My Servant System



The carriage ride over to the Renacla County was one spent in peaceful quiet as the five of us relaxed inside the comfortable - yet discreet - carriage that the Empress had told us to use, with a nearly identical one following behind us carrying another seven people to aid us on whatever this excursion had in store for us.

Those seven people were the Arch Mage Kolia, Knight of Cinder Budan, and five of the Empress' Guards, providing us with a wide array of backup to aid us in all sorts of ways, be it magical, physical, or stealthy in nature.

Amongst those five Guards - aptly named Wisps - was one that we were sort of familiar with from years ago; the Wisp that had been assigned to guard over Leone whenever she visited the March Asmodia, and the woman who had told us about Leone tattooing herself with something rather dangerous far earlier than she should have.

We barely remembered her to begin with, but Leone was the woman's only priority, and our Vampiric lover was just as in the dark about her Wisp as the rest of us, which was both worrying and reassuring since it meant she did her job quite well.

Anyways, during the carriage ride down towards the southern portion of the Empire I spent most of my time placing some basic enchantments on Jahi's new gauntlets and Gladius, enchanting them with some simple things like increased durability, toughness, and mana conductivity so that the Demoness could utilize them however she pleased, all while I made sure to leave myself some availability on the pieces of gear for any in-depth enchantments, making sure not to strain the metals too much with the menial things.

I only had time to put an increased durability enchantment on my new Khopesh like blade before we found ourselves at the Renacla County's city, known as Vulpe City, home to some of the Empire's top leatherworkers and tailors.

A rather peaceful, calm place, Vulpe was where the fashion designers of the Empire gathered for the more freeing, liberal styles of dress; open and billowy, loose, however you want to describe it, the style in the south was more sensual and sometimes borderline 'improper' due to the heat and dryness of the area, so people dressed loosely.

Instead of the idea of dressing in loose, yet covering clothing like the deserts, the people of Vulpe decided to expose their skin and embrace the heat, since it was much lower than what the Sultanate got and far more bearable when under shade.

From the brief amount I had stored in my head about the various 'capitals' of the Empire, Vulpe was a fun, relaxing place that people vacationed to whenever they could, and as such it was more of a pleasure capital than anything else, with various entertainment establishments of all kinds flourishing beneath the umbrella of the Renacla Family, who were strict, yet fair rulers.

Everything was kept clean and above table here, with any attempts to blackmail, bribe, extort or any other form of corrupt thinking getting stamped out by the powerful Renacla Family.

In other words, this place was a bastion of pleasure, entertainment, fashion, and most importantly... wealth.

Connections ran deep here, and as we crested the soft hills of the Renacla County, we were greeted with the sight of the white and red city of Vulpe resting in the midst of a sea of dull green grass.

The various roads leading into Vulpe cut through the plains that the city was constructed on, and in between each road was a village of some kind, where farmers lived and worked on large fields of greenish grain, called avenia, and it looked like large emeralds that were ground down into flour and used to bake bread.

Apparently avenia was a rather sweet grain that held lots of natural sugars, so the people of Vulpe loved to mix it with pomegranates, which were also grown in abundance here.

Anyways, Vulpe City was a peculiar place, and as such we needed to make sure we didn't 'stand out' too much as tourists... which was hard to do since we had two hulking Demoness' who anyone would be able to spot.

We didn't want to alert this Vitra Renacla that we were here, which was why we needed to do a little bit of swapping of some personnel.

One of the Wisps was driving each of the carriages - with the Banshee that the Marquess was determined to keep took a spot inside the other carriage - and they were meant to smooth talk their way into the city and find us somewhere to stay for the duration of this excursion, preferably somewhere that wasn't absolutely teeming with people.

That was the first challenge of the day, and as we rolled up to the gates of the city, we all held our breaths as we waited, with the Marquess and Jahi both doing their best to hide their horns and cover their skin, since both horns and blue skin were rather rare on their own, but together..?

Yeah, only a few people had that descriptor, and the Marquess was top of that list.

But, besides someone opening the doors for a brief moment before shutting them, our inspection was short and to the point before we were moving again, making all of us raise our brows as we looked towards the Wisp driving our carriage, who slid open the shutter and spoke quietly to us, their voice low and carried by a soft breeze they created.

"If the Marquess and Ladies are curious, there is a 'Noble House' set up entirely for us Wisps to use, and it is of sufficient rank to get into most places... so long as that place doesn't look too deep. Now, please remain covered up, and only move when I give the signal; Vulpe City is a rather oddly secured city, so please do not do anything until we reach our destination."