A/N: Ugh, I literally had no time to write for a while and I'm being honest that I'm kinda iffy 'bout chapter. It's showing shit about the background and whatever changes that I feel should be present, but I honestly feel like I'm just adding fluff. Any case, hope ya'll like the new chapter!
It was raining.
She looked up and saw water falling from the sky and hitting against her face. She looked around and saw that almost everything was wet, covered in water. Puddles that were on the ground moved as large drains drew the water away.
Her feet splashed against the puddles, each step sending ripples.
All around her, tall massive buildings that rivalled castles stretched out as far as she could see.
As much as she could see at least, considering how dark the place was.
It was only due to the small orbs of light that dotted the streets and the windows that she could see the place around her.
She moved, her head turning in every direction as she took in the sights.
The rain kept pouring down, drenching her from head to toe. She shivered as she kept walking, feeling the cool air of the city blow against her wet form. The silent city gave no reprieve and the lack of people filled her with dread.
At least until she finally found something.
Her walk had turned into a light jog, not fast enough that she would slip but just a little bit faster so that she could find a place to hide under. And to her relief, she saw that one of the buildings had their doors open.
As quickly as she could, she ran in, and for the first time in a while, with a roof over her head, she was safe from the rain.
She shivered as the cool air continued to blow, and she walked just a little bit slower now that she wasn't in the rain. The architecture around her was unfamiliar, with signs that had words that she could barely understand.
She saw something about 'sewers' something about 'lift' and other words that she could not discern.
She saw a symbol that resembled a winged insect with four horns, plastered on a wall.
The sound of rain grew as she walked through the building, and to her dismay she found herself standing at the exit. Carefully she peeked her head out, and saw that it was still raining quite heavily.
However, another thing caught her eye.
It was a fountain. A rather large fountain was standing in the middle of a square.
Alongside the fountain was a massive statue of a familiar figure.
She walked out, ignoring the rain as something compelled her to approach it.
Suddenly, she heard something fall from above her.
She saw something that glowed a pale colour. Alongside the glow was something bright red.
It dropped in front of her, and stared at her with pair of black eyes.
[Scene]
Louise woke up. She sat up on her bed, and looked around her room.
"I was at that place again…" she muttered as she tried to shake away the grogginess from her eyes.
The dreams, at first she just assumed that they were her normal dreams. But lately, everything seemed too clear to just be random dreams.
Not to mention, she found herself staring at the statue of that Void Vessel.
Truthfully, she preferred the dreams where she was stuck wandering a dark cavern filled with skittering insects rather than see it again. Every time, she could feel her 'stomach' twist and turn at the sight of it.
The Valliere looked out the window, and saw that the sun wasn't up yet.
MASTER?
Louise turned away from the window and saw Bug was by her bed.
Sib was still asleep, or resting, as it had not moved from its spot on their bed.
"Mornin' Bug," Louise greeted her Familiar, the Void Vessel staring at her from where it stood.
She didn't need to touch it anymore to speak to it. At first, she wondered why.
Then the emptiness in her stomach told her that answer.
She shook her head, banishing the thought for now, and smiled at her Familiar. "I'm surprised to see you awake this early," she reached over to pat it on the head, as she usually did every morning "Did you want to explore the school again?"
WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE CITY OF TEARS?
A lance carried by a walking corpse pierced its stomach, orange soulless eyes staring into theirs. Its mouth opened, and screamed out a warning.
It moved and dodge the boulder before it could run it over, it hit the wall behind it hard enough to shake the room. Then as it bounced from the wall, it unfurled itself into an armoured figure, a triangular blade in its hand, and swung down.
The massive body flashed everywhere at once. One moment it was above it, another it appeared behind it. Orange eyes stared maliciously as it stopped above it once more, and then dove downward.
It stared at the massive room filled with corpses. A familiar sight.
Louise had to stop herself from vomiting on the spot. Memories that weren't hers flooded into her mind, remembering places that she had never been to.
The experience was disorientating, it felt like she was seeing two different things at once. Her 'stomach' heaved as her head throbbed at the unfamiliar sights of a past that wasn't hers.
And the worst thing about it, was what was in those memories.
They stopped eventually, just soon enough that Louise didn't throw up on her bed.
She sat there, her body hunched over as she heaved every breath she took.
She blinked.
It was the red figure, it standing in front of the statue of the Void Vessel that had attacked her.
It turned to her to speak. But it paused.
Suddenly it grew hostile, drawing a long needle like weapon in its thin hands.
She opened her eyes and she was back in her room again.
She gulped down the saliva in her mouth.
"C-City of Tears?" She managed to say.
[Scene]
As Kirche watched Jean Colbert excitedly march into the classroom carrying a basket along with a group of guards carrying a massive crate filled with who knows what, the Germanian looked around and noticed that someone was missing.
She leaned to Tabitha, who was reading her book as usual, and whispered "Hey, where's Louise?"
The blue haired girl flipped through a page and answered "Library."
"Really?" Kirche raised an eyebrow "She knows we have class today right?"
"Wanted to learn about her Familiars," Tabitha replied "Saw Bug and Sib with her."
That was odd. What had prompted her to learn about her Familiars now of all times?
At the mention of the word, Kirche's eyes widened as another thought came to her "Oh by the way Tab, is Sylphid okay?" She asked.
Her friend lowered her book and turned to face Kirche to give her a nod "Yes, she's doing fine."
The lovable blue dragon had returned just a few days after they had returned from the palace. As promised, Agnes did give them some of the palace guards as a search party. But they weren't needing since Sylphid herself had returned to the Academy.
Luckily she wasn't injured, and she was only tired after presumably flying for a couple days straight.
"That's good," Kirche sighed in relief "I was worried when it just flew off out of nowhere."
Tabitha looked away "She said she didn't remember flying away though." She muttered under her breath, staring back into her book.
"Huh?" Kirche blinked.
"Hmm?" Tabitha replied, glancing at her friend from the corner of her eye.
"Okay class!"
Colbert's voice suddenly brought them out of their conversation, and the following 'THUD' that came afterwards that nearly shook the classroom made sure that their attention was turned towards the professor.
There was an almost child-like glee on his face, which contrasted with the annoyed and pained faces of the guards that had to lug the massive crate into the classroom, as he stood in front of the class.
"Today we have a special lesson!" As he said that, he placed the basket onto the table. He stepped away from the table and stood by the crate. He grinned and smacked it a couple of times "I was going to show my own invention," he stepped away, shaking the hand that smacked the crate "But I figured that I show a better example."
He nodded to the guards, who each grabbed one side of the crate and pulled. The box opened to reveal…
Gasps were heard as what looked like a massive Insect corpse was presented to the rest of the class.
Half of its head seemed to have been caved in, deforming inwards. Its right arm appeared to have been crushed, or torn off. There were cracks all over its… chest(?), thorax(?), the mid-section of the Insect with a noticeable hole in the middle. And one of its legs seemed to have snapped off.
Kirche herself felt her eyebrows raise at the sight, before they settled back down. She looked around, and saw that her other classmates were just as shocked at the grisly sight as she was.
Apparently it was the reaction he was expected, since Colbert's grin widened "Isn't it a sight?!"
Guiche couldn't help but raise a hand, his face uneasy "Um Sir Colbert? I don't mean to sound out of line," he started uncertainly "But don't you think bringing in a corpse of an Insect is too much?"
The balding professor blinked, he turned towards the corpse before his eyes snapped to them again. "No, NO!" He shook his head "T-Th-this isn't a corpse!" He moved back towards and gave it a good smack.
The sound of metal ringing echoed in the classroom, waking up and scaring some of the Familiars that were sleeping.
"It's not an Insect corpse," Colbert explained hastily, while shaking his injured hand again "It's one of their mining golems." He gestured at the device.
At once the unease in the hearts of the students left their bodies, and quickly they started to talk amongst themselves.
Kirche herself was intrigued by the sight of the golem. She leaned over and asked if Tabitha knew anything about it.
She earned a shrug from her friend.
"One of their mining golems?"
"I've never seen one up close before!"
"How did professor Colbert get one of those things? I thought that only mining towns and Tarbes were legally allowed to own them."
"Did they have to make their golems look so much like themselves? It's creeping me out."
As the students talked, Colbert couldn't help but feel just a little elated at the sight of them discussing about the device.
Then another hand rose up.
"Professor," Montmorency spoke up, she was the only one that wasn't talking with her friends about the golem in front of the class. Instead she had been eerily staring at it in silence the moment it was revealed "Why did you bring a mining golem into class today?"
Colbert smile widened "Well today I have a special lesson to you all," he held up a finger "Don't worry, it's still about fire magic. Speaking of," he turned to the class with a more serious look "Does anyone know the main characteristic of Fire Magic?"
A few heads turned to her direction, and Kirche replied with an easy "Passion and Destruction."
"Indeed," the professor turned towards the basket on his desk "But fire magic being used just for destruction feels a bit sad, and most people don't know this but you can use fire magic outside of battle!"
Kirche scoffed "Are you telling me or teaching the rest of the class?" She asked. She was a Germanian, fire magic in daily life was how you lived back where she was from. And if he was teaching the class, good luck to him since Tristain didn't have much respect for Fire Magic besides it being hot.
"In any case!" Colbert ignored her words, and pulled out something from the basket. It was a metal ball that had what look like pink crystals growing from it. "What you see here is a Crystal Heart. To anyone who knows how these mining golems work, they use it as a source of fuel!
"But!" He placed the Crystal Heart on the table, reached into the basket once more and he took out a flask "Through some tinkering, I've found that it doesn't just run on the Crystal Heart."
He shook the flask, it was filled with a translucent liquid that was brown in colour.
He moved towards the golem and stuck the flask into the hole in the middle of the chest.
Kirche felt just a little queasy at the sight, since the sight of a limb being stuck in someone's chest brought back some unfortunate memories for her.
"Even though they use the Crystal Heart fuel, what it actually uses is the energy of the crystals!" It seemed that Colbert was talking more to himself than to the rest of the class, he pulled his hand away from the golem. Not that it stopped the other students from watching with rapt attention "And with a little bit of fire magic and oil we can replicate that energy," he pointed his wand and with a flick of his wrist "As such we can bring this golem…"
Fire emerged from the chest hole of the golem, steam followed. Then to the surprised of some of them, they saw what looked like lightning arc out of the missing arm.
But then, instead of it exploding, the remaining eye of the golem lit up and it's left arm moved.
"To life."
It pawed at the air in front of it, as if it was trying to bat a fly out of the air.
The excitement that had been building was released with a disappointed sigh at the sight before them.
"Is that all it can do?"
"What a lame device."
"Seriously, these were the things that let them overtake Albion in terms of Wind Stone mining?"
"No-Now hold on!" Colbert tried to calm down the class "This particular golem is just damaged! What's important is that the mechanism of the arms and legs still work, even with just fire magic and oil."
He pointed at the remains of the golem's legs, which were moving up and down like a toddler.
It wasn't a convincing sight.
Colbert couldn't help but sigh sadly.
"Professor," Kirche suddenly found herself raising her hand. She blinked at her actions and was about to put it down, before her mouth moved "What's the purpose of you showing us that you can use the Insect's device with your own methods?"
At that Colbert face turned stony.
"As the world changes around us, so should we." He stated with a serious tone "If we do not change or adapt, we stand to lose our position as Nobles of this world. With mere golems, Insects have managed to form their own Kingdom that, like it or not, is officially recognised in Halkegania, and Tristain especially." He turned his eyes towards Kirche "And with the wedding between Princess Henrietta De Tristain and the Emperor of Germania, signifying the alliance between the kingdom, you might expect to see them in your country as well soon enough."
Then he smiled "But if mere Insects were to achieve that level of greatness, imagine what us Nobles can do if we try?" He turned to the golem "Our magic can be used for more than just war and harming others, and this shows that we at least compete with Hallownest. That our abilities can help Tristain grow."
Almost on cue, the golem suddenly listed to the side and fell on its stomach. The left arm that had been pawing the air harmlessly for the past few minutes suddenly carved a hole into the floor. The moment it did, something seemed to have shifted and in mere moments it started to dig into the ground with its single arm.
There was panic from both the professor and guards, as well as from the students.
Only Montmorency and Kirche were silent.
Their orange eyes blinked at the same time as they watch the golem dig deeper and deeper into the floor.
It reminded them of when the first golem broke the surface of the Crystal Peak and revealed the final statue of the Radi-
Montmorency suddenly choked on her spit, hacking and coughing as she gripped her throat. Earning a concerned response from her boyfriend.
Kirche herself swayed to the side as her body heat suddenly skyrocketed, and before Tabitha could do anything she passed out on the table.
[Scene]
Cromwell let out a tired groan as he held his head in his hands.
One part was due to the efforts he had done to 'convince' them for the attack on Hallownest. All day he had gone to each important soldier that felt afraid, and did his best to change their minds.
Without making it too obvious that he was mind controlling his own men.
The other headache was the laughing fool in his office.
Well fool would be too disrespectful to the one that had done extensive upgrades to the Lexington. But couldn't he stop laughing for just a couple of moments?!
Cromwell closed his eyes and pinched his temples as he turned to the one responsible for the noise.
Wearing a hooded cloak that covered most of his body, with baggy pants that showed nothing of his stature, and finally a scarf that hid all but his eyes.
His terrifying glowing white eyes.
"Is something so funny, Sir Percepteur?" He asked, his voice and tone keeping to a respectful tone.
The man laughed a couple more times, before he finally stopped laughing.
He turned to look him directly with those eyes, and Cromwell couldn't help but twitch to his wand.
"No," the robed figure replied easily "I am simply enjoying the atmosphere here." He walked around, his arms held behind his back "We aim to destroy Hallownest as our first attack correct?"
Cromwell nodded "Yes, even if we cannot completely eradicate these Insects. The next best thing should be to take away their 'Kingdom'." He looked at the map on his table, a big circle at the target "The 'Kingdom' of Insects, what a farce. Only us Nobles and descendants of Brimir should lead this world."
Collector laughed once more, pacing around the room "I am excited to see what happens."
Suddenly he turned his head towards the other occupant in the room.
The corpse of Prince Wales met his gaze.
"Are you excited as well, spirit?" He asked.
Cromwell glanced at Wales, and he swore it was because of the sun it looked like his eyes were glowing orange for a moment.
Wales simply nodded "I follow what Cromwell wants."
Once again Sir Percepteur laughed.
Cromwell once again shook his head.