Author's Note: So been a while since I wrote one of these. NaNoWriMo is coming up again which also means that I'll be taking the month of November to write a new fic for a Series called Versus. It's probably not going on Fan Fiction, so this year I plan to post to Archive of Our Own instead.
A meeting had been called between the various Great Noble Families of Alzer, discussing the ultimate fate of one of their own. The head of the Fievel family had unwisely been on the Fievel family flag ship at the start of the invasion, in fact he had been the one to attempt to overwhelm Pierre's hold on the ship through the Fievel family crest that the little idiot had plastered all over the side of the ship. Well now the head was a idiot, because the ship had shrugged off the Sacred Crest, sending a reaction through the link and leaving the entire family feeling like something had reached out and bit them. And then he had died choking on cursed ash as the ship, the Bernhard, continued on it's bloody tear. It was only the intervention of the Rault household that saw an end to the chaos but none of the others liked what happened, not their own ships being swatted out of the sky, nor the fact that due to their success the Raults would be the ones deciding the fate of the Fievel territory.
"It is simply unreasonable for one family to control so much land in Alzer!" The Granze family head snapped as he glared ahead of him at Albergue, jealousy clear in his eyes. Aside from the Rault Territory that Albergue was already in control of by default he also acted as Regent of the former Lespinasse Territory and now he had just effectively won the Fievel territory, though in their minds he had cheated.
"Shouldn't you reduce your own burdens and divide the territory with the rest of us?" Barielle was being blatantly transparent as usual.
"As of today I know longer have to make tea and break bread with a psychopath." Albergue made his opinion on the matter known. "As for the territory, the new head of the Fievel household is right there!" Albergue of course was indicating the puppet he had chosen for the position, the brother of the head deceased Fievel head.
"He has no experience running territory!" The Druille head snapped with a slam of his fist.
"And you all have proven yourselves rather inadequate with defending your own territory!" Albergue could play hard ball too. "In case you all have forgotten we are supposed to have a reputation for being invincible in defensive battles. Now I don't know if that holds true anymore, considering that one ship from another nation managed to chew through a fifth of our combined fleet and crush one of our Great Houses. If word gets out about the rather notable loss we have suffered here together with the fact we are still down a fifth of our forces then every nation that has reason to take grievances with us will respond. A category that need I remind all of you is every nation, despite my best attempts to the contrary!" The lot of them kept sniggering behind Albergue's back about him attempting to appeal to his 'lessers' in the various nations around the world. Now though? Now a insanely powerful warship had appeared on their doorstep, one that shrugged off the classical Alzeran strategy of 'lure it into the borders, drain it dry with the Sacred Tree, demand reparations for 'unjustified attack on their nation'' and instead tore through a fifth of their fleet. "If you all don't want to be in a war with every nation in the world I suggest you tread carefully." Albergue rang a bell, after a few more moments he rang it again, after the third time an unusually tall young man walked in his nose in a text book.
"What is it? Yah do know I have a test next week right?" Leon asked very much somebody whose time was being wasted here.
"You insolent cur!" The Barielle head snapped his palms slammed down on the table. "Who do you think you are! Where do you think this is!?"
"His name is Leon Rapha Blackmore and he's Celine's nephew." Albergue informed his colleagues in simple terms. "He is also the original and current owner of the warship that tore apart your forces."
"Albergue you fool!" The Druille head snapped angrily. "You simply gave such an asset away without telling any of us!?"
"He didn't 'give it away' Hell Pierre didn't even get to take it from me considering he was already dead before the ship left the dockyard." Leon stated with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Do you even understand what you've just confessed to!?" The Granze head snapped with a yell.
"I killed a serial rapist and murderer and then I blew up his house with his idiot parents inside for the crime of inflicting his existence on creation." Leon stated as he cleaned his ear with his pinky giving off a casual air of contempt.
""""Great Tree Bind my target and Part the Life from his Marrow!"""" Four of the present heads of the Great Noble Houses lit up their crests and soon Leon was wrapped in a cocoon of roots and vines. The roots turned black as shadows entered the foliage, the various heads immediately retracted their spell before they reached the limit of the Sacred Tree's Grace, a black blade poked through the root cocoon before with a furious swish Leon had hacked his way out of the cocoon the Bloody Moon in hand.
"Hold this." Leon held out his textbook to Albergue who did indeed hold onto his textbook for him. Leon pulled out another book from the void of space and opened it up before he tore out one of it's pages and threw it at the group of men that just tried to take a shot at him, watching as it turned into lightning and arcing between the four of them.
"No! No! NNNOOO!" And then the men in question started screaming as their faces warped in horror from the contents of what they were seeing, using their Sacred Crests to try and defend themselves.
"Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't use this one on humans." Leon concluded as he watched the other Great House heads lose their minds. The Great Heads were subsequently removed from the meeting room and their second in command, in other words their wives, were substituted. "Look it's simple." Leon stated as he wiped his face. "Right now there are two possible ways this can throw down. One we go with the story my subordinates have spent a great deal of time fabricating, Pierre took my ship, used it to go on a joyride in his own family's territory and died when the Raults sent their own forces to take him down and my ship was returned to me, it's actual owner." Then Leon held up his second finger. "The second your man picked a fight with me, and in retaliation I took my ship, tore through his family, and yours when they came to defend them like a hot knife through butter." The various women gathered before Leon winced at that. "I imagine if word gets out about this version of events a massive fleet of ships from every nation in the world is going to arrive on the doorstep looking to pick a fight, and in all honesty I see no real reason why I shouldn't be there leading the charge as it were." Leon's prowess of blackmail and his audacity truly knew no bounds.
"Now that just leaves the issue of what I want in exchange." Leon looked in the air in thought, tapping the Nomicon on the table as he thought through his demands. "Let's see..." Leon contacted his family on his way over, the Blackmores had no real need for Alzer's magic stones, it didn't have any raw resources that were worth mentioning, but Leon did have a couple ideas. "I know!" Leon suddenly had a eureka moment as he held up a single finger. "1 Billion Alz paid in full and upfront!" Leon was generously talked down to instalments of 100 million Alz payments over the course of the next ten years, partly as insurance that he wouldn't just turn around and blab their secrets or join anymore attacks on the nation, but mostly because Leon was being extremely petty. That said, it was time for Leon to make out like a bandit.
"I'll take those three over there." Leon indicated the three brand new models of Alzeran automobile, fresh off the factory line and full of the newest technology. "I'll take those two too!" Leon indicated the two newest models of Alzeran armour as well, two centaur shaped armours the increased mass making more room for the engine. "And that!" And the Latest cargo hauler. Essentially an engine with enough room for a cockpit, a bed, toilet and a fridge to last for days with a large clamp for strapping cargo containers larger than the ship to it. "Grab a few of the little ones too just because."
And Leon basically bought up all the latest technology in Alzer, put it on a ship, stuffed the Nomicon into that ship as a power source and sent it all to Nick back in Holfort to take apart and reverse engineer. Alzer stole his ship, so Leon decided to steal Alzer's monopoly on technology, going through each of the Great Nobles Territory and buying up their best stuff and he wasn't even half way through his spending money.
Instead Leon made an investment, Pierre was a bloody menace to society leaving a trail of ruined lives and destroyed buildings everywhere that he had went in the Great Noble's territories, so Leon could buy up lots of their territory, he even got a steep discount, apparently people thought the area's that Pierre 'visited' were cursed. Leon had materials bought for ultra cheap in Holfort, imported over and used to make the new buildings. Leon mass built Blackmore Cafe's, each of them with a memorial in front of them dedicated to the many victims of Pierre with a fraction of the profits that Leon would be making going to the victim's families, which would be plenty, thanks to Leon's unlimited supply of cheap non-union labour.
"Is this everyone?" Leon had asked Bernhard to round up all the 'human looking' inhabitants of the castle, and so this menagerie had been assembled together. "I understand the Werewolves but what are you guys doing here?" Leon asked looking at the flat faced, giant eared, grey skinned vampires with the skin flayed off of their backs.
"They are the disgraced vampires Milord. During the time that we were without our Lord these vampires were forced to resort to feeding off of Vermin to survive, when our Lord returned to us they kept their appearance from when they had gone feral and cut off their wings in penance." Leon just let out a sigh at this. The number of Vampires he had that he could show in public could be counted on one hand, and even then not in daylight until he managed to fix the 'turns to ash in sunlight' business, but he could at least show them in public. Leon turned his attention to a group more problematic than the Vampires.
"What even is this anyway?" The Werewolves all looked like beast men, however they were half naked, dressed only in the bare minimal clothing mostly around their private areas, showing obvious hostility as they audibly growled and bore their teeth.
"They are lycans young master, werewolves to be more accurate. They have been cursed with the form of beasts, under the light of the moon their true nature comes through, even without moon light the closer we are to the full moon the more savage that they become. Their clothes are made from their hair, which bypasses the usual limit on their clothes tearing apart when they transform."
"I understand that." As a Umbran Leon could appreciate wearing clothes made out of your own hair. "But why were they so skimpy?"
"Hard way." One of the Werewolves grunted. "No magic. Little hair."
Leon just let out a sigh at that as he turned to face the biggest problem among the gathered crowd, luckily there were only three of them. They resembled little girls, loosely, dead ones more accurately, snakes were wrapped around their limbs and woven through their torso and organs, even more bizarre though they were walking around on all four limbs. "And who or what are you three supposed to be?"
"I am Medusa." She sounded like a snake too, her voice harsh and with a hiss. "These are my sisters Euryale and Stheno."
Gorgon: Fallen Deities of Beauty and Grace turned demons.
Once three beautiful siblings among the Old Gods. During the fall of Agharta, the three sisters escaped into the deep depths of the earth. They became twisted shadows of their former selves, while retaining the macabre appearances of little girls.
Over the many years they have survived by obsessively staying together. Their lair would become part of the City of the Damned under the castle, where they would become loyal followers of their new Prince of Darkness.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
Leon let out a sigh as he thought about the array of 'employees' that Bernhard had gathered together for him to use in his Cafe, Employees that would take some work before he could actually employ them.
"You actually bad mouthed the great noble house heads to their faces!?" Noelle was kicking her feet into the air as she laughed her head off, having the time of her life.
"In any case I have to go back home for a while." Leon informed bluntly as he let out a sigh. "I have quite a few things that I need to look up in the library back at the compound to fix all of my new minions. You wanna take the chance to get away from Alzer for a while?" Noelle went calm at that, scarily calm, looking at Leon like she had finally found salvation.
"Really?"
"Really." Leon stated bluntly as he let out a sigh. "I don't know who your boyfriend is or what he has on you but I'm pretty sure his father is scared shitless of me right now. If the punk keeps bothering you then he can talk to my book."
"Book?" Noelle asked sounding confused.
"You don't wanna know." Leon had a haunted look in his eyes. "You really don't wanna know..."
Nick looked over at the miniature cargo hauler that Leon had sent over, filled to the brim with Alzeran technology and instructions to tear everything inside apart and reverse engineer it down to the last bolt. Nick had no idea what Alzer had done to Leon but whatever it was there was no reason to take it out on him.
"Oi Drone." Nick called out a familiar Sphere appeared next to his head. "You want any of this stuff?"
"Yes actually." It was rare that Luxion could look forward to something these days. "Alzer is supposed to have been able to salvage a decent amount of Old World Technology and has had hundreds of years to develop it independently of your clan. I might even find a solution to our insulation problem."
"While you're doing that, I'll have the chance to deal with this thing." Nick pulled out a drop weapon from inside of the ship itself and soon threw it through a summoning circle allowing the creature inside to appear, a giant one eyed cat woman who Nick instinctively realised was anything but. "And whom might you be?" Nick asked voicing his suspicions plain as day.
"Call me Auntie Nyar." The cat woman sat on the side of the tractor trailer Leon had sent them, her general posture giving Nick the impression that she was completely boneless.
"'Auntie Nyar?'" It could just be a shortened version of her full name, it took Nick a few good moments of wracking his brain to figure out who she was, it helped that she didn't introduce herself as one of the Madamas despite obviously feminine features and having the raw power of one. "As in Nyarlathotep?"
"My, aren't you the smart one?" The pumped up cat lady looked like she just caught the Canary. "Your brother didn't even know what his little castle was up to." Nick made a mental note to kill Leon later.
"Might I ask why my brother sent you here?" Right now Nick needed to do damage control if he wanted to clean up the latest mess his brother had dumped on him.
"Curating the family library and conducting surveillance on his enemies." The Cat Woman shrugged as Nick mentally sighed.
"Take her to the Library." Nick ordered to a nearby Shadow who nodded and took the scary Cat Woman's book away with them, with Luxion floating next to Nick.
"My Lovecraft is a little rusty." The Drone intoned unhelpfully.
"It fundamentally is not too fond of humanity or the ignorant in general. It doesn't have the power to play with the big boys but it does have the knowledge to cause a lot of damage and a talent to be in the right place to deploy it." Nick looked the drone straight into the eye as he talked. "The Manhattan Project for instance." Luxion's single eye went wide at that.
"As in the start of the nuclear age?" Luxion asked and Nick nodded his head. That was an entire era of far too many close calls and narrow misses to really be comfortable, it was also the thing that ended World War 2 quite narrowly before the Axis did. "Understood. I will watch her for now."
Olivia and Angelica were both in the library, looking for any information on the Colossi or that could give them an edge against them. They did have one potential lead to go on, a woman so toxic that just by being near her you'd be hit with insanity that you wouldn't be free of even if you died, little things like a antidote to her poison would be nice. Angie on the other hand was checking through the archives and the other three areas, water, earth and fire. The thing you have to realise though, is that while wood type monsters like Alraune or Echidna were rare, water, earth and fire types were common. There were entire chunks of the library in here dedicated to different kinds of fire, earth and water type monsters, individually examining each book for clues was like a needle in a haystack.
"Are you having better luck than I am?" Angelica asked sounding very tired.
"I've found a book about how to prepare Mandrake so that it can be used as a potion crafting ingredient, but not about what to do to keep ourselves from getting mulched by this Alraune." Olivia found a book that explained how to process Mandrake into a potent healing potion that Olivia believed Rodin uses in those suckers, but one of the first steps in that process was removed the the incredibly toxic poison that she was trying to cure, because if you ingest it then you're screwed. "You?"
"I have three leads on the Angel Colossi." Angelica explained as she put up three separate books. "Meet Fortitudo, Lustita, and Sapientia, a two headed fire breathing dragon, a giant ball of tentacles and a giant weapons platform shaped like a lizard respectively." Lovely thought that.
"Nothing about the wood Angel?" Olivia asked sounding concerned.
"Are you perhaps referring to Sephirot?" The two girls looked to the side where they saw a woman who was not standing there earlier, wearing a black dress and open hoodie combo, golden eyes, green hair and gold accessories. "Hi I'm Nyar, the new Librarian." The woman explained holding out a hand. Strange name, but this place has been all over the world.
"Angelica Rapha Redgrave." Angelica held out her hand to shake.
"Olivia De Blackmore." Olivia held out her own hand to shake, the woman doing both at the same time. "So tell us more about this 'Sephirot.'" Angelica asked sounding curious. "For all intents and purposes, a tree that grows in Paradiso. The three Angels you listed off are high tier embodiments of the Cardinal Virtures, Fortitudo is Fortitude." So the tank of the group. "Lustita is Justice." DPS or so Angelica assumed. "And Sapientia is Wisdom." So the brains of the operation. "The Sephirot would be Knowledge."
"Wait." Olivia looked confused for a moment. "Isn't Knowledge and Wisdom covered under the same thing?"
"You'd be surprised at how often people mistake the two but no." Nyar looked more amused than anything else. "Comparing Wisdom and Knowledge is like comparing you to Brad." Angelica interjected and if the vaguely offended look Olivia gave was any indication she started to understand the jist of the lesson.
"Brad has been tutored his entire life on magic and politics, giving him lots of information on how the world works, both it's magic and the people in it, but until he started training with Leon he had yet to gain real world experience in the first and in all likelihood has little interest in the latter. Me on the other hand were able to quickly understand the contents of the Library, and with Leon's encouragement sought real world experience." Nyar nodded in approval of both the explanation and the actions taken that it described.
"In any case I should look into the old Librarian's stash, from what I understand the demon was a real hoarder and he didn't have much time to clean out his office before he was suddenly reassigned. Ta ta!" Olivia and Angelica looked at each other as the contents of the conversation clued into the two of them.
"Demon?"
"Suddenly Reassigned?" And then they tore into the stack, Olivia covering water while Angelica did fire looking for the Boss of the Fire domain.
In the next section over a Jukebox started playing easy listening music by itself and two figures appeared from it in a flash of light.
"Where is this place?" Noelle asked as she looked around the Multifloor Library.
"My Families Library." Leon stated as he went to a nearby card Catalogue. "Help me sort through these cards." Leon was after two very specific magic spells, which he would utilise to assist the Vampires and Werewolves of the Castle.
"What are we looking for?" Noelle asked as she started sorting through the card catalogues.
"'Support and Utility Enchantments.'" Leon explained by way of reply. "I'm after two specifically but they should both be found in the one book."
"What do they do?" Noelle was legitimately curious, even if she didn't have much experience with the card Catalogue system.
"Moonlight is key to a Umbran's power, the collective thoughts feelings and desires of the human are collected by it and bounced back to us in a concentrated form which we can turn into magical energy. Or so people have theorised, I don't really know how it works just that the clan has come up with a bunch of ways of manipulating it. The first engraving we're looking for is relatively popular among the clan, it turns light into moon light which increases our mana supply." It would also be perfect for the Vampires, who were injured by sunlight but would grow stronger in moon light, reducing their overall consumption of blood in the process. "The other one is one that does the opposite, it turns moonlight into regular old Light." Not quite as well liked in the clan, in fact the only time Leon remembers it being brought up was as a method of imprisoning his grandmother Rosa, without moonlight she was cut off from much of her magic and so imprisoning her was made much easier. However no moonlight no werewolf transformation, so even something as despicable as crippling a Umbran's potential could be turned into a boon. As Leon was thinking about that he suddenly felt a chill down his spine.
"Leon..." Olivia had a cold dead look in her eyes as she laid eyes on Leon in the middle of searching through the card catalogues with a girl that Olivia both did and didn't recognise. "When did you get back?" Olivia ended up giving Leon a earful, surprisingly enough she was more upset that he went diving through the family library for interesting sounding magic without her than the fact that he turned up without telling anyone, and as 'punishment' Olivia had Leon carrying around the books she picked out for the rest of the day. Leaving Angelica alone with Noelle.
"...so you two are Leon's Fiances?" The concept was alien to Noelle, who grew up in the Monogamous Alzer. "How did that happen?"
"...my previous Fiance not only broke up with me, but attacked me and then got all offended when the current headmaster broke it up, so then he challenged me to a duel. Leon defended me on both occasions." Angelica didn't look like she was thinking back on a fond memory. "We've grown closer over time, I must admit he's quite good in bed."
"That's it?" Noelle asked disbelief clear on her features.
"Well no we also spent large portions of time together such as on the field trip, at the school festival, or delving in the dungeon, there was also the couple of occasions where we nearly died that pushed us together too." Angelica stated as she let out a sigh.
"Well, the books I read do say that hardship has a way of bringing people together." Noelle suddenly felt the temperature spike three notches. "I sense I touched upon a sore spot." Noelle apologised with a wince.
"Luckily I am not so petty as to hold a grudge over a poorly thought out line." Angelica stated as she reeled back in the room temperature with a sigh.
"What about Olivia?" Noelle wisely changed the topic.
"A commoner in a school full of people raised to think they are inherently better than she is." Angelica spat the information like it owed her money. "She spent the first few days here being tormented by her classmates before Leon found her. Under his tutelage her natural talents she had been given her scholarship for were allowed to blossom fully. Much as I am loathe to reference those blasted romance novels saving your life and practically handing you everything you could've ever dreamed for has a certain way of creating feelings for people." Angelica thought about the situation quite fondly.
"You two don't get into any...?" Noelle knew that bedroom rights and quality time was the downfall of many relationships in Alzer.
"I'm afraid we are much too fond of each other for that." Angelica didn't look nearly as disappointed as she pretended to be. "It does help that we've mutually agreed that I'll be the first to be impregnated, Olivia is quite alright with not being touched until we can confirm that I'll be having a boy." But she will be 'touched' eventually. "Well that's our dirty laundry aired, so tell me." Angelica glared at Noelle, the commoner girl feeling a chill go up her spine. "Why exactly does Leon feel that you are in such danger that he used the secret teleportation network his family has set up to ship you over to Holfort?"
Noelle recoiled at the sudden change in Angelica, but she's dealt with Louise for over a year now, she can handle one interrogation from some uppity noble girl.
"That's none of your-"
"My fiance has exposed a top secret magic spell network that could revolutionise or destroy relations all over the world to someone who is functionally a stranger!" The temperature in the room dropped, Angelica's features darkened. "You will tell me why you are so desperate to vacate Alzer this instant!"
"Alright I'll talk just turn down the third degree!" And like that the room and it's occupant went back to normal. "...I've gotten the unwanted attention of a Nobleman by the name of Loic Leta Barielle. I went on one date with the man at the insistence of my stupid sister where I did not enjoy myself, had my personal preferences thoroughly insulted, and walked away with the distinct impression that I was on the cusp of becoming some trophy for a two bit creep. Needless to say I have not wilfully indulged in a second outing with the man his best attempts to the contrary." Angelica zeroed in on a particular detail that Noelle dropped.
"Your sister set you up with him?" Angelica sounded like this was the hard part for her to believe in all of this.
"I completely believe that trying to pimp me out to a greater noble for her own gain is something Lelia would do." Noelle instead took the liberty of continuing to complain about her sister.
The more Angelica heard about said complaints the less that she liked, there was no sister in the New Age Lover's game built around Noelle, and the last time someone who wasn't in the game showed up, Marie, they were a Reincarnated specifically one who attempted to use the Game's knowledge for their own gain, again Marie, and now this Lelia was proving much the same. Lelia somehow gave the impression of being an even more abominable creature. She didn't take the role of Protagonist herself, and with it all of the potential hardships and dangers, no she pushed it off onto someone else, badly based on what she was hearing.
"I have to say that 'sisterly love' has reached lows at this point I knew not even possible." Angelica watched the Seething Noelle as she panted with huge gasps of air after having finished off her rant. Olivia came skipping in a few moments later a walking stack of precariously stacked books following behind her. "You have a busy afternoon planned out for you."
"Tell me about it." Leon dropped the books onto the table. "Olivia's agreed to come into the castle with me later to work on healing the vampires."
"The vampires require healing?" Angelica looked confused as she held up a open section from Lemegeton's Guidebook. "I thought they had natural regenerative capabilities?"
"They do, but that requires that they drink human blood, which is not something we plan on doing too much, so I'm planning on getting Olivia to try to heal them up." Leon explained as he put away a familiar book into the void of space.
"We ran into miss Nyar on the way back!" Olivia thrust some unfamiliar book into Angelica's hands, it looked new, if she had to guess they would've just been printed that morning. "She had some recommendations for both of us!" Olivia already skimmed through both books already, she didn't know what 'Nuclear Fission' or 'Crisper' meant but they sounded really interesting to her on principle.
"Well, we can always use some more of the local specials." Angelica had already spent a good chunk of the day trying to figure out Hertrude's heat into sound magic. After Ice, Wind and Lightning Sound seemed as good an idea as any to add extra bite to her attacks, the sight of several demons having been shattered like glass during the trip with Hertrude was a point in Sounds favour. Another one that she planned to look into was Kinetics, which Luxion turned out to be pretty knowledgeable about. "Oh that reminds me." Angelica quickly wrote a note out and gave it to Leon. "I was wondering if you could take care of something for me while you're in Alzer." Leon picked up the note and read it. 'Noelle's sister is an reincarnated with Game Knowledge, put an end to her shenanigans.'
"Got it covered Angie." And thus the four individuals renewed their focus on their studying, with Leon looking up the two runes that he needed as Angelica and Olivia unknowingly plunged into the the depths of forbidden knowledge.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to a primitive civilisation. Any sufficiently analysed magic is indistinguishable from technology to a advanced intellect." I completely believe that powering technology with magic would be possible should magic actually exist.
KadoyaOkami: Something she shouldn't be.
Dakota Bruder: Sucker For Love if memory serves.
hnh058513: Hope I don't disappoint.
RedRat8: Let's see here, he assumed the random drunk driver he humiliated was just that instead of Public Menace Number 1: a fair assumption he could make. But then he also assumed that the living well spring of dark knowledge and magic wouldn't make use of that and the primed sacrifice he gave it to advance it's own agenda.