19 Vark's adventure

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Varkz, Castle of Lords, Throne room

Seraph enjoys the ear rubbing, after a bit she had a question on her mind.

'So the red knight told me that they were my envoy at the forests where I poofed into existence. What happened to that whole thing?' Seraph looks around the throne room at all the curious statues of previous lords, some angelic, others demonic and many as demi-humans. 

"Ah well our priests at the time found a strong mana presence at the maw and wished to exploit it to create a strong familiar for myself. Unfortunately they were not up to the task of proper containment of your essence and a cataclysmic event occurred resulting in many deaths." Ulkarion watched Seraph's movements for a bit, noticing a discrepancy in the report for she had two tails at the time of summoning.

'So that explains why I was alone. But not the images in my head recently.' Seraph placed both paws over her ears, rubbing them out of frustration.

"Images? It is possible that your premature summoning in this world could have affected yourself. Can you recall how many tails you should have?" Ulkarion waved his hand towards some mages to get them to work on this issue.

`That'd be nine tails lil sis.` Impheares hangs out in Seraph's mind, after the fight with mother he decided it'd be more preferable to help out lil sis.

`Thanks bro, I'm gonna mind snuggle you now.` Seraph pounces Impheares and snuggles him within her dark mind.

'I should have nine tails, but at the moment I'm content with my three for the moment.' Seraph snuggled her tails for a moment below an angelic statue.

"I can see that's the case. Well I will guess your missing tails give off the same mana generation that my mages detected before. So If they manage to find other sources I'll help you find their locations." Ulkarion goes back to his throne and sits down while using some magic to view certain areas above his city.

'Well in that case I'll check out the city, it looks like a fun place.' Seraph hopped her way out of the throne room.

As she exited the palace the sunlight hit her fur just right to bring a warm bliss over her as she hopped around. She gets on top of a tower overlooking a good portion of the city and palace. The view was simply gorgeous due to the sight of many familiars flying around or sleeping on top of roofs. Each one adding a different color to the canvas before her. Then something caught her attention, a purple dragon flying high into the sky doing aerial tricks and maneuvers. As she was getting mesmerized by the dragon Seraph got pounced by Rinhana.

'Rawr! Notice me you jerk!' Seraph was currently getting assaulted by cold licks to the face.

'Sorry i'm sorry, just this place was so weird i forgot to share it with you, wanna explore together?' At that comment Seraph was thrown over Rinhana's back as she started leaping to the palace walls then to the houses below.

As Seraph rides on Rinhana's back, she sees something odd in the distance. It was hard to make out, however it looked like a few people in the distance vanished out of thin air. She shakes her head thinking nothing of it and enjoys the ride. After jumping many roofs they stop over a dining area for familiars. They both go down to see what there is to eat and find what they want to eat. Rinhana got some ice cold salmon with rice, Seraph just drank some water with sugar.

After that Seraph and Rinhana go to explore most of the city. 

'There is so much diversity within the lower sanctum of the city, like different sections for certain races to accommodate their needs. Pantherian houses hold such a warm atmosphere with a lot of bars and fuzzy objects in the streets. Advanced stone and metalwork homes with many forges, blacksmiths and rune crafts across the dwarven section. And a swimmy place for the lizard fellows… still don't know their names.' Seraph would pat her head a few times before walking off to the middle ring sector of the city. The middle ring was where all different races intermingled and did heavy trading. There was a river that followed the ring for a while until seraph decided not to follow further after the seventh kilometer. 

Seraph and Rinhana rest near the water's edge looking down at the reflective clean surface. They had their fun looking at this beautiful city but are left to wonder if it's a little too perfect. Then both realised they were near the elvish section with sophisticated crafted wooden homes with gold and silver outlines. The pathways they had were laid brick with a blue material set between each. Seraph decided to hop on glowing sheets of light she created to bring herself higher into the air. After a few hundred meters up she rests on a sheet of light watching the familiars fly around. She wasn't able to spot the purple dragon from before. Seraph looks around for about an hour in the sky until she sees some fighting down at a bar in the human sector. Seraph goes down to investigate the sight.

In the bar below a few rowdy males decided to take out their differences in a meaningful way. After a few broken chairs and teeth laying on the floor Seraph enters causing the whole bar to stop fighting. Everyone in the bar looks towards Seraph which just brings more confusion to her so she goes to sit on top of a bar stool. From there she ordered a glass of water with sugar, which brought some thug looking guys to walk behind her.

`I feel like this situation is in a lot of anime I've seen before.` Impheares was more intrigued than worried in this situation. He'd also share the memories of said anime.

`You're gonna have to catch me up on anime later, might be getting into a little fight. Would it be bad if I killed them?` Seraph would sip her sugar water.

`Probably just knocking them out would be enough to not cause too much drama.` At this moment one of the thugs speaks towards Seraph.

"My you are a tough looking familiar, you should make a pact with us while we're feeling generous." This thug had a half shaved head while the other was slicked over by some kind of oil. Leather jacket and all that weirdness. He went to grab one of Seraph's tails until a pillar of light uppercuts his jaw sending him flying into the ceiling above cracking it and falling back down to the floor knocking him out cold.

'Don't touch my tails you creep! My tails, mine!' Seraph coddled her tails with several blades of light pointing at the thugs which ran outside the bar in a hurried manner. The rest of the people inside go back to having a fun time at the bar cleaning up the thugs' mess and ultimately throwing out the unconscious thug into the street. Seraph drank a lot of sugar water to end her night.

When Seraph wakes up she's back inside the throne room of the palace. She stretches and looks around seeing two purple knights guarding her little bed. After yawning she hears footsteps coming down the bvb hallway until the main door opens revealing the Demon Lord.

"Oh thank the lords you're alright. My knights informed me you went over to a thug infested area and I was worried they'd try to harm you." Ulkarion would kneel near Seraph

'I'm fine, I'm fine. Just some hooman trying to touch my tails is all. By the way, who are the purple peeps?' Seraph hopped on one of their shoulders looking at their helmet design which resembled that of a fox.

"They're your personal guard and watchers as you move around the city. Also I was hoping that you'd be able to form a pact with myself when you have the time." Ulkarion didn't want to push too hard on this subject so he could successfully create a pact with this powerful familiar.

'I mean sure I guess you seem nice. Just don't be like the last hooman and ask me stupid questions like "Why are you so violent" after getting your head blown off by some crabby old lady. And I won't break the pact.' Seraph would rub against the helmet of the purple knight, there was a little fuzz around the neck area and it was nice. 

Ulkarion choked hearing what Seraph just stated. But he regained composure and said on the lives of his people he would not betray her trust. And to that Seraph and the demon lord Ulkarion form a pact.

A few weeks passed by, in those weeks Seraph and her friend got more acquainted with the palace lifestyle. At least twice a day Seraph got to do physical training to get a stronger body, she excelled in endurance and speed exercises while she lacked a little in upper body strength. Her tiny body wasn't really built for body building to begin with. After exercise she would learn some common spells from a few private teachers but could never cast a spell outside her current affinities. And finally she'd do some combat training with her purple knights, each one giving her a run for her money if she had any to start with. But she gains a lot more combat experience as time passes. 

Lately Seraph has gotten used to the scheduling they made for her. And within the weeks past she got stronger in physical endurance and speed. And she had an unlimited supply of sugar water so she was happy to indulge herself from time to time.

One day around noon one of the purple knights decided to go harder on Seraph pushing her to the limit. Seraph would use her speed to outpace many of the attacks, yet the precision of this purple knight was a scary experience for Seraph forcing her to think fast until Impheares pitches in to help.

`Hey if you let me control my light magic I'll be able to help out so you can focus more.` Impheares got his wish on the instant, he used this opportunity to create sheets of light all around the small arena they fought in. To anyone else it was a random placement of light magic, to Impheares it was a pathway for Seraph to strike the knight.

Seraph focuses on pathfinding her way to the knight's backside, after enough leaping she spots an opportunity when the knight trips over their own feet. Seraph exploited this opportunity to attack the knight, she goes in to knock them down until she stops dead in her tracks. Below Seraph was a magical trap circle which stopped all her movement. The knight gets up and turns around sheathing their blade. They extend a hand out and pull Seraph out of the trap, the knight pats Seraph on the head and rubs their fingers behind her ears. To Seraph this was a victory, for she got the final pets.

'You're pretty fun to fight, do you usually go this hard during fights?' Seraph snuggled around the knight's neck 

"Rarely, usually in a life or death situation. I hope I can still provide you with more knowledge on how to fight." Her voice was sweet, a bit too sweet for someone who can fight on par against Seraph. But she gave good ear rubs so she had to be nice.

A red knight with a wolf helmet comes by Ulkarion who was watching the fight, he gives the demon lord news that another attack against the walls would happen by midnight. The forces are scaled at a hundred thousand soldiers. Ulkarion brings Seraph and a few generals to plan out how to engage this threat. The planning would take an hour of their time before the generals head out to gather the troops. Ulkarion looked more annoyed than anything, but he, along with every colored knight of the palace, went towards the walls. Gathering their force to defend the city and people of Varkz.