“Are you sure I shouldn’t have gone with them? What if I didn’t do something right?” Vera asked as her and Braulen walked in the direction Gren had indicated. She kept glancing over her shoulder until the graezen had rounded a corner. The immediate area was still clear of passersby, but they were quickly engulfed by the midday crowd after a block.
“I am not a spawn of Sloth, but I have seen other priests do something similar.” He tilted his head with the ghost of a smile. “Including to me. It was good enough to get her to help.” Vera turned partially towards the demon beside her as they walked.
“You know other spawns of Sloth? Would they be better for teaching me this stuff?” Braulen ran his hand over his neck, a grimace on his face.
“I knew others. Something tells me they are not really around anymore.”
“So you’re really as old as Gren was saying?”
“I do not think I biologically am, but yes; things have changed far too much for anything else to make sense. It has to have been a while at least.” He returned her curious gaze with a regretful one. “I am sorry there is not someone to teach you how to better use your abilities. If the churches were still around, you could be an acolyte and learn.” Vera shrugged, still energized by having figured out any of her ability, despite the violent nature of her discovery.
“That’s fine. I don’t really know if I would’ve wanted to be an acolyte to a random church.” She shivered slightly at the thought. “I love the gods as much as the next girl, but that seems too claustrophobic for my taste.”
“It was good for me. Gave me structure.” He stepped around a hawker in the middle of their path before rejoining her side. “But I could understand that.” Vera moved forward slightly to turn further and face him, walking backward and only slightly being a hazard to everyone around her to point at her companion with a hesitant smile.
“Besides, I still have you, right?” The demon shook his head.
“Not if you join the Adventuring Corps, which I was assuming is why we were headed in this direction.” He gestured down the street to the wooden sign engraved with a sword and scepter crossed over a shield, the Corps’ emblem, hanging out of what easily could’ve been any other store front.
“Well, I know you can’t join with me, but couldn’t I still learn from you in my free time?” The immediacy of the situation unnerved Vera, and without even a halfway friendly face, she worried she’d be overwhelmed once more.
“The graezen did not make it sound like you would have a lot of free time, at least not at first.” He stopped, glancing behind them as he navigated them through the much thicker crowd to a quieter spot between two shops. “This is as far as I can go. I am not sure if this particular recruitment location, will know who I am, but my red hair and horns makes it likely.”
“Wait,” started Vera. “I don’t even know what to tell them. And you’re not really going to just disappear now, are you?” Her voice was a whisper, but not the type of whisper that actually makes anything quieter.
“I cannot help you,” he said his voice raising a bit and cracking subtly. “Besides, she was right, I am a curse right now. I can’t help you any more than I can help myself.” Their voices drew a few glances, but the street was busy enough that no one gave them too much attention.
“Siloque was bleeding out, she doesn’t actually blame you for what those fucks did to her.”
“Those ‘fucks’ didn’t tear her arm off,” said the demon, a bit too loudly, drawing more glances both from the volume and the content of his words. “That damn illusionist made me think the graezen was one of them,” he said, his red eyes faintly glowing at the mage’s mention. Vera thought of the torn off limb, the force required for such a feat unsettling her, and she took a step back. Braulen didn’t miss the motion and nodded. “You are far better off with the Adventuring Corps.”
“The illusionist is why you took so long to reach us?” asked Vera. The demon chuckled.
“I doubt the illusionist was even really meant for me. Likely she was supposed to stop the elderly fellow from reaching me to wake me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Gren would be able to overcome such an illusion.” Vera knew it was possible he had the skills with the sheer amount of reading he’d done, but he was not remotely inclined to the arcane.
“He never did,” Braulen replied, drawing a dim wisp of magic from Vera’s chest she hadn’t even sensed. “I put this mark on you to alert me when your fight or flight response activated in case you found yourself in danger. The illusionist likely had to adapt which is why she sent me after Miss Siloque.”
“That’s the kind of stuff you could teach me,” Vera said gesturing to the wisp.
“No.” The demon released the wisp and it returned to Vera’s chest. “From what the graezen said, joining the Corps is your best chance at returning to some semblance of normal.”
“Nothing about this is normal,” said Vera bitterly. “Joining the closest thing Graezhold has to an army, because I missed a payment on a loan, is not a ‘normal’ sequence of events.”
“Either way,” began Braulen, glancing back at the sign, “They can help you, I cannot.”
“Fine,” said Vera as she crossed her arms. “I still don’t know what to tell them.”
“Just tell them the truth,” he said, getting more antsy as an official stepped out onto the street from the recruitment post. “And make sure to make me a villain in the story, so they look less at you.”
“And what will you do?” Vera asked as she grabbed his arm when he tried to move away. The official was moving their way.
“I… I will be fine,” he said, shaking his arm from her loose grip. “Good luck.” He moved back into the crowd, weaving among people to put more distance between himself and the official. He was around a corner and thus missed when the official ended his supposed pursuit and stopped at a nearby deli.
“It certainly doesn’t say anything good about my situation when my last source of security is scared off by a lunch run,” said Vera in a mutter as she also plunged back into the crowd to approach the recruitment post.
----------------------------------------
Belphegor was in a sour mood when he responded to his peer’s summons. As his azure energy flooded out to meet the violet ether of his fellow god, it was resisted. Rather than mixing with the other ether as had happened when Astaroth had joined his own projected space, Lucifer had his ether contain the claimant of Sloth’s.
“Just because the graezen started calling the rest of us minor gods, doesn’t give you the right to call on us any time you please,” he said as he conjured his hammock in his pocket of ether and climbed into it.
“I really wasn’t demanding your presence,” said the demon reclined on a chaise longue next to a decadent table of treats. “I just heard an interesting tidbit about a descendant of yours.”
“Ah, yes, Chester. Finally pursuing his dreams and opening that hammock shop,” said Belphegor as he spread his arms, his face full of wonderment at the scene he was imagining. He let his arms flop back to the hammock. “I see great things in that one’s future.”
“You’re well aware that I speak of the spawn you awakened,” said the other demon as he plucked a grape from the bowl on the table, its color a close match for his hair.
“Why make a show of eating when nothing is real here?” asked the smaller demon from his hammock. “Do you just have a quota on pretentiousness?”
“Do you really have an issue with me enjoying the flavor of foods without having to worry about how much I’m eating?” the claimant of Pride asked as he flicked the grape into his mouth.
“Well, no,” answered Belphegor as he laid back and gaze up at the ubiquitous violet overhead. “But I can’t miss an opportunity to take a dig at you.”
“At least you’re honest about it.”
“So you wanted to talk about Vera?” asked the azure-haired demon as he snapped his fingers. The requisite pulse emitted as a plate appeared in his other hand, and he grabbed the matching fork to dig into the carrot cake atop it. He mimed an ashamed face. “Are you going to give me a talking to?”
“I’m simply curious.” Lucifer sat up on his couch. “You were never willing to awaken heritages before.”
“You know, maybe we should actually go back and talk about the food thing,” said Belphegor through a mouthful of cake and icing. “Does eating real food cause you distress?”
“Bel, what changed?”
“Nothing changed,” said the claimant of Sloth defensively, his arms going wide and the cake defying traditional understandings of physics to stay on the plate. “Asta just asked for a favor, is all.”
“We all asked before, including Asta, but you refused.” The demon’s violet eyes were fixed on the hammock. “Why now?”
“You know, this is actually based on one of Chester’s finer models,” said Belphegor, his own eyes downcast as he picked at the fabric beneath him.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Bel, can you talk to me?”
“I’ve told you what Sloth is like, Luce. You know I didn’t want to burden anyone with that.”
“But this girl?” Lucifer prodded.
“She was in a corner,” said the shorter demon, his shrug obscured by the fabric around him. “I did what I could.”
“But we were in a corner then too,” said Lucifer, his tone gaining an edge, the frustration leaking through.
“That’s not remotely the same thing,” Belphegor shot back as he sat up in his hammock. “And we weren’t the ones in the corner then either. It was our descendants, but their souls weren’t on the line then. Only their lives.” He swung his feet over the edge of the hammock as he leaned forward to point a finger at his counterpart. “And all you had on the line was political power and your image.” He lay back as he continued in a mutter, “Not like you came out too bad there either.”
“Do you think I wanted to be the only claimant of Sin considered part of the upper pantheon?” asked the other demon as he stood, his eyes glowing with the same violet light as the environment. “What would have happened to the rest of our descendants if I hadn’t made concessions?”
“It’s ironic how little pride you actually have,” said the claimant of Sloth. He tossed his cake out of his hammock, the dish shattering as it crashed against an invisible floor. “You even call yourself a claimant of Sin.”
“You’re going to whine about not wanting to burden someone with Sloth, but tell me it isn’t a Sin, really?” Lucifer didn’t make any motion, but the table full of treat disappeared with a soundless pop. “Are you going to tell me Sloth and Diligence are both equally lovely?”
“My issues with Sloth,” said the azure-haired demon as he stood, his hammock disappearing beneath him with another pop, “Do not give you free rein to be a sellout?”
“Grow up,” said the taller demon, waving a dismissive hand as he turned back to his chaise.
“Fine,” said his shorter counterpart, who snapped and became twice as tall. “Now will you hear me when I tell you what a disappointment you are as a friend?”
Lucifer stopped and let out a sigh, his shoulders relaxing. He waved a hand, Belphegor’s hammock reappearing. “Just sit down,” he said turning around. “Please?” The enlarged demon in front of him shrank down as if deflating and fell back into the hammock.
“Sorry,” he said as he let the sides of the hammock wrap around him. “I don’t know how Asta keeps her temper so well.”
“She has more practice from your constant provocations,” answered the violet-haired demon as he sat back down on his couch. “You know, you could’ve just made the cake disappear, instead of throwing it on my floor.”
“As you said, nothing is real here, so what does it matter?” asked Belphegor, as he made the cake, fork, and shattered dish disappear with a pop. “Besides, breaking it was more therapeutic.”
“Have you ever even been to therapy?”
“I’m a god.” The hammock’s sides drooped as the demon splayed his arm over the edge and let his head loll out. “Am I supposed to drag some mortal to listen to me whine?”
“It might be more productive than me listening to you whine,” said the claimant of Pride with a slightly higher tone as he returned his table of treats and picked up another grape. “You know, you didn’t actually save her soul,” he said while chewing. “My descendant already owns that, you just stopped him from also getting her mind and body.”
“Yes, I’m aware of how your lovely spawn of Pride tricked her for her soul,” replied Belphegor as he rolled his eyes.
“Hey,” said Lucifer, spreading his arms grandly. “Contract trickery is the demonic way.”
“No,” said the other demon as he let his head sag even further out of the hammock, his hammock barely not scraping the ground. “It’s your way. It only became the ‘demonic way’ when you became the only demon in the upper pantheon.”
“The mortals think what they think, who am I to correct them?” said the violet-haired demon with a grin as another grape burst between his teeth.
“Right,” said Belphegor dryly. “So will you have your descendant release mine’s soul back to her?” Asking had been the main reason he’d answered the summons in the first place.
“I wouldn’t want to be an undue influence on my descendants. I prefer to let them chart their own course.”
“Oh, so you had nothing to do with this scheme to trick desperate people with loans to gain a workforce of drones?” the claimant of Sloth asked mockingly. “I’m so sorry for assuming such a thing.”
“If it makes you feel better,” replied Lucifer, ignoring the sarcasm, “Your descendant is on her way now to sell her body and mind to the Adventuring Corps instead.”
“Remind me what that is again,” requested the shorter demon, squinting as he struggled to remember. “It’s been so long since I’ve checked in on this world.”
“It’s the graezen answer to environmental and militant resistance on the worlds to which they create gates.”
“Oh, great,” said Belphegor. “She got away from being a mindless drone in a factory, so she could be a mindless drone in a fight.” He looked over at the other demon. “Why are our descendants like this?”
“No idea where they get it from,” Lucifer replied with a grin.
----------------------------------------
“Hello?” Vera asked as a bell announced her arrival to the recruitment post.
“Ah, hello, good morning,” said the cheerful orcish woman at one of the desks. She looked up at a clock on the wall before correcting herself, “Or afternoon, I suppose. If you’re here for the Mages’ Academy enrollment exam, Leo just stepped out for lunch so you’ll have to wait a moment.” She pointed to a bench next to the door, and returned to reorganizing her desk.
“Oh, uh, no? I thought this was for the Adventuring Corps,” Vera said uncertainly. She began to back out of the space trying to check the sign that had been hanging outside. The woman paused in moving some pens and looked up with a bright smile.
“Sorry, we’ve just been getting Academy applicants all day. I can get you started,” she said, placing the pens back where she’d grabbed them and reaching down to pull open a drawer. She drew out three sheets of parchment and a small crystalline sphere. “All of this is very standard, so if you could, just sign this contract and fill out this form.”
“I thought there would be a bit more of a process to this,” Vera said walking up to the desk. There wasn’t any chair on her side of the desk, so she while she began reading over the contract, she was looming over the woman’s desk.
“Nope,” said the woman, her cheery expression somehow not out of place behind her tusks. “The Corps is more than happy to take anyone, so we do our best to streamline the process.” As she finished speaking and Vera still hadn’t moved to take the parchments, she started playing with her fingers, her mouth quirking uncomfortably. “You can pull the bench over if you’d like.”
“Oh,” said Vera, looking at the sturdy bench she had no confidence in moving. “I’m really fine standing. What is this about body donorship?” The woman leaned forward peering at the line she’d indicated.
“That’s just for if, gods forbid, something were to force your soul to evacuate your body, you give the necromancers of the Corps permission to reanimate your body with a foreign soul.” She explained it with the same excited vigor she’d first greeted with.
“I didn’t even realize the Adventuring Corps used necromancers,” said Vera. Graezhold and the graezen government as a whole didn’t outright ban necromancers, but actively practicing necromancy was heavily restricted within empire domain, especially so on the graezen homeworld.
“Of course we do. Like I said, we take just about anyone with potential.” She paused for a moment. “And a few without,” she admitted with a rankled nose.
“Can I just opt out of that?” There wasn’t any check boxes, and given that Vera no longer owned her soul, it was a risk she’d prefer not to take.
“You can cross out that portion of the contract before you sign,” the orcish woman said still leaning forward to look at the line. “I should mention you get a three percent immediate bump to your pay if you leave it in.”
“Which would bring the pay to?” Vera asked leadingly. The woman grabbed a pen and pointed down closer to the bottom of the contract.
“Ten Swords a month, plus the three percent would add another thirty copper Brooms.”
“So little?” a shocked Vera asked before she could control her response. She had made fifteen of the silver Swords and some change while at the archive. Her rent payments were more than ten Swords. Over the course of trying to pay down her debt to Vladik she’d probably cumulatively paid a gold Scepter or at least several tens of Swords. The official pursed her lips, but wasn’t overly offended by the response.
“They will provide a dorm, gear, and food,” she said pointing at other various lines in the contract. “Additionally, individual deployments often have their own pay bonuses, though those aren’t included when calculating the three percent.” The demoness nodded along to the explanation. She considered asking about waiving the dorm for more actual pay, stopping when she remembered who was likely still surveilling her apartment.
“Ah, another applicant here for the exam?” asked a voice behind Vera. She turned to the official who had scared off Braulen. He had returned with two sandwiches wrapped in paper.
“Nope, we’re getting a new recruit,” said the woman behind the desk, leaning around Vera.
“Oh, wonderful. Have you evaluated her potential with magics?” He walked over to the desk and plopped the larger of the sandwiches on her desk before going around his own desk to sit down with his own.
“No, she’s clearly the sneaky-knife type,” she answered moving the sandwich off the forms before it could stain them.
“Fern, you think anyone not an orc, golemoid, or gargant is going to be the sneaky-knife type.”
“They’ve got a sneaky-knife type of build,” the orcish woman responded, reaching for the sphere. She tossed the globe to Vera, who caught it unsteadily. The orb was initially cold and the demoness was unsure how to activate it. As she opened her mouth to ask, the coolness of the sphere spread up her arm. As it reached her core, the chill siphoned off a wisp of the magic she’d only recently awoken and departed back into the orb.
“Is that how it’s supposed to work?” she asked when the globe lit up with the now familiar azure light.
“See, Fern, this is why you have to check,” said Leo through a mouthful of sandwich.
“She could still be a sneaky-knife person,” Fern responded unwrapping her own sandwich. “Having magics doesn’t mean you have to learn how to use them.” She looked up at Vera. “So what do you say? Want to have fun with knives, or do you wanna have to study with the nerds,” she asked, pointing a thumb at her fellow official for the latter half.
“I think I’ll go with the magic for now,” Vera said, well aware a knife in her hands would be more a danger to herself than anyone else. “But maybe I’ll come back to the knife idea,” she continued when the woman made a pout.
“Either way, you’ll have to wrap up your forms,” she said and bit into her sandwich.
“Right, this is asking about criminal history. I thought that wasn’t an issue,” Vera said pointing at one of the sections of the form.
“Depends on the crime,” said Leo dismissively. “Some childhood shenanigans won’t matter.”
“And if there were an ongoing investigation searching for me?” Vera asked avoiding eye contact.
“What did you say your name was?” Leo asked, reaching into a waste bin next to his desk and drawing out a newspaper.
“Wait, are you that girl who trashed that wanna-be mobster’s office?” asked his coworker, eyeing the newspaper.
“I don’t know if that’s how I’d characterize it,” said Vera, returning the orcish woman’s look of excitement with one of sheepishness. “I didn’t really do any trashing.”
“No, no,” she said standing from her seat and now towering over Vera. “They said you tore apart a wall. That’s why you don’t want a knife.” She glanced back at the other official, a grin spreading on her face. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you a proper hammer.” The demoness shrunk before her figure and moved closer to the other official, but the woman rushed between the two desks.
“No, I’m really set on the magic,” Vera choked out as the larger woman grabbed her shoulders and lifted her like a newborn. “Does this mean it won’t be a problem?” she asked, her face pleading with Leo for assistance.
“Fern, you’re scaring the poor girl,” he finally said, also smiling. The orcish woman put Vera down, but didn’t withdraw her hands on her shoulders, continuing to shake her slightly as she spoke.
“Do you know anything about the actual investigation?” asked Vera as the woman stopped her shaking and moved back to the sandwich on the desk.
“Only the broad strokes from gossip,” said Leo. “You’re a spawn of Sin, right?”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Vera said shrugging.
“Oh, are you a spawn of Wrath?” asked Fern excitedly. “Is that how you tore apart the wall?”
“You should be fine,” said Leo, ignoring his coworkers questions. “If we’re willing to take necromancers, we should be willing to take spawns of Sin.”
“But you should finish your paperwork,” said Fern seriously, poking at the forms with the hand not holding her sandwich.