There is something profoundly annoying about finding out someone has malicious designs on your home.
Maybe Breskwor barely counted as that. But it was where Mia and I had started our relationship officially. We had even built not one, but two houses for ourselves.
So, yes. I could absolutely view Breskwor as my home. That meant I wanted none of the lieutenant generals to get their grubby, sticky (with blood!) fingers on it.
Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how I could contribute to the world's security.
"Maybe I can send some of my troops?" I suggested. "It would be tricky, but if I get enough warlocks up and running, I —"
Glaustro cut me off, sounding as frustrated as I felt. "No, that wouldn't work. We can't send any of them off to Breskwor. We don't have the time to properly vet them all, let alone bind them properly. There's a chance someone would slip past us, and then we'd be in an even worse mess than we already are."
"What, then? We can't do nothing!" Methialia insisted, her leg shaking violently as she gave into her nerves.
Bronwynn's eyes were fixed on the ceiling. "Maybe one of us could go?"
"And do what? We can throw our weight around and alienate the visitors, but one of us can't keep an eye on them all on their own," I pointed out. "Doesn't matter that we're nobility. We're still not omniscient."
"We assassinate Vallinach."
We all took a moment to stare at Mia, who had delivered that line with the kind of confidence typically preceded by the words 'hold my beer.'
"That could work. Sure." My lips twitched into a smirk. "Have you ascended to Grand Duchess yet? You know, so you can actually pull that off?"
She hit my shoulder and sniffed at me imperiously, pointing her nose at the ceiling. The brief round of tired chuckles that followed lifted the mood ever so slightly. Not by much, but at least the atmosphere no longer reminded me of a funeral.
"We can't just shut Breskwor off from the rest of the Abyss and enjoy our peaceful days of retirement, can we?" I asked, knowing well enough that I would be the first to refuse that solution, even if we could fall back on it.
I had promised Mia payback. So far, we were a long way from even inconveniencing Vallinach.
"Afraid not." Glaustro sighed, looking like he was on the verge of throwing everything away and going back to being an alcoholic. "It would be another signal that we have something to hide. And, much worse, a sign of weakness. They'd descend upon us to devour every scrap of what we own before we could even establish basic defenses."
I shook my head, echoing my colonel's sigh. "We need the recruits to mature, then. They're our only chance of reinforcements. And we need to get them to that point without letting them go insane, get subverted, or ruin their potential by hurrying their ascension along. Yay us! Go team!"
I waited, but no one contradicted me. They all had the same resigned look on their faces.
"Okay, then." I stood up with a groan, pulling Mia with me. "Best get to work."
"Wait."
Glaustro's call got everyone's attention.
"You had a good point, about subversion," my colonel said. "We can't know how many spies we've got in our army at the moment, but maybe we can identify some of them using the recruits. I have a job for all of you: make your apprentices look as promising and impressive as you can."
Methialia was now gnawing on her lower lip. "Think they'll try to snatch them away from us?"
"Maybe," Glaustro replied. "Actually, it's more than probable. The lieutenant generals already resent the fact that we got this opportunity at all. If we show off promising recruits who could be immediately converted into archdemons, I have little doubt they'll try to do something about it."
"Do you think assassination attempts are likely, too?" Bronwynn asked with a frown, having predictably grown fond of his apprentice faster than any of us.
Glaustro nodded. "Yes. We shouldn't just focus on our apprentices, however. Any promising recruit should be watched. Those of whose loyalty we can be reasonably assured should also be given orders to watch for suspicious demons in our midst. We'll catch more of the spies if we cast a wider net."
"And if one of the recruits turns out to have been a spy all along?" Mia mused, her tail lashing angrily.
"Then we deal with them once we've caught them, and make them regret their earlier decisions," Glaustro said flatly, as if it was as easy as that.
Well. Maybe it was, if we did manage to catch them before they caused any damage.
On that lovely note, we all departed, intent on hunting down our apprentices for a bit of extra practice.
Stolen novel; please report.
Three days later, I stared at Ian, resisting the urge to storm off in a huff.
He was getting better and better with a sword. His physical enhancement was off the charts. He had buckets of talent for body refinement.
Actual spells, though? Forget it. Just… forget it.
Revilla had progressed well past basics like mage shield. She was already working her way through the early stages of Superior Mage. Her mana arrows were steadily improving, and she could even manage a small firebolt or two while maintaining a mana arrow barrage.
Sure, she ran out of mana far too quickly for my liking, but I had to remind myself several times that I was assessing her from the perspective of a demonic Baron rather than a fellow mortal mage. With that in mind, I could reluctantly admit that she was pretty exceptional, mana capacity included.
Ian had a deep well of mana, too. In fact, before Revilla left him behind by a rank, his mana pool was bigger than hers.
And he could do practically nothing with it. Nothing!
If our little test right after our chat with Glaustro hadn't proved our apprentices weren't moles, I could have believed that he was one of Vallinach's agents meant to drive me into insanity.
Maybe 'test' is a misnomer. We basically cornered the duo and plied them with questions, all while examining their souls so closely that it bordered on perverse. Neither of our apprentices ever attempted to deceive us, dodge a question, or answer with only the barest necessary details. If anything, I'd say they were both growing fond of us, though that might have been Stockholm Syndrome at its finest.
Anyway, I continued to glare at my apprentice as he failed yet again to properly cast mage shield.
The more time I spent examining him, though, the more I noticed an odd… jitteriness to his mana. Like it never quite settled down properly. Never fell into natural patterns that could flow peacefully when it wasn't being consciously called on.
"Just… take a break," I snapped.
My apprentice ducked his head and did just that, scurrying off to where Revilla was resting after emptying her entire mana pool. As he reached her, his whole body shuddered, then came apart in a hazy shimmer that disappeared once he finished transforming into a wolf.
A wolf whose mana was completely still and calm.
It was sheer chance that my frustration had kept my eyes trained on him. I froze, gaping at the idiot.
Mia must have picked up on the storm of annoyance that billowed out of me. She shot me a startled, questioning look, but I ignored it and stomped over to the idiot duo.
"Shift back, now."
Ian did, his human form staring at me with a worried expression. There was that same, stupid, jittery mana signature.
"Gods unholy and holy both strike me down for dealing with — Deep breaths, Hayden, deep breaths." I focused on just that. Then I speared my apprentice with my gaze once more. "You feel more like yourself in your animal form, don't you?"
Instantly, his face went stark white. His limbs began to shake like he was a leaf caught in a storm, his whole body bathed in sweat.
"I — I DON'T — I'm NOT! I mean, I —"
I let a bit of my mana leak out and snare his soul, forcing him to freeze. "Calm down! I'm not that angry."
"It's not that," Mia whispered as she drew up to my side. "He's a shifter. They need to cling to their human forms. If they go fully feral, they'll lose their sense of humanity and the ability to shift back. What you just described is the start of the process."
"Seriously?" I paused, looking at the dog-man. He was gazing at me like I was about to execute him. "Listen, I don't care. Whatever instabilities and kinks you two want to work out between each other, I don't mind."
My purposefully crude approach sent his mind careening from terror to mortification. Both of our apprentices flushed. The elf seemed to be prepping for a tirade, too, which Mia cut off with a look.
"The only thing I care about is teaching you properly. So, this kind of nonsense? I need you to tell me about it upfront, dammit," I hissed, sparing one more look at his soul.
I'd dismissed it before, but I had to acknowledge now that it looked far more animalistic than his regular 'human' appearance. Not to the extent that we needed to worry, not yet, but… yeah. There was definitely a lot of 'wolf' meshed in there.
"No wonder you couldn't cast, when your soul and mana weren't properly aligned with your body," I grumbled. "Ugh. I think I do know a way to start fixing this, though."
Reaching out, I gripped the back of my apprentice's shirt tightly and lifted him up, like a mama dog with an unruly puppy.
"We're going to the Absorption Station."
He winced, but lay limp, letting me demon-handle him. I ignored Mia's quiet giggles and Revilla trailing after us like a lost duckling.
I had an apprentice to fix.
The advert that simultaneously played in the offices of every megacorp was not one anyone would forget in a hurry.
"Have you experienced strife in your esper development labs? Have you been forced to contend with supernaturally gifted individuals, with no ability to control them or even understand what's happening? Well, wonder no longer! Join us as we showcase the potential of fully trained espers!"
The bubbly teller, a woman of incredible beauty by anyone's standards (though no one could agree what those standards were) excitedly narrated the action as Ian and Revilla rampaged through a lab. The pair unleashed spells and mana-powered attacks like they cost nothing, courtesy of the mana crystals they had concealed on their persons.
It was a genuinely impressive display, I had to admit.
Our apprentices were coming along nicely. Sure, one of them now had far more animalistic features, but it didn't keep him from dealing magnificent destruction with both his mana and his over-large sword. At least the elf was a picture of grace and dignity while she slung spells around.
"I'm going to chew her out for not using her swords enough," Mia groused, but even she watched the ad play out with a little smirk.
"I know I've said it before, but they really do grow up so fast! One day, you're stuffing souls down their throat to further their ascension. The next, they're already committing massacres all on their own." My grin turned decidedly malicious. "Do you think the corpos will bite?"
"Obviously. You know the types. And you forced Ian into the Absorption Station two days ago, not one."
I just grinned wider, marveling at how effective my strategy had been. After all, if there was soul/body dissonance, you just had to correct it! Sure, sacrificing over a thousand souls to achieve that correction had pushed Ian far closer to the Abyss, risking all sorts of mental and emotional instability, but… it had worked, right?
Was I going to hell for ignoring my apprentice's mental wellbeing? Obviously not. I was already there!
We both fell silent as the ad drew to a close. "So, contact Warlock Inc. today and get your hands on espers of your own! Quality is ensured, or you'll get your money back! Potential side effects of the procedure include: insanity, eroded sense of self, murderous outbursts…"
I tuned out the voice of the succubus we'd hired for the ad and exchanged another smirk with Mia.
The trap was set. Our apprentices were a bit closer to becoming useful. And… well, we had no solutions for the Breskwor issue, but we'd keep at it.
We'd crack it all in no time!