Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 330
Chapter 330
Chapter 330
Merriment was abundant. Laughter rose above the sounds of bustling crowds across the downtown nightlife of the city like a warm blanket - setting a safe, secure and relaxed mood that was far different from when the city had initially transitioned into the multiverse. There was a sense of excitement, progress, and overall comradery - where Allie saw firsthand the results of her rule as displaced undead refugees were readily taken care of in well-kept housing establishments with ample food and minimal crime. Magical lights and neon signs from apartment buildings, bars, and nightclubs illuminated the darkness - and patrols of guards made sure the drunken fights that did break out were quickly subdued before the participants were taken to a drunk tank to cool off.
Smiling and waving at a little ghoul girl holding hands with her parents on a walk through the well-lit streets, Allie pushed through a thick wooden door underneath a lit set of torches and entered a half-filled pub. The establishment had a couple vampires playing darts on one end, deathtouched enlightened elves alongside some flesh golems playing cards in one corner, and a mix-and-match of deathtouched enlightened humans with skresh across a few tables scattered along the center of the room.
What was more interesting were the three tiefling demons, probably immigrants from Negrada, were also playing drinking games with a jabob demon. There was even a rare phantasmal woman strumming at a guitar and singing in a ghostly, soothing voice on stage. It wasn’t often you saw these species in Brightsville but they were certainly present enough to not be an absolutely unique standout either.
Walking through the pub and towards the bar, Allie stopped in front of a gruff-looking human bartender in a sleeveless vest and motioned him over from where he was polishing glasses. She raised two fingers, and head-bobbed to Kathrine as the vampiric princess pulled up beside her. “Drinks for my friend and I. Whatever you think tastes the best.”
The man put down his glass and walked over, reaching under the bar and pulling out two corked bottles of a pink glittering liquid with orange swirls. He placed both bottled on the bar, and grinned while pushing them to the two women. “What’s with the fur hoods and masks? You two are obviously pretty enough, no need to hide anything.”
Hooded fur coats with colombina Venice-styled masks that covered half their faces were enough to hide both royals to a point, avoiding immediate suspicion upon taking to the streets of Brightsville. Neither Allie nor Kathrine wanted to draw too much attention on their night out. It’d be the first time Allie had gone out into the city while hiding who she was, and she was eager to find out whether or not the nightlife scene she’d heard so much about lived up to expectations.
“It’s just a fashion statement.” Kathrine said with a wink, taking her drink and popping the cork and sipping while sitting on a cushioned stool beside Allie. Eyebrows raising, she inspected the glittering liquid more closely. “Oh, this has something unique mixed inside. Essence of… Something? With the blood of an immortal? The alcohol content is peak F-grade too, not bad.”
“Considering I couldn’t identify either of you, I figured you’re both pretty high level. First round is on me if you stay a while - young women like you keep the men around hoping to get lucky.” The man replied with a wink of his own, eyeing Kathrine’s figure where the fur coat didn’t manage to hide things. His eyes met hers and then shifted to Allie, where she still wore a soft smiling expression while looking out the open-air windows at the people moving up and down the street. “A vampire and a… Eh. Not a ghoul, not human either. What are you, lass? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“I am an Angel of Death.” Allie said nonchalantly, turning her attention to the burly man only briefly - before clinking her glass with Kathrine’s and taking a large swig. “This tastes nice.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Angel of Death? There are only a few dozen in the entire necropolis. Did you happen to come over with the Queen’s entourage? The banished clan following the sin of Wrath?”
“Something like that.” Allie’s smile grew, and she let a single set of her wings extend from her back - black feathers glittering and causing a lot of heads to turn as they extended outwards to touch the ceiling. She retracted them soon after, and began to tap a finger on the table in thought. “Do you like this city, human? What do you think of Brightsville now that it’s the capital of an unholy empire? I’m curious.”
Still somewhat surprised and only managing to hide it after a couple seconds of staring, the bartender shook his head let out a chuckle - before leaning across the bar and putting his chin in his hands. “Ah, where to even begin. Yes, I love living here! It’s one of the safest cities to live in across all of Panu. I’ve made a profitable business here, the taxes are rather lenient, and I never have to worry about my family’s wellbeing or persecution for my family’s practices of black magic.”
Allie did a quick once-over of the man and identified him readily enough with an identification ring on her left hand. Jewelry like this was becoming somewhat commonplace now, but just like the amulet the bartender himself wore - they could only identify things within a certain level range depending on the quality of the item.
[Level 16 Bartender, Human.]
The man’s level was only 16 even despite having a non-combat class, which probably meant he’d not strayed off to try different brews or failed to get any advanced ingredients for higher quality drinks. He probably hadn’t been the one to make the alcohol she was sipping on right now. Given that crafting classes leveled up differently than combat classes did depending on what the crafting class was, she wondered what he’d been doing this entire time since arriving on Panu.
He probably just wasn’t very driven. But she didn’t necessarily judge him for that, because there were millions of civilians just like this man across her empire that only wished to live out peaceful, simple lives free of pain or grief.
“Your family practices black magic, and you chose to be a bartender?” Kathrine asked in good humor. “Why?”
The bartender got up to get one of the vampire off-duty soldiers a drink of blood wine, and quickly came back to continue the conversation. “My father is a warlock. He’s actually a pretty good one too, level 140. A founder of one of the adventuring guilds here, and he also runs a succubus brothel in the red light district through his summons and a few other succubi that came over from Negrada. I never really had the talent for any of the unholy magics even though it’s my only affinity, so I picked up a crafting class instead and help him run the business side of the guild and brothel in my spare time outside of bartending.” ꭆ𝓪Ν𝘖𝐛ÊȘ
“Are there any incubus brothels around?” Kathrine asked curiously, a sly smile spreading across her lips. “Any good ones? My maid has actually been asking about them but I wouldn't personally know.”
The man rolled his eyes and chuckled again. “There actually is one with a pretty good reputation called ‘The Long Pole.’ I’m sure you can read between the lines on why it was named that way, but everyone in the red light district is very strictly policed and all the sex workers are treated very well. None of it’s shady and non-registered sex work is illegal, so I wouldn’t say any of them are necessarily bad even if you don’t go to the one I mentioned.”
Kathrine side-eyed Allie. “Hmmm. I'll have to tell Cherna.”
“Cherna is the blonde vampire I first met you with, right?” Allie shook her head and sipped on her drink. “It's been a while.”
“You would be correct in thinking so on both counts. She recently broke up with her fiancé when she found out he was cheating on her with a friend's thrall.”
“I'd be pissed.”
“She obviously was! But such is life, I can't say I really blame her for wanting to find an incubus to keep her company. Speaking of which, when is your brother getting back?”
Allie rolled her eyes. "Can we not talk about that?"
"Can't you just ask him? Didn't you very recently make some sort of soul connection?"
Allie glanced over her status information and read aloud for Kathrine's benefit:
[The Sibling’s Pact (Trait): You and your brother Riven now have a direct soul connection, manifested through dark arts of the Abyssal Descent. Currently it allows you to sense where your sibling is, but as time goes on this trait will evolve into a direct form of immediate communication regardless of the space between you two.]
Allie gave Kathrine a raised eyebrow and sipped on her drink. "So no, I cannot just ASK him when he'll be back. Athel- Ahem, I mean, his first minion has a stronger bond than even I do."
The queen of the Thane Necropolis quickly shot the bartender a glance to make sure he hadn't caught her almost-name drop. He didn't seem to be much the wiser and was pulling on a swig of brandy himself while listening in.
"Well that sucks! Kathrine shook her head with a dramatic, pouting sigh. “My family keeps asking about when we're having kids. Even though it's just a political marriage, I do like him.
“It is what it is.” Allie said, waving her bottle in the air. “You’ll be fine. He'll be back eventually."
Kathrine grinned and bobbed her head from side to side. “Alright. Oh! Don’t tell my parents that I'm out drinking like this, they’d be furious about me doing something like that. I forgot to mention it. And... Would you want to go dress shopping with me?”
Allie's eyes lit up with excitement, and she nearly lunged across the bar to her right to swat Kathrine on the shoulder. “We can go before the cube! I've been wanting to try on some new lingerie for Lahn's benefit, as a way to say sorry about you know what."
“How’s that going by the way?” freёwebnoѵel.com
“Lahn’s great. The most loveable guy I know.” Allie smirked.
"Ugh. I'm so jealous. I wish you know who looked at me with even half of the romantic intent your man does!"
The bartender had slowly been raising both eyebrows, and hesitantly commented at Kathrine with: “Are you in an arranged marriage of some kind?”
Kathrine glanced back at the man and shrugged. “Kind of.”
“That’s fucked up. I’m so sorry. Can’t you get your angel friend to help you out? Or are you one of the vampires from off-world? You know, from the Requiem?”
“Yes, I’m from the Blood Moon Requiem. Our customs are slightly different from yours depending on station, but I guarantee you that this particular case is more of a benefit to me and my family than it is anything to be upset about.”
“Don’t you want to marry for love?” The man asked with a frown.
Kathrine laughed, putting a hand up to her lips. She shook her head. “Nobles don’t marry for love, silly human. Not in our society. We marry for political gain and power as a duty to the house we’re born from, and if we get lucky then love comes later. Plus I already do think of the man I’m engaged to as a friendly acquaintance, I don’t hate him or anything like that. If anything he’s rather pleasant to be around compared to most of the other nobles I’ve seen - and he's not bad to look at.”
That comment caught a bit of attention from some of the other vampires playing darts, who shot her curious and simultaneously skeptical glances and muttered amongst one another while continuing to play.
The man sternly nodded. “Ah. So you’re a noblewoman then?”
“Yes. A handful of us came over when Elysium allowed our legions to defend the Thane siblings, I’m one of them. From a young age I always expected to marry for the benefit of my family and I happened to get paired with someone who fits that bill. Now could you pass me another one of those drinks?”
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The man did as asked when Allie held up a finger to ask a question. “Do other humans here like it as much as you do?”
The bartender finished popping off the cork for Kathrine and gave Allie another once-over. “Can’t speak for everyone, but there are lots of humans that still live here and are quite happy with their lives. Most of them are immigrants from Chicago’s side of the Riven’s Eye Wormhole, or crossed the ocean to get here like my father did whenever they heard the Unholy Foundational Pillar had a rooted movement on Umbra. The Thane Necropolis has drawn all sorts of people like my family from around the world, and the only ones that really give us much trouble are the vampires.”
He head-bobbed to Kathrine before leaning back with crossed arms. “No offense miss, but your people really don’t seem to like humans much.”
Kathrine giggled. “Yes, well that is to be expected. It isn’t that we hate you humans, we just view you as inferior creatures. As food.”
“So I’ve been told.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But the proclamation the Thane’s made about blood donations from mortals has stemmed a lot of the hate we initially saw. Our restaurants actually pay for a lot of that donated blood to mix into our foods specifically for vampires whenever they’re out on the town, and it makes life bearable for everyone when the vamps aren’t starving and you lot aren’t trying to eat us.”
The bartender gave Kathrine a wink. “So no hard feelings.”
Downing the second bottle she’d been given in a single stretch of swigs, Kathrine burped and slid the bottle across the counter while gesturing for another. “I wouldn’t have cared if you did have hard feelings. I’d probably just have eaten you. Now get me another drink, that stuff’s good.”
“You gonna pay this time? I just gave you each two free rounds because you’re pretty, but you can’t drink me out of house and home either.”
Allie laughed and opened up a coin pouch. “I’ve got it covered. How much?”
The bartender held a hand to stroke his beard. “Three silver and five copper Elysium Coins apiece for those drinks you’ve been downing, and fourteen copper apiece for anything on the lower shelf. If you want, I can even set you up with a gallon of that stuff in concentrated form for a gold piece.”
Allie grinned, locked eyes with Kathrine, and pushed over two gold pieces along the wooden countertop. “Give us each a gallon. We’ll take it for the road.”
***
The crowd roared, and Allie roared with them while drunk off her ass while the twelve undead goblins raced squealing fleshy pig creatures around a large obstacle course. Each of the mounts had a different colored flag attached to their collars, and the betting odds changed by the minute depending on what the frontrunner was.
“COME ON BLUE! I HAVE FIFTEEN THOUSAND RIDING ON YOUR CHUMMMY LITTLE ASS!” Allie screamed, waving her half-finished gallon of pink and orange alcohol around in the air. She almost hit Kathrine in the face by accident, but the drunk vampire princess managed to duck before falling onto an irritated bunch of kids the row down.
“Sorry!” Kathrine said apologetically, stumbling back up to her seat while the parents chided her and the kids grumbled. “So sorry!”
“Get ahold of yourself Kathrine!” Allie said with a slur, giggling and hoisting up the vampire with one hand while flipping a few coins in the direction of the kids as an apology. “You gotta stay upright if you want to keep drinkin!”
Kathrine gave Allie a hiccupping glare, chugged another long swig of her own gallon, and wiped her mouth on Allie’s sleeve. “Want to go before the crowds get big? I need to get to the Blood God’s temple to drop off some stuff for my parents. Something about a new priest and whatnot… I can’t remember really but it’s all in a nice little package so I wouldn’t forget!”
She hiccuped yet again.
Allie scowled, not really being a big fan of the Blood God, but glanced over her shoulder to where the race was still ongoing. Blue was almost in dead last, and there was no way she’d be winning anything anyways. “Bah! Fine. Let’s go, but you need to make it quick ok!? I really don’t think that guy likes me much.”
“Who? Is someone giving you an evil eye?”
“What!? No! I’m talking about your sucky-sucky god!”
“The Blood God!?”
“That’s the one!”
“Allie! You can’t call him the sucky-sucky god just because you’re mad about being labeled a heretic!”
“I was labeled as an apostate, not a heretic! And YES I can be mad about it!”
“They’re basically the same, Allie! And for the record I can’t believe I’m friends with one, this entire situation is so weird to me.”
“I’m the apostate here and what I say goes! Now hurry it up and move that pale ass Kathrine! We’ve been drinking for six hours and it’s well past two in the morning, and we still need to get to the cube! Ohhhh - and uh, dresses too!”
“Allie, you can’t seriously be considering doing the puzzle-box cube while wasted!”
“Why not?!”
“Because it’s dangerous!”
“Kathrine… Listen…” Allie slurred, leaning over onto the hiccuping vampire and ruffling her hair. “The only way to do puzzle-box cubes are to do them when drunk. It’s law.”
“Says who!?”
“The queen, bitch! Plus I’ll have time to detox before that while we try out new clothes!"
Kathrine snorted a laugh, eagerly grinned, and started out of the row and down the stairs - avoiding a flying bag of half-eaten food when a drunken fight broke out between two people betting money. She and Allie avoided a hastily moving guard on the way to intercept the brawling idiots, and then they began to make their way out past the refreshment lines and away from the goblinoid pig races. A few larger undead abominations, obviously intoxicated, ambled through the streets with one another and had to be avoided - but otherwise the crowds weren’t all that bad and easy enough to traverse.
Kathrine gripped Allie’s hand and pulled her along when the queen of the necropolis became too slow.
Drunkenly sipping on booze, stumbling through the streets and giggling to one another about what they saw or while telling bad jokes - they were quite a mess. Allie hadn’t ever had the opportunity to go out like this before while back on Earth, and she was having the time of her life. At most she’d been to a few house parties here or there with underage drinking when she’d been younger, but nothing like this. This was great, and being so intoxicated was something she was already determined to force Lahn into participating in. She was actually wishing he was here and that she’d woken him up to come along instead of letting him stay in bed, but he’d look so dang tired and he’d been too cute to wake up.
Passing between towering skyscrapers, business, and apartment buildings numbering in the dozens - the duo passed into a less crowded area of the city where the lights were dimmer and people were more subdued. Instead of boisterous laughter and drunken shenanigans, people smoked cigars and various plants from pipes while low-beat music played from open doors. Further down the road, the beginnings of the temple district came into view where various clergy waited at the front doors to speak to passers-by about their religions. Getting closer and closer, and ignoring the catcalls from various men on the street, Allie and Kathrine soon came face to face with the large gates of the Blood God’s temple stationed here in Brightsville.
Of all the religions here in the temple district, there were three prominent ones with three bigger temples - and half a dozen smaller temples that were set up for local fledgling gods born to Panu when the integration started. These six other local gods were essentially baby gods and hardly a threat to anyone, but Allie had decided to keep them around and cultivate them - helping them grow by providing them followers instead of starving them out of faith. If anything, it was just to see if it paid dividends in the future. When gods were something akin to greater spirits that fed on faith and could provide blessings to the city - who was to say it was a bad idea other than the other already-established gods and their clergy? No one would dare tell her she couldn’t because this was her damn city. Freedom of religion was a fact of life in the necropolis and protected by law, and the clergy of the various religions often competed to attract those looking for their own meaning in life while shooting insults at one another from down or across the street. The clergy were even reported in many news articles and recordings on the cortex to have thrown food or pulled mean and petty pranks on one another, like flooding each other’s bathrooms or throwing foul-smelling concoctions at different temples while preaching. It was actually quite hilarious to watch when the clergy did so, at least in Allie’s opinion, and it’d even made something of a show for the various restaurants nearby with outer balconies for diners to watch the priests and priestesses interact.
First and foremost of the three larger religions was the temple of The Scythe, which was by far the tallest of all the temples present inside the temple district. It looked more like a haunted tower than anything else and was staffed with a large assortment of various undead, with a statue of the grim reaper in a meditating position holding a large scythe over its stone lap. The large statue was built out of obsidian and smiled grimly at passing people on the street, and was actually built into the temple’s entrance as people passed underneath the sitting monument to come and go. Souls swirled around the enormous tower in a spooky display of glittering lights, and unlike all the other temples where sermons could be heard inside - this particular temple to The Scythe was unusually silent as people came or went.
The second of the larger religions was a temple devoted to the combined worship of both Wrath and Gluttony - with the churches of both sins finding solace here considering their reincarnations were brother and sister. Neither sin was technically a god, but when they grew more powerful they’d be able to act in something of a similar capacity based on faith - or so Wrath had told Allie only recently. The implications of this new partnership were far more widespread than just Panu, but the only demons that really had access to the reincarnations directly were demons from Negrada - or those lucky enough to be contracted to summoners, warlocks, and black magic wizards of various sorts on the continent. In fact, warlocks here on Panu had seen an uptick in the quality of demonic contracts available to them simply because of their proximity to Wrath and Gluttony - bringing even more of an incentive for people to come to Umbra in order to change their original affinities to that of the Unholy Foundational Pillar at the Elysium Altar they had in the trade district. The Unholy Elysium Altar’s ability to change people’s affinity from the foundational pillars of Holy, Fae, Archaic, Harmony, or Machine and into Unholy opened a lot of doors for people across the planet who weren’t content with the hand they’d originally been dealt. In many cases their affinities were also slightly higher for whatever pillars they acquired after their transition into the Unholy magic types too, and thus a significant increase in the number of warlocks and bonded demons living in Brightsville had been noted by government records. The net result of all that had been a prompt construction of a temple to the two great sins, but instead of building upwards - they’d built downwards. Shaping an enormous, deep pit into that of Gluttony’s maw with a stone depiction of the lion of Wrath guarding the entrance stairway leading down - the temple had been built into the ground for a massive fifteen spaced-out stories and had numerous demons of varying species coming inside regularly to pray. Other than religious practices, the temple also held classes and daycare for demon children at Allie’s request - and it’d almost become something of a school. Warlocks also congregated there often to help one another and their demons cultivate dark magics. Many of the previously banished powerhouses of the sins that’d been sent to the abyss with Gluttony and Wrath so long ago - nearly half of these banished ones had taken up residence inside the pit. Allie herself had gone inside more than a handful of times since arriving back on Panu and had helped hastily construct the underground temple while Wrath gave insight on various religious matters, but she tended to avoid going there too often or too publicly because of how much attention it brought. Being worshiped definitely had its downsides when it came to crazies or religious nutjobs following you around trying to kiss the ground you walked on.
Last of the larger religions was The Blood God’s temple, and it was staffed by more than a few vampires. They also had thrall servants, including a few legitimate thrall blood-priests sanctioned by the Blood God himself and equal in rank to Genua that’d come over from the Requiem. There were also a good number of humans who supplied blood for the temple’s practices in exchange for practice in the blood-arts - with donations often rolling in from the Blood Moon Requiem itself. Many of the native-born vampires visited regularly, and it was the second-largest of the temples currently present in Brightsville with a large gothic cathedral-style building that took up many hundreds of feet in diameter and height. Red-stained windows with candles illuminating the inside, with an outer stylized gate and a red teardrop made from rubies adorning the wall over the main doors leading inside.
“We’ve been expecting you, Princess Kathrine Vonsilla Crushada the 9th.” One of the elderly blood-priests, a thrall very much like Genua with the crimson tattoos, stepped out of the shadows to bow slightly in her direction. The old man glanced warily in Allie’s direction a moment later when the proclamation caused ripples in the vampires worshipping inside, who turned heads to get a better look at the princess after the priest’s announcement, and he sighed as he shook his head at Allie as if he was a disappointed old grandpa. “To think that you, Allie Thane, would have thrown away such a bright future in the light of our god for a lesser entity such as The Scythe… it is truly a crime against our people. But, as the sire of our order commands, we will accept you into our halls despite your transgressions against the faith. Do you intend to come inside and ask for forgiveness, Apostate? Or do you wish to remain outside as Kathrine finishes her business here?”
Sipping on her drink and almost sputtering at the way she was being talked to in her own city, Allie glared at the priest from underneath her hood and mask - not knowing how he’d even known who she was. She also didn’t like the scowls she got from the vampires kneeling at altars from where she could see inside, and was all the more tempted to NOT destroy that fallen elder-god’s bloodline if or whenever she got her hands on it. Wrath inside her wanted her to strangle the very life out of the little pissant bastard, and she had to take some steadying breaths so that she wouldn’t murder the man and start some kind of feud with the Blood God yet again.
At least, that wasn’t the plan YET.
Thusly she ignored the priest, and hip-bumped Kathrine to move along. “Go on. I’ll wait here. I don’t feel like going into that nasty place anyways.”
The old man frowned at her words, and Kathrine sighed with an eye roll.
“You should really stop being so antagonistic, you did commit a grave sin against vampires at large you know.” Kathrine patted Allie’s head with a drunk smile, and held up her jug with another hiccup. “You wouldn’t believe how angry many of the people back home were, but you have a chance to improve relationships if you find Crendir fast enough. I pray that you do. Either way we have Riven to lean on as an important asset the Blood God wants on his side, and I don’t think Riven will be betraying the Blood God anytime soon. So don’t take the words of that old guy to heart, he’s just pissy that you basically got away with murder in the highest degree and won’t be punished for your actions. At least, as long as Riven doesn’t become an apostate or heretic as well!”
Kathrine laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and pulled out a parchment with a package out of her spacial ring before walking inside. “Be right back Allie! Then you can take me shopping, and then to the cube!”
