Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord just like it
I was originally just going to make this story a oneshot but I think it's better I just make it two to three chapters long. I wrote most of this story while at a cottage so there was no internet to check on things, but I did have a few references...the discs of certain seasons I brought and a visual novel. I hope you enjoy.
I_I_I_I
Azulea was use to sleeping in a silk coffin with black tapestries over her cist to reflect sunlight from her window, instead she was sleeping in a closet in a cheap hotel with a vampire like her who despised her.
It was imponderable what led her to share a room with a vampire more lewd and vile than her; the way she ruefully stared at her showed the mutual lack of trust. Azulea willed herself to walk down the stairs to the den or boisterous adventurers they fall Tavern. Although vampires were rabid creatures easily discerned from humans these adventures couldn't shrilly her out while she had a magic veil giving her the appearance of a petite girl—making her look as small as Shalltear—with unruly blue hair, a beautiful complexion besmirched by all the dirt on her, coveralls white as cow spots, and a sword slung by rope behind her. She sat on a small wooden chair trying to attract the attention of the bartender/owner.
"Do you know where my adventurer companion went?"
He was tight-lipped, staring down and wiping his glasses at a time too early for it. Azulea believed she'd have to resort to hypnosis...
"She was here. There was a Mithril adventurer she was flirting with. The adventurer was courteous enough to buy her a drink, pay the full price of his own meal without even finishing it so now the pigs have something better then cabbage, and left a decent tip before he left with his arm around her shoulders. He's probably having a good time with her, no friends invited."
Azulea didn't understand why Shalltear did this when hypnotizing was her purview. Azulea thanked the human with a smile to hide her obtrusive feelings than left the hotel.
She walked out to the sight of windows blocked from peeking outside, kids being held by strong hands to keep away from the roads, and a parade-esque terrifying march of Death Knights created by a primordial being she had to follow orders from; not to mention listen to the shrewish sounds his vampire makes.
With her enhanced vision she saw lingering clues to Shalltear's victim. She walked for eleven miles until she found a door letting itself be kept open by the wind. This winnowing entrance was strange by not a broken frame from the door, no knights around, and the light brimming diffusely. She walked in, knocking on the door as she entered.
"Hello is anyone working or loitering in fear in here?" She called.
This house was quaint—just the front door led to a room acting as the reading room, kitchen, and fine plates and cutlery—but what mostly caught her attention was the small pool of blood under the door built into the wall. The citizens could stay galumphing in their sterile rooms, but if this fastidious vampire opens a door she expects to leave a different door; she opened the one in the wall, she opened a basement door guarded by shadows eclipsing the walls and ceiling.
No doubt there was a shadow demon watching her.
"If Shalltear's down there...tell her I don't want to hear her excuses." Azulea murmured it out, a slithering wriggle in the opaque ceiling.
Azulea ran fast down those steps with youthful speed, pushed the door open She clambered down to get to, and looked at the wall...she found the man Shalltear walked away with.
His hair was dirty blond and looked clean and unkempt, maybe it was recently combed. His eyes were violet the same color as Shalltear's dress, a reason she might've picked him. The rest of him was naked, and had tools that pocked through his mouth, neck, back, gut, and legs. Seeing him with rectangular metal tools connected by wire in his mouth made her undead skin shiver.
Shalltear striated his belly, back, and legs—he looked a half-eaten pig hung by a hook—the thing holding him now having greater motility. Shalltear walked in with her mouth wet from washing it out.
Shalltear frowned at Azulea and she frowned back, no piquant interest in getting along.
"This ones mind is a dud, and something about his blood was resonating too much of their new injections."
Azulea smirked.
"Now that we know your plan failed maybe you'll listen and pay attention to mine."
Shalltear had a chair in this basement just left by it's useless endeavours, but as was sitting down on it with a face weary and tired.
"Why is it knights and guards can never catch a criminal?" Azulea asked rhetorically. "They try it in the morning—heavy sleepers, people stuffing their faces with small coins a gait of them stolen, and now a tyrannical—"
Shalltear's eyes were lively red and burning hearing that word.
"Skip to your point!"
Azulea waited until she concealed her fangs with wet lips beforehand.
"What I'm saying is we go out at night. It's when people get scared from Black Scriptures, that cemetery close by, and where everyone has a spot to lie low in before jumping out."
Shalltear wasn't getting rezzed by this, just letting her regeneration stop confusing holy magic as no injury.
"How will that help when we have no one to follow?"
Azulea was hoping she'd say that...because she had a look of someone who could unravel the mysteries of the New World.
"I know a way."
A mid-afternoon glare was the time a shameless, desperate woman could stand in the bypass of E-Rantel looking to acquire Female Company. This female was born with the name Ayeyun by her sanguine mother—a name that shared both parents' names. She was born with a loving family, a bright mind, a sharp insight and talent in poetry, a day years later of her father passing away, her mother agreeing to an arranged marriage...and a post-traumatic night her stepdad tried to have sex with her.
Running away was the fundamental decision, non-erratic and may've saved her life, but the first week on the run was a living, deteriorating hell. Three days...it was spent being turned down from working in bars and grocery stores—they cannot hire a sixteen year old girl to waitress a table of men reeking of booze being served alcohol; no market can hire new employee's under the watching eyes of Ainz Ooal Gown's soldiers and spies. Hungry, she slept close to the forest in the meadow surrounding E-Rantel, Katze Plains, hopping some beast would try to swallow her. Not even birds flew by with the rotting soldiers everywhere.
Three days and now she was picked to be a whore glamor. Glamor: a job where everyone wants you and so long as a pouch is handed out you go crazy for their small pouches.
After waiting around another lady of the underground business walked-in and joined her. Both her eyes and transparent robes were golden. Her skin was hazel color with long glossy grey-white hair the length of her neck to her midriff dangling down. She had rosy lips and perfect clean skin despite her drug addiction.
She leaned against the same wall of the bypass Ayeyun was on.
"I need a mage that can cast Lion's Heart for the job they want me to do." She said, eyes on the street over looking at whom she was speaking with.
"Everyone needs to be escorted by the best adventurer's E-Rantel has to offer." Ayeyun commented. "Maybe Flopiy will get that kind of protection. She's pregnant with Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix's baby."
"No, she just got to lie on a bed with worth more than three houses—the client was the same, eager and noncaring about her feelings, then she thought somewhere his lust was a proposal. That stupid; naive, washed-up whore—"
"Yes, a not very lucky one who thought this job was her big break. Anyone married to an equal of Ainz Ooal Gown would be living in luxury for life. As for me...I just feel like having a coffee before my legs look like spiders...opening up and closing before opening them again."
This cynical conversation ended when two soldiers in golden armor approached the two girls.
"Are one of you lonely girls Hazel?"
That tough exterior she had while leaning back was replaced with a giddy laugh and her arms being held by both knights. She and the knights left to go to a hotel. Ayeyun found her luck to be lower than a bronze adventurer. She stood on this street for almost an hour—Hazel stood around for three minutes.
She could wait around for thrice that amount of time.
Then something came towards her. It was loud and moving like a galloping horse, so she didn't put on her "the guys around here are all creepy, can you walk me home" look that went with her corny speeches. With how pungent the streets were she'd think no one cared anymore what her intents were.
That person running down the street finally came into full view, leaving from the right of the bypass. She didn't even get a good look at him when he with great audacity grabbed her hand and pulled her.
He was blond like the men who served the former king of E-Rantel. Unlike those men he was cladded in sky blue armor with horse insignia's on his shoulder pads. His hands were big but compared to all the knights she's met they were small. That hair on his head was mostly trimmed and short though she saw no need for that because he had no helm on. He turned around showing her his grayish green eyes.
He dragged her all the way to a hotel so small and dirty inside not even a whore such as herself would want to go in. Now he was panting all hunched over and breathing heavily.
She would give him something with her latent magic to help with his pain...she just wouldn't do it for free, even before he kidnapped her. Before she could tell him what her charges are, he spoke:
"Forgive me for my rude behavior. It's just I was chased by a Death Knight and didn't want you to be a casualty of my failed mission—"
Seemed he spoke too soon. A Death Knight ran up to them with the intention of capturing the blond knight. Again, he grabbed her hand and pulled her, his time she had greater restraint trying to wriggle her wrist free.
In the end both of them were running, being chased by the Death Knight. Although big and lumbering weapons too big for any human to carry unless they had the strength of three trolls the undead knight moved faster than them.
The knight knew this and turned a corner, throwing himself and Ayeyun against the wall. This idea seemed like the quickest way for them to be spotted and killed. She was proven wrong when he splashed her with something muddy. Now covered in something she had the pleasure of never being touched with until today, she and the knight were hidden. The Death Knight turned the corner and kept his feet moving for all to tremble before on a path they weren't even in.
Only after the stuff he had wore off and they were back at the hotel did the knight show remorse.
"Are you alrig—"
The man got to feel what an angry sixteen year old girl's hand felt like slapping his face. His actions to her were monomaniacal.
"For three months I've lived here without drawing any attention to those sinuous bipeds, but you run up to me and now one chases me! What if that one has others be on the lookout for me?"
Although the man looked like a conniving thief-now-adventurer...he spoke to her as if he was a lapsed Catholic.
"Do not fret, young woman. My boss will hear about this, receive what I appertained from them, and help put an end to the constant patrols and insidious ruler."
His words contained no fixture unlike the thunder roaring in clouds. The only reason she didn't hightail it out of there was fear, being terrified of the tall thought-to-be-unkillable knight outside.
This adventurer made his way to the bar—somewhere that made gullible men more susceptible at losing in poker games—and had a little chat with the bartender...throwing in a worthless wooden coin with the insignia of four skulls lined up to look like a square while a warrior raised his sword in the air.
The bartender collected it putting a glass on top of it and sliding it behind his counter.
Ayeyun was raptly turning her attention looking at the tables scarcely taken by one person trying to escape before being upbraided by this crazy man. However, she soon realized her situation had become tantalizingly more difficult when the adventurer grabbed her arm and pulled her...softer than the men who pay to feel her legs, but with an inescapable grip.
He was walking down a secret entrance beside an intricate picture of cats playing poker while a dog leered at them through a window.
The smell of alcohol and the moisture it brought to her lips also at times made her want to drop spittle out of her mouth was replaced by the heat needed to wrought equpi. She raptly did the same motions in here she did in the bar; real soldiers were in rooms with racks aligned with weapons.
He brought her through a door he needed a magic relic to open—they weren't alone in the formerly locked room. A boy and girl were tautly close in here while a man past his forties was making plans on a war map stretched over a table in the center.
Both of the young ones were wearing jackets with hoods that could keep rain off, both the color dark green, their collars kept together by golden string, brown boots with black footing, what separated them was the male's red hair with tufts covering his ears like floppy dog ears and the girls brown hair with her tufts crossing over her forehead and a needle on her ear against her head.
The older man had grey hair and mustache giving him the appearance of a ship bulkhead. His armor was silver and where his breastbones were there were slatted red tally's. He kept three holsters: two at his waist and one slung behind his back. And although he was old his eyes sparkled blue like a unicorn's wavy ridge hair.
"I thought I told you being excised in this room only happens if you've completed one of two things: you rise above being a front soldier or you bring me valuable intel." The old man cautioned the meathead adventurer.
"Apologies for the unannounced visit, commander." The young knight put one hand over his chest before kneeling to him. All that needed apologies was ended with him holding a book he kept in his armor—other than Ayeyun thinking what a stupid place to store something, he continued talking. "If something so important a knight serving Ainz Ooal Gown would chase me to retrieve it...I think you need to know why."
Her guess was zero tolerance of thievery. A boss in a grocery store would force his employee to give back/payback any merchandise stolen from their store before firing the thief, but Ayeyun's boss who made his living controlling every decision his girls make—a dirtbag who visits his bitchy concubine before going home to his second time pregnant wife...he'd cut a finger off for every coin that you took from him, didn't matter if it was copper or gold.
She glowered at the adventurer tautly close to his commander.
"May I touch the map?"
"No. I prefer my own fingers touch it over your fingers. They be sweaty."
He asked his commander to put his finger on a certain spot. That was the distance it took to run from the bypass street to here he started tracing; looked like a small L.
The adventurer spoke in a querulous voice while the commander traced lines and circles on the map. He finally stopped in one spot he tapped three times on.
"Your saying we need to take a trip to the library?"
"Yes."
"What's so important about this library?"
"Not the library but something stashed in a book there-worth more than a king's trinket, but who can put a price on a weapon that can kill Ainz Ooal Gown?"
The commander sniggered. "Really? You know where this weapon is and you haven't brought it before us? What book were you even keeping in your armor?"
He ignored that question. His face was taut red with anger. "Hard to look for anything with those big patrols lumbering everywhere."
His hauteuring was pulling the last straw of his commander's temper.
"But I can get it if you allow Neyrold to come with me...and her."
Ayeyun's fade flushed red now that attention was on her.
This was unjust. She was afraid to speak out against the clearly head party member with the triple sword arsenal, but she wouldn't be subjugated to the same armor the fool wore.
"Leave me out of this!"
She stormed out of the room heading to the secret entrance. She pushed the portrait open and walked out, henceforth smelling of steaming mushrooms.
On her way out she wondered if where Momon was. Although she wasn't there to hear it, this turmoil was suppose to be controlled by him and no innocents were to be harmed—so long as no one acted against him or his forces. Now, these fools were going to lead to everyone no matter how alienated from his force to be massacred, proven tonight by a strong yet warm grip...
"Enough, his hands mean nothing to you." She told herself out loud.
"Whose hands?"
Ayeyun could swear her hair almost shot out when she heard a voice from someone she's never met before, and that was coming from a girl who got around.
Turning around she saw the foolish knight with a more bulky knight. His armour was forest green over sky blue, his hair was red with a grey backside, he carried a shield which was holstered behind him, had brown eyes, and facial hair on his chin. One name came to mind: Neyrold.
Like it or not we three are on a mission." He said, commanding but his tone had the same sweetness syrup had. "All we need is you to help lead us safely to the library."
She huffed, than pondered, than had a smile on her face for a dark reason.
"Okay, but first...may I know your name?"
He smiled, blissfully unaware. "It's Migkael."
I_I_I_I
Like a few demons knew humans are adaptable. The soldiers and even Ayeyun believed they made it to the library safely because of her shortcuts and relationships with men that helped her enter freely and without harm. Little did they know they were falling into a monsters ploy. They finally reached the library. Without anymore time wasting outside they walked side-by-side inside.
Out of the shadows a bloodthirsty monster dropped down. She found something amusing.
"All those weeks of your precious Pandora's Actor waiting for his rebellion and they don't even inform their "greatest" and most "heroic" Momon about it. No wonder he stopped playing."
"Shut your mouth! No plan of my Lord is foolish! When these humans are slaughtered his plan will come to fruition!" Shalltear yelled.
"You seem to be very short tempered. I guess you haven't been digesting enough blood." That sweet nectar Azulea refrained from having made her lips moist just thinking of it coming back to her. " Since my leader doesn't get anything out of this and yours does...I think I'll do a good thing for my beloved upon my return."
I_I_I_I
The interior of the library was oblong. It had more books than any cult could burn in their lifetime and a barrier onset to prevent magic other than appraisal and seal break from being used. Most who lived in this turmoil whom were bookworms here wished they could replicate that barrier on Ainz. It was more than uneasy—it was impossible.
Migkael was pocking the blunt end of his scraping knife on books trying to hear something inside. His friend Neyrold was taking his languish time pulling a book out, caressing the cover for anything even just a bump, but skimming through the pages until the very last page. Nothing on his first, nothing on his second, and even if there was nothing in the next several hundred books he would keep looking.
Ayeyun was going to speak to someone: the librarian. Like the commander in the barracks she was older. Lots of people here would seem old until Ayeyun got older, regretted her past decisions, and was weeping more than the her now who never shed a tear since the night before she ran away.
She was bespectacled, wearing a green sweater, had a frilly paper hat on her dark hair to hide something—probably ribbons she made in her hair. And her eyes were purely crimson; rare but not everyone with red eyes was a monster. She was using her ink coated stamper on books.
"Excuse me," all it took to stop her stamping. "Has there been any newly added books since that you-know-primordial graced us in a town of malice?"
She adjusted her glasses stamping even with her eyes transfixed on the young prostitute. She shook her head; no.
"There is this aperature I found in the walls, but they could've been anyone who made that."
"It's worth looking at. Thank you."
She left the librarian with a strange grin on her face to the wall. It looked undamaged at first but so do the walls her boss keeps his hallucination pills and coins. She could tell this wall was just seemingly intact, in fact, all it took was a little push and the wall slid open.
She saw it tangled in glowing red binding magic the book—despite being locked could still be taken. She didn't have to warble in fear through the streets now. Despite her inner pleas with her cog to escape, she was waking book in-hand to the reckless adventurer.
"Found it."
He got off his keister probably sore from all that pocking to have a taut look at the book. The moment he saw the book he acted all genuflecting.
"There's no doubt it's what we are searching for. Thank you..."
He tried taking the book from her only for Ayeyun to drop it down her shirt landing in her brasserie.
"No, it's better with me then it is with you. Also...what made you think I ever trusted you, would get it for you?" She sounded tough until the other adventurer approached her. The two were aligned trying to egress her to give them the book and go with them back to that concave tunnel. That wouldn't work on her in the sanctity of a library.
"I want seventy-five gold coins for it."
"We aren't even sure the relic is in there." Migkael inquired. "Why should we pay for something we cannot see?"
"No other book in this library has a fifth tier binding spell on it. You going to pay the price or not?"
"We have no gold coins." Neyrold said. "Our hideout and weapons are funded by Lord Zanac Valleon Igana Ryle Vaiself."
"Okay. Then write a letter or use magic to tell him you found a weapon that can free E-Rantel—you just need seventy gold coi—"
"Quiet you three." The librarian spoke muddling past them. "And no sealing magic in my library. Greater Unlock."
With just one drop of shimmering liquid and a crackling noise the book fell out of Ayeyun's brasserie.
"How did she...?"
Ayeyun questioned the librarian's foresight forgetting the book. She only snapped back to her greedy senses after Migkael picked it up—his finger flicking the book open. A hexagonal triangular pendant with black string looped on a small incision was revealed.
"Appraise item." His spell showed him the rarity of this pendant, and...
"This is it!" He exclaimed outward with joy. "This amulet of Hobmenpoko can weaken all undead it's used on! This could be what helps us kill—"
"Get out of my library!" The librarian yelled, raising one finger to show how much time they had.
"The two of us better leave." Neyrold said pulling Migkael away from Ayeyun, ignoring her.