanctum from a cosmic scope, the Iron Lord was still a human man, one that had been a War Lord from Africa who threw a hungry eye at what she had to offer within a bedroom.
She hadn’t even had to use any of her magical charm which she didn’t think would have been an intelligent idea with the man especially not with the Sun bitch staring daggers at her the entire time. Her sweet babies had asked her a hundred times during the Council if they could eat the Sun Scion’s eyes. They were such wonderful kiddos. The Iron Lord was a fearsome figure, even in the Council when the entire place was filled with the most powerful people on the planet, he stood above all but one in her mind.
Even still in Copper there was something about Gideon Sho that sent shivers down her spine, equal portions fear and pleasure. She admonished herself, definitely more on the fear side but that in itself led an allure and a hunger to spread her thighs. Her Bloodline was insatiable and he was the only man her Bloodline wanted to be submissive to against it’s normal pushing of dominating her lovers. Her Bloodline knew a more powerful predator when it saw one. There was something about the man that just radiated lethality. She’d felt an ocean of sweat pour down her back when the older man who repped him at the Council had sent back a rejection to her request to meet and when she’d received it she’d made the bad choice to look in their direction and met the cold stare of the War Crow.
Enough. She pushed back from her desk. Her eyes were drifting to half-lid status from spending the entire afternoon into late night going over everything. The System did a lot of things as did her Bloodline but completely getting rid of Sleep at least at Iron was not one of them. She still had more to go over as she gazed on the huge stack of paperwork. She still had to study the five Dungeons within their sphere, two Copper, and three Iron. She’d sent preliminary groups to examine and test the Dungeons, one for each. The Iron made her nervous. The three groups she’d sent to the Irons were in Iron and all Rare but nowhere near her best. She’d kept back her reserve Elite Squads for the moment for one to keep her and the Settlement protected, and two, to wait to see what the Iron Dungeons brought as far as challenges before she committed her best tools. Well, the Captain had their very best and was on loan to the Academy at the moment but the two teams she’d kept in the tank were also by any measure tough and powerful.
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The sheer volume of Rare Classes on Erebus was one of the main if not best reasons all the Multi-Versal Factions were going full board to secure it. The Unchained attracted quite a few of them. Many of those with power wanted the freedom of being a mercenary, no moral conundrums, no extreme belief systems they had to fall under. Do jobs, make money.
The only part of the preliminary reports she’d read of the Iron Dungeons was that they’d stepped through the first level before retreating when they’d almost lost one of their number while the other two teams hadn’t even made it that far, actually losing someone less than halfway. She would need to read more of the details on those and the full reports on the Copper Dungeons but not today. That was a tomorrow agenda. She sent her senses out to find her two rascals and found their energy signatures down playing in the fountain as usual fighting over the one toy left they hadn’t already torn apart. Toto currently had Jinx’s leg in his mouth biting him while Jinx was punching his Brother in the head attempting to get him to let go while he had the prize rubber chicken in his mouth.
She sent a pulse to them with only a few words ‘Bed Time, Cookies.’ She knew she’d be hard pressed to get them out…
They stood in front of her each still pulling on one of the legs of the rubber chicken and growling at each other. She smiled and after another few breaths produced two chocolate chip cookies, one in each hand. The chicken went to the ground as they leapt upon her claws. She laughed and sent the chicken to her storage which had both of them grumbling. Her eyes grew stern.
“Enough. Bed Time. I will pick you up some more chickens tomorrow.”
Their eyes lit up and they bounced up and down as they finished their treats and scrambled into the bedroom leaping onto the bed which was filled with a dozen pillows. They loved all the pillows and grabbed two each before burrowing under the covers. She focused for a moment and shifted out of her Battle Robe and into her nightie as she slid into the bed. They made their tiny pillow tents on either side of her shape as they did every night and she passed into dream land with a smile on her face.
***
She woke with a start, body shaking as she’d just experienced the worst nightmare she could ever remember, some demonesque version of the War Crow hunting her down dark alleys with no escape. Her fear not only did not dissipate but increased and her mind could barely function. Her children clung to her whimpering, each holding to one of her legs under the blankets.
The room was as pitch dark as deep midnight and as she opened her eyes she saw two green pools of intensity actually lit in green and black flames on the verge of violence sitting on her favorite chair pulled up to the edge of the bed within a foot of her face. Her entire body stopped responding to her Will. She was frozen as a dark gray fog blanketed the room that occasionally sparked silver colored pulses. His voice was soft as a whisper but held a threat that could have torn down mountains.
“Rebecca Trumane.”
A smile hit his scaled face that didn’t touch his eyes and her fear which was already freezing her spine somehow etched up another notch. He had some sort of small throwing blade in his black scaled fingers sticking out of fingerless gloves he was using to articulate points.
“That you were able to hide right under my nose for so long as the Demon Queen is impressive.”
He inched forwards and more whimpers echoed out from under the blankets as she felt the claws from her babies spike into her thighs. She wanted nothing more than to reach for them but no matter what she did she could not get her limbs to move. The small blade in his hand caressed her cheek, drawing no blood but putting enough pressure to let her know it could.
“I could have slaughtered you and your children before you woke and left this Settlement with no one the wiser. I am the War Crow and Scion of the Night. The Umbral Realm and the shadows are my home and fear is my tool and blade as you are no doubt experiencing to its fullest at the moment. Blink if you understand that truth.”
She blinked as fast and as hard as she could. She didn’t want to die and she knew from the beginning of this whole fucking System that this man was the one adversary she never ever would want a part of.
“Good. So far according to my people and those of Oklahoma you have caused no issues and for all intent and purposes have been decent neighbors besides the few idiots we killed during the First Challenge. We will chalk that up to independent idiocy and not your orders. If you would like to continue to stay off my list and I am fairly certain you understand what I am saying when I say list?”
She once again blinked like her eyelids were machine guns taking out Nazis in World War 2. His cold vicious smile lifted his lips as he pulled back the blade and scooted the chair a few feet off her bed lazing in it like the Apex Predator he was, playing with its prey. His voice was the cold embrace of death.
“This is the deal Governor or Demon Queen, I care not which Title gets your panties in a twist. I want the coordinates of the Sanguine Necropolis now and if I don’t get them I will slaughter this entire Settlement and save you and your pet demons for last. People, Gods, the System itself have wanted to test me at every turn and they have finally done something I don’t think they’ve planned for. They’ve gotten me to let go of the chains I’ve spent a lifetime building, the one thing they should have done everything in their power to prevent. The beast that sits in the pit of who I am is now out of its cage.”
He leaned in eyes once again flaring in green flames. She felt warm piss trickle between her legs followed by two warm streams hitting her thighs as her babies joined her.
“I will slaughter everything and anything that gets in my way and revel in the ocean of blood I carve into the earth as I move. You do not want to test me.”
Blinks came rapid fire from her face in a staccato beats like a drummer from a speed metal band. A moment later the overwhelming aura of fear disappeared though her fear did not. She had seen his eyes, seen the truth of his intent. She rattled off the information he wanted. She’d had preliminary conversations with the Blood King. He’d been one of the numerous Settlements who’d attempted to contract her mercenaries to forage for fodder to be blood thralls to his cadre of vamps. She had no qualms in giving up his location. Let him be the one that dealt with the War Crow plus her goal to at some point still get the man in front of her on her side regardless of the dire threats he’d just given her was still alive and well if not reinforced. She had no doubts that it would be this man that rose to the top of the heap and she was placing bets early to get on the train. Even in overwhelming fear the manipulative stirrings of her mind and Bloodline were working overtime to bend circumstances to her benefit.
Once the coordinates left her lips she blinked and he was gone, a swirl of shadow slipping out her balcony window into the night. Her two kids crawled up her body still shivering. Their voices trembled as they spoke.
“That very scary man Momma.”
Toto held onto her chest and just kept nodding his head.
“Very scary.”
She took a deep breath and crushed both her kids to her.