First on my long ass list of agendas was getting dressed followed by satisfying the growling beast hiding in the depths of my stomach. Fortunately for me this parasitic playboy had stuffed his wardrobe to the brim with a number of outfits that ran the gambit from handsome highway man to princely robes. In the end I settled on a pair of simple but very well made black leather trousers with a loosely flowing black dress shirt and a pair of knee high boots. It felt very dread pirate roberts to me, however I decided to ditch the customary bandana. I could easily see my predecessor waltzing about in this robbing noble ladies of  their wealth and chastity.

As for breakfast I soon discovered much to my horror just how much that bastard had squandered. Once I had escaped the luxurious den of iniquities I began to notice how run down my castle was. There were cracks in the walls, entire stretches of plaster had fallen off and now littered the floors, what I assumed had once been carpets crumbled beneath my feet like dust.

"Anaxshi" I bellowed as I made my way down the corridor taking note of areas where a number of paintings have been removed to be pawned I assumed.

"Yes my lord" she questioned in a sultry tone as she sashayed, swinging her hips with each step, from a cloud of black fog.

" What in the hell happened to this place" I questioned frantically.

"Roughly one hundred and fifty years of neglect after you ran out of money to pay your staff with, kind of why your father sent me to observe you actually" her tone was both amused and judgemental as she stood there with one had on her hip.

"Right" I softly muttered, "where can I find some breakfast" I inquired pinching the bridge of my nose in annoyance at the wastrel that I had replaced.

"Wait, you, the Demon Prince of snorting fairy dust, wants actual food" she mocked while one of her perfectly arched eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

"Yes, I'm fucking starving, feels like I haven't eaten in years" I replied with a light chuckle and an embarrassed expression.

"It's been over a hundred and twenty years since your last meal, normally you just smoke Withering Death Fungus to suppress your appetite and rely on your demonic constitution. I'm begining to wonder if your most recent overdose hasn't done you some good" she replied with a tone of surprise in her otherwise sultry voice.

"There's a nest of Swamp Drakes near by, if you're willing to wait in your room I guess I could make you something" she finished with a saucy tone with her arms crossed under her voluminous breasts.

"I would be ever so grateful for your service, in fact I would be very much in your debt" I replied with a small bow.

She stared at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust "you've never once shown me kindness before Erich, don't start now it's creepy. I'm just one of your father's little whores after all" she spoke with self a depreciating tone that told me everything I needed to know about how this bastard had treated her.

With nothing else to do I returned to my lavish quarters, the situation was a hell of a lot to take in. For now I tried not thinking about it and turned my mind towards more productive things, relatively speaking.

The "Bordello", as I had taken to calling it, was a room nearly the size of a two bedroom apartment and what I assumed was the only meticulously maintained place in the whole castle. The carpeting was plush, thickly cushioned, and burgundy in color save for a corner of the room where a massive silver tub sat upon black marble tiles. 

Experimentally I turned an ivory knob and steaming hot water began filling the tub, even though there was no visible plumbing. The damn thing even seemed to drain the ether, I couldn't help but grit my teeth while comparing this thing to the pathetic excuse of a tub I had before.

There were all manners of furniture scattered about, many that I couldn't even name, mostly upholstered with crushed velvet in varying shades of red to purple.

Opposite the tub was a well worn table covered in a number of beakers, retorts, alembics, and burners. It looked like your stereotypical alchemy lab from a video game, complete with a number of unknown ingredients scattered about.

I rubbed my hands together like a greedy merchant, right in front of me lay one of the answers to my long list of conundrums, money. Alchemy was often a low risk high reward system, relatively speaking, once you really got into making things like miraculous wonder drugs the risk reward scale tended to tilt opposite however. Meanwhile low grade potions, poisons, and salves tended to have a far greater value than their base ingredients while off setting the cost of failed products with volume in trade.

There was only one problem, I had no idea what in the hell I was doing and I wasn't about to mess with ingredients like powdered thunder elemental essence or stomach acid of an eldritch abomination.

"What the fuck are with these high level ingredients" I muttered while perusing a cabinet full of odds and ends.

"Taking an interest in Alchemy again my lord" Anaxshi questioned causing me to leap out of my skin which earned me a cute chuckle.

"I wish I even knew where to start" I replied with a tired sight after my heart stopped galloping like a race horse.

"Hmm, with all the junk you've shoved into your brain I'm not surprised, a damn shame too. You used to be quite the prodigy, on a side note breakfast is served my lord" she spoke with a somber tone before drawing my attention towards a bar complete with stools.

Laid out on a platter was the biggest damn steak and egg combo I had ever seen out side of texas. The damn over easy egg had a yolk the size of a fucking soccer ball, meanwhile the two inch thick rare steak made a porterhouse look tiny. She said it came from a Swamp Drake, which I imagined was some kind of dragon based on the size of the fried egg.

I sat down and dug in like a pack of starving hyenas, which was an apt description as each bite only made me hungrier. With out even realizing it I had eaten the equivalent of six ostrich eggs and a prime rib and was jonesing for more. It seemed eating had only awakened my century or so of suppressed hunger, luckily Anaxshi dropped platter after platter in front of my face with nary a word until finally I leaned back with a satisfied groan.

Staring at six empty platters scattered with bones and meat drippings made my head hurt, like where the hell did all of that go. What were the logistics of eating an entire side of beef in a single sitting, and why did I only feel full instead of dying from internal hemorrhaging and ruptured organs.

In the end I filed this incident under magical shenanigans and swept it under the rug.

I turned my head towards my smoking hot assistant and decided it was time to start getting some answers to the questions rolling around my noggin.

I sat up and put on a serious expression while stroking my chiseled jaw " so, how fucked am I".

Not my best opener, but it worked.

"Aside from being broke you mean, well you're massively in debt to a number of criminal organizations, your castle is completely crumbling, and you have no followers to speak of, no marriage prospects, no military might to speak of, and unless something has changed you're still weaker than an average adventurer" she replied with a wicked smirk and judgemental tone while listing off my predecessors long list of failures.

"Hmm, how much of a threat are the criminals I owe money" I questioned with a tired groan while thinking about all of the issues I needed to solve if I had any hope of enjoying this new and terrifying life.

An an amused chuckle escaped Anaxshi's plump ruby red lips, " they're not much of a threat, who they are going to hire if you don't start paying off your debts in the next fifteen days  is the real problem".

I ran a had through my hair out of habit while thinking about the situation, " and who might that be I" questioned.

"Adventures most likely, the fact that you live in a deadly swamp filled with dangerous beasts prevents them from sending more conventional killers" she replied with a sadistic grin that only enhanced her demonic beauty.

"Wait, how the fuck do they even know where I live" I inquired trying to piece together a number of inconsistencies.

"Where do you think a bunch of human crime bosses get some of their more illicit goods" she responded twirling one of her dexterous fingers in her raven colored locks.

"Fuck, my brothers, the bastards probably have to rely on Demonkind to smuggle goods into human kingdoms" I exclaimed figuring out how a bunch of lowlifes would figure out where I lived considering just how remote of a region I was in.

"Exactly, keep this up and just maybe I might be impressed with your sudden progress from a slug into a dung beetle, my lord" she laughed, clearly taking pleasure from my suffering.

"Final question, how can I get a class" that one really caused her brow to shoot up in confusion.

"What level are you and what skills do you have" she asked with an annoyed expression while tapping her nails against the bar top.

" One, and as far as I can tell I have no skills" I replied smiling like an idiot.

"How in the nine hells, alright look classes are usually acquired upon reaching level ten and are created based upon the skills you posses. Most people fall into common classes such as warrior, mage, thief how ever no two individuals will have the same set of skills unless they trained at a particular school or academy.

Then you have unique classes, these often have some kind of prefix or title attached to their class, unique classes are often far more powerful than common variants.

Finally there are legendary classes, these can only be obtained through special means, Dragon Knight and Avatar come tom mind.

The fact that you are still level one and have no skills is mind boggling, perhaps your brain is more damaged than I thought. Still it seems like an improvement, normally you'd be shouting at me like a spoilt brat and go back to snorting pixie dust by now" she explained with no shortage of frustration.

I winced knowing how much I was getting on her nerves" Final, final question, how do I get skills".

Her voluminous chest rose before unleashing a heavy sigh " Through training, repetition, or if you're really lucky from crystallized Aether found in dungeons that impart the knowledge and muscle memory of a skill directly to you".

Before I could ask anymore I heard/felt a sudden ping from somewhere off in the distance.

"Did you feel that" I questioned with a furrowed brow.

"No, but if I had to guess a mortal crossed into your domain" she responded dismissively with an off handed gesture.

"Ehhh, what should I do" I asked turing towards her with a sudden panicked expression.

"How the hell should I know, usually you would ignore them until they either go away or get eaten by the monsters in the swamp" she rolled her eyes while smirking at me.

Several more pings rang out seemingly larger than the ones before, they seemed to be chasing the smaller weaker ping.

"You said I live in a swamp, how do I usually get around" I asked while quickly making my way towards the door.

"By flying" she replied in a tone as if the answer to my question was so simple that I was an idiot for not even knowing.

I couldn't help but smile knowing how much my next question was going to piss her off, "how".

"You're a fucking Arch Demon, just think about flying and it fucking happens dumb ass" she nearly shouted at me as I opened the door.

"Thanks babydoll" I replied before turning my head back and giving her a wicked smirk and a wink before leaping out the door.

I couldn't help but chuckle in amusement at her frustrated exclamation as a pair of jet black wings sprouted from my back propelling me down the corridor.