Lupri: the First's Castle:

Lexand entered the throne room for the first time in quite a while, something weird considering how much he was needed there because of his occupation and status.

Once his right foot took the first step to the hall, his blood froze as he felt a glance fall on him, a glance that made his already small and fragile body contract on itself even more, before ignoring him and letting him take a deep breath and feel life return to him again.

Lexand was wearing a luxurious blue robe embodied with some golden threads that covered his whole body. He was small, way too small, around the size of a child at the age of ten or eleven, but his bald head was big and the back of it was elongated to the point where it seemed as if it arched back a bit, along his head was what appeared to be black tattoos covering all of it.

Lexand was a vodico, who were also known as connectors, his obvious traits were because of his race.

Connectors were, even though they weren't a part of The Pact of Ten, some of the most sought after people in Tellor, they were so valuable and important to the point where most kingdoms and important figures were ready to forgive them for most crimes, being lenient with them to an absurd degree, having them do work as punishment for most of the time.

Not everything could be forgiven though, there were some things that no vodico could be forgiven for, and if it was proven that they did them, their fate was nothing but death.

All those, along with their physical and magical weakness, gave them some very unique personality traits; most of them were cowards, ready to change their allegiance at the moment their masters' change and their lives become at the risk of a new one.

The reason for this type of appreciation to the vodico was because of their unique racial skill. Which was their ability to connect with fellow vodico through long distances, the length of which depended on their individual talents, skills and levels, it was particularly impossible to cut the connection between two connectors using external methods, as soon as a vodico meets another vodico face to face, they would get the ability to speak with one another mentally with no other tools as long as their magic was enough.

The throne never failed to amaze Lexand, and it was the same this time, entering it wasn't rare for him considering his position and job, and not a lot of changes happened since the last time he had been there, the most obvious of which was how the person sitting in the throne had changed and the disappearance of the queen from her seat, changes no matter how small they appeared would cause the biggest shock the world had seen in centuries.

The hall had light shining green tiles covering the floor and many engraved gigantic pillars holding the shockingly high ceiling, There were also many murals covering the walls that depicted many scenes:

Some showed great wars with people from different races, others showed a group of ten men and women who all had different bodily features, making it clear that they were from different races, sitting around a round table with solemn air around them, then another showed a war even greater than the one before it, with fires, ashes and blood filling the whole mural expressing just how grim and dark the situation was, and the last few all depicted a well-built man with a glowing gem on his forehead, painting him as a saviour of some kind.

Another strange thing about the hall was that there was no source of light in it at all, yet it wasn't dark or gloomy and had its own warm natural light.

What always amazed Lexand the most though, were those eleven great statues inside the hall, they were enormous, but that didn't mean that they didn't have a lot of intricate details, and even now after thousands of years have passed since the day they were first made, they were still as solemn and majestic as they were then.

Five of them were on each side of the hall, one facing the other, while the last statue was in a different position from the other, it was behind the throne, it seemed as if it had the biggest status among all the other statues.

The ten statues that were facing each other represented the members of The Pact of Ten, ten of the strongest races in the world and the races that rose to save it from the cruelty of the wicked queen of the phas that almost took control of the world back then. While the last one, the statue which seemed to have the biggest status among them was a statue of an origin, a human.

That always made Lexand question just what was the first Alpha thinking when he asked for this castle to be built, and especially this room.

After Lexand moved for a bit, he finally stopped before the first step leading to the platform that lifted the throne.

Only then did that glance return to him again, it didn't have any emotions or coldness, just heaviness that Lexand couldn't handle at all, he found himself falling to his knees and lowering his head, which he never lifted, even more.

That pressure was different from what the Alpha often radiated, the Alpha's suppression came from deep inside of him, from his soul, as if he was under a curse or a seal he would never be able to fight against no matter how much he struggled or tried, this, on the other hand, wasn't like that, it was pure terror, the sheer fear of a predator that would rip him to pieces at any given moment.

"Something wrong happened?" A voice he had never heard before sounded in his ears, it was calm, gentle, but emotionless, not at all what Lexand expected from the owner of that freezing gaze that swept him.

"Ye... Yes, your Highness... Your lowly followers have failed their task, things didn't go as you ordered... A.. Al..." He took a deep breath, repressing the rising terror inside of his heart while he fought hard to make his voice heard, "All the members of that family have... Have been kil-... Emm!"

Before Lexand could complete his sentence he felt a crushing pressure from the eyes that were on him. As if the air around him froze, he couldn't speak under that pressure and oppression, but that didn't last long, soon the glance returned to its bearable state from before, as if its owner controlled himself again.

"What happened? Speak," The owner of the voice still had the same manner of speaking, but Lexand felt as if he was walking on the edge of an abyss, one wrong step would mean death.

He took a deep breath and continued with cold sweat covering his forehead, "when... When the leader of the soldiers gathered them to tell them about the orders they got, one... One soldier slipped away and went to the family's house to warn them so they can run away... He did that before their captain explained all of your orders... So he didn't hear the last part..." Lexand was trembling as he recounted what happened. Those eyes concentrating on him made all of that tremendously hard, yet he knew that he had to do his job.

"After that..." He continued as he gulped, "while they were running, the soldiers saw what was happening and... They attacked them... That led to the death of every member of that family, the soldier included, except their oldest daughter who fled to the Beasts' Forest..."

A deafening silence fell on the great hall, the mental pressure was getting heavier on Lexand. Being in the presence of the person in front of him was already a hard thing to handle, without him being under this weird pressure that rose from inside him and the possibility of the other party exploding with anger on him.

"That soldier," the owner of the voice finally said, "Did he have this much of a good relationship with this family? To the point of him sacrificing everything, his life, to save them?" There was a hint of clear doubt in his calm and gentle voice.

"I... I don't know... That hadn't been mentioned, your Highness." Lexand was sweating as he answered.

"... Sigh," after a while, the owner of the voice released a long sigh before continuing, "Ok, ask of the soldiers in that village to go and search for her."

Lexand was shocked, he wanted to speak up about how hard it would be for a squad of normal soldiers to enter the Beasts' Forest to search for one person, but he decided against it in the end, he was still afraid of his new master and didn't want to anger him for the sake of some soldiers he neither knew nor cared about.

"Doyle," Said the owner of the voice while Lexand was still lost in his thoughts, without directing his word to anyone.

Suddenly, Lexand felt a chill go down his back and all his hair stood on end, turning around fast, he saw his shadow ripple a bit before what appeared as a man totally covered in a black robe came out of it, not even an inch of his body was seen, all of him was hidden under that black robe, there wasn't even a slit for where his eyes were supposed to be.

"A skugg?" Blurted Lexand when he saw the person appear from behind him, but even when he was truly surprised, he remembered to control his voice and keep it from going above the appropriate limits unconsciously.

"Send him to them," Ordered the owner of the voice in the same calm tone.

"Will do, Your Highness," Answered Lexand.

"Remember, the girl's safety is before all," The owner of the voice reminded the man covered in black, before adding while he turned to Lexand, "Also, call the connectors of the members of Pact of Ten, tell them that the Alpha... Is asking for a meeting in four days, their presence is mandatory," There was an unconcealed sense of mockery in his voice when he said the word 'Alpha'.

"Will do, Your Highness," Lexand didn't argue even though he found the owner of the voice's use of the Alpha's name a bit weird, he was sure that by then, the news had already reached every and any individual with a bit of authority in Tellor, it was impossible to keep the news about something like this hidden no matter how hard someone tried, not to mention that the person sitting in front of him hadn't tried to conceal or stop the news from spreading.

"Start the connection," The voice sounded again.

"I will, your Highness," Lexand bowed to the owner of the voice before closing his eyes and starting to send the message.

The tattoo-like patterns on his head gradually shone with a light green light from his forehead to the back of his head, after a few seconds, when all the patterns had lit up, he opened his eyes and they too shone with the same green light, albeit stronger.

This continued for a few short seconds before everything eventually disappeared and went back to normal after Lexand closed his eyes. A second after, he opened them again before bowing his head to the owner of the voice and saying:

"It's done, Your Highness."

The owner of the voice nodded as he ordered:

"Go then, send Doyle to his mission."

***

'What's so special about this human?' Adam thought while he looked at the human, Susan, while she slept.

She appeared ordinary, he couldn't find any clear difference between her and any other human he met before, she was a young woman with normal features, maybe 23 or 24 of age, with golden hair that reached her shoulders.

'Everything about her is normal, so how...'

While he was still lost in his musings, Adam lifted his head abruptly and moved his eyes from the sleeping Susan, turning his head towards the village with a deep frown on his face.

"A movement in mana? A reception ritual...?" He murmured.

After a bit of thinking, a look of doubt and hesitation appeared on Adam's face as he looked at the sleeping Susan then shook his head.

He didn't really know what he was getting himself into, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that it wasn't simple.

The night before, after he made sure that Susan had fallen asleep and that she was safe, he left her and headed to Forest's Edge. He wanted to know if he could obtain some answers or clues about what happened.

Even before reaching there, he had already noticed a lot of problematic little details about the village itself; the number of soldiers was more than what he usually met in other similar human villages, and they were from far stronger races than the average, that could be attributed to this being the Beasts' Forest and it being way more dangerous than any of the other locations of similar villages, but it still wouldn't explain it all.

When he reached there, as he expected, he found the village closer to a living hell than a village, corpses were thrown everywhere and soldiers were moving around in groups.

He observed for a while and all he came with was that the soldiers were under orders from above to kill everyone in the village except Susan and her family, but a mistake happened and in the end, even her family members were killed, and only she was able to run away.

And even that he was only able to get because there seemed to be some kind of conflict between the soldiers, with them splitting up into two groups and the clash that happened between the leaders of each group.

That was all he had and those pieces of information only gave him more questions that needed answers.

With one last look at Susan, Adam turned around and headed to the village again, he wanted to see how much time they had left, and to see if getting himself in all this chaos for a stranger was worth it.