A Wizards Misadventures

~~Level Twenty Two~~

"Sure!" she agreed, sounding happy. I stared at her for a moment longer.

"Fine." I connected my soul to hers and recoiled a little. Her soul was bubbly and… happy. Like how Serafall acted. Even worse, it was an eyesore pink. I opened access to some of my power and Valerie made some sort of squeeing noise.

Pulling the Sephiroth Graal from her was easy. I just reached in and she practically gave me a house tour. Most people felt at least a little resistance at having a foreign soul intruding into theirs, especially for the first time. With Valerie she just about tackle-hugged me as soon as she saw me and shoved the Grail into my hands. I felt just a flicker of revulsion from the sacred gear before it was mine in full. It merged seamlessly into the other parts of the grail in my soul and I seperated from Valerie.

"There. Transaction done. Here's a portal to Elsyria, my high priestess. I'll fill her in on the details. Don't drink anyone's blood without permission and… if you see a shorter girl wearing red and black with a katana you should definitely hug her. Hard. If I hear good things I've got plenty of other ways to reward you than power. I might be able to get you in contact with your brother Gasper."

"You can?!" she gasped.

"Yes, now shoo." I shoved her through the portal, where I heard Elsyria yelp in surprise.

"I love you!" Valerie yelled.

"Please don't come back," I pleaded. I immediately closed the portal and felt a little shudder run through me. I could actually feel Valerie's devotion to me through our link and I pried just a little to see what her deal was. She felt like she owed me everything. I had taken her sacred gear from her, which she apparently hated as the root of most of her problems, took her away from her family, who were responsible for the rest of her problems, and had a link to her brother, which was the only person she'd cared about… until now.

Come to think of it, a dhampir who was kept on house arrest for all of her life might be a little sheltered compared to your average Joe. And all those spirits of the dead might have driven her a little crazy. Oh well, more craziness to spice up my life. Hopefully she doesn't become Irisai 2.0.

The two must never meet. Never ever.

[|||| =-= ||||]

A month passed. It was beautifully peaceful.

Then Taylor freaked the fuck out.

'Endbringer, Endbringer, Endbringer, Endbringer!' was the general train of her thoughts one fine dinner.

"Today's the day?" I wondered.

"Hm?" Kuroka had half a tilapia in her mouth. Tilapia and stroganov was the dinner for tonight. I really just wanted the latter but I got a request from Ophis. She felt like eating fish tonight.

"Endbringer. Giant monster attack in Taylor's world. It's a telepath so I'm not going to bring either of you along. Sorry."

"Fine." Esdeath only sounded slightly annoyed.

"Are you going now?" Kuroka asked.

"Not a chance. It's all panic and trying to organize something at first. I'll intervene later on in the fight. I actually need this giant monster for something. It's a part of my master plans, you see." Kuroka chuckled and refocused on her food.