Alisha desperately fought against the urge swelling up inside her to go running back to her accursed family and enjoy a nice bath once again after spending so long living a life destitute in the slums. However, although she managed to forgo running back physically, she miserably failed to keep her unfocused mind from fantasising about taking a bath or eating a well-cooked meal as truly, she was beyond miserable right now.
As sure, at first, her drastic quality-of-life downgrade from wealthy heiress to denizen of the slum hadn’t been so bad, after all, she’d had Tristan, and his overwhelming love had made every part of her new life with him feel so luxurious and special – even if, as was the norm, there had hardly been a dozen people living in a worse or more dire situation of poverty than they were.
Then he’d been taken from her by death, and due to their poverty, Alesha had been unable to give the love of her life a proper burial and had instead been forced to allow the capital’s local administrative office to cremate her love and send her the ashes at the end of the grisly process. But as of now, she’d not had either the time and or money to travel to a properly sentimental location and spread the man’s ashes, a reality that she struggled with every day.
However, the cause took priority over everything – even her sacred duties to her dead and incinerated lover. Although her conviction was waning currently, the feeling deep within her that the society she lived in was fundamentally unjust never faded – not even the slightest bit, it just occasionally disappeared from the very forefront of her mind on cold and hard nights like tonight. But, in times such as this, she always kept the memories she had of seeing innocent people in a situation just like her current one at the forefront of her mind – as knowing that she wasn’t the only one struggling made everything feel at least somewhat bearable.
Alisha looked around her and took in her rather unfamiliar surroundings. This wasn’t her usual squatting spot – that particular spot had been raided by the capital’s soldiers after she’d foolishly nearly got caught whilst she was doing one of her ‘sermons’ to the masses.
The area around her had none of the well-polished charms of her former spot, therefore, in that it smelt horrible – the stench of blood, death, and shit lingered oppressively in the air and she could only thank the system that she had a cleaning skill that kept all of her own items and body clean – otherwise, she’d have probably died upon first smelling the odour. The look of the buildings around her was hardly any less grotesque, with each building being no more advanced looking than a free-standing cave that a high-level yet unintelligent monster might create for itself to hibernate in over the winter. In other words, the place was dramatically inferior to anything she was used to and a level of terrible that she hoped she wouldn’t need to get used to.
“Ali!” A young male voice called out far too loudly for the time of night that it was, dragging Alisha out of her complaining thoughts – even if only if it was to scold and complain at the young man calling for her for being such a socially unaware loudmouth.
She got up from where she was sitting and stormed over towards the young man who stood at least a foot taller than her and asked in a harsh hushed voice, “What is it, Samuel? And why are you shouting? It’s 2 am, you cretin!”
The dark-skinned young man looked away in shame – clearly embarrassed – before saying his own defence, “I just heard some crazy news alright?! I just couldn’t keep my voice down about it.”
Alisha shook her head in disbelief, before asking indignantly, “Have the exalted order of that cranky old bat finally decided to divulge the big plan?”
Samuel nodded his head, then shook it, before sighing and saying, “It’s complicated, in that they didn’t say what their plan was explicitly – probably out of fear that we’d rat on them to the guards if they did. But, if the ultra-level secrecy I witnessed being observed is any indicator, then the plan they want us in on is a big deal Ali – like real big, Empire changing big in fact.”
Alisha scoffed, before saying in a sceptical voice, “The brotherhood may have a lot of members in comparison to us but isn’t their whole thing not using the system at all, so how could they possibly hope to change or overthrow the Imperium?”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said, shrugging his shoulders.
“So, what was the big news then?” Ali asked curiously.
Samuel’s eyes became intense for a moment as he scanned the surrounding area carefully and once he had confirmed to his satisfaction that it was just the two of them nearby, he said, “I may have learnt from a friend of mine who works in the Imperial Palace that the Crown Prince was nearly assassinated a few weeks ago.”
Alisha’s eyes widened and she turned to look at Samuel, “Are you serious?!” She demanded loudly. This bit of information, if true, was news of an unparalleled importance and Alisha could only imagine the kind of productive chaos she could stir for her cause if the news was propagated far and wide with her assistance. But, if it wasn’t true, then the backlash would be far too great – so she had to make sure that her moron of an assistant wasn’t just joking about something like this.
“Yes, I’m serious,” Samuel said defensively, seemingly affirming that he too knew the serious implications of what he was saying.
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“How reliable is your source?” Alisha asked, inquisitively, her mind instinctively formulating plans for how she would use this information to deal as much damage as she could to the current status quo.
“Oh, Ted? He is the Chief Manservant of the Crown Prince himself, so I’d say pretty reliable when it comes to news of this kind.” Samuel replied.
Alisha’s suspicion was once again raised, and so she asked, “How did you, a slum rat working at that shitty excuse of a bar downtown, encounter a pompous twit such as him and then have him divulge this highly volatile information to you?”
“Ha! I’ll have you know that Ol’ Roger’s bar has quite the prestigious and high-powered clientele – especially those with a bit of a shady side and a lot of ill-gotten money to spend. Plus, the guy, Ted, only told me about the big news after I’d already plied him with litres of Qi-infused alcohol for… uh… other reasons.”
Alisha rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. Of course, it was whilst the young man was trying to get into the older man’s pants that he learned of probably one of the most highly guarded secrets in the whole Imperium – that was so typical of Samuel.
“Let’s hope for your sake that you plied him with enough alcohol that he has no clue about anything that happened last night otherwise you’re truly done for, Sam,” Alisha said after giving the young man some more thought.
Samuel simply nodded, before gesturing at himself and saying in a faux-offended voice, “Aren’t you going to ask for my opinion on what we should do with the multi-verse shattering information I just made you aware of?”
Alisha scoffed, before saying, “No. Of course not. My plans have always worked out well for me in the past and the last time I trusted one of your great plans, I almost got arrested.”
“But I know a perfect event at which to begin spreading this groundbreaking scoop among the elite of the Imperium, nay the whole multiverse really,” Samuel said in a voice that sounded far too devilish and mischievous to be his own.
“You do?” Alisha asked, sceptical.
“Yes, the Butler’s Guild celebration ball in a few days. Such events are usually extremely exclusive, for obvious reasons, but apparently, the guild master has made an exception this year and anyone with sufficient social status may attend if they are so inclined.” The young man paused for a brief second and then finished with, “And, the last time I checked, you have a pretty high social status, Ali, don’t you?” Samuel stated everything as if this information too was just common knowledge. It was not.
“Had. I had a pretty high social status, Samuel. But maybe you want to recalibrate your information to the last decade because I’m pretty sure that I have about the same or lower social status as the rocks beneath our feet as of now.” Alisha said exasperatedly, before saying in a lower tone, “but even if I cashed in on my family’s name, I doubt that I would be admitted into such an event as a Butler’s guild celebratory ball. Those kinds of events are for the super elite.”
“What if I told you that I know a guy who knows a guy whose grandfather is the one organising the ball and thus could admit us without much problem?” Samuel asked with a smirk that didn’t fit his quite sweet facial features.
“What’s gotten into you, Sam?” Alisha asked, a bit annoyed at how flippant the young man was being about such a serious topic.
No answer came to her question, so she just sighed and started to answer his question, “If you told me that I’d tell you that you had lost your damn mind.”
“Well, I haven’t lost my mind, but I do know such a person and they’ve already agreed to bring you along to the event – so long as you’re his ‘date’. Apparently, he was one of the random people in the crowd at that sermon I had you put on and he is SOOOO deep in love with you it’s unreal. So, you see, my perfectly orchestrated plan bore some worthwhile fruit after all.”
Alisha was a little flustered at the idea of following through with Samuel’s plan and meeting this random lover, but if Sam and this other boy were telling the truth, then she really couldn’t put her personal pride above the potential benefits for the cause that would follow her attending that ball and starting the chain of rumours that serve as a crippling strike to the prestige of the Grand Emperor.
However, that didn’t mean she appreciated what Sam had signed her up for without her permission – she still hadn’t quite gotten over Tristan, even though it had been almost 2 years since his death. So even if this date was nothing more than a cynical political ploy, it still felt icky for her to be leading on another guy when her true love still occupied such a prominent place in her heart.
“What’s this boy’s name that you, without my permission, signed me up for a date with?” Alisha asked, defeatedly.
“Steven.”
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Lucas didn't know why the old demon insisted that he write poetry, but then again, he had come to the conclusion that he would probably never understand the old demon's motivations. Roger, as he was known to the Imperium's citizenship database, was far more than simply eccentric - he was a catastrophic paradoxical absurdity.
However, the one thing that Lucas didn't doubt about him was that he was strong, and so when he had been given the strange snippet of advice by the man as to how to get stronger - he was unable to ignore it as just the ramblings of an insane lunatic. So, he'd tried writing poems.
Yet, it wasn't as though Lucas knew anything about poetry, beyond that rhyming was sometimes employed in poetry. But, if that demon said this would make him more powerful, then the least that he owed himself was to try it out.
Lucas found writing poetry to be extremely difficult. Not only did he not really understand what he was supposed to do technically speaking, he didn't really feel like writing about anything because since waking up he hadn't really felt anything. Anything, that was, except almost unceasing emotional detachment. So, he wrote a poem about that feeling of detachment - his mind almost fully focused on the task at hand.
The hurricane blows but weakly against my skin.
The blaze barely warms the surface of my skin.
But perhaps it isn't truly mine, merely skin on bone,
A home without a resident.
I am, in other words, a stranger peeping in
through a window that is open wide enough
to let me feel each outward draught.
But about this, even, I do not care,
to do so no effort do I spare,
for I do not dare
to do anything but despair.
The strangest thing happened once Lucas had finished writing the final word of the final stanza of his final draft - a system prompt appeared in his vision and a strange smile formed on his lips.