As Nihil’s group was making their way to the next town over, Stella and Lunam’s group headed toward the capital. Following the road around the walls, they reached the visitors’ entrance and lined up in one of the several queues that had formed. There were giant egg shaped objects dotted over the side of the slope up to the city. But before Lunam could speculate any further, a disturbance occurred ahead of them. It seemed that a non-human had tried to argue with the guards over the exorbitant fees.
“This could get expensive for us, so my sister and I should head in separately to you three – just in case they hold your relationship with us against you.” Stella suggested reasonably upon witnessing the fight.
Now that she wasn’t constantly around Nihil, her mood seemed to have finally calmed down. Noticing the change in her sister, Lunam let out a small sigh of relief and a smile spread across her crimson lips.
Reluctantly agreeing with their leader, Carl, Clark and Paul distanced themselves from the two ladies.
“Once we’re inside, we should leave selling the materials to those three while we go and meet Master.” Lunam suggested after the guys had left.
“We haven’t seen her in so long, I’ve really missed her.” Stella responded, indicating her agreement. “She did so much for us after everything that happened. I’d like to get her a present before we meet her.”
“That’s a good idea, we should have a look around the market on the way to her place.”
“Actually, I was thinking that we could use one of the magical beasts’ cores and make a charm for her. We could hire a mage to enchant it for us as well. It wouldn’t be as good as the high level ones that she could buy, but it would be more personal.” Stella suggested tentatively. She knew that it wouldn’t end up being anything that their master would even deign to look at if she saw it on a market stall, so Stella was nervous about how well this would work out.
“I think she’d appreciate that. But I think you should carve the enchantments. As a healer, you’ve learnt how to emit your internal energy and manipulate it. More than that, you can use that emitted energy to sense whatever it’s touching. You may not be able to directly use the core’s stored power, but you could theoretically direct it with your own – just as you do when you’re healing someone. It’s not something that anyone’s ever tried before, but it’s worth a shot.” Lunam encouraged her sister.
Their master was the one that taught the two of them how to cultivate, and dramatically increased their fighting skills enough for the two of them to survive on their own. She even taught Stella the healing arts of a cultivator, so this would be a good way to show how they’d developed since they last saw her.
“I’ll give it a go, but I may ruin the core …” Stella trailed off nervously.
“That’s fine. I’m sure the party would understand, and Master would probably just find it funny and still treasure the left over slag.” Lunam teased her sister with a laugh.
Stella let out a small laugh at her sister’s words, and found them to actually be somewhat comforting.
Just then, the two girls reached the main gates to the city. At first, the guards greeted them politely and were respectful as they asked them a series of questions.
“Good morning, girls.” A slightly older guard greeted them. “Were you planning on staying in Imber for long?”
“No thanks, we’re just passing through so we’d just like a visa for two or three days, please.” Lunam replied politely.
“The shortest visa we have is for a week, but you’re free to leave at any point during that week.” The man replied apologetically.
Is this another one of Crown Prince Pravus’ changes? Stella wondered angrily. This is basically robbery! Most visitors are adventurers and magicians that are only wanting to stay for a couple of days on their way somewhere else!
“That’s fine, then.” Lunam responded, somehow managing to hide her annoyance.
“Ok, I’ll need you to step into this scanner in order to put your species down on the visa.” The guard explained while gesturing to a strange looking device behind him.
The woman who’d spoken to Nihil before, probably hadn’t known about this machine. Because she was a permanent resident of the city, she just had to show her pass to the guards at a separate entrance and they would immediately let her in and out.
The scanner turned out to be the giant granite eggs that they saw before. It had a door on it’s side so the girls quickly deduced that they would have to step inside it. There were several next to each queue to prevent long lines from forming as people waited to be scanned before entering the city.
When they got closer to one of these eggs, they realised that the entire surface was covered in tiny inscription patterns that must have taken a very skilled enchanter a very long time in order to complete. These patterns were made up of fine veins of glistening beast cores that had been melted down and inset into the granite. The guard opened the doors leading into two of these eggs, and gestured that the girls should enter.
“Don’t worry, it wont hurt. All that will happen is that you’ll see a bright ring of light travel from the top of the egg down to the base. Once the light hits the bottom, the door will automatically open and you’ll be allowed out.” The man assured the two.
Nodding their heads in understanding, the two girls gingerly stepped inside their respective eggs. It turned out just as the guard had described it, and when the doors opened the sisters were even more nervous than before. Now the guards would know they weren’t human, so they knew that their attitudes would do a complete 180 from before.
“So you girls were mongrels, then?” The older guard spoke up in a completely different tone from before. He used the derogatory term for a half-breed, clearly showing his dislike for the two.
The gazes of all the guards present turned vicious and even lecherous as they took a second look at the two girls’ figures. They’re mongrels? They could be fun to play around with, then. It’s not like they’re human, so it’s not a problem to have our way with them.
These were that kinds of thoughts that almost all of the male guards were contemplating. However, some guards weren’t even slightly interested, as they thought that the girls were worse than animals – no matter how pretty they were.
“It’s even worse than that, sir.” A young boy chirped up from the back. He was sitting behind a screen that was flashing with the results that were being relayed back by all the eggs. “They’re half human.”
“A human actually acted so slutty as to mate with an animal?” The first guard scathingly accused.
“Don’t talk about our mother that way!” Stella angrily rebuked them.
“Wait, you two are sisters?” The young analyser asked, even more disgusted than before. He then pointed at Lunam and revealed that she was half demon, while Stella was half elf.
Upon learning this, the guards who had been eyeing them up before all cooled down. Their disgust for the girls’ mother completely drowned out any lust that the guards may have had.
After enduring much heckling from all the guards that had been present, the two girls were finally allowed to enter the city. But this didn’t happen until after they had been charged an especially exorbitant fee for their visas due to the guards deliberately hiking up the price.
The sisters had held back their seething anger at the guards’ provocations as they knew that they would just have been arrested. The men were hoping that the girls would react.
* * *
The truth was that their mother hadn’t chosen to have them, but that hadn’t stopped the woman from caring deeply for her two girls. Stella and Lunam were actually half siblings, and yet both of them hated their fathers’ guts.
What had happened was that an evil group was looking for a successor, and they had taken a liking to a human woman called Sarah. They snatched her from her home and kept her locked up underground for 13 years. During that time they raped her and forced her to give birth to Lunam and Stella. Even after they got the heirs they’d wanted, they kept Sarah around to raise the two girls.
When Lunam reached the age of 10, she was taken away from her mother and forced to practice the evil techniques of the group. Stella was a later bloomer than her sister, so she didn’t get taken away until she was 11. It was at this time that the group murdered Sarah, accidentally letting the two girls see.
As they watched their mother’s death, the girls finally realised how evil the organisation was, and Lunam used her stealth abilities to cover their escape.
All throughout childhood, they had been brainwashed by the group and hadn’t realised just how much their mother had suffered due to the organisation. However the group never managed to rid the two girls of their love for their mother, so the sight of them mercilessly slaughtering Sarah shocked them into running away.
During the two years that Lunam had spent practising the evil arts in the organisation, she had found out that her stealth abilities were naturally much more advanced than any of the other practitioners in the the group. As such, if she didn’t wish to be detected, they would never be able to find her. She could also extend this ability to cover just one other person. This ability was the key to their escape.
After they ran away, they quickly ran out of food as they also hadn’t thought to grab any money before they’d left. As the were slowly starving to death in the slums of a border town between Avalon and Sheol, their future Master had ended up stumbling across them and decided to train them herself.
The two girls still didn’t know why their master had taken pity on them that day, but she’d fed them, given them a change of clothes, and offered them the chance to learn true cultivation under her tutelage. There was something about the woman that had reminded them of their mother, so they agreed and followed her back to the capital. Even just on the journey back, their master had never missed a single opportunity to teach the girls valuable lessons about how to survive in Axis.
* * *
After entering Imber, Stella and Lunam headed towards their agreed upon meeting place to wait for the 3 men from their group. This place was called the Ignorant Iguana’s Inn. It was the best budget inn in the entire city, so they had decided to stay there for the duration of their visit. Plus, the inn was also run by a friend of their master’s, so they could usually get an even better price for their rooms.
“Ah Stella! Lunam! It’s been so long! You girls have grown even prettier since I last saw you.” The proprietor, Hera, gushed as she rushed over to greet them and gave them a hug.
“Hera! You’re looking great, and business seems to be doing even better than before!” Stella replied, just as happy to see the woman.
Hearing her comment, Hera’s face turned somewhat solemn. “Unfortunately it’s not due to a good reason. With the Crown Prince’s outlook on non-human species, there aren’t that many inns willing to risk his displeasure by giving lodging to them. My place is one of the few that will actually accept them for the same price. The only places that can blatantly do this have to be like me and have strong backers that even the Royal Family can’t afford to offend.”
“How is that even legal? Doesn’t the Non-Aggression Pact prevent this kind of discrimination?” Stella asked in anger.
“Well, we still have the right to refuse customers. Otherwise we would be put in a tight spot if a difficult customer came by. Plus raising prices for different species is also not prohibited, so The Non-Aggression Pact would only be able to prevent this if it was possible to prove that species was the only reason they are being turned away …” Hera responded in frustration. This kind of oppression fell into a grey area in the rules of the pact.
Realising that what Hera said made some sense, Stella fell quiet and dropped her gaze to the ground in helplessness.
“How is Master doing?” Lunam spoke up at this point in order to change the subject.
“Aria is fine for now, but she’s facing some pretty heavy oppression from anyone affiliating themselves with the Crown Prince. I think her background in the Royal Guard has only made her rejection of the Prince’s doctrines all the more embarrassing for them.” Hera replied, worried for her friend.
“Master never has been one to mince her words – especially when the ones to piss her off are people in power.” Lunam replied helplessly.
After sorting out which rooms the five of them would be staying in, Stella and Lunam headed to the bar area to wait for the guys to show up.
“Miss Stella! Miss Lunam! I thought we went ahead. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Paul called out as they entered the inn, catching sight of the two girls at the bar.
“It’s fine, we managed to catch up with Hera while we waited, so it was fun.” Stella replied cheerfully.
Sitting next to their leaders, the three men asked about their plans for selling the materials they’d managed to gather.
“Stella and I were planning on catching up with our master while we’re here. We also have some business we need to discuss with her, so it might take a while.” Lunam started to explain. “So, we were thinking that you three should handle selling the materials, while we head to our master’s place. You should know the correct prices to get for our materials, so you’ll be fine.”
“Besides, having half-breeds like us around may actually be detrimental to the amount we could sell them for.” Stella added, clearly irritated at the Prince’s conduct.
“Ok, we’ll do as you suggest.” Carl responded. The three of them were just as upset by the Prince as their leaders were, but they didn’t want to cause the girls any trouble by saying more than they should.
Handing over a bracelet, Lunam spoke up in explanation. “Here are all the materials we collected on the way here. The stuff we went into the ancient forest to gather is in a different storage ring, so you’re free to sell everything that is contained within this one.”
A storage ring was either a bracelet or ring that was made out of a magical beast’s core. It worked in much the same way as the bath’s enchanted gems Nihil and Ignis had encountered at the inn back in the ancient forest. The difference from those gems, was that storage rings had a much greater storage area. However, the trade back was that they were no longer insulated and so things would cool down overtime and perishables wouldn’t last very long.
This was a big part of the reason why Diei Noctis had decided to split into two groups – they wanted to make sure the meat and hides of the magical beasts they’d hunted didn’t spoil. They had also gathered a few medicinal herbs along the way, so time wasn’t really on their side. There were some storage rings that could stop time inside, but due to the special requirements for making them, each country probably only had 1 or 2 in total – let alone any individuals. These rings were known as ‘void-space’ rings.
Taking the bracelet, Paul tucked it into his jacket’s inner pocket. At this point, Stella excused herself from the group as she still had another question for Hera.
“You mentioned that some other inns were still accepting non-human clientele?” Stella started after locating the proprietress. “Just who would be powerful enough to prevent Avalon’s Royal Family from taking action against these inns?”
“No-one’s really sure about this. Some people say that it’s the Inter-Species Council, but I don’t believe they would have the time to spare for such a superficial move in someone else’s territory.” Hera mused. “If they were to do anything, they would gather evidence and then make a bigger move, directly invoking the Non-Aggression Pact. After all, that’s the limit of their authority outside of their own borders.”
“That may be true, but Avalon couldn’t afford to offend the Inter-Species Council even if they did overstep their power.” Stella pointed out. “But I do agree that this isn’t really their style. Since they’re also backing you, how do even you still not know? This all sounds kinda iffy.”
“They aren’t supporting me directly, and since they’re helping me, it seems a bit rude to investigate too deeply. I know enough that they’re not up to anything nefarious though.” She explained simply. “Some people are incorrectly assuming that the evil guild, Advorsus, is the one backing us so they can nab a few non-humans on the sly though. So we have a few people harassing us every day.”
“Advorsus!” Stella all but growled the guild’s name. Suddenly thinking of something, she spoke up again. “But they’re an internationally wanted terrorist organisation. There’d be no reason for Avalon to hold back if they were the ones pulling the strings. Why would people think of them now?”
“Well, you’re certainly right that there wouldn’t be any honourable reasons for them to hold back. However there are some that claim that Prince Pravus and Advorsus are working together behind the scenes.” Hera responded with a light laugh. “Well, I get the feeling that Prince Pravus is just trying to discredit us as much as possible since he can’t take any direct action. Though he seems to have incriminated himself at the same time. Incompetent fool.”
“If what you’ve just said turns out to be true, though and the Prince actually is working with -” Stella started, but Hera quickly interrupted.
“Stop, you shouldn’t say such things while you’re in the capital. You never know who may be listening.” She warned.
She’d only said as much as she had, because Aria was a dear friend of Hera’s and she’d watched as Stella and Lunam had grown up.
Sill seething, Stella worked on bringing her emotions back under control. Once she was calm again, she took her leave and returned to Lunam.
Just as she arrived, Paul, Carl and Clark were excusing themselves in order to start selling the materials they’d gathered. Sending the three off, the two sisters then headed to their room in order to prepare some things – not least of them being the enchantment of the magical beast core.
Aerone Grey 