It was shortly after midnight when the werewolf came to a panting halt in front of the mansion gates.
Her name was Waverly, and she was a little late.
Her parents had insisted she take care of her younger siblings while they were working their first shift, and even though she totally didn’t understand why none of her younger brothers could take over just this once, she’d stayed and been a good example to the rest of the pack. She was the highest level of all of her siblings, so she had to set a good example!
Still breathing heavily, she [Shapeshift]ed back into her favorite form (mostly human, but keeping her tail and ears), pulled out her Hellphone, and checked the address. Yep, she was here alright, and that got her tail wagging in a flash. The ornate front gates were open, framing a neatly kept driveway that led up to the mansion proper.
Waverly didn’t know much about architecture, but she knew enough to recognize the new, post-gothic style that many fancy places in Hell were going for these days, all black and angular and with lots of glass, but still kinda inviting. So Waverly squared her shoulders, made sure her outfit looked as cool as she could make it, and started heading up the driveway, passing several fancy-looking cars she didn’t even know the brand of.
She kinda wished she could also have had a car like that if only to be here a little earlier. What if everyone inside had already made friends and she’d be the odd one out? But nah, this was Disorientation Week, and all the froshmen (which was a super cute nickname in her opinion) of all the colleges in Elysium would be here, mingling. Her friend Jim had told her that she had to remember that everyone in college wanted to make friends as much as she did, so it couldn’t be too bad, right?
As she came closer to the main entrance, however, she could already hear that the music was terrible.
It wasn’t like she was a music snob. She could listen to mumble rap, dubstep, country, and all the other styles being played on 66.6FM, Hell’s main radio station, but she’d never been one of the kids who wanted to be in a band or have a musical career when she grew up. To her, it all just sounded a bit bland, and if she was really honest, she didn’t even have a favorite song.
That was okay, though. She liked other stuff, like puzzles and math, and making friends and reading books, and she was lucky that some of those skills translated well to school, because otherwise she would never, ever have had any chance to gain a scholarship, much less to a poison-ivy league college like the Sinner DeSade.
There was a small crowd in front of the main door, mostly some weretigers and -lions, and she could tell they were smoking catnip by the smell alone from a mile away. She didn’t mind that, but cats drooling out of their mind made for really weird conversation partners, so she just nodded to them on her way to the front door, while the heavy, irregular thump of some dubstep beat grew louder with every step.
Alright Waverly, let’s do this!
[https://i.imgur.com/I9IY9J9.jpg]
She pushed the door open and entered the atrium.
Despite the size of the house, it was packed. They’d told her that dis-orientation week was a time-honored tradition at every college in Elysium, and they usually started in big houses like this, but Waverly didn’t realize just how many first-year students would be attending. But maybe that was to be expected. As far as she could tell, some Goblin King or another was on some sort of cruise down the Styx and had left the house to his daughter, and she had taken the chance to host a party with an open invite list.
Everything, from the black marble pillars to the artfully placed statues looked yellow and blue, and Waverly realized with a start that she had let her eyes shift without noticing it. She was just so damn excited.
When she blinked and changed them back to her human form, she finally saw the room in its full overwrought glory. She eyed the golden engravings, the statues, and the little fountain in the middle of the room that she was pretty sure was filled with either blood, wine, or some cheap ambrosia imitation. Or maybe it was real? But no one would ever spend that amount of money, right? In any case, It was definitely far more expensive than any other building she’d ever been in, except for maybe her new college’s main building, which was an actual 18th-century castle.
Looking up, she found the DJ set hovering above the crowd, levitated by infernal magic and sporting a ragged “Welcome class of MMXXIII” banner that fluttered below it in an artificial wind, and that looked super cool. Waverly just wished the goblin girl hadn’t hired a Mindflayer to do the music. They always had super interesting ideas, like for example taking a mumble rap song and mixing it with dubstep. She had to admit she wouldn’t have had the skills to make a song sound boring enough to put her to sleep and hyperactive enough to give her a heart attack at the same time, so maybe he was just really, really skilled and she couldn’t appreciate it, or something.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The other students seemed to like it, though.
She did a quick headcount and some napkin math and guessed that there were at least two-hundred-sixty-nine other students at this party, all with the potential to become cool friends! She even spotted two other werewolves like her. Hopefully, they were the nice kind, and not the super territorial, backward type. But yeah, this was college, and she kinda doubted anyone clinging that hard to the old werewolf ways would make it in here.
Anyway, she combed a stray lock of blonde hair behind her furry ears, started wagging her tail, and approached the group closest to the entrance.
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Victor sat at a table in the middle of the room and would have been happy to focus on the conversation if the music hadn’t been trying to drill straight into his brain. Who had thought hiring a Mindflayer to be a DJ was a good idea? As it was, it was all he could do to not flatten his ears. Thankfully, it did sort of fade into the background after a while, which was good enough for him.
He gave the girl he was talking to, a red-skinned succubus wearing a tank top and jeans, a smile. She blushed, which he was used to. He got a lot of looks because of his unusual Werecat/Vampire gene mix. He had the sort of dark, luscious curls that gave him a dreamy look, but also piercing blue eyes that made him seem alert and observant. His fangs turned his every smile slightly dangerous if they weren’t tempered by cute cat ears that seemed to have a mind of their own.
[https://i.imgur.com/OmXXoCl.png]
“Yo, sorry,” he said. “The music’s a bit… weird, right?”
“You think so?” the succubus (her name was Stefanie) said, and he noticed she was doing her best not to bite her lip. “I think it’s pretty cool, honestly.”
That was okay. Different strokes for different folks. And yet, Victor couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. He was very grateful to have lucked out in the genetic lottery, but he found that it made making new friends a little awkward. He’d switched to dressing in baggy clothes that hid his frame, but he guessed that just made him look even more innocent, which was like catnip for a succubus. Stefanie was the fourth or fifth one to approach him during this party, which was completely fine, except that he didn’t really have a lot in common with them, besides going to the same college, so in the end the conversations all kind of petered out.
Like right now.
While Stefanie kept undressing him with her eyes, Victor kept smiling at her, debating what he could say to keep the conversation going. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if he wanted the conversation to keep going. Like everyone else with high charisma, he liked being appreciated, but he just wished he could turn it off every once in a while.
Even so, if that were his only problem while trying to make friends, he could deal with it. But there was always the other thing, which was…
“What kind of music do your parents listen to?” asked a Goblin to his right.
Victor gave him the most genuine smile he could manage. There it was. If it wasn’t about his looks, it was about his parents. “Dad’s more of an ambient guy, but Mom liked classical. Can’t tell if that’s because she likes it, or because it’s another way for her to bring work home, though,” he joked and got the expected round of laughter.
“What is it like, though?” the Goblin asked. He had his hair in a ponytail and wore slim jogging pants stuffed into his socks, and a bright orange jacket over a blue t-shirt. Typical clothes that a large part of Hell’s population wore because they thought it made them look unique.
“What?” Victor asked, even though he thought he knew the answer already.
“Growing up under an Expansion Endboss!” The Goblin said. “I heard you guys live in an apartment in the raid yourselves.”
Victor grinned and shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Just a really big house down in Asmodeus Park.”
The people at his table ooooh’d at that, and Victor knew he had just lost his chances at a normal friendship. He had tried to make it sound less impressive, but anyone who grew up upper middle class or above knew about the real estate prices in the Eight Circle. He could have lied, of course, or denied his parents, but he didn’t feel like doing that. He was who he was, it was just that no one dug deep enough to find him.
What annoyed Victor the most was that these people weren’t mean, evil, or stupid. He was pretty sure that if they talked to anyone else, they would have probably been fine. But for some reason, everyone who came to this table didn’t approach him, Victor, but “that cute Catboy” or “the son of Countess von Katzer.”
It wasn’t just at this mixer either. From the household staff to the kids of the other raid bosses his Mom had invited over, it had been the same for all his life. It was as if someone had dressed him in a costume without him noticing. As if a shell of another person surrounded him that people interacted with instead of him.
As if he was invisible.
Victor sighed. Okay, it wasn’t this group, so he had to wait for the next. He leaned back and listened to the other students as they talked about how they would run their dungeon when they graduated. They made a lot of assumptions, Victor noticed, but he supposed that that was okay. He didn’t like to interrupt when someone was talking, and besides, you learned far more about people when you kept your peace.
And he would have been fine just listening to the people at his table talk, if it hadn’t been obvious they were just trying to impress him. So he smiled that quiet smile of his and politely excused himself from the table, just like he had been taught.
As he got up and pushed his chair back under the table, his [Courtly Intuition] skill activated and his ears swiveled around. From his left, two Incubi were making a straight line for him. Another chance to meet new people. All he had to do was stay where he was and wait.
But somehow, whether it was that glint in the Incubus’ eyes or the fact that they weren’t talking to anyone else, he had a feeling that waiting and hoping wasn’t going to work out.
And then the DJ threw spoken-word-country music into the track, and Victor couldn’t take it anymore. He needed a bit of quiet. Maybe a different spot with a bit more quiet would be a better place to have a conversation. Perhaps it would attract different kinds of people, too.
So with a quiet sigh, Victor activated [Stealth] and slipped into the crowd.