"Holy fucking shit that's some good pizza." Spiros giggled while his mouth was stuffed with a slice of an extra-large double cheese, pineapple, sausage and olive pizza.
He was sitting inside a limousine, enjoying the view outside and chowing down on pizza that he requested his team to get for him.
One of his servants, the woman who talked to him earlier, sat in front of him scanning the surroundings.
"You didn't get any pizza for yourselves?" Spiros looked at them curiously.
"Uhh..no sir."
"Well.....your loss. Hueheuehuehue." He made that same un-noble-like giggle and scoffed down on another slice. "A month of fucking hospital food. Oh ma gawd. By Hera's right eyebrow this shit is the bomb diggity."
He caught the servant trying her best to not stare at him. He could practically see what she was thinking based off her body language.
He sighed and put the slice down.
"Hmmm....I know exactly what you're thinking right now."
She didn't know how to respond to that. Admitting or denying would both probably hurt Spiros' ego.
"You don't have to answer me. It's okay -obviously- for you to think I'm acting in a pathetic manner. It's because I am."
She raised her eyebrows in surprise at him.
"All this fucking nobility nonsense is stifling." Spiros grimaced. "I'm sorry for behaving like a psycho with you guys. Don't worry. You just have to do your job, and not concern about how I will make your life shittier." Spiros leaned back on his car-sofa-chair and stared at the beautiful sights of the urban Xanthian evening. The silent hum of the car as it was moving and the streaking lights was so...different. So comforting.
"Master really has changed...." the lady brushed her black hair behind her ear and stared into his soul with her twilight-colored eyes.
"Yes I have, Snail." He replied. Assistants went by nicknames. This middle-aged woman went by 'Snail.'
"Listen." He asked Snail, and she perked up. "Could you tell me when school starts? Will I be held back a year? Or can I just move on to my 9th grade??"
"Well, sir....the finals are coming up in a month. And there's...uhm...you know-despite-"
"Okay." Spiros sighed. He'd prefer if she was just more straightforward. This fakeness was just cloying. "You think I won't pass. My 8th grade curriculum didn't seem too hard." He nodded at Snail thoughtfully. "I think I can do this."
The 9th grade stuff they taught here was the stuff he learnt when he was in 9th grade!
Easy shit.
Despite the 50-hour days, school was only 6 hours long here too. Extracurricular stuff was wayyy more important here.
"Okay....just pass my 9th grade exams in a month. Then comes the 1 month holiday followed by....my 10th grade, eh? And I still haven't gotten a deal with a god yet..."
"Well, sir. You already have a-"
"Yes. Lady Enyo's gift." Spiros muttered."Not the best one unfortunately, eh?"
"Well, sir. Only one of your six siblings has Harbinger."
"And my dad."
"And Sir. And Lord Dorian."
"Whereas the only two who inherited Faultline are my oldest brother and I....what's miss Harbinger doing?"
"Sorry, sir. No idea."
"She isn't just Harbinger is she?"
"No, sir. She's Harbinger, Faultline and The Feast."
Spios chuckled. "Enyo's chosen daughter." He looked at Snail. "You think my dad is a little jealous of her at least?"
"Uhh..." Snail immediately looked nervous.
"Come on. Tell me. I swear I won't tell anybody what you think. Lizard, close your ears." He pointed at the second and only other member sitting in the limousine with them.
He promptly looked away-as if he was never interested- and closed his ears.
"Come onnnn...I won't tell, you can trust me." Spiros tried to pull off a playful look despite having the most tired-looking, dead eyes a human could be born with.
Instead, it made Spiros look like an extremy horny sexual deviant.
Nobody could trust a face like that. Snail turned white with fear and tightly hook her head, pressing her lips tight.
"Aw, geezer." Spiris threw his hands up in apology. "Fine, sorry. Hmmmm...." His eyes shifted to Mr Lizard. "Do you wanna know what ~I think??!"
Lizard pretended that he couldn't hear Spiros.
"Well, I think that my dad is probably the bestest dad in the whole world."
He saw the others look at him sceptically.
"What? You guys- y'all think that I'm some sort of....some kinda bad guy??"
He heard someone burst out laughing in front of him. It was Snail. And she instantly shut up and a look of regret crossed her face.
"Asshole." He smiled at her.
She had absolutely no idea how to reply to such..generosity, apparently. So Viktor just turned towards the window and admired the lush greenery that seemed to envelop them. They had gone away from the city and through a forest. Their forest.
Sprios' brain let him know that this meant they were close to home. Home existed in the outskirts of the forest.
Forests were usually teeming with monsters. The closer you got to their spawn points, which for some reason made Viktor think of pimples, the stronger the monsters got.
"Hey Snail, has there been anybody who were able to close a monster's spawn point?"
"Never, sir. Gods, yes. Humans...no."
"Hm. I wonder how those spawn points look like."
"I've seen a satellite image on Twitter, sir." The other assistant, Lizard, butted in out of excitement. "There was just one monster asleep. Right on top of where the spawn point was supposed to be, in Pakistan."
"Alright send it to me, thanks."
"Sure sir."
"We're here, sir." A voice from behind him. His driver.
"Yeah...fuck." As the car entered a huge clearing and turned right to the parking spot, the giant family mansion slowly came into view. It was practically embedded in rock face which seemed to be be about 20 meters tall and over 150 meters wide.
It looked like a piece of rock with bits of pristine white marble and strawberries inside it. The house was made of -you guessed it- marble. There were blood-red vines which seemed to grow out of the mansion walls which hung off at random places, covering more than half of the mansion's surface.
The windows in the mansion looked like filling in a sandwich, or like two rows of teeth. Yellow light spilled out a couple of them, diffused by the red vines hanging above them but almost all of them were black for now.
"Sir..Ms. Evgenia and Mr. Niketas uhm..told you to.."
"Stay away from them? Sure." Gabriel replied. "Their rooms are in the opposite end of the house right? Shouldn't be too hard."
The doors of the limousine opened and they got out of the vehicle. The air was crisp and cool, and it was a little windy.
The sound of chirping crickets and rustling leaves all around him made Viktor feel really cosy. He had spent years in ships and frozen wastelands under so much stress and fear.
"I'm....free." Spiros mumbled to nobody in particular. "Free." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Free. To do whatever I want!" he looked excitedly at his assistants.
"Uh...yes sir!"
"Alright y'all are dismissed. I'm gonna go take a shower, get changed..and I'm gonna hang out in the forest for a little while." Viktor knew about the vast forest behind the mansion.
"Absolutely not, sir!!" His assistants looked horrified. "We have orders from master Dorian! Unfortunately, we cannot allow you."
"Huh?"
"We...got in so much trouble for last time." They cast their eyes down in fear. "I...I was..." the man who was saying this started trembling.
Viktor sighed. "Okay. I'm..just gonna go sleep, then. Alright? I'm not going anywhere, or whatever."
"T-thank you, sir. I'msosorrythatIhadt-"
"No problem." Viktor dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "Alright take me to my room. Then y'all don't need to help me anymore for today."
"Okay. Right this way, sir."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Holy fucking Christ." Viktor just passed the giant living room with the fireplace and comfy white sofas, overlooking a gorgeous view of the forest,
past the massive kitchen which was the size of what Viktor thought would be what a high end-living room,
but the thing that shocked him the most was the incredible paintings that made the hallway look like an art gallery. Beautiful depictions of war. Paintings of his..well..Spiros' ancestors engaging in combat.
"That-" he pointed at a painting to his left while he was being led to his room "- is my great grandpa, right? Why does he have so many paintings of him??"
"Yes, sir. He was blessed with both Harbinger and The Feast."
"God damn. Lady Enyo's given me Faultline only, so this gentleman's like, my exact opposite, right?"
"Yes, sir. Every descendant of Lady Enyo who was blessed with Harbinger has inevitably grown into an emblem of this family's legacy."
"Thanks...and, has anybody ever had all three? Apart from my gifted sister?"
"...no, sir. Nobody in this family's history had all three, apart from the progenitor."
He heard footsteps ahead and to the right of him. A few seconds later, a small, young woman emerged out of the right corridor wearing really skimpy clothes. His sister?? Not the gifted sister child #3- Theoron, but child #4, Evgenia. She only has The Feast, if Spiros remembered correctly.
Uh oh. She told him to not to be around her, right?
"Uhh...." Spiros averted his gaze and suddenly seemed very interested in the orange lights above him. 'Nice-nice lights.' He muttered to himself.
Evgenia was not to be fucked with. She was almost a level 2.
"I'll let you off the hook this one time." She muttered as she hurried past him. She seemed to be carrying some type of pendant, but with both hands wrapped around it, nobody could figure out what it was. "Also, you look like shit."
Gee, thanks.
That thankfully went a lot better than expected. "Your room is straight ahead, sir." One of the assistants pointed to the single door at the end of the corridor. What the fuck??
'Why did she come out of my room?' Gabriel whispered to Lizard in fear of Evgenia accidentally hearing him.
'No idea, sir.' Lizard whispered back.
"Well...alright. Thanks for all your help, guys." He stuck his hand out to the three people who came with him.
They stared at his hand.
"Shake my hand, dude."
"Ah-okay. Sorry, sir." One by one, the three of them shook Spiros' hand.
"Uhh..so, what are y'all gonna go do now?"
"Well, we'll be in the assistant's quarters in the ground floor, sir. You can call us if you need anything, we'll be active 24/7."
"Mmmm....I've never been to your quarters, come to think of it. How's the view there? I think my room's windows have got stupid vine all over it, can't see shit.
"Ours doesn't, sir."
"Lucky...so you can see the sunrise in its full glory, eh? Should be nice, having a coffee and a cigarette in the morning, looking at the sun slowly come up from the horizon."
"Unfortunately, it's Miss Evgenia's servants who have that luxury, sir." Snail smiled. "We get to see the sunset, though!"
"Oi, that's still pretty good!"
"Yes, sir. Pretty good." His servants seemed to get a bit cheery.
"Hmmm...ok I'll come to your quarters one day, I wanna see the sunset, deal?"
"Sure! D-deal!!"
"Y'all got a balcony?"
"No, sir."
"Ugh..that sucks. Anyways, it was nice talking to y'all though. Enjoy your evening, guys. We'll take it easy for the next few days. I gotta figure out what to do with my life for a bit, alright?"
"Sure, sir. Goodnight!"
"Goodnight, Bear. Goodnight Snail, Lizard."
Good, their windows were west-facing. He should be able to sneak into the forest on the south side, assuming there were no assistant quarters window there....
No, wait! His dad's room took up the ground floor's south side, ugh he didn't even need to talk to his servants about sunsets or whatever. The south side is already safe.
Viktor walked into his room and shut the door behind him. The fresh citrusy smell of a clean room gently made its way into his nose. He took a deep breath in, enjoyed the smell and turned on the lights.
He was in a big room. At least ten meters wide and long. There was a door leading to his own bathroom, a pristine white bed and a fireplace, along with a TV and a couple of gaming consoles.
Meh. Didn't matter, Viktor was more of a PC gamer anyways.
But before anything....
Viktor got down on the floor and got ready to perform one pushup.
"Hrgghhh..." He tried to control himself on his way down, but as he got halfway through his arms gave out and he fell flat on the floor. Hm, not even able to do half a pushup. Oh well...
Alright then. He put his knees to the ground instead of his feet, and did 5 pushups. His arms were shaking like crazy during his last pushup, but he grunted and somehow managed to push himself off the spotless white oak floor.
He collapsed on the floor, panting. But by God, the pain was familiarly peaceful.
He got himself up and went to take a shower. Yeah, yeah the shower was fully marble and blah blah it didn't matter. Viktor wanted to get out and enjoy the life he was given.
He showered quickly, brushed his teeth and got out. Hmm...what should he wear?
Black joggers, and a grey raincoat should do. He just put on some sneakers and got out of his room.
He opened his other wardrobe, which housed just one bow which was used to hunt small game, and a quiver full of arrows.
Nothing else, unfortunately. No sword, it was lost along with Spiros' Life. RIP.
Viktor took the bow and stapped the quiver to his back, and almost forgot that it wad nighttime now. Almost 23 PM. He probably won't be able to see shit....wait a second.
Viktor groaned and pulled open a drawer in his teesny cupboard armoury. There it was. A pair of hot pink-tinted heart shaped sunglasses with a metallic, golden frame.
Spiros had a weird, flamboyant sense of fashion. He shuddered by the thought of imagining what he'd wear to a party.
The sunglasses had thermal vision, and could be upgraded by sacrifices, apparently.
Thermal and night vision items though, were pretty damn common amongst the general public.
Viktor put on the sunglasses, and the world turned blue around him. He could faintly see the outline of the walls and had a basic understanding of the shapes around him. Not pretty, but functional.
He looked at himself in the mirror and laughed at almost how goofy he looked with those weirdly shaped glasses on him.
Okay. He wanted to see what this magic ability he was gifted was like. Time to have some fun.