(Morice Havenfield – Vlad’s apprentice)
He sighed as he stood up, his body radiating fatigue and aches. “You aren’t pulling any punches huh?” He asked Abhorash who stood towering over him, Alexander and Aldren, all of them barely able to stand after the three on one spar with the armoured giant.
He laughed in his deep booming voice. “You aren’t trying are you, young Markus?” He asked a bit of mockery in his voice making Morice grit his teeth. He then sighed letting out his annoyance in an explosive exhale. Abhorash’s words were harsh but then again the giant was a good trainer given that he was able to fight on nearly equal footing with Vlad when he went all out.
That and the undead rarely had a good opinion of the living, something about being dead did take the empathy away from them at times.
“Well boys~” A lovely voice behind the young men sounded out and the tired and weary trio looked over at Selma and Freya as they approached them. “Come now, let’s get you guys some refreshments and a small break.” Freya said smiling at Morice and he felt his ears burn a bit.
When he first saw the satyr she’d been a looker for sure but he hadn’t given her much thought afterwards but after a week in her company? He was certain he’d grown fond of her, if it wasn’t for how she liked to tease him he might like her even more.
“Thank you Freya.” Alexander said tiredly as he got to his feet with Abhorash’s help and hobbled his way towards the table where Camille and Bau were putting up refreshments and something Vlad had asked if the three women were able to make. Something called lemonade.
Morice smiled a bit as Freya helped him up and both then gave Selma and Aldren wide teasing grins at how the two were so awkward of late around one another. Perhaps they’d hadn’t been so obvious before but when out of the palace and at the manor, their guards seemed to slip just a bit.
The two grew a bit red before they looked away from one another and Morice and Freya. Noting that he still held onto Freya’s hand Morice cleared his throat and let go. “So what did you lovely ladies make for us?” He said with that same charming grin Vlad had a tendency to use on the waitresses in some of the taverns they’d stayed at during their trip to Veta.
Freya smiled in a knowing manner at him before giving a theatrical flourish at the table. “Well gentlemen. We’ve prepared the first course as finger sandwiches with a side of lemonade.” She said and her grin showed that there was only a first course to this which made the five laugh as they approached the table and took a seat.
“So were is Felix anyway?” Aldren asked curiously as he sat and hungrily looked at the small pyramid stack of sandwiches on the tray in the centre of the table. “I haven’t seen him for two days now, I thought he’d be here to help train us at least.” He said looking at Morice with curiosity as he bit into the ham and cheese sandwich he’d plucked off the tray.
“Yeah, now that you mentioned it after the whole… wyvern incident I’ve not seen him around.” Selma said before she had a bit of a thought and then continued. “I mean I know he did tell us he was going to leave but did he go right away after that?” She asked curiously
“Yeah, apparently your father told him to hunt a drake in the mountain range south of Bedelev.” Morice decided to explain to them. “Though no matter how much I try to tell the nobles he isn’t here right now they don’t seem to believe me at all.” He said sighing heavily as he almost fell into his chair.
He was tired of the arrogant pricks thinking he was a servant of Vlad’s that had clamoured to get some time with him after the rumour of him being the new vice-headmaster of the royal academy had spread.
“You want some help in making them leave you alone?” Aldren asked a bit sympathetically. Morice simply smiled at him and shook his head. Aldren and Alexander were a bit different from most nobles Morice had met before. While most had that arrogant manner about them like their excrement didn’t stink even if they were among the better ones the young prince and knight hopeful treated him like he was one of them. That endeared them to him and how they treated Akasha, like she was a favourite niece of theirs also made him feel goodwill towards them.
“Well if you’re giving me a few thugs to brow beat them I’m game.” Morice said with a predatory grin that made Alexander and Aldren chuckle. “But really? Well I guess letting them know that Felix won’t be around unless he shows up in court and he’ll invite them himself? Make him look like he’s a recluse, eccentric or something?” He asked a bit helplessly.
“Hm… I think that might work he is a bit…” Alexander started but paused like he didn’t really want to finish what he’d started to say.
“Out of his gourd?” Freya said with a wide grin only to burst out laughing as Morice shoot her an evil glare.
“Eccentric would suffice.” Selma said lightly slapping at Freya’s shoulder playfully. Freya let out mock surrendering sounds and gestures to Selma.
“Let’s stick with that.” Morice said before he took a bite out of the lettuce and ham sandwich he’d taken for himself. He almost stiffened as a mass landed on his shoulder and he heard the flapping of wings.
“Argh...” Alexander let out as he flinched from the sudden arrival of Dust who simply looked at him in amusement. Morice was still amazed that Dust and Ashes had the ability to somehow keep looking like ravens yet also able to show emotions on their faces at times.
Taking a piece of bread in his hand he raised it up in offering to Dust. Dust looked down at the offered piece of bread and then at Morice with a look that seemed to say ‘do I look like a pigeon?’ to him.
Morice almost shrugged but instead simply popped the piece of bread into his mouth. “I still find those birds creepy.” Alexander sighed as he looked at Dust wearily. “I mean I get that the two are Felix’s familiars or something similar but… is it just me or do they understand everything we say?” He then added and then shivered a little at the knowing and amused look Dust gave him.
“Something like that.” Morice replied cryptically as he moved on to his sandwich instead of just a piece of bread. “Though it does make me wonder.” He then mused aloud. “How is he going to create a class that doesn’t exist yet?” He said into the air and those that had come to Imerith looked puzzled while those that called it it’s home looked thoughtful.
“Well there are legends of those that turned the world upon its head and created classes by combining aspects of some classes together in such a well defined way that it can happen.” Bau was the one to speak up as she replaced the empty glass jug with another filled with lemonade.
“Wasn’t the first emperor of Alocia one such individual after all? Creating the noble knight class?” She then continued as the table just stared at her in dumbstruck silence. She looked at them with a twinkle of mirth in her eyes.
“What? You thought I was just some uneducated commoner? There is more to my work here than just as a maid to a manor that seems to clean itself you know.” She then responded with a light laugh and the table went silent.
Morice had to wonder just what Vlad’s mind had cooked up with Bau as his employee, there was more to the woman than at first glance that was for certain now. But what had Vlad seen in her that he didn’t? Or had he discovered her to be more talented than she appeared after their closed door conversation when he hired her?
Bau fiddled a little with the small storage ring Vlad had given to her as his employee and then pulled out a small scroll, handing it to Morice. “This is something Master Aesir had me keep and to give you today when your sparring with Ser Abhorash was over.” She said with a soft smile before giving a curtsy to the others at the table and went back inside the manor proper.
Morice was curious and unfurled the scroll only to see a large blank canvas with a single sentence written at the top. He frowned as he looked it over.
“If you can’t look without seeing, you won’t reach your goal.” Selma read aloud as she’d managed to lean over to look over his shoulder. “Cryptic… Is Felix always like that? I thought he was more straight forward than that.” She mused as she looked from the scroll to Morice who narrowed his eyes on the scroll.
Then a lesson on sensing mana not just like what he described as a radar or sonar which he still didn’t really get but with his own senses as well. Slowly he closed his eyes and began to move the mana within his own body taking a pinch as small as the end of his little fingernail and gently allowing it to pool into his eyes. After soaking his eyes in mana he opened them and almost gasped in shock but managed to keep a neutral expression.
Upon the scroll was detailed instructions on how to cast a rank one shadow bolt spell with the same method Vlad did. Through creating a spell circle with mana and then manifesting it right as he poured the mana needed to activate it into it. Even the little scribbling on the lower left corner made him internally smile.
A small cartoonish bat head with a small paragraph written underneath. ‘This is the easiest spell circle to create I know so it’ll be good practice. Don’t stop practising now until you can cast this spell in a second with the method described here or I’ll whip you good~. P.S. Don’t you dare show this to anyone else or how to see this either!’
He must have smiled a little as Freya looked at him with an entertained gleam in her eyes. “So you know what that is then?” She asked and he looked up at her and smiled self-deprecatingly as he shook his head.
“No just thinking how eccentric Felix can be at times.” He said as he made the scroll disappear into his own storage ring. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.” He finished to the amused curl of Freya’s lips. She was sharper than the others in noticing things. Vlad had told him the woman was a firecracker and to never underestimate her, Morice just hadn’t had the same feeling of proof until now that what Vlad had said was true.
“Oh right!” Aldren then suddenly pipped up. “Markus, does Felix have any more servants like ser Abhorash? I heard its rather hard to manage raising such excellent servants.” He spoke like raising a servant was the simple act of taking in someone and teaching them what was needed as Alexander didn’t know Vlad’s classes other than the fact he was a mage of some sort by agreement with the emperor.
Despite that Alexander had tried to sneak an identify Vlad’s way only to have the back of his head slapped by Vlad himself when he felt it. Morice had to admit that feeling of a finger down your spine with the feeling of being watched when someone of lesser level than you used identify on you was uncomfortable. He smiled a little at knowing that the analyse didn’t even give a hint to the subject of identification and was more than happy to raise it instead of Identify despite not being able to see the subjects skills and abilities like Identify could do at higher levels. In Vlads own words, he should never underestimate someone and knowing what they were capable of might make him do just that.
Before Morice could say anything in retort to Alexander a black mass crashed into the middle of the table and Dust cawed before he went silent. Morice couldn’t blame him, in the middle of the table lay Ashes, her beak cracked and missing a leg as the other clutched something that made Morice’s heart jump to his throat.
In the cracked talons of the weakly moving raven was clutched a ring Morice was all too familiar with. After all during the Necroshade incident Morice had been entrusted with it, Vlad’s pseudo- phylactery. He jumped to his feet and picked up Ashes who weakly looked up at him. “Is he ok?!” He asked worriedly and the short gasp behind him made him look to see Akasha staring at Ashes with shock in her eyes.
“What happened?” Morice then commanded sternly but the reply from Ashses left him about as baffled as Alexander and Aldren were.
Ashes croaked in a weak tone, the damage to her form a clear indication of a rushed flight back to them. A croak that made a word appear in Morices mind with how it sounded. “Cultivators.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What?” Selma and Freya asked in unison. “Those exist here?!” The two appearing to have gotten the same message and looking both fearful and awed at what they must’ve thought was a revelation instead of the goal Vlad had been trying to do with mana as it had been explained to Morice.
Morice’s blood ran cold as he remembered some of the books he’d seen Vlad read and the questions he’d asked about them. If those things Vlad had described were real did that mean he’d met his match? Then a distant roar got all their attentions, Morice most of all as he could recognize that roar anywhere. A dragons roar but thankfully it was most likely on the mountain tops of the Sanmont tips but then as the uneasy silence that descended for a few moments made Morice chocked as he looked down at the ring after feeling static all around it.
The ring crumbled in his very hand, breaking apart and turning to nothing more than sand made up of the metal that once was the ring. “He’s dead?” Morice asked in horror but the ravens and Abhorash were all intently staring at Morice’s open palm, at the remains of their masters phylactery made with a piece of his very soul. Now ruined beyond repair and nothing known of the fate that had befallen the man.
(Vlad Von Carstein)
Earlier that morning.
“Shit shit shit!” I cursed as I ran through the loose hills at the base of the mountain range called the Sanmont tips. My left arm was pressed closed to my body held there in a wrap and cast made of mana I barely had the concentration to maintain. My left arm was not only out of its socket but the bicep was broken and quite frankly a bloody mess.
I sent a glance behind me at the two figures wrapped in honest to god red robes like those of the cultivation comics I’d read, just with a ninja like flair with their balaclava like masks. I’d been arrogant thinking that the two level ten warriors wouldn’t be a problem to deal with when they waylaid me on the way to the village were the Baluchitherium had been spotted.
The damn men were cultivators, I hadn’t thought Imertith had them. What were people from the eastern continent doing here?!
A blade of fire flew past my head and I ducked over, stumbling and falling down the hill side I had been running over. What had tipped me off right before the two had exploded into action was my mana sense sensing the condensed balls of power above their navel in the centre of their torsos had flared a second before the strike that crippled my arm came.
I screamed as my leg somehow slipped into something like a gopher hole and bent the wrong way. I was glad that I’d managed to send Ashes back with my ring, the one acting as my make shift phylactery away. I was angry that the downside to Nidhoggs starting power made it so that he couldn’t function in sunlight which left it so that I was on my own.
A sound behind me made me turn and look at the two red ninja fucks landing lightly a few meters behind me. Their eyes shining in sadistic amusement as they said something in a language sounding like Mandarin or Japanese I wasn’t sure.
“So this is him?” One of them said in broken trade common, the language spoken throughout Imerith along side most kingdoms or the regions official languages.
“Weak, I don’t see why we had to take care of this guy.” The other said as the burlier of the two while he began to walk towards me, cracking his knuckles. “He’s weak, not even at the first layer of body construction.” He said chuckling in his broken manner.
I growled as I stood and righted my leg. I hated them for making me feel the same fear and feeling of being weak when I first came to this world. Something about my growl made the man halt and look at me curiously.
I concentrated and two rank one spell circles appeared on either side of me before two shadow bolts flew at the man and he dodged them without effort. He did it with such contemptuous ease before taking a step and appearing in front of me before backhanding me. I felt like I’d just been hit by a truck and was sent flying almost twenty meters back to tumble and end up in a broken heap.
“Mhpf, this is the elder void we heard so much about?” The first who’d spoken said derisively as the two approached me again. “The raven sect is interested in nothing it seems.” He spoke in the same manner as those nobles I’d hated to interact with, like he was far above me and I was something so far beneath him he felt disgusting just at the thought of touching me.
“What.” I began, coughing up blood from the hit, I felt like the bones in my jaw had almost been shattered. “are you fucking talking about?” I finally managed to groan out as I remembered a lesson from Németh and began to use bone crafting on my own body, trying to fix myself just enough to get away.
The two stopped and stared at me. Then they looked at one another and began a heated discussion in their own language. I used the precious seconds to manage to fix my jaw and half of my arm before another explosion of pain erupted from my undamaged knee as the burlier of the two kicked the knee joint and bent it just like the other had been. I fell down in a heap not even managing to cry out in pain so sudden had had the blow been delivered since as I fell I also got a knee to my face which broke my jaw once more.
“What is your name?” The slim cultivator asked as he gripped my throat and pulled me up to be face to face with him. I grinned with my fangs on full display before I spat at his face. The thick glob of saliva and blood landed on the corner of his eye and leaked down like a thick messy tear.
In hindsight I shouldn’t have done that as the slim fuck proceeded to break my limbs to the point of leaving my bones nearly in fragments. “Filthy animal.” The slim one spat as he looked down at me as I lay on the ground a broken mess. He spat at my face just as I had and then turned around cursing most likely in his language as he walked a few paces away.
The burly one crouched down next to me and I could see his eyes were smiling in amusement. “Tough guy eh?” He asked but I was sure he was highly amused I’d managed to get under his friends skin like I had. The burly man placed a thumb against my rib and asked for my name once more. When I remained silent he pushed and the loud crack of my rib breaking filled the silence that had filled the air. I could only let out a pained grunt as the fuck had pushed hard enough to puncture my lung.
“Ugh. Just kill this animal and let’s continue looking for this Elder void. This clearly isn’t an elder at the immortal realm anyway.” The slim one said bored now that I was a broken mess.
I let out a slight wheeze as I worked my jaw and the burly man looked like he realized something. “I think I broke his jaw so he can’t talk.” He said sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
“Idiot.” The slim one snorted. He then began to rummage through the pouch on his belt and pulled out a medallion. It was made out of perfectly and beautifully crafted jade in the shape of an eastern dragon coiling around a coin with a square in its middle inlaid with gold, each individual scale on the dragon was so detailed I’d gape at it if I could.
The medallion flashed and a small bottle appeared in his hand. Grey clay with a wooden stopper on the end it reminded me of all those pill bottles in those same cultivation type comics I’d read.
Pulling out the stopper and then pouring the bottle into his palm let out a small round brown pill with a thin pink line spiralling around it. “Here.” The slim one said as he tossed it to the burly man who’s mask changed a little, I suspected he was grinning widely underneath it. The burly one then proceeded to shove the pill down my throat and held down on my nose and mouth as I thrashed on the ground until I swallowed it.
I coughed, gagged and gurgled but the burly man held a hand over my throat as if to prevent me from throwing the pill up. I felt a burning sensation as the pill went down my throat, like I’d just swallowed a ball of near molten metal only for it to spread out and invade my veins. I screamed, this was about as bad as when my soul had first been injured, every nerve, blood vessel and fibre of my being burned in searing heat.
My reaction surprised the two and they backed away as blood poured from my mouth, eyes and ears while I writhed in agony. My limbs flailing and bent in unnatural shapes as sounds akin to that of a forest being broken by a soundless horde of giants.
I almost prayed for death when it finally ran its course and the relief from the pain surprised me. Not because it finally came but the feeling after it had passed. The normal pain I had grown used to the point of being capable of ignoring it had… lessened?
“What did you give him?” The burly man asked Slim with a bit of what sounded like morbid curiosity.
Slim looked down at me as I panted on the ground, exhausted after the ordeal. “I fed him the basic body restoration pill….” He then paused placing his index finger to where his lips were and peered at me. “Check his bones and his spirit.” He then commanded of Burly and the big man nodded.
Before I knew it he’d gripped my throat tightly and I felt a force invade my body. It was searing like flames yet didn’t burn as it ran through my body lingering on my mended bones before I felt it go deeper. I went wide eyed as I felt the energy touch my soul and recoil as the man let go of me and backed away from me in what I could only think of a horror. Not at my wounds but that he’d had to touch them with whatever that was.
Slim asked Burly what was wrong in their language given his expression and the two got into a deep conversation.
I made a gamble and controlled a small stream of mana between the two and seeing neither reacting to it I realized they could sense the pitifully weak soul energy in the air but not mana. I got up and allowed the carapace to fully encase my body instead of just as makeshift clothing. The two had turned and stared in abject fascination at my change before I growled, barring my fangs at the two and exploded into movement.
Right as my fist was about to come down on slim’s head after the longest wraith step I’d ever managed I was stopped. Burly had brought out a small shield that looked like a turtle shell and put it up to protect slim before I could even react. Then the flames came.
Punching into my gut, Slim then sent a torrent of fire conjured from somewhere in a small cyclone into the wound and sent me flipping into the air. I felt the searing heat of the nearly superheated carapace plates on my abdomen and I quickly ripped off the cracked plates and allowed others to grow in their place. I couldn’t just do this continuously as each time I’d have to replace a carapace plate it would require energy from my own body to do so. So if I continuously did that then I’d just grow too weak to even fight the two. Not that, that was going well anyway.
To my surprise Burly came flying at me in the air as wind currents flourished around him and he made a chopping kick onto my shoulders in the air. I’d have thought such a big man would be earth, wood or metal oriented if I went by the mainstays of cultivation stories but wind of all things?
The fucker was big and strong already he didn’t need to be fast too.
I landed hard on the ground and bounced once as my momentum continued to push be back a little. I did smile evily at Burly when he landed and screamed at the bloody gashes that his leg had become. “Eye for an eye asshole.” I grinned as I displayed my blood defilers claws, feeling the little blood my claws had come into contact be sucked into them and helped aid in recovering my body.
Burly looked at me with furious indignation and suddenly disappeared only for me to feel a blinding pain at the back of my head as a fist slammed into the back of my head and sent me skidding along the ground.
I got up quickly in a spinning side jump as Burly came down with another fist aimed at the middle of my chest. I slammed my leg down onto him and as he blocked it I transitioned into a jump with him as my spring board.
To my left I saw a charging hawk’s head made up of fire come crashing towards me. Quickly I erected a barrier with two rank one shield spells and a layer of mana behind them. All of them broke but lessened the final impact of the technique allowing me to only have to take a step or two to the side opposite where the impact had been.
I stared at the two cultivator who were looking at me in a new light now and I realized they hadn’t even been serious. Slim smiled while Burly just looked at me angrily as small tornado’s began to spiral around his limbs. I went for broke and funnelled mana into my lungs and vocal cords and roared out with my intimidating growl.
The two were stunned for a second and a notification came to my vision that I immediately blinked away as I charged in at Slim. Wraith stepping two times to make him think I’d come at him head on instead of from the left like I did.
Slim still managed to dodge out of the way as my claws cut through a bit of his robes. I grit my teeth as I forced my mana to continue cycling like I’d directed it to and felt my muscles strain as I empowered my own body with mana while beginning to sub-vocalize a spell of the third rank just loud enough to be counted as I continued to rain down a barrage of slashes and jabs of my claws while Slim dodged with the smallest room for error on his part.
I only cut the fluttering robes or sleeves of his clothing but never touched his skin making me grow even more frustrated.
When Slim smiled at me I finished the spell and grinned right back. Banshee’s howl. I opened my mouth and a shock wave of sound blasted into Slim’s chest right as he let a fireball explode in front of me, separating us and sending us flying back in different directions.
Before I could land on my feet though I got shoulder checked by Burly. I felt like a train had just hit me as I bounced and skidded along the ground leaving a grove in the grassy hill we were fighting on with my passing.
Shakily I got to my feet and let out a loud exhale of frustration. One step forwards and six steps back was what I felt the fight progressing as. Slim got up looking ruffled but otherwise unharmed. Flicking my eyes to Burly he charged me impossibly fast and I put up my left hand to block only to feel the bone snap in half from the blow.
Burly didn’t count on my claws sinking into his shoulder as I’d used my right to jab in a tiger kung fu like strike with clawed fingers into him.
He snarled at me before I felt another blow to the area around my right kidney that sent me stumbling back only to vomit up blood. Looking down I saw that a spiral had been made at the point of impact, my carapace had warped into a spiral pattern. Quickly, I searched inside myself and thankfully the internal impact dampening gel that had been the first form of the carapace had mitigated some of the blow but if I was hit again at the same spot nothing would stop or even mitigate the blow.
“You filthy animal.” Slim snarled as he began to weave his hands in patterns while moving through two stances. “Die!” He then screamed as a vertical tornado made of fire shot out from him and expanded to cover the area I’d be able to dodge to as it came roaring towards me.
I spent the remained of my mana to empower my carapace and put up a hasty barrier of mana before me in the shape of a cone with the point aimed at the flames. Then the flames washed over me.