A Wizards Misadventures

~~Level Twenty Two~~

'You kidnapped her?'

'The operative that checked up on her to confirm her location was caught leaving the castle. He had to use the emergency transport but managed to get the girl first.' I scowled.

'I'm taking her. I'll send her back soon. Make sure that you didn't just start an international incident with a caught spy.'

'Already on it.' I looked through the eyes of my followers and zeroed in on a pale-haired girl laying on a bed. She was dressed in some shorts, boots with long wooly socks, and an underbust corset. Your average teenage girl, basically, if she was dressed to impress. Wasn't Transylvania cold? Perhaps it was a vampire thing.

Well I say vampire but according to Observe Valerie was actually a dhampir, a half vampire, and was under house arrest for being a bastard to the Tepes name. She had a little brother, Gasper, who I already knew was Rias Gremory's bishop, but he was both too young and missing from the eyes of the family. Other than him there was her older brother Marius and some other guy she barely knew besides that he was the heir to the Tepes clan, both of them pureblooded vampires.

None of that was very useful to me. I just wanted the Sephiroth Graal, which was lodged inside Valerie's soul and apparently driving her to madness. No wonder; her soul was seriously messed up. Besides an innate blood affinity she had an affinity for death, which was letting her feel the remnants of stray souls. Of course that idiot Rizevim screwed up the ritual to tear sacred gears off of souls, which left a massive tear in hers. The souls of the dead coagulated in that tear and messed with her head. I would probably go insane too if I had the souls and memories of the dead coursing through me.

It was the work of a moment to teleport her into my lab. I teleported myself over with her and looked at the wound in her soul more closely. Remnants of foreign soul stuff - Rizevim's soul - were stopping any sort of healing. I swept all that away and did the same to the weak deceased souls clinging to the wound. Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

…

She wasn't healing? Why not?! Ah, whatever. I tried pouring some life affinity into her and she began convulsing. I pulled it all out and slapped my hand into her face. Derp a dur, let's put life affinity into the undead! Great going, me.

I had to fix Valerie the old fashioned way and funneled aura into her. Her soul was forced to absorb it and began to heal. Valerie's eyes fluttered open.

"Oh good, you're up," I said, feeling pretty proud of yourself. That procedure wasn't exactly complicated but it was harder than most soul based operations I had done before. "Don't get up. I just patched up your soul. It's not fixed but you'll heal."

Valerie groaned and looked at me. "Who are you?" she asked, surprisingly articulate for someone who just woke up from a coma. I wasn't sure how long ago it was that Rizevim did his ritual, but were coma patients normally talking moments after waking up?

"Abyss Mavros. I stole you from your family's estate because I need something. I'm not quite nice enough to save you out of pure kindness. Sephiroth Graal. I want it and I'm willing to reimburse you." Valerie frowned and closed her eyes.

… She went to sleep. Was she just tired or was she refusing to talk to me? I sighed and a journal of mine flew to my hand. I hopped up onto my lab's counter and began writing down the details of Valerie's injury. It wasn't too interesting but it was still different and worth remembering.