Marguerites POV, Roughly the same time as Chapter 1.
"I don't know why you insisted on coming my lady, surely you have more important things to do with your time than come out here for this ceremony? Your fathers people would have appraised of the outcome within the day. " grumped Nadezhda one of my five companions.
"Well 'Dezhda, as I'm sure you will recall, if you take a moment, my father seems to think that young Charles would make a good fit for my future husband. I thought it might be a good idea to see what he is like before then. If he has changed too much or become...troublesome, it may be that I would have to see to him being removed from the board early. Korta may be a braindead lummox but at least he does what he is told. If I am to have any hope of surviving this mess my father caused then I need to make sure that there are no unfortunate hiccups. Also stop calling me My Lady when we are in private." I said casting a glance at my companion. Nadezhda was tall for a woman, with dark hair, amber eyes and sun bronzed skin. The second child of Baron Spencer, she along with my other four companions were chosen at a young age as a foster to be raised within our household. Her father holds a key territory bordering the Vilante Dukedom and as such she made for a key hostage. In order to keep everyone happy she was offered one of my five companion positions when I came of age last year and undertook my inheritance. She received a class called Scythe Berserker which on the surface seems similar to a normal berserker in that it boosts her strength at the cost of her reason and leaves her drained after, however it also greatly boosts her speed and dexterity, with the speed actually constantly growing the longer she is in combat. This makes her harder and harder to hit or target and far deadlier as the battle goes on. Unsurprisingly her weapon of choice is a large double headed scythe, the soul-bound weapon our dungeon gave her on completion of the inheritance quest.
Me? I received the Blood Weaver class.
Class: Blood Weaver (Unique) LVL. 7 Soul-Bond: Ghost Blood Spider Matriarch (Legendary - Juvenile) - Elise.
Spool the thread.
Gained at LVL.1
Ability Gather nearby blood into spools and store them for later use in an extradimensional space. The amount of blood that can be stored grows with your level.
Royal scarlet.
Gained at LVL.1
Ability You are immune to any negative effects that could be carried through your bloodstream. This includes poisons, venoms, curses and blood based abilities other than your own.
Step into my parlour.
Gained at LVL.5
Ability You are able to sense blood within a certain distance of yourself, scales with level. Currently 7 meters. Based on the volume of blood you can easily tell the difference in size between different creatures entering your domain.
Blood weaving.
Gained at LVL.1
Spell Weave your blood stores into anything you can imagine as long as you have enough blood. Costs mana and blood stores.
The ties that bind.
Gained at LVL.5
Spell Costs mana and your own blood. Create an imprint of a spider on your target. Can only be removed by you. You will know if your target dies and are able to compel them with one command which they must obey at all costs. This may only be done once a day and must be tied to a physical action. You cannot for instance compel someone to share a secret they know, but may compel them to kill someone against their will.
The red string of fate.
Gained at LVL.5
Unique Ability Usable only once during your life. Irrevocably tie your fate to someone else's for good or ill. Effects unknown.
I laugh as I see her fidget nervously. " Oh relax, there's nobody within earshot and my father knows what I think of his past policies. Quite frankly if I wasn't his only heir I doubt I would still be breathing. Luckily his obsession with making sure his bloodline stays on the throne will keep me safe, at least until I have children. Hopefully by then it will be a non-issue. So calm down and enjoy the scenery." I say as I glance out the window at the view stretching out below me. We are just passing along an open ridge, allowing for a view of a beautiful valley covered mostly in forests with a large lake in the centre. The ancestral home of the Gramercy Dukes is built on a cape that stretches into the centre of the lake. A large white castle surrounded by vast manicured gardens gleams in the sun. Clearly not built for defence, it is easy to understand once you realise that the Gramercy Dukedom is the next oldest noble house other than my family and as such they hold lands that have long been settled and had not seen war for generations. A fact which worked against them when my father conducted his purge.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
"Beautiful isn't it?" I say without looking at 'Dezhda.
"A bit easy to attack." she snorts." It is kind of pretty though" she begrudgingly admits after a second or two passes.
" Well we should be there in the next two hours or so at this rate. It will be good to to get off the road for a bit. Gavron should be here later today as well." I say.
" Still can't believe his family lucked out and got another slot for a companion. Do you know anything about his brother? Gavron doesn't talk about his family much. Is he another bookworm?" Asks Nadezhda.
"No, apparently Gilbert couldn't be more different from the rest of his family. House Nyx almost always end up as a caster class of some kind but all indications point to him being more interested in fighting than studying, a bit of an anomaly for them. Apparently he's a bit of a troublemaker as well. To be honest I'm not too sure how he was selected either. We seldom allow multiple companions from the same house in one generation. I think my father was most likely distracted with troubles at the border and left it to one of his secretaries to deal with. I would guess their father had something to do with it. How a power hungry little weasel like Arden Nyx ever managed to sire someone of Gavron's character I will never know."
"Aye, Gavron may be a bookworm but the boys got some guts. Never known him to back down from a fight." Nadezhda chuckled." Remember that time he fought Lord Whatsisnames kid, he must have been almost twice Gavron's size at the time. Took two grown men to pull him off"
"Lord Cumberbatch, and yes. Do you remember what they were fighting about?" She shakes her head. " He called Gavron's maternal Grandfather a traitor for not disavowing the Gramercy Dukes. I believe Gavron's grandfather was on his deathbed at the time and not exactly in any position to disavow anyone, which is why the whole thing was swept under the rug and forgotten. Gavron took it personally though and I am pretty sure he has never forgiven the Gramercy's or the Cumberbatches. He blames the one for putting him in that position and the other for impugning his honour." I sighed.
"Not gonna lie, I've always been a bit surprised he didn't get some kind of warrior class. If anyone was going to buck the trend I thought it would be him. Then again I guess Storm Archon is a pretty violent class too. Boys got some serious pent up rage he needs to work through." laughed Nadezhda.
"So what about Charlie? You think there's any hope there? He's pretty much been under house arrest for the past few years, kinda expecting some pale milksop with no personality, that or he's gonna reeeaaally hate your family. Hope he knows whats good for him."
"I knew him before all this you know?" I feel a wave of sadness pass over me for a second." We were even friends for a while...Charles is...difficult to describe. He was a natural leader when we were children, always the first to reach out and make someone feel welcome. Brave, loyal...smart. There was always something though...like he was holding back. Sometimes he would get distant and just disappear for hours. I never did figure out where he went. I don't think any of the adults paid enough attention to even notice. Far too many things were going on behind the scenes at the time. I honestly don't know what to expect. I can only hope that there is still something left of the boy I remember and not just some creature twisted by hate. If he has to be removed then thats that. This may be the last batch of inheritors and companions from this Dungeon." I said sadly.
"What do you mean the last?!" Nadezhda frowned" Can't you just give the land to someone else?"
"No, each of the five inheritance dungeons are keyed to a certain bloodline, the royal family, all the five families in fact, have always kept very strict records of our descendants. Once there are no more descendants of a line, the dungeon will become a black dungeon. That means it stops giving classes or rewards of any kind, the only thing they are good for is gaining experience from killing the monsters. If it weren't for the fact that black dungeons if left alone are far more likely to spawn roaming monsters we wouldn't even go near them."
" Wait, how do you know so much of what will happen with the dungeons, surely...?"
"Oh there were other inheritance dungeons during the founding of the kingdom, we still have records. We five families were just the survivors of that bloody conflict. That's the real reason my father left a member of each of the families alive. We can't afford to lose any inheritance dungeons nor can we afford to have more black dungeons within our borders. We simply don't have the necessary man power to deal with the added danger internally or externally. It's why the Vilante's still guard the border and were unmolested during the purge. It is a truce of necessity. Even my father is not so far gone as to destroy our greatest defence and replace it with a dungeon that wants all of us dead. Now hush, I think I would like to just sit for a bit and take in the view, after all this could be the last time I enter this valley while it remains this peaceful."