“So that’s the case, is it?” Sebas asked the shadow demon rhetorically.

“Yes.” The mouthless shade said after it finished explaining the situation.

Sebas reached up with his left hand and stroked his chin, “Thank you, go and resume your explorations.”

“At onccccce.” It answered, and then in an eyeblink it was gone.

The shadow demon was entirely right, that evening Solution approached Sebas in the study of the manor and extended her hand to him. In her hand was a small cream white scroll made of silk. A decadent and wasteful use of expensive material, if ever Sebas had seen one. ‘They’re trying very hard to impress before we even meet.’ He thought and slid the white silk bow off of the document.

Unrolling the silk, he put on a set of glasses that would allow him to read the local language. True to expectation, it was an invitation to dinner at ‘the house of Furt’.

“Flies to honey?” Solution asked with a disdainful smirk on her face.

“Yes, this should do.” Sebas answered and slowly rose to his feet.

“Will you send a formal response?” Solution asked, her eyes unconsciously darted in the direction of the house of Furt, as if eager to devour those who lived within.

“No, let them sweat.” Sebas replied, “But I will get ready to go.”

This caused Solution to give him a brief double take, “That doesn’t sound like you.” She expressed her opinion, and Sebas turned to look her way.

“I am a servant of my lord, first. If setting them on edge makes my task more likely to succeed, then I will set them on edge. My loyalty is absolute, all else is secondary. You should know that, Solution.” Sebas answered in a voice of iron.

She looked away, briefly ashamed of herself for questioning the loyalty of a created being. “You’re right. Forgive my doubts. I mistook your…” she briefly choked on the word, “‘Kindness’ for disloyalty. I will not make that mistake a second time.”

“See that you don’t.” Sebas said more evenly, “Lord Demiurge seeks the path of greatest harm because it pleases him, so he was designed by Lord Ulbert. I seek the path of greatest kindness, so I was designed by Lord Touch Me. Both of us serve Nazarick first, if we have to oppose our own wishes to succeed for our master, we will. That is all, Solution. Resume your work, even as skilled a maid as you can’t be completely finished with this manor yet.”

Solution accepted the harsh critique and inclined her head to the head butler. The stern reminder was sufficient, and she left to resume the war against the dust.

“Where is he!” Sir Furt growled and hunched over, he tugged at his hair. He hunched over so far that his forehead almost touched the dinner table. “This is the House of Furt! We’re a noble family whose legacy stretches back to the dawn of the Baharuth Empire! An invitation here should be beyond honored!” He said with bulbous eyes that bugged out of his head.

At his side, Madam Furt put a hand on his thigh. “Now dear, he may be of foreign nobility, and being fashionably late is to be expected.” She replied, but there was a squeaky catch to her own voice that betrayed her own anxious nerves, her eyes darted over to her daughter and looked Arche up and down again as if appraising whether the offered gift was good enough.

Arche did her best not to shudder, it was not an unfamiliar look. Her short hair was combed clean, and her dress tight to show off her youthful figure, though to a small degree of embarrassment, her bust was deemphasized in favor of her contours. Her mother’s words rang in her head, ‘We have duties.’

At her left and right side, Kuuderika and Ureirika were subdued, they wore flowing childish clothing of golden silk, a contrast to Arche’s virginal white with its vibrant red ruffles that ran in patterns that came to a peak at her breasts, concealing her relative smallness.

“Everything will be fine, mother, father, just fine.” Arche spoke to her parents, but her hands beneath the table went to the uncomfortably shifting subdued sisters. ‘I’m responsible for them, I have to save them from that blistering idiot. House of Furt, what a joke! What a joke! What a joke! What a joke! We’re nothing now, but he’s acting like we’re just back from the Bloody Emperor’s palace.’ Bitter frustration ripped through Arche’s body like a blade she recalled being stabbed by during a quest. It tore through her arm and came out the other side, and stayed lodged there till the end of the fight when Hekkeran pulled it free and Roberdyck healed the wound.

She recalled the way her body had shaken from the pain, and gentle hands embraced her. ‘This will hurt, but not for long.’ Hekkeran’s promise had proved true in both parts, her yowl of pain as the hobgoblin’s sword when withdrawn had been accompanied by her own body’s response to fear, and then the warm healing light from a warm, chubby faced Roberdyck had eased it all.

This moment at the table of her fallen house with a foolish father and a desperate mother and two oblivious but anxious little girls filled her with the same dread and trembling as the sword being pulled out of her body. ‘This is like the calm before a battle.’ Arche thought, and then every head turned when their head butler entered.

A stiff, formal man with graying hair, he had served the Furt house since Sir Furt’s father had been the family head. Though he always kept his own thoughts to himself, Arche had seen his eyes linger on her father’s back more than once. ‘He wishes grandfather were still in charge.’ Or so Arche believed, and more than once she herself had thought that if that were the case, they wouldn’t be worse off.

“Announcing Lord Sebas Tian.” The butler’s dignified ringing voice carried to the table, and Sir Furt immediately composed himself, giving a light tug on the green vest he wore and clearing his throat.

The waif thin old butler stepped aside, and Arche got her first look at the man she was supposed to seduce. ‘Old enough to be my grandfather.’ She saw that immediately, and yet the old man might as well have been carved out of steel, wearing a richly embroidered shirt of golden thread patterns that seemed to follow muscle contours on a solid ruby fabric, he was the epitome of high fashion. His white beard neatly trimmed and full around a square jaw, he had a distinguished air about him that screamed noble ancestry.

“Thank you for having me.” Sebas said inclining his head politely as the butler saw him to a seat near Arche.

“It’s our pleasure to have our neighbor as the guest of the n- ancient house of Furt.” Her father said with such politeness that Arche could be forgiven for forgetting the frantic state he was in only minutes earlier.

He extended his hand out across the table to each of the trio in turn, “This is my wife, Madam Furt, and my daughters, Kuuderika, Ureirika, and their oldest sister, Arche.”

The women at the table, down to the youngest two, stood as they were introduced and curtseyed to their esteemed guest before reseating themselves properly on the dark wooden seats.

The first course was wheeled out and silver trays laid down in the center of the table between the hosts and their guest. The server began to quietly ladle soup into small silver bowls while Sir Furt ignored her to speak to his visitor. Conversation danced around inanities about the capital, politics, and other matters for some time before at last the broke noble turned the subject to Sebas. “So, Lord Tian, where do you come from?”

“A far off country, unknown here, in search of ‘fresh opportunities’ which I have thankfully found in abundance.” Sebas said in such a way that Sir Furt was immediately interested.

“I see, well the Empire is rich in opportunities for those with the… right connections, and the right names.” Sir Furt replied with a clever little smile adorning his slender face.

‘Subtle he is not.’ Sebas noted. “Of course you’re right, the right name can be worth more than gold itself.”

“So true.” Madam Furt said with a flash of pearl white teeth when she smiled and placed a hand on her husband’s wrist. A delicate, subtle gesture.

“Was your wife unable to join you today, Lord Tian?” Madam Furt asked, keeping the hopeful edge from her voice.

“That would have been quite impossible.” Sebas said with a cool, dry voice, and the older couple felt the bottom fall out of their box of hopes.

“Oh, is she… ill?” Madam Furt asked.

Sebas gave a teasing little understated smile in return, “No, she doesn’t exist. I never married.” He replied, and with their sudden hopes restored, the table let out loud laughs.

The little ones giggled uproariously, unable to understand the joke, they were nonetheless charming in their own way. “So, are you rich?” Kuuderika asked with a big smile on her face.

“Kuuderika, that’s rude.” Arche said and rapped her sister lightly on the knuckles with her palm.

Sebas laughed when the little girl’s lower lip trembled. He reached out and patted her head with an affectionate, forgiving gesture, and she immediately calmed. Sir and Madam Furt looked briefly aghast at their overly direct young daughter, and Sebas politely waved it away.

“It’s fine, that’s not the normal sort of question but, children are quite direct, aren’t they. No guile at all.” Sebas gave the parents an indulgent, forgiving look.

Then he looked down at the tiny girl next to him and answered, “Yes, yes I’m very, very rich, why do you ask?”

“Ah, it’s getting late, isn’t it? They should get to sleep.” Arche said, shooting up to her feet with such force that she had to catch the chair before it could topple over.

“You won’t have your servant attend to that?” Sebas asked, and Arche froze, like finding an unexpected monster after having believed she’d cleared a dungeon, it was a mistake.

Madam Furt however, jumped in, “My daughter has a deep love for children, and her sisters are very attached to her, it may be improper, but… perhaps there are worse things for a woman to feel for children, before she becomes a mother herself.”

‘Far, far more subtle than her father.’ Sebas privately praised the woman whose subtle touches and guided words were clearly meant to direct his attention to the eligibility of their eldest child and the usefulness of the Furt name.

“I suppose that’s true.” He admitted and recalled the way Lady Bukubukuchagama fawned over her creations. “I have to admit, I am a little curious, having never seen a noble heir take care of children herself. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be proper of a guest to go unescorted with the daughter of an esteemed house.” Sebas chuckled as if it was a joke, but the more crudely minded Sir Furt waved the matter off.

“Not at all. You’re a guest, anything we can do to make your time with us pleasant, is an option.” Arche turned away while holding her sisters’ hands, desperate to hide her blush at the implied offering of her that her father made.

‘I have to get these two away from him.’ Arche felt herself near tears within, what he would do with her, he would do with them, ‘What wouldn’t he trade for money or power?’ She asked, and did not like that she couldn’t think of an answer.

However she kept that to herself as she took tiny hands into her own. Her sisters’ palms were soft as velvet, while her own were hard as leather turned into armor. ‘How am I supposed to seduce a man like this?’ Arche had no answer to that either, but as she led the mewling little pair away, Sebas fell into step nearby.

The hall was a little dustier than Sebas expected, but he let that pass unremarked upon as rude to say. Arche however, didn’t let it pass when she sensed his appraising look over the manor. “We have cut back on our staff lately.” She explained when they reached a golden door.

“I see.” Sebas answered when Arche released her hold on Kuuderika and opened the door with the little ‘click’ noise of the catch being withdrawn with the turn of the knob.

She entered with the twins and took them straight to a large bed. “They have their own rooms but…” She shrugged, “they like to be together.”

“I know a pair of twin children, they’re the same way.” Sebas said with a brief reserved chuckle when he thought about Aura and Mare.

Arche picked Kuuderika up in both hands and flopped her onto the bed. Then did the same with Ureirika. The pair bounced up and down on the soft fluff, “Be careful, the monsters are coming!” Arche said in a mock threatening voice. The twins immediately snatched each other’s hands and began a loud, fake snoring noise.

Sebas cocked his head, ‘Asleep in their regular clothes?’ The unspoken question found an answer in a rolling of Arche’s eyes, and she pointed to the door.

She walked out with the stealth that you’d expect of an experienced adventurer, and when Sebas followed, she gently closed the door. “In a few hours, they’ll ‘wake up’ and pretend to have forgotten to change, and come to my room. They’ll make up excuses to keep spending time with me, then I’ll change them into their night clothes and ‘then’ they’ll finally go to sleep.” Arche’s eyes rolled again. “It’s absurd, I know, but-” She snapped her lips shut.

“But?” Sebas asked.

“Can I… give you a tour of my home, Lord Tian?” Arche asked with a demure downward glance.

“Please do.” He answered and waved toward the long hall away from the direction they’d come.

Arche took the lead, and when she did, she began to roll her hips with every step. Sebas recognized what it was immediately. ‘Lady Albedo does it often enough. Though ‘far’ more effectively.’ Compared to the level one hundred succubus, Arche’s effort at a seductive walk was clumsy as a chimp. Her steps were too far forward and threw off the rolling motion meant to draw a man’s eye. She was clearly uncomfortable with the heels she wore that had disguised her short height, everything about her was in conflict.

But Arche was obviously trying.

“This is the library.” She said when they entered the room, and immediately kicked herself for a fool for showing him. Some of the shelves were empty, and dust was obvious.

“It isn’t used?” Sebas asked. The large windows that were meant to let light in, revealed a bright night sky outside and an empty city street partially obscured by a low stone wall that kept the estate of the Furt house apart from the rabble and roads.

“Ah, well my father says we should invest in things that show our nobility, and so he began selling off the oldest tomes a long time ago, while I was at school.” Arche said with a flush to her face.

The long open room was full of shelves, and at a glance Sebas could tell it had not been properly dusted in months or more, there were chairs of wood with cushy red velvet sewn into the seating and backs, and those were hidden beneath a layer of dust illuminated by glowstones emplaced along the walls that betrayed the abandonment of this part of the home.

“I see.” Sebas answered and looked down at her.

Arche felt the look on the back of her head, and felt much like a child in trouble, she wrung her hands in front of her waist. “You disagree?” Sebas asked.

“A good noble’s daughter supports her father’s goals.” Arche followed up, stiffly repeating her earliest lessons.

“But?” The question from Lord Tian hung in the air.

Arche felt the stare on the back of her head like it was a burning hot poker. She turned around, looked up at the old man and answered, “But I disagree with him. I learned a lot in the academy, I studied magic there, all that I got for myself, I got because I studied.”

“What did you study?” He asked her with curiosity as they began to head toward the door. Her hand touched his arm and traced over its length.

‘By the six, he is carved out of steel, he’d probably give Hekkeran a run for his coins if it came down to a battle of strength.’ Arche thought when her hand drew away from him.

“This way, I’ll show you to the solarium on the top floor, it’s a favorite spot.” Arche said with genuine enthusiasm, “Especially at night, which is ironic given that it’s supposed to be for sunlight.”

“As you like.” Sebas replied.

Arche did her best to roll her hips, ‘I should have studied ‘that’ harder. Maybe asked Imina for tips on seduction. Should I have touched his chest? Ugh, if only my fingers weren’t like leather.’ She cursed her hard body a dozen times before they reached the stairs.

When she reached them, she answered his prior question, the stairs creaked a little with age, but the way up was lit by many candles which flickered their orange glow over the room and illuminated the shine of the steps that were still properly cared for. Arche tried to catch a glimpse of her company in the reflection to see if he was looking at her with any hint of desire, but his stone face was blurred. But even blurred, she should have seen some hint of manly want. Eyes falling a little too low, catching her swaying hips, or more. But there was nothing.

“I studied magic, I had a full scholarship there, and I was actually very good.” Arche said with a defiant hint of pride she couldn’t keep from her voice as they went up to the fourth floor, bypassing the rest of what she considered a mostly useless house.

“Really? You’re quite young, aren’t you?” Sebas inquired.

“I’m seventeen, I know, I’m a little short, but-” Arche bit her lip and tried to appeal to the lecherous instincts she felt sure must be beneath the surface, “the women in my family, we always look much, much younger than our years.”

She couldn’t feel a single shift in the watching eyes behind her. Burning frustration roared through her heart. ‘I’m failing! I need to step this up another notch.’ She thought to herself and tried to remember if the solarium had wine or not. ‘The moon, the stars, a man and woman alone… lots of wine…’ Arche quailed within, but her mother’s admonition hit home once more.

‘What will become of your sisters when the debts get called in, or if you go on a quest and don’t come back?’

The question haunted Arche so much that just hearing it asked made her want to bawl. Instead, like the worker she was, she steeled her resolve and carried on.

“That is fortunate.” Lord Tian said to her with neutral praise.

“I- I, yes, I think so.” Arche responded and pointed down the long hall, “It’s just this way.”

‘Please don’t let him be a lolicon… or maybe that would work in my favor…’ It wasn’t the first time she worried about that kind of thing, everything about what she wore right now was ‘imprisoning’ in its own way. Despite being ‘covered’ as a noble woman ought to be, she felt uncomfortably displayed, and arguably worse, it seemed like it was failing. Humiliation was bad, humiliation with nothing to show for it, was worse.

“So you studied magic?” Sebas asked, and Arche’s ears pricked up at the hint of interest.

“Yes, I can use up to the third tier, and my master thought I had potential to learn more. I studied under Fluder Paradyne, the preeminent magic caster of the Empire, if you’re not familiar.” Arche’s voice rang with obvious pride, and she felt the first stirring of interest in her begin at her back.

“Is that so, then you graduated?” Sebas asked, and Arche held back a relieved sigh when she reached the door she sought and could replace her answer with a simple…

“Here we are.”

The door opened to a very short hall, which in turn led to another door.

The hall was wide enough for only two to pass abreast, and gauging their path, Sebas guessed they were near the back of the estate, making the room they were about to enter into an outcropping.

The room she opened up to him had a few small couches and seats, but it was utterly surrounded by windows, the room was large enough for no more than six to fit comfortably, and it was clearly meant to be intimate. The windows began at waist height and went up to form a dome of glass overhead.

In the center of the room there lay a table, and Arche looked over her shoulder, “This is a nice feature.” She said with a knowing smile and placed her hand on the round surface at the center, and the top of the table began to open up. “It’s enchanted, it keeps wine bottles cooled to just the right temperature.”

‘Okay Arche, you can do this, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it!’ She told herself, and bent far forward and began to bob her legs a little while she pretended to rummage for ‘just’ the right bottle. ‘I never ever thought I’d be praying to the gods that a man old enough to be my grandfather would be checking out my ass.’

She bit her lower lip, grateful for her hidden face. ‘Kuuderika and Ureirika are on the line.’ She said to herself, and opened her legs a little more, but she didn’t feel a tempted hand reach out to touch her.

Instead she only heard him take a step within and seat himself on the couch.

“Arwintwar has some beautiful nights.” Sebas said, watching the twinkling stars and the bright white moon above.

“Yes, it does.” Arche agreed, cursing her failure, she drew out a bottle and a pair of glasses.

Sebas reached for a silk rope, “No, no need to pull that and wake a servant.” Arche said in a little lower voice, “I’ll pour for us both.”

She closed the top of the round table and set the glasses down, then broke open the narrow bottle and poured the red wine into the clear glass, making the only noise in the room, the sound of low sloshing. ‘Fine, last arrow in the quiver, get him good and drunk.’

She handed him the glass and sat on the couch as close to him as she could, so that his arm naturally fell behind her on the polished dark wooden rim of the seat. The soft cushion gave under her slight weight, and she held out her glass.

“Do they ‘toast’ where you’re from, Lord Tian?” She asked.

“Yes.” Sebas said, ‘She’s trying very, very hard.’ He thought, and a bit of guilt over how far he was allowing her to go, rose up.

“Then… may we toast to new beginnings? It’s a favorite toast of mine.” Arche replied.

“As you like, to new beginnings then.” Sebas said, ‘A suitable one for me as well, all things considered.’

“To new beginnings.” Arche echoed and clinked her glass to his, the faint ‘tink’ noise followed by them both taking a sip.

“So your parents must have been proud of your performance at the academy, I imagine you must have graduated near the top of your class, not many magic casters ever reach the third tier, let alone greater.” Sebas said, and Arche mentally cursed.

“I… I didn’t graduate.” She said and looked up at the stars. “I chose to put my talent to use.”

“Talent?” Sebas’s ears pricked up again.

“Yes, I can immediately detect the tier of magic that someone or something is able to use, it’s a particularly unique and powerful gift.” Arche’s humility gave way to pride again. “The women in my family… we’ve always had children born with talents, my mother always knew the exact value of anything she touched. Her mother was always able to know exactly how to get where she wanted to go. Her brother was able to block any blow.” Arche’s voice was briefly enthusiastic, and then she had to look away to the night beyond the windows again when she felt the old mans’ eyes boring into her like Sebas was seeing her for the first time.

He set his glass down, empty, and she refilled it, and went on talking about some of those in her history that she knew of, each time it emptied, she refilled it again.

‘A line of talent holders, how interesting, my master wants useful servants, and I think I may have found just the one. I can arrange for Fluder later, but for now, this one…’ Sebas thought as he memorized every word.

‘Good, he’s starting to see me as a woman, I just had to keep talking while he drank. Time to act, and then when I’m-’ Arche couldn’t bring herself to finish the phrase her father used for wanton noble girls who got caught playing around, ‘damaged goods’, ‘he’ll have to marry me to make up for tainting a house, even if we are fallen nobles, he wouldn’t want that reputation just after getting here.’

Arche wasn’t sure if she was reminding herself, reassuring herself, or trying to convince herself, but when he set his empty glass down again, she rose, turned to face him, and leaned forward to put her hand on his chest. ‘That’s hard too… hopefully the rest-’

The fallen noble daughter’s intended act was to put on a sultry smile, which she managed a crude imitation of, and to then lower her hand, tracing it down to his waist and undo his belt.’

‘Alright, this has gone far enough.’ Sebas decided.

“L-Let me show you how h-hospitable, the Furt house is…” Arche fumbled the words and tried to blink with heavy lidded seduction that she hoped was aided by the bright lights given to them by the moon and stars.

He put his hand over hers, and closed it around her wrist in a grip that, even gentle as it was, might as well have been binding chains. “Enough.” Sebas said in a voice of command that brooked no disobedience.

At his words, the totality of her situation slammed down on her like the crack of a task master’s whip on the backs of a slave. ‘I failed. I failed, humiliated myself for nothing… and now it’s all over… I can keep being a worker… I can… maybe make enough money, run with my sisters, then what?! No…’ The looming black fate, darker than a starless night, coated her view of the future and made her earlier toast seem all the more bitter.

She wanted to lower her hand, or to rush for his belt with the hand he didn’t hold, but his voice was as steel as the rest of him. She knew intuitively it would do no good. The words hit her again. ‘I failed.’

Arche’s legs grew weak, wobbled, and she fell to her knees in front of the man whose hand still held her wrist, lowered her eyes, and tried not to cry against the waves of humiliation behind, and the growing sense of impending loss ahead.

“I have a proposal for you, Arche Eeb Rile Furt.” Sebas said with an unexpected gentle calm.