Chapter 34

A sleep-deprived man in a hat walked staggeringly over through the halls in an overly decorated and painfully excessive building. White walls with gold accents. Art hung covering most of the walls. Statues everywhere of hideously ugly ancestors and one of the current occupant. The man stopped sluggishly in his steps and a low rumble was almost heard from his throat. A wandering servant ignorantly passes by him and almost inquisitively tries in vain to take his hat.

Her body falls limply to the ground bereft of her head her arm still outstretched as if longing for the hat even in death. The low thud of her light form hitting the once clean floors seems to startle the man and he jolts upright as if woken from a sudden slumber. He looks down behind him and sees the corpse.

"Such a waste." He gently placed the head of the woman chopped cleanly at the base of the skull on the woman's breasts as what's left of her blood spills out from her draining corpse. He rises up and smacks himself in the cheeks. "I really have to be more careful."

As if with newfound determination the man walked off with purpose before coming across two large double doors. The embossing on these doors resembles a menagerie of creatures fleeing from a single man sat at the center of the designs between two doors. A vain representation of the man who had the doors made.

The man opens the heavy doors quickly and strides into the room. The man on the door was sat behind his desk a hooded figure stands at his side whispering incoherently into his ear. "Welcome, I trust your mission was a success?" the wide man in the chair asked the other.

"No, he seems to have seen me coming and managed to avoid death."

The wide man grimaced and began to inquire "…but even if he saw you coming you should have been able to end him, right? As long as he doesn't know your curse, he can't avoid it."

"I woke up with his blood on my hands but before I could kill him, he escaped. He must have known he couldn't take me in physical combat and retreated."

"Is it possible he knew of your curse but didn't believe it until after he experienced it?"

"It's possible he knew he'd die if he didn't figure a way out of it but…"

A hushed whispery voice filled the room. "Unless one of our own has betrayed his secrecy it's unlikely anyone unimportant knows."

"This man isn't exactly unimportant" the wide man replied. "He's killed many a grunt and repelled a fine assassin. Stealing from the people will be that much harder now that our surprise tax collectors are dead and buried"

"What makes you so sure they're buried?" Asked the man in the hat. The two looked over to him and asked what he meant. "This."

The man presented his fingernails to the other two. There was a slight distortion on them, they appeared to be dark with years of congealed blood but beneath that was a mark on every single nail that looked just like the mark for antimagic. Further still the arrows on the mark were faintly faded as though they temporarily took the form of something else before reverting. To their current appearance.

"Look at which of the arrows are affected. This man is a necromancer."

The hooded man grimaced. "Oh, wonderful even if we kill him he might just bring himself back to life as a lich and then we have a whole host of other problems to deal with."

The wide man pondered for a moment before opening his fat lips again. "So, we'd need to confirm whether or not he's a demi-lich and break his phylactery, before we try to kill him or he may return stronger than ever before."

"So, should I go back and try again?" The hatted man asked with a hand over his mouth as he yawned the words.

"No." the hooded man replied. "You my dear boy are a hammer, what we need now is a scalpel. Crushing this enemy might do more harm than good. We need to be very careful with this one."

The three then dispersed, their heads swimming with different options, different things to try and accomplish. They devised differing plans but apart from knowing they were going to reconvene at a later date to discuss I couldn't see what they were planning. These visions are much clearer at points where people directly involved with me converge and tend to weaken when they grow farther apart.

I spent most of the day just going through possibilities and possible futures when I saw this meeting taking place. I wasn't told by book on which day this meeting would be held or where, but I knew I probably wasn't going to be physically present for it.

After the reading of that future, I sat back and pondered what to do about it. As I was pondering one of the twins sat herself in my lap. "What are you dreaming about?"

I looked over to her as her inquisitive eyes bore into my face. "I was just occupying myself with the future as I wait for the present to advance."

"Why are you hiding down here?"

"I'm not hiding. I'm simply devising a plan."

"hm… I can feel your fear through our contract's connection. Don't lie to me I'm your possession now. Just think of me like an object. You wouldn't be afraid to tell your fears to a clock, would you?"

"I'd never express my fears to a clock at all it would be a pointless exchange that wastes time."

"Aren't you wasting time right now?"

A few seconds pass with me sitting in motionless contemplation. She tries to sneakily snake her arms around my neck and gradually draws her face closer to mine as I ponder how to respond to her question. Before she can steal a kiss however I plant my palm on her mouth and forcefully remover her face from mine. Much to her displeasure. "Fair enough. Do you know how to get to the Vice president's house?"

"You mean in the magic club?"

"Yeah."

She sat pouting before looking at me with a look of betrayal. "You're not going to cheat on us with that girl are you?"

"Us?"

"Yeah, me my sister, that weird lady with the wine who likes to walk around naked. The b*tch that stole you away from us."

"Ok first, she had me before I ever moved here so if anything, you were trying to steal me away from her." I pushed her off my lap as I spoke. "Second, I don't have that kind of relationship with the vice president. She and I simply have business to discuss. We're going to be performing an exchange in information."

"Is it an exchange of genetic information? Cause if you're girlfriend isn't satisfying you, I'll gladly do the exchange with you."

"NO! And no. I'm perfectly content with the relationship I'm in now. I'm going to set up a meeting to teach her and her friend space time magic in exchange for transmutation magic."

"You never taught me space-time magic."

"Here." I dropped the space-time grimoire in her hand. "Get learned."

She began pouting but accepted the book. "You never answered my question."

"Yes I know how to get there she invited us over for tea after you broke our heart. But it's ok we belong to you now and nothing will ever separate us again."

"Your dad plans on moving by the end of the week."

"How long until those clones are done?"

"About a month or so."

"Nothing will separate us permanently."

"Take me to her house."

"Right OK." She took me by the hand and teleported me into the bedroom of the vice president. She was in the middle of changing from her school clothes to her PJs. I teleported us back to the labyrinth before she noticed we were there staring at her bare back. I smacked the back of her head. "Ow! What was that for?!"

"When I said to take me to her house, I meant the door not her bedroom."

"That's not my fault."

"Yes, it is!"

"You need to be clearer when giving directions."

"You need to stop taking short cuts in what I say and do things normally! Or do I have to tell you to wipe when you use the rest room?!"

"Alright you don't have to shout at me!! … can you summon my sister Here?"

"Why one of you is hard enough to deal with as it is."

"It's just her teleportation ability doesn't work inside the dungeon so I can't really go in or out without her or we'll be separated."

"Alright fine." So she appears at her sister's side and the two join hands and look at me with determination before saying in unison, "OK we're ready to take you to her door."

After we teleported over to her house the normal way the twins left me at the door and teleported away where to I have no idea and don't really care. I walked up to the front gate. I didn't notice how affluent the vice president was before coming to her house. Her father might be a politician. Regardless I walked up to the gate and was stopped by a fairly rude gatekeeper. "Halt suspicious citizen, what business might you have here."

"I'm here to see the vice president of the school's magic club."

"As if I'd let in a child who doesn't even call her by name. you're probably just some pervert here to peek at the young miss as she changes clothes. I shan't let you past."

"Please, her? How low do you think my standards are?"

"Now I'm definitely letting you past. There can exist no one who sees the adorable young lady of the house and not adore her every graceful action."

I vaguely recalled her trying to eat a candy that's famous for falling apart in your hands and watching her struggle to bring it to her lips without it crumbling to dust and slipping through her fingers. "Graceful? You're right I must have the wrong house."

"How dare you."

He readied his weapon as if to strike me for my disrespectful remark but as his weapon was a simple Iron, I held no fear and put up no guard. "Come at me if you think it'd help? There exist very few who can wound me now."