Fairmont City had all the perks, if you knew where to look and where not to.
The streets stretched out in long, uneven rows of brick and iron, balconies wrapped in ivy leaning over narrow alleyways lit by flickering gas lamps that never seemed to fully die. Jazz spilled faintly from some bar two blocks over, tangled with the hum of late-night traffic.
Even at this hour, the city refused to sleep. Street vendors packed away carts under dim lights while a handful of drunks stumbled past shuttered storefronts, laughing too loud for 3 a.m. Somewhere close, water dripped steadily from a rusted fire escape.
The air carried a smell that clung to the back of the throat, sewage most likely, though Nico had learned a long time ago to rule out worse. Fairmont wore its beauty and its rot on the same skin, and neither one apologized for the other.
They’d landed at Silas’s private airstrip a few minutes earlier, and this time all five of them crammed into one car. Lucas drove. Nico sat up front, elbow against the window, eyes fixed on the road with nothing behind them.
He checked his watch. 3 a.m. already. Four hours on the road, and it had felt every bit as long as it sounded. He glanced back at his wives, all three fast asleep.
Nira’s head rested against Kira’s shoulder, a habit by now it seemed. Kira leaned into the door on her side. Mira sat upright, head tilted back against the headrest, eyes shut in a way that gave nothing away about whether she was actually asleep.
A few minutes later, they pulled up to his mansion.
The building rose out of the dark like something carved rather than built, all sharp gothic lines fused with cold modern glass. Two floors, black stone walls, tall arched windows that caught the moonlight and threw it back in slivers.
A fountain sat at the center of the courtyard, water tumbling quietly over dark marble figures locked in some frozen struggle.
Men in suits stood at fixed points around the grounds, still as statues, eyes moving even when their bodies didn’t. Others walked slow, deliberate loops along the perimeter, hands never far from their jackets. Nothing about the place looked soft.
When the car stopped at the driveway, a bald man in a black suit stepped forward and opened the door for Nico. His wives had already stirred awake, climbing out one by one into the cool night air.
"Now this is bigger."
Kira said it without much enthusiasm, shutting the car door behind her. Nico glanced her way, almost scoffed, then decided he was too tired to bother trading words tonight.
"Do me a favour and show them to their rooms, would you?" He said, turning to his staff.
With that, he walked off, feet dragging with the kind of exhaustion that settles into bone. He made his way to the master bedroom and dropped onto the bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes too tired to focus on anything.
It had been a long night. After the mess of an escape earlier, all he wanted now was a few hours where nothing tried to kill him.
His eyes had just started drifting shut when the system screen flared to life in front of him.
[Investment Detected]
[Investment Objective: Evacuate Wives from Active Threat Zone and Provide Secure Shelter]
[Investment Evaluation: Exceptional]
[Protected Targets: Mira Fenris, Kira Fenris, Nira Fenris]
[Return Multiplier: 300x]
[Returns Calculated:]
→ Shadow Domain: Ashford Estate
The Ashford Estate is now recognized as the user’s territory. Intruders will be easier to detect, and hostile presence within the mansion will be weakened.
→Shadow Ability Gained: Shadow Mark
User can place a hidden mark on trusted allies. Their location and danger level can be sensed remotely within a limited range.
→ Wife Bond Unlock: Sealed Bloodline
Context: Unknown
[Accept Returns?]
Nico sat up in bed before answering out loud.
"Accept."
[Shadow Domain Manifested]
[Domain Threat Level: 0]
He sighed, a little disappointed. Part of him had hoped for at least some flicker of danger lurking in his own home, especially one that used to belong to his brother.
Silas had been killed during a top secret operation, one only his closest lieutenants had known about. That detail alone told Nico everything he needed to know.
There was a mole somewhere. Maybe not inside these walls, but somewhere among his territories, close enough to have known things he shouldn’t have.
It was only a matter of time before Nico found them.
He shook the thought off and kept reading. Beneath the main message sat another line in smaller text.
[Additional Returns: 1000 Umbra Points (UP)]
"Umbra Points?" he said aloud. "What the heck is that?"
→ Umbra Points (UP) are the fuel for your shadow abilities. They represent how much supernatural darkness you can channel at once.
Basic Uses:
• A resource pool you spend to activate shadow powers.
• A measure of your current connection to the shadow.
• Something that can be replenished, but not without risk or effort.
→ Your maximum UP can increase as you:
• Gain levels or tiers.
• Control darker, more powerful territories.
• Deepen your bond with the shadow through training.
_________________________
How You Spend Umbra Points:
→ You spend UP whenever you use a shadow power. Typical costs:
Minor powers: (10-15 UP)
Moderate powers: (20–50 UP)
Major powers: (70-100 UP)
Exact costs depends on your specific power list.
__________________
How You Regain Umbra Points:
→ You regain UP through actions that feed your connection to darkness:
• Resting in shadow: Spending time in dark, controlled places.
• Performing secret deeds: Covert operations, hidden deals, unseen murders.
• Consuming secrets: Using the Secret Feed move to drain a secret from a victim, converting it into UP (often at a Corruption cost).
• Territory bonuses: Certain territories naturally regenerate UP faster (e.g., places steeped in fear, crime, or occult history).
• Wives Investments: Investments carried out on wives can trigger a multiplied return of UP.
_________________________
Nico read through it twice, lingering on that last line about his wives. If he currently sat at a thousand UP, the system must have scaled up whatever base amount he was owed by close to a hundred times.
He wanted to test the theory. He crossed the room and killed the lights, then sat back down on the bed, staring into the dark, waiting.
If the system was right, sitting in shadow long enough should feed him something. He shut his eyes, crossed his legs, and let his back settle against the edge of the bed.
Five minutes passed. Nothing happened.
’So much for a system guide.’
Frustrated, he pushed himself up and crossed to the light switch. The second the lights snapped back on, his eyes stung, and he threw a hand up to block the glare.
"What in the world—"
[Time spent within the shadows: 5 minutes, 16 seconds]
[2 UP Gained]
[Total UP: 1008]
"Oh, I see now." Nico muttered, nodding slowly. "It works as a timer."
He reached for the switch and turned the lights back off.