"House of Blackworm is one of the oldest and most influential families in Firmusa it is also one of the most mysterious and secretive closely guarding their internal affairs. The scions of this family are famous for their golden colour eyes and their pale skin. They serve their sovereign with unimaginable loyalty against the often rebellion plaguing the kingdom. 

Interestingly no male scion of this noble house ever managed to inscribe his name in annals of history contrasting with the female lineage which wrote many names in Firmusan's long history. "

Exert from "History of Northern Bulwark"

 

 

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  The yellow sun shined through the small slanted window filling the room with its light. Through the gaps between the window and the wall, the noisy sound of a raven's caw perched somewhere above reached the elf's acute ears. She opened her eyes irritated by the relentless noise, the usual sluggishness one would expect from a newly waked person was absent in her movements. To her left she found, a blanket wrapped into a ball with Kia nowhere in sight. 

Hair strands as black as the darkness in the deepest caverns of the Ridge mountains peeked from under the rolled-up blanket alongside a grey leather sleeve of an elf's jacket.

On Iris's face, a small smirk appeared as she stood up and walked over to her clothes. She quickly glanced at the world outside as she passed the window. The weather outside was sunny with the sun hanging straight above the city yet the undead could not spot any humans on the streets in this usually busy time.

 

  The ball moved slightly as Iris finished dressing up, the dark grey sleeve disappearing into the ball of softness. The elf walked closer to the bed, looming over the undead girl. She began to slowly unravel the blanket dome over Kia. 

A curled-up beauty greeted Iris as she unveiled sleeping Kia who was snuggled around a leather jacket with her knees close to her stomach.

 

"I don't know how to feel about this." Iris remarked to herself, watching the undead mage sniffing her clothes with rose hue tinging her cheeks.

 

"I don't smell like anything." Smelling her arm she could sense the scent of tanned leather with a metallic undertone coming off her clothes but her undead body itself lacked any odour. 

 

"Kia?"

 

"Mmmm." 

 

"Goodmorning." Iris waited until the undead girl woke up. "Could I have the jacket back?" She smiled at the girl. Relishing in the shocked and embarrassed faces made by Kia as she tried to hide the jacket behind her back.

 

"H-here." The adorably embarrassed undead reluctantly handed the elf's jacket. "Don't laugh at me, Iris!" The girl squealed at the grinning undead looming over her.

 

"Alright, alright, I will stop." The smiling undead replied motioning the girl to stand up. "Hop off and I will help you dress up." 

 

  After helping already dressed Kia put on her knee-high shoes and fixing any wrinkles in her dress, Iris made the bed and left the room followed by a pouting necromancer pulling her hood up over her head.

The downstairs floor was in a state of twilight, the slice of daylight faintly illuminating the ground floor came only came from the gaps between the planks barring the windows.

 

 The guild master stood beside a dining table, packing letters into a bag on the table.

"Goodmorning, I hope your teammate slept well." Denson waved his hand at the two walking downstairs. "Thinking about somewhere to go?" 

 

"Goodmorning, yes actually." The elf replied to the human.

 

"There is a civilized dungeon in the upper city beside the army barracks which believe me can't be missed," Denson said as the last letter disappeared into the bag. "You can get decent loot there although you will have trouble selling it in the upper city." He tossed a little coin at the elf.

 

"Thank you but what is this?" Iris asked catching the coin with a square hole inside.

 

"That allows you two to access the dungeon without limits, we used to have lots of these." The human said this his eyes glancing at the floor with a thoughtful expression. "Think of this as an old man doing unreasonable things." 

 

"Again, thank you but..." Iris wanted to refuse the human's offer. "...but what does civilized dungeon mean?" 

 

"Oh, yea forgot you are an elf. Cutting it short, civilized dungeons are dungeons that are weakened to the point of being incapable of launching raids. You know like The Labyrinth in Mensana." Denson explained.

 

  Iris was familiar with The Labyrinth but that was a dungeon ruled by a dungeon master who wanted to be left alone while the way Denson describe it the dungeon was a core bound by some type of spell.

The urge to refuse the offer disappeared as she thought about gaining levels for Kia.

 

"Good luck." Denson suddenly left the building pulling Iris from her thoughts.

 

"You want to go?" The elf asked the girl beside her.

 

"Yes but I want to eat something first." Kia replied with an answer the elf should have expected.

 

  Iris held the door for Kia to walk out into the strangely empty streets of Firmusa. As the two headed towards where Iris thought the upper district should be, they saw a few humans sweeping the zigzagging streets from yesterday's celebrations.

The soldiers guarding the gate of the internal wall glanced at the pair, scanning them from head to toe as they approached but only shrugged letting Iris and Kia to walk past them without trouble.

Past the second set of walls, the city transformed to an almost recognizable degree. The buildings in front of them were not one homogenous mass of grey and brown but were different from each other with a variety of colours covering their walls. The streets that previously weaved between each building created a complex maze that gave way to normal streets found anywhere else. Yet Iris noticed that the overly fortified architecture with the stone build houses which lacked the broad and tall glass windows usually associated with wealth rather than sharing the small slits seen in the district behind them.

People dressed in warm clothes walked outside travelling toward their destinations.

 

"Hear yee, hear yee! Freshest food in the Firmusa!" A voice of a merchant reached the elf. Her eyes travelled in the direction of the voice finding a human standing in front of a stand lined with food. "The most beautiful of ladies would be interested in buying some of my products?" The human merchant called out to Iris with an expected complement.

 

To Iris's slight surprise the merchant sold freshly baked white bread. She wanted to ask how did he get it but as she opened her mouth to speak an exhausted man drenched in sweat wearing only an undershirt and rolled-up pants opened the door carrying a basket of the luxurious food. 

He greeted Iris and Kia with a small nod before going back inside.

 

"How much is this?" The elf pointed at the loaf of white bread, always curious about its taste but because of its price she could never hope of tasting it.

 

"A fresh loaf would be 2 silver and 8 copper." The merchant stocked his neatly trimmed beard and uttered a ridiculous price. The elf's eyes opened wide, the bread was not the cheapest there was but it was nothing compared to what she expected the price to be.

 

"Hello," A woman much shorter than Iris approached the stall. "Oh, you are buying this? I have to say this bread is to die for." The woman was dressed in an elegant black dress and said weirdly accenting certain words as she stared at Iris with unfocused eyes. "You know maybe you two should come with me and discuss our shared characteristics until the darkness sets in." The woman spoke unnaturally as if reading a badly written play. She tried to grab Iris's shoulder, grasping at air as Iris stepped back.

 

"Stop harassing my customer's drunk wench." The merchant watching the bizarre conversation said he whistled towards the guards patrolling near the gate. "Remove this drunkard kind gentlemen, she is harassing my customers." 

 

"Wait no! You can't do that!" The strange woman resisted the soldiers telling her to step away from the stall. "I will show you-" Her words were cut short as a soldier wearing a short blue cape on his back snapped his fingers she flays as the soldiers grab her and haul her away, the scene caused everyone nearby to stare at the silently screaming woman with puzzlement.

 

"People really should control their alcohol after a celebration," The merchant quietly murmurs under his nose. "You were about to buy this bread."

 

"Yea..." Iris glanced at Kia standing beside her. "Pick something for lunch."

 

  From under the hood, a happy giggle sounded but quickly faded as the girl was overwhelmed with options. Iris motioned the merchant to give her two loaves of white bread with another two of a family to her flatbread, paying for them before the girl choose anything.

Eventually, Kia picked a couple of fruits and stripped them of cured meat, her collection not resembling a classical lunch Iris would imagine.