An escort of 4 knights and 2 wizards appeared. All wore fancy-looking equipment under some simple garments; if someone looked closely, they would notice the high-quality armours beneath. That was shown on purpose to make any pickpockets or petty criminals stay away.
Since we weren't needing any stealth then there was no need to keep ourselves or our power hidden, this was the best way to keep out of trouble without sticking out too much in public. Mr.Apicius, Joan's father, appeared and asked me why I suddenly asked to go to the slums, in response I decided to be more honest.
"I was told by Great Cassandra that she wanted me to help one of her devotees. A prayer from someone who needed help in the smithing area of the slums and it was a call for help. As her Champion, it's only right that I do something if I can." Mr.Apicius' eye's widened in shock before he nodded, telling me to be on my way.
"To think she could hear the voice of The Lady Of The Night Sky so easily. Just how close is her soul to her patron deity..." I couldn't hear anything else he mumbled as walked away in a daze, I felt like groaning in frustration when I realised that hearing your deity's voice isn't a normal occurrence.
'I should make it look like this was a rare thing and it won't happen again. I can't have them noticing that I'm different in some way. If people realise it has something to do with the Mission Board skill in the future, it could get troublesome. Right now, I'm the only one with this skill but in the future, others will have it and perhaps they'll guess that I'm the first user if they hear about me talking to my deity on a daily basis.' I hesitated before deciding to leave my spear behind, it would be ridiculous if it was stolen because of my lack of levels and skill before I could even use it.
I instead took a simple dagger and my space ring with my gold and silver kept inside, I needed to find out how much each piece was worth since the coins looked like they were far more intricately carved than the ones used in this city. There's also the fact that while the patterns on the coins were identical, there are minute differences so I think they were all carved by hand. I decided to keep the elven coin because the magic in it would make hiding it outside the space ring impossible.
A carriage was prepared for us and in less than half an hour; we were on our way to the slum's Swallow Inn. One of the knights, a typical handsome blonde who appeared next to the carriage on horseback told me, "We will use the carriage up until the Master's Inn which is some distance away passed the Centre Square. We will have to travel around an hour and a half, the Nobles District doesn't have much traffic or it would take double that time. Once we pass the Academic District, it will get busier near the Housing and Smithing Districts so please be patient even if we start to slow down Milady."
More than the information he gave, I was more distraught over the fact that I was already accepting the address of 'milady'... 'These people do realise mine is probably bigger than theirs right?'
As I'd spoken of this once in my maid's presence, the consternation I was expressing just made them giggle. In the end, it was Clarise who said, "Even if they know, they can't help it since mistress is so pretty! Even we prefer to call you mistress."
I sighed and said, "I can't do anything about it anyway, I just hope I don't have to deal with flirts because I'll beat any man up if he tries that... should I cut my hair short and wear men's clothes? If my manhood shows then that's even better since nobody would assume I'm female."
All the maids were startled while Sophia shook her head with an amused smile, "While mistress is still young, your budding chest can only be hidden for now. In a year or two, if they keep growing at this rate, they'll be impossible to hide." There was even a touch of envy on the faces of the younger two.
My shoulders slumped and gave up, I was just too feminine to cross-dress which was ironic if you consider how I was starting to get hard. Female clothing was just too silky and stimulating due to the carriage vibrating.
'Now that I look around, some of the women have so really skimpy clothing... I could wear nothing but gloves and still be normal. All of those who aren't dressed conservatively either have transparent wings or are tanned with toned bodies and carry heavy weapons. Are they part of some tribes in particular?' As the girls kept themselves entertained by looking at a half-mast erection, I looked outside to see just what kind of place this city was.
The cobbles with their light colours of green and red gave a different feeling to hustle and bustle outside. It was lively and interesting, the way buildings were connected with magic, some were separated and there was one that I saw that floated above another building. A fortune-teller with black, beautiful eyes that seemed to sparkle was looking at me with shock. She then lowered her head and bowed my way, I nodded back and looked away because it was best to pretend I never saw anything.
The main road was the only place made with the colourful cobbles, the smaller streets were full of other stones that looked far more ordinary, and some were just dirt roads. Soon, what caught my eye more than anything else was a large monolith-like building in the distance. We were approaching it and the closer we got, the busier the streets became.
It was no longer just stores in the buildings on the sides of the road; stalls appeared, open carriages showing wares and one or two performers were showing up on the streets. According to the girls, this was proof that we were nearing the city plaza.
Once we arrived, the lively and colourful surroundings didn't enter my sights at all. At the centre of the huge plaza was a great, glowing spire that made my mind buzz from all the magic it was filled with. I pulled away my senses immediately after my probing almost made me pass out, the magic within allowed several pillars to float around the spire along with a large bell.
The bell floated a meter or two above the spire, at least I think so; it was hard to measure the height when the spire was at least a couple hundred meters tall. The bell looked like it was made of brass, touches of rust showed its age while the engravings of strange sigils and images that pulsed with magic indicated its extraordinary origins.
'Ah, that's right. This is a whole other world, a world of magic and myths... I'm not on earth.' It really hit home just how far away I was from mine.
1) Although Lilith is not a pure male anymore, I can't help feel like he/she is also in denial as well as to his/her true nature.
2) Lilith also isn't very smart. He/she has been given a powerful start but, aside from a very cursory overview of the problem he/she is to confront, lust, he/she is very much in the dark for direction to develop with. However, he/she has been given one extremely important asset, a powerful, trustworthy ally in the form of Joan and her family. Cassandra told her as much that they were people of influence, trust worthy, and faithful to her. She has made very, very, very poor use of the resources they represent.
2a) This is seen in the fact that he/she isn't willing to talk to them about matters of money nor trust them with more information about her nature, purpose, mission and relationship with Cassandra beyond the fact that she is Cassandra's Blessed Chosen.
2b) A smart protagonist would have requested to see Joan more, established better bona fides with her parents, called them out on the teachers magical probing and had a more frank discussion with them regarding, well, everything. Assuming Cassandra didn't set him/her up to fail, despite making him/her her chosen, then they would be more than happy to act as a powerful supporter and base of operations for her work combating lust.
(Also, how is lust a threat? This "taint", and the conflict going on with it, was extremely poorly related. Makes it really hard to understand just what the danger is honestly. What happens if the "taint" grows? Do they become demons? Beings of the Void? Fallen? (For that matter could demons just wind up being another humanoid collection of races? The demonic races that, otherwise, are just more people?) Maybe you have clarification planned for in the future? Or was the lack of clarification at the start just an oversight?)
3) You might find this an interesting side bit, thanks to the invention of the MMO, people have been using it as ways of exploring gender identity. VRChat has only exploded this phenomena even more so to the point that some researchers have actually begun to do actual psychological studies on various aspects of how the mind determines and associates with gender. It is still early, but one of the conclusions that at least 2 studies have found is, the more a person plays in the role and/or form of the opposite gender, the more they will take on aspects of that gender and begin to increasingly identify with it, not only in game, but out of game too. This can lead to people never having experienced gender dysphoria before their time in game to suddenly experiencing it a lot.
While I have never played VRChat, or anything VR for that matter, I have experienced this phenomena myself. I had 3 breakdowns cause of it a few years back. I realized that all of us are born with the full capacity to be a man or a woman and that our bodies play a significant role in helping our minds find its balance in its gender expression.
As such, something to consider, with time, it should be only natural for Lilith to eventually start thinking of him/herself less as "him" and more as "her".
Happy Story Making!!
There is a lot there to say and I'm not going to waffle off the top of my head so I'll just talk about the points I'm sure of.
Firstly Joan is trustworthy but the family is a big one. I haven't gotten to mentioning anyone other than mommy and daddy Joan so we will get there. There is also an issue with Lilith's personal growth and realisation of her position.
Lilith will come into contact with both forms of the taint soon, the negligence to ask about the taint is partially due to just dying and info dump but also just a mistake on his part (it's also because I hadn't fleshed out how the taints work in the power system at the time.)
Not sure if it's character's knowledge or author, but brass doesn't rust since it doesn't have iron in it. It tarnishes instead. Or maybe it's just the color of brass but an alloy with iron in it so this nitpick is wrong altogether.
Normally I would just say wait for future chapters but this time I'll say: fantasy world, fantasy metals and fantasy rust. How could the centrepiece of such a great city have rust?
@Has2Win Yeah exactly, what sort of american city would make a stupidly big statue out of a metal which doesn't retain its normal colour and then stick it on ellis island near the sea where the effect would be more pronounced due to the salt in the air...
Oh wait.
Nah I get the idea of fantasy metals and its a great excuse for shiny, low reactivity metals, main concern would be the abundance since you know that'll be used in jewellery since most sweat and blood is slight acidic, metals need to be unreactive to be effective jewellery. It would lead to a high quantity of low quality, high shiny products depending. So maybe just magically enhanced is the best excuse, or like the city, just has some magic circle around it to slow natural deterioration, like you might give the city walls or any of the buildings inside the walls.
@JHarp Fyi, France made the Statue of Liberty and gifted it to USA.
@JHarp No worries, I already planned it all out
Rust is oxidation. Iron is NOT the only substance that rusts (oxidizes). Brass, which is made from copper, can form copper-oxide over time, even if its much slower than iron oxidizes