June 21st, year 024 Angels Descent
It had been a few days since they met with Pride, and they were finally saying goodbye to Port Staine. The carriage that would take them to the portal gate was already waiting for them. At the same time, there was a small crowd in the courtyard of the Elementals Clan Compound.
“Remember to write!” Emily cried out as she tightly held Kline in a hug.
“Both of you,” she added, pulling Maxwell into her hug.
“Now, Emily dearest, we can’t coddle them forever,” Frank said, restraining his desire to pick up all three in a big hug of his own.
“I will coddle them till I can’t anymore!”
“Emmy, we have to let our little birds fly the nest; otherwise, they’ll miss their appointments,” Rosy said as she hung from Alex's neck, refusing to let him leave.
Both women shared a look before letting out a chuckle and finally releasing their charges to the carriage. The rest of the class looked on with a look of exasperation. The past few days, they had been the doting parents showering their chosen children with affection o the point of nausea.
Boarding into the carriage and having the blackout blinds locked into the down position, the class with their teacher settled into their seats for their journey.
It took only a few hours of general chatter and snoozing for them to finally focus on Daisy and start peppering her with questions about her parents. She, much like Maxwell, had been brushing off their enquiries. Unlike with Maxwell, this had only served to increase their curiosity and worry.
“Guys, I’ve told you my parents are simple clerks for Lady lust. Nothing more than boring accountants.”
“You say that but… are they accountants or are they ‘accountants’?” Bea’s tone with each version of the word was very clear. The word was often used to speak of assassins employed by the state. Much like how farmers was used to refer to portal guards or unknown to them, researchers was the term often attached to spies.
“Guys!! They are just boring bookkeepers. They spend all their time working with account books and making sure the numbers add up,” Daisy finally snapped at her classmate's incessant questions. In her opinion, her parents were way too boring to be anything as exciting as an assassin. If anything, the idea itself was laughable.
“But your parents are vampires?” Tasha pointed out.
Daisy nodded, having never hidden her heritage. But the world at large had a warped perception of vampires in part due to the rather showy ways some of their kind had behaved.
“Guys, not every vampire is a blood mad killer. The majority of our kind don’t even gain any powers when we accept the bite. All we get is the power to become ageless and a fondness of rarer steaks.”
“But your folks do drink blood, right?” Tasha asked.
“Yes… but still…” Daisy replied, struggling to find the words to explain it.
“Kids vampires typically only need a pint of blood a month. It can even be taken in small amounts throughout the month and doesn’t even need to be a sapient's blood. Many make do with the blood of a lamb or cow,” Alex explained.
“You seem well versed in vampire lore, sir?” Bea observed.
“Had to be my sister is married to one after all.”
“So they are just ordinary boring bookkeepers?” Kline asked.
“Even vampires can be bureaucrats and bookkeepers, guys!”
“They are honestly the better of the functionally immortal at the job,” Alex added, causing the class to look at him with confusion., Even Daisy wasn’t aware of this fact.
“As Daisy said, they don’t all get really big showy powers, and nearly all vampires come from what are basically humans. Humans, for all our faults, are a crafty bunch that can just shut down our minds and focus on a single task. Who better to manage a bureaucracy for centuries than vampires?”
“But what about elves, sir… they can live far longer than vampires?” Tasha asked, feeling her race being not well represented in the government of the Shadow Empire was a slight.
“Tasha, would you rather fight lots of tough guys, or would you rather spend all day doing homework?” Alex’s question had a very clear response for the elf.
“Clearly, I would prefer to fight lots of tough enemies!” Tasha replied, puffing her chest with pride for answering the easy question.
“And there you have it,” Alex said as he gestured to Tasha with both hands in a voila gesture. “Elves are typically either a whimsical lot led by their fun-loving nature or very slow-to-move stuffy sorts like high elves. There rarely is that balance you get with vampires.”
“What about dwarves or titans? We can focus on a single task for a long time,” Gunter asked.
“True, but your races tend to prefer to focus on more practical pursuits.
“So Vampires make the best bureaucrats, then?” Bea asked to which Alex nodded.
“Take the Sinful Lord of Lust, for instance. Lady Plutarchie of the House of Eternal Night has been around in the job doing the same thing since Yuu’s grandfather was the Dark Lord. She has kept the state in a functional state for centuries. Other than master Sloth and Yuu’s father, she is the third longest reigning SInful Lord.”
Their conversation was brought to a halt when the driver of the carriage thumped the roof to let them know they had arrived at the farm. Stepping out in the light of day from the relatively dark carriage, the class had to shield their eyes to let them adjust.
“Please be quick about your transfer. We have to keep a schedule today,” a man with a large straw hat and a scythe said as he approached the class.
Despite his appearance, which looked like it was ripped straight from a children's storybook, the class could feel the dense aura that was rolling off him. They were certain had they not received training from the teacher to resist such a force, they would already be unconscious.
Stepping onto the platform with the portal gate carved into it, the class prepared themselves for the motion sickness that would take hold as the whole world warped around them. In the blink of an eye, the class went from a brightly lit barn to one that had a slightly grey hue.
Stepping to the outside, they could see storm clouds had begun to roll in over the farm's location. As they focused on recovering, a towering figure approached them. Unlike the rest of the guards that wore appropriate clothing for the roles they were playing, this man wore shining full plate mail.
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The class couldn’t help but feel confused about why he was present. He was a man they recognised from their first visit to Hades Seat. It was Lord Mera’Sae, the chief enforcer of the Dark Lady Crozonia—a man so famed for skewering the injured on battlefields that his name became synonymous with the act.
“Portals must’ve not been fully charged… damn Pride Landers slacking on their job,” Mera’Sae grumbled as he approached Alex.
“Lovely weather, I see,” Alex said with a friendly tone as he approached the man.
“Yes, shame the delay of the arrival was extended. Had it been timed right, you would’ve arrived to far nicer weather.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Sorry, chief, what does he mean by delay?” Gunter asked
“You would do well to remember this is a state sec-”
“Oh, that we spent six and half hours travelling through the portal here. Had you never noticed we were arriving at the same time of day we left?”
“But that’s because teleportation is instantaneous?” Bea pointed out.
“If it were instantaneous, we would be arriving at the time of day that it is at the point of arrival. This may be hard for you kids to wrap your head around. But when it is midday in Academy City, it is actually four AM in Hades Seat. When we teleport, the portal creates a delay during travel.”
“Lord Alexander!!!” Mer’sae snarled as he held the tip of his spear to his throat.
“So the delay is to make it so we arrive at the time of day we left?” Tasha asked, oblivious to Mera’Sae’s growing frustration.
“It also helps them stop anyone who does hijack the portal. They can either prepare for the arrival with hours to spare. Alternatively, they close off the gate and well… imagine how fast we were going to travel from Port Staine to here and now imagine splatting into a solid wall.”
“You test my patience, Lord Alexander!”
“I tend to do that,” Alex replied with a nod. “It matters little they are a clever lot they would’ve figured it out eventually.” Mera’Sae exhaled a deep sigh and just waved them away.
The class boarded the carriage that would take them to Hades Seat, feeling awkward about how frustrated their teacher had made the man. Each gave a quiet little apology to him when they walked past him. With them, all settled, the carriage began to set off towards Hades Seat.
It took only a few hours before they were told it would be ok for them to open the blinds. Doing so, the class could see Hades' Seat on the horizon. While out the other window was a forest that they hadn’t been there on their first journey.
“What’s that forest?” Tasha asked, pointing to the large cluster of trees as if it wasn’t already visible.
“That is Sizeor Forest. We didn’t pass it last time as they change the route every time.”
“Any cool monsters in there?”
“Nah, just the usual fare. Goblins, large bestial monsters… there is also a pack of Unicorns.”
“Unicorns?!” Daisy repeated as she eagerly moved near the window. Ever since she was young she had always wanted to see one. The most majestic creature of all magical beasts. Her parents however had always steadfastly refused every request to visit where they lived.
As the carriage trundled along, it kept a steady pace, only for it to come to an abrupt stop. Wondering what was going on, Alex went to open the door only to have the face of the driver appear at the window.
“Please stay in the carriage, sir; it is nothing to worry about, only a pair of Unicorns,” Daisy had to contain a childish squeal of delight at actually getting a chance sooner than she could have hoped.
Peeking out the window, the class could see a pair of Unicorns standing at the edge of a small water spring. They were both gently drinking, seemingly oblivious to the carriages and guards. The unicorns lived up to their reputations.
They were white as pure snow and had a mane and tail that looked so silky it was no wonder why unicorn hair sold for absurdly high prices. The most prominent thing was the spiral horn at the middle of their head that glittered with latent magical power.
“Are we going to wait for them to leave?” Daisy asked, looking up at her teacher, who had a pensive look on his face.
“Daisy, it may be better you don’t watch this,” Daisy wondered what he meant, only to see a pair of the guards had drawn their weapons and were flanking the unicorns.
“They aren’t going to hurt them, are they?!”
“They have to.”
“But they are so pure and majestic, and magical and-” Daisy swallowed her further protests as the unicorns noticed the approaching men. Looking at the men and then their weapons, both creatures stood tall and proud.
To everyone's horror, they then snarled, transforming their teeth from normal horse teeth to row upon row of interlocking razor-sharp fangs. The first unicorn that reacted moved towards one of the guards, tore open his belly and immediately began feasting on the intestines that spilled out.
“W-w–what the…?!!”
“Unicorns are majestic, proud, and caring, but only to the pure of heart. To everyone else you are food,” Alex explained as they watched the other guard skewer the second Unicorn through the head with a spear.
“P-p-pure of heart?” Daisy repeated.
“You know… people who haven't done the sideways fandango… the couple shuffle…”
“He means people who haven’t had sex,” Bea explained which immediately caused Daisy to blush a deep shade of red.
“Gods above…” Daisy groaned, having a childhood dream shattered into tiny pieces.
“We’ll be ok; we got the guards,” Alex assured them.
“But one of them got his guts literally eaten!!” Kline cried out, gesturing to the guard who was lying flat on the ground.
“Just watch. He’s lulling them into a false sense of security,” Alex explained, gesturing to the guard who, in a lightning flash of movement, plunged a dagger into the unicorn's head.
“But his guts were being eaten?!!!” Kline cried out.
“He is an Undeadmun. Basically, a necromancer got many body parts, stitched them together, and made a whole new person. He likely will just get his guts replaced.”
“Is that legal?!”
Necromancy, while a very valid school of magic, was still strictly controlled due to the high number of cases of mages going cuckoo insane because of it. They found it hard to believe that a necromancer could go ahead and make an undeadmun.
“Well, the bodies are donated. Much like people who donate their bodies for medical research, some donate to necromantic research. I have a few contracts with people to have dibs on their corpses when they die.”
“What do they get then?!” Maxwell asked, half worried about the response.
“They get money to enjoy while they are still alive. The main control is necromancers cannot revive the soul of the person. So that undeadmun, there is an entirely new person that went from knowing nothing to that. Think of it like creating a large baby and raising it at a fast rate.”
“What do necromancers get out of it, then?” Bea asked, her eyes gleaming. Being a demonology specialist, she never baulked at the macabre parts of the world.
“They get a loyal servant that is functionally immortal so long as they can remain whole.”
“You folks ok?” the driver asked as he approached the window. Alex, in response, gave a big thumbs up as the guards went about vapourising the unicorns' corpses.
“Won’t they harvest them?” Bea asked, not understanding destroying such valuable materials.
“They are meant to be just normal carriage guards. Taking down a pair of unicorns would draw too much attention. So they have to destroy the materials, as tragic as that is.”
The class settled into an awkward silence as they processed seeing creatures from their childhood storybooks revealed to be terrifying monsters. This silence proceeded all the way to the gate of Hades Seat, where they were told to dismount the carriage.
Doing so, they were approached by a man in a city guard uniform with a red band tied around his arm. The man had a curly moustache and a deep scar across his neck.
“Greetings. I am the new head of the guards, Sir Gilbert. I am here to escort you directly to her ladyship Plutarchie.” The guard finished with a snorting chuckle that resembled metal being rattled around in a metal pipe.
“All due respect, but we are here to see the Haemont family. Not her ladyship,” Alex said, rebuffing the offer.
“Heh… sadly, an incident has occurred on the estate…heh heh… it is this reason I have been sent to escort you. For the safety of the Haemont heir, of course,” he added as he looked at Daisy. His gaze sent a shudder down her spine. If the sensation could be described as anything, it would be like he was licking her with his eyes.