"A 'Great Noble' eh? I'll pretend that this never happened, on one condition."
Angelica pointedly was not going to fly off into a rage. The Last time she suppressed her emotions she got possessed by a demon, which was part of why they were doing this to themselves.
"But first. You need a lecture on the Dangers of Drunk Driving."
"HHHYYYAAAHHH!"
Olivia flinched at that, she had no idea what the-Leon-on-the-screen had done to Pierre but she was betting it wasn't pretty. The two of them had sat down with Cleare and were now watching one of her walkthroughs of the Second game, specifically the one in which she had chosen to seduce-Leon-as-Noelle, in other words the Warlock Route.
"Is there a reason we're watching Leon torture Pierre?" Angelica asked as she tapped her fingers in annoyance. "Don't get me wrong from what I've heard the asshole has it coming but the point remains the same."
"Because you're jealous of Noelle." Cereza stated, and she could practically see the green in the pair's eyes from here. "Perhaps eventually you'll be happy for her as well." That would be the ideal scenario, it would be bad if they had to resort to doing this the 'easy' way.
"Objectively I sympathise with Noelle." Angelica piped up at this time. "Similar to our situation the Noelle of this scenario was trapped in an abusive relationship with a man she doesn't want anything to do with." Or it would be similar to Olivia's situation, luckily for her Marie threw herself on all five of those land mines. "Leon offered protection and throttled the people that were responsible for that abusive situation, thus she grows closer to him and eventually falls in love." Objectively Angelica understands this. However... "But our Fiance is in another country, gallivanting with another woman and we've been left out of it!" Angelica was a prideful girl after all, her fist was crunching as she squeezed it into a tight knot.
"Easy Angie." It was obvious to Olivia how upset Angelica was by this turn of events, partly because she was just as upset by them. 'It's not Fair!' Olivia often thought during the course of this walkthrough 'We found him first!' and right now they were only getting to Noelle's first meeting with Leon. "I'm upset too." Olivia didn't voice her opinions aloud though because they just witnessed a year's worth of Noelle's abusive relationship with Loic. "We'll just tell him that him going out with another girl is upsetting us."
"... I can't do that Olivia." It wasn't because of Angelica's pride though, it was her Humility and loyalty to Leon that stopped her this time. "Noelle is, according to this-" Angie gestured to Cleare. "-The Priestess of a Sacred Tree Sapling that has yet to take root anywhere. If Leon brings both of them back with him then his assets would go through the roof." The Sacred Tree was literally priceless after all. When Angelica learned that there was the possibility that Leon getting together with another woman meant that he would get his hands on it she almost went to break up with him immediately, and then Olivia slapped her and brought her back down.
"But you still can't accept it?" Olivia asked sounding increasingly concerned.
"Of course I can't!" Angelica snapped as if what she was talking about was obvious.
"Humility and Pride." Two emotions on the opposite ends of the spectrum that Angelica was experiencing in equal measure. "Me thinks the wrong kind of seed is being planted here." Cereza commented watching Angelica cope through her emotional distress.
"Well in the worst case scenario she can just do it the hard way." Jeanne wrung a bell indicating that the duo's private lesson had ended for the day. "Off you go now, you need to settle back into your dorm room now."
"Do you think we'll be able to see Leon tonight?" Olivia asked looking hopeful.
"Knowing Celene she's putting him through his paces right now." Cereza thought it was better than 'he's having his bone marrow scraped out of him in the vague hope that they'll be able to save Celene's own son using it.' "You two are just going to have to settle for entertaining yourselves tonight."
Olivia and Angelica would once again be in the Princess suite of the girls dorm. And It was a suite, unlike the bargain bin room that Olivia had been living in for the first few months of her schooling this room had it's own bathroom and shower, along with a walk in closet and a mini-fridge powered using mana stones and a entire library shelf full of books had taken up one of the walls. It was less a student's dorm room and more of an all expenses paid five star hotel room.
"I see you're trying out Pyjamas now." Olivia was modestly dressed in a relatively standard full body two piece Caramel coloured Pyjamas. They were warm and fluffy and she felt like she was being hugged when she slept. Angelica was dressed in a night gown, or to be more accurate Lingerie. Angelica was wearing a see-through opaque Chemise decorated with a pattern of swirling flames and left Angie's back and sides exposed. It wasn't anything that you could say protected Angelica's modesty, on the contrary you'd probably accuse her of trying to seduce somebody, which she was by all accounts.
"One of the many boons of not having my soul attempt to swallow me whole is a decent ability to regulate my body temperature." Even though Angelica said that she was wearing something that she was practically naked in anyway, Olivia could see for instance that she was still wearing the Yamatai piercing on her belly, and that she wasn't wearing any underwear. "In any case it seems that we're both going to be busy for the night." Olivia had already made a fort of books, she intended to comb through the records of the Umbran Clan and learn the identities, strengths and weaknesses of the eight colossi. In comparison Angelica would be doing something far more... lewd. "In any case I'll be careful to avoid making a mess on your books." Angelica explained as she climbed onto the bed, which notably had been equipped with Rubber sheets at her request.
"What are you going to do anyway?" Olivia was confused by the series of events Angelica had taken.
"Sleep mostly, Masturbate before that." Angelica stated with a completely straight face.
"...what!?" Olivia was caught off guard by the statement.
"Leon is still a little big for me, so I'm going to experiment with my limits and widen myself up a little more while I'm at it." And provided Olivia with stimulation to help her out of her shyness. "Let me know if I get too loud for you." And so Angelica's night was far more productive than Olivia's.
The Next morning Olivia was beat red, she spent half the morning with her face in her hands out of sheer embarrassment.
"You look cute when you're embarrassed." Angelica had a Cheshire grin as she held Olivia close and rubbed circles into her back, of course given the two inches of body armour between them Olivia couldn't feeling anything, which was good considering last night got to be a little too stimulating for her.
"Attention Students. I and Captain Enzeau Ferrari." The man who acted as captain of the ship they were riding on was a wide man, his armour managed to put a huge emphasis of the size of his gut leaving the impression that he was overweight, on top of the fact that he was already shorter than some of the students present. "I will be your tour guide while you visit Avalon Forest. Even though I say that the terms have been made clear to me. None of you will know what you will face in advance nor the identities of the colossi wandering the forest. You will all have two days to explore the forest. If you wanna quit you've been given emergency flares for me to come and get you." The Captain held up a bandoleer of flares up in the air, similar to the ones that had already been distributed to the students. "Get down below, you have a few minutes to decide how you want to tackle the forest."
Thus the students flooded into the chamber below the deck, Olivia was having a look around, growing increasingly concerned as she scurried about, leaving Angelica to discuss her plan of attack with her other party member.
"Tackling the fire region is the most sound conclusion to make considering my affinity for fire magic." Angelica made her opinion known to her partner, the Demonic Brazier she had made the decision to raise.
"You want to go after the fire Colossi?" Fenix as Angelica had taken to calling the demon didn't seem to approve the idea much.
"You disagree?" Angelica asked looking at her demonic partner with suspicion.
"What happens when a small fire is met by a bigger fire?" The Lantern had no desire to be caught in a fire break and become food for a stronger Demon.
"I suppose we'll have to go after one of the others first." Angelica didn't hide her disappointment with how the situation had turned out.
"'One of the others?' How many of the Colossi are you planning on hunting?" The Lantern asked looking concerned.
"All of them." Angelica stated as she made her opinion known. "We're going to hunt down and wipe out all of the Colossi down to the last." Angelica was smiling as she spoke. "We'll take each of their affinities and pick them apart, we'll meet them in their lairs and we'll kill them and take their power for ourselves."
"Angie."
"That is the plan going forward." Angelica was ambitious, she was going to kill all of Colossi, her and Olivia that is, and learn everything there is to know about Avalon forest and it's secrets. That said. "Livia is there something the matter?"
"It's just that... we're standing on a door." Olivia was the first one to realise the nature of the room that they were in. Suddenly, the floor gave way from underneath the group of students and they were dropped into the forest itself.
"What the hell!?" They had been dropped miles above Avalon forest itself, the ground was rapidly approaching them and death seemed eminent.
"I see I see!"
"Leave it to us!"
Daniel and Raymond ended up being the first ones to react, or rather the two Rusalka that had been travelling with them acted, the two mermaid like creatures created a stream of water from thin air that the two young men and their blushing brides slid down to safety on the ground level.
"I see. We're supposed to come up with our own landing strategy." Angelica held her combination pipe and spear below her, and with a roar fire gushed out of one end and pushed herself back into that air, soon landing on a barrier that Olivia had created.
"Everyone listen! Those of you who can fly need to do so right now! Aid those who cannot! Keep an eye on the locations where the ones who botched their landings went for retrieval and healing!"
About two thirds of the students nailed the landing, of those who failed they were only able to find about half of them in time, it wasn't that they had died, but when they investigated the landing sights they had already been dragged away. In fact based on the directions some of them had been dragged away they should've passed by them already.
"For now. We should assume that the Umbran's deal is taking effect and that they've been taken away for medical treatment." Angelica stated as she let out a sigh.
"Still tossing us off the ship is kind of a jerk move." Olivia stated as she healed a student's broken leg.
"No this is perfect!" Most of the people they had gathered together had been Angelica's followers, others who had simply gathered where there was the most numbers. "We should treat this situation as if we have been stranded on an undiscovered Island. Our top priority must be to gather information about our surroundings."
"I've been reading lots of books about what kind of plants we can find in here." Olivia pulled out a text book from a book. It was a loophole, it wasn't a book specifically about Avalon forest but about magical plants, most of which they can assume are found in Avalon forest.
"Um question." Like Daniel, Raymond was sitting on a rock with one of the Rusalka sitting on his lap who was hugging and cuddling against his body. "Shouldn't our main priority be to try and find a way back to the Academy if we're just scouting for information?"
"They showed us the method for that already." Angelica however dismissed Raymond's concerns. "Everyone here is someone that can manage a fall from a large distance and can fly to some extent, the Island Avalon forest is situated on is both next to the capital and higher up as well, with the skill set we possess getting back to the capital from where we are right now should be within the realm of possibility." Determining who can or can't get off the island by themselves was probably the main point of tossing them at the first in the first place, that and seeing how well they react to unexpected situations.
"Shouldn't we find the people who went missing though?" Daniel was the one who raised his hand this time. "I mean if demons have already gotten their hands on them..."
"Leon calls them Fae." Angelica cut in. "The so-called perfect cowards. I can only tell you what the Blackmores have told me and their speculation. They are apparently responsible for maintaining the dungeons and they're specialised in magic that manipulates people's memories." All of the students present raised various objections, they've never encountered anything like that before. "It's entirely possible that we've all encountered them hundreds of times over but can't remember because they altered our memories." The students went silent at that, reeling back in fear. "I also believe that they are part of the deal made with the Blackmores. Remember what they had me say during the opening speech?"
If they 'die,' or rather get captured by the monsters, then their memories will be erased, the weapons and materials they took from the dungeon will be confiscated and they will wake back up in the capital.
"Then are the Fae contracted with the Blackmores too?" Another of Angelica's followers asked raising his hand in the air.
"For now the Fae aren't relevant." Olivia stated shrugging her shoulders. "They want nothing to do with us and haven't attacked us. We need to map out the territory." Luckily Olivia has a spectacular memory. She was already drawing out a map on the dirt in front of them based on what she saw from looking at the dungeon from up high. "There's some ruins over here, this looks like a giant forge, there's a forest over here, some more ruins here..." And like that Olivia continued to list the details as she drew them out. Olivia's map was surprisingly detailed, she spent so much time on it another group of students appeared and joined them.
"The forest is supposed to be divided into four areas. Wood, Water, Earth and Fire. Assuming that this refers in part to what the environments look like that means that we need to explore this forest, the lake, this quarry like area and this place which based on the smoke stacks that it gives off must be a forge or refinery." The others nodded their heads in agreement. "Choose areas based on your affinities, try to arm yourselves while you're exploring and prioritise looking for anything that might be a Colossi or gives clues about them. Travel in groups of at least two, if one of you gets taken out do not attempt to rescue them and instead focus on bringing your information here." Angelica indicated the quarry area. "It should be the area closest to the capital, it will also make a good place to serve as our rally point." The various students nodded their heads in agreement. "Now that just leaves the matter of you two to deal with as well." Angelica turned her attention to the two figures that had joined them as part of the second group.
"I admit I didn't expect them just to drop us either." Serge awkwardly scratched the back of his head while he was dressed in light silk plate armour.
"I am glad that you were able to safely land Angelica." Hertrude Rapha Fanoss, newly demoted Duchess of the recently reabsorbed Principality of Fanoss, was dressed with her hair done up in pig tails and her black coat that she wore during the Elven adventure.
"More importantly what is that?" Angelica asked indicating the Axe that Hertrude had strapped to her back.
Her rehabilitation had led her to build some muscle tissue but no matter how Angelica looked at it that thing was way too heavy for someone of her build.
"It seems to be the weapon that was created after my demonic essence was reduced to a manageable level." Hertrude pulled out the weapon and swung it around with surprising ease.
"Why does it have strings on it?" The shaft of the weapon was a flat board, strings were tied from the head of the weapon all the way over to its hilt.
"It also doubles as a musical instrument. I was planning on giving it to Leon." Angelica had a bad feeling about this. "It's tradition for the members of our family to propose using a weapon after all." Hertrude looked up from her planned wedding gift to see Angelica and Olivia glaring at her with a dead pan stare. "Maybe this wasn't the best time to bring this up."
Leannan Sidhe: A powerful Fae turned terrifying demoness.
The Fae's curiosity is insatiable, and for many years their neighbours were a group of demon summoners, the end result of this combination is known as a Leanan Sidhe, a demoness that takes the form of a beautiful woman. Those who sign a contract with this being are able to trade their life force and vitality for knowledge and inspiration for the dark arts such as creating curses, summoning demons and raising undead on top of their existing ability to manipulate memories and cast illusions.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
The Night Crawler: A musical instrument turned deadly weapon.
Countless curses have been imbued into this guitar, it's attacks contain curses for enhanced damage, reduced healing and raising the undead, those who hear the music it produces receives curses of weakness that empowers the one wielding the weapon, while it uses a spell that turns heat into sound to amplify the effective radius of it's curses while freezing targets into brittle statues that can be shattered by the same sound produced by the Guitar.
If you hear the sound of music on the battlefield pray that you are allies to the one playing it, because otherwise you will likely not leave alive.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapon's Catalogue
Hertrude's lecture could wait for another time, for now the group had divided themselves into groups in order to investigate Avalon forest proper. For now Olivia had been cataloguing the various plants of Avalon forest as they made their way through the forest, Hertrude was in the lead and Serge was in the back, both of them providing close quarters against anything that attacked them from the front and back, Angie was in the middle where she would act with fire magic if needed. Hertrude was being quite impressive with her own blatant slaughter of the incoming monsters, just a few notes on that guitar left the monsters iced and shattered, and even when they weren't already dead by the time they got there Hertrude's curses and various De-buffs made dealing with them a walk in the park. Angelica got a funny feeling going up her spine for every Note Hertrude played but she didn't know what it was.
"I don't get it." Whatever it was it wasn't bothering Olivia that much, bless her soul. "We've fought lots of demons already but there's nothing that I would call a 'Colossi.'" Near as Olivia could tell the term was reserved for one of two things, a really big monster, or one that was really hard to beat. So far she hasn't seen anything that was particularly big nor hard to beat, in fact most of the monsters that were seeing were dying before they could even lay eyes on them, if that wasn't text book definition of 'weak' then she didn't know what was. Then Olivia discovered a possibility, something familiar standing out to her. "Over there in that clearing." Olivia pointed out down below them. "That stone slate looks like what we saw Lea go through when we were in Yamatai."
"If that works for us..." Angelica started horrified.
"Then it means the Colossi are in Paradiso and Inferno." Serge finished for Angelica already sensing a headache coming on. "Come on, there's a set of ruins in the forest I want to check out before we leave."
As stunning as that realisation was it also just confirms the plan: spread out and gather as much information as possible, and then reunite on the Eastern side of the forest where they will begin going through the logistics of returning back to Holfort proper. That as it turns out was the easy part, among the demons that the other students in Demonology had partnered with there were winged monsters, living sheets of cloth that could catch air currents and glide, not to mention the old mining carts and a giant colourful tent in the area for some reason that with some time and elbow grease could be turned into a giant hot air balloon to fly over to the mainland proper.
Angelica had a hail of headaches she had to deal with when she got back though, organising the reports from her followers into a cohesive guide, managing the Blackmore company while Leon was gone, and checking on the state of the capital which even with Nick armed with the Abracadabra was still not completely rebuilt yet, something about lots of people being obstinate about their various mansions and homes.
"I'm not so sure about this Livia." Angelica was lying down on the bed she shared with Olivia, not even wearing her night gown, which was fine as Olivia was more used to her in this sight than when she's wearing lingerie. "I've still got a lot of work to do."
"You're going to hurt yourself if you don't relax soon Angie." Olivia was dressed in her caramel Pyjama's as she cracked her fingers and got to work. In simple terms, Olivia was giving Angelica a massage, trying to magically do away with her extreme tension that had been building up with days worth of work.
"Oh... ahhh...!" If the moans Angelica was making were any indications then she was getting a little too into the massage she was receiving. Then they got a knock on the door.
"Apologies lady Redgrave but it is an urgent matter." There goes Angelica's good mood. Angelica luckily had her Kimono and was quickly able to slip it on, thus meeting the bare minimal requirements to meet the messenger. The man had the familiar purple hair of the Field family, cut short and neatly combed with a pencil moustache as well. So either the Field family wanted to make a request of her or...
"There was a situation in Alzer. The Hospital where Leon's cousin was being kept has been destroyed." Olivia and Angelica had matching looks of horror. "To be clear: Young Leon wasn't there at the time though he did arrive while it was happening. The Demon used in the attack was quickly dealt with and your fiance assisted in the evacuation of the hospital. As far as anyone can tell there was only the one casualty, Leos himself who went missing during the course of the attack." Olivia gasped in shock at the news, Angelica was suspicious of the course of events.
"A Coma patient went missing?" Angelica found that quite hard to believe.
"It is as you say miss Redgrave." The messenger agreed with Angelica's suspicions. "As I understand it the Alzeran authorities are working under the pretence that the attack on the hospital was little more than a smoke screen to enable the young Rault son's removal from his hospital room."
"Do they have any suspects?" Angelica immediately came to the conclusion that if the people that took Leos did so to keep him from being treated then the next one they might go after is Leon. "I can't imagine that there's a lot of individuals in Alzer that are capable of summoning and controlling demons."
"The list is bigger than you may think." The Field representative stated shrugging his shoulders.
"What do you mean?" Olivia looked concerned while Angelica surprised herself with how obvious it had been in retrospect.
"Of course. The Clan has set up a base of operations in Alzer and are raising demons there as well." There was an entire clan full of potential suspects. "Yes well their investigation is not a matter of concern to you or I, it's a matter for their authorities to investigate."
"Does that mean that Leon is coming back here?" Olivia asked sounding concerned and hopeful. "...young Blackmore saw the attacker fleeing and has been providing testimony and witness statements, on top of his own refusal to leave the country in the event that Leos is found and treatment is still possible."
"Is there anything else?" Angelica asked as she made an effort to restrain herself emotionally and physically.
"There is one thing." The Field Rep held up a letter. "Master Blackmore has asked that we deliver you this letter."
Angelica snatched the letter from the man's hand.
"Leave us be." Angelica ordered and in response the messenger stood, bowed, and then left in that order. "CLEARE!" To Angelica's shout a familiar drone that had his itself in her room revealed herself. "Where is Leos and who is responsible for taking him!?"
"I have no idea." Cleare stated every bit as confused as Angelica was enraged. "He never came up in the game, I never even heard of him."
Angelica's fist clenched so hard that it started to bleed.
"What about Louise's brother?" Olivia came up with the follow up naturally.
"Do you mean Serge?" Cleare failed to see what Serge or Louise had to do with the one she never heard of.
"No we mean her biological brother not adopted!" Olivia was on the cusp of a panic attack.
"...oh that guy!" It took Cleare a moment to clue in. "The one that you're talking about died years ago. At least according to the game."
As explained during Serge's route, the main reason for the fall of the Lespinase house stems from the death of Albergue's son Leos Sera Rault, A sickly child whom from the very beginning it was understood that he was not long for this world. When Leos did eventually die at the young age of five years old his funeral was attended by all of the Great Noble Families of Alzer, except for the Lespinasses who only sent their young daughter Noelle.
Albergue apparently took this offence personally, because he responded by joining forces with the other Great Noble Houses and launching a Coup against the Priestess and her Guardian, and we'll still not sure how they did it.
Everything we know about the Sacred Tree Crests indicates a clear hierarchy, with the Guardian and Priestess standing at the top, yet Alzer now has no guardian and no priestess, and unfortunately neither have we been able to find out how this happened, despite the royal Family's political channels and Luxion's capacity as a spy.
Excerpt from Diary 2
Needless to say, events had been altered rather severely.
"The last time someone appeared that wasn't part of the 'script' they were reincarnated. Is Leos the same way?" Angelica stated as she held her chin. "That isn't even the biggest priority right now. Do you have eyes on Leon?"
"Lemme switch with Lux-kun." A few moments later the Blue of Cleare's lens disappeared and was replaced with the bloody red of Luxion.
"Huu." As an AI, one in a metal sphere no less, Luxion should not be physically capable of sighing and yet the girls found themselves unable to describe him as doing anything else. Just how exasperated was he? "Where do I even begin? Your Fiance is causing quite a bit of trouble, and has kicked quite a few hornet's nests." As if desperately trying to escape some nightmarish scenario Luxion sent his request to Cleare who retook control over the drone.
"Oh that is good!" Cleare flew over to the middle of the room and faced a wall, at once Cleare started projecting a image on the wall, the cutscenes screen for the second instalment of 'New Age Lovers.'
"Huu. Livia, I'm going to need that massage after all." Angelica needed to unwind rather desperately it seemed.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: "Wait I thought you were supposed to be allergic to Garlic?" "Close. You'd need a clove of it shoved into my mouth and then chop off my head." "Wouldn't getting your head chopped off kill anyone?" "...no."
guest: Yeah Kind of. Truthfully I drew on Nobody for most of the fight scene though.
rjca1405: To be fair Alzer's Ruling elite is a pretty extreme example.