Does she seem mad to you?

…Alright, well whether that’s the case or not, we’re gonna put a pin in that for the moment to focus on the matter at hand.

Ben went to explain what happened shortly before Thera and Lux arrived. Meeting Mercy on the streets as she lost control to her hunger and in her need to eat having his blood drained by her, only to bring her in, explaining the situation to the queen so she could use her healing magic to regenerate his blood while the vampire drank her fill. Of course, regenerating so much blood left him rather hungry as well as his body cannibalized itself to make up for the loss, but it wasn’t much of a price to pay.

As he explained though, Thera looked more and more horrified. “You’re just letting her eat you? Why not just get an animal or something to munch on?”

Mercy was going to explain but managed to be surprised by Ben’s answer, as well as the fact that he was unusually knowledgeable about a group as small as her people on the whole.

“Vampires are a race modified from their original by an evil god of their world, so among other things they can only survive by drinking the blood of intelligent races. If they go too long without food they can lose their reason, but in general they’re just people who want to live.”

“I’m surprised you know so much about us,” She said, giving him an appraising look. “There’s only a few hundred of my kind, it’s not rare to meet someone who either hasn’t heard of our race or thought we died out.”

“I have an elf acquaintance so I just so happened to read up on the subraces while trying to figure out her age. I guess since they have one of the more interesting histories it just stuck.”

A race that originated on the second planet of a system with four habitable worlds, the elves came into being before any of the gods ruling over the other ones raised up their own species, a fact that let the evil god of the elven homeworld strike up a deal with them, not knowing they weren’t his race to use. He sold groups of them in exchange for faith and brought them to each planet where those gods modified them as they saw fit, resulting in the birth of the high elves, dark elves, and drow.

Once he’d gained all of that faith, he’d used it to curse a group of particularly pious worshipers of the elven creator god, altering them into vampires. While Ben hadn’t paid too much attention to the histories and prehistories of the various races in the world, the origin of the five elven variants was interesting enough to stick in his head all this time since.

What? I mean, on one hand very cool, but on the other hand there really are too many elven subspecies.

“Alright,” Thera started, getting them back on track while looking exhausted. “Then let’s find you someone else to eat, Ben has enough things biting into him already.”

“The issue with that is similar to the charm of the succubi. By biting someone I will dominate their mind, whether I intend to or not. The fact that he’s immune and understanding was a greater stroke of luck, though not to mention the flavour. I guess it’s true that the sweetest fruit is found beneath the thickest peels,” She said as she stared at his neck, licking her lips as she thought of the taste she’d gotten to experience.

“See, I told you before I’ve had to deal with all of that because I’m unusually delicious!” He told Thera, feeling unreasonably validated to hear such a thing, no matter how potentially horrifying the implications would be to himself personally, though his friend only scoffed.

“Please, if sapience is a requirement from whatever they eat then it’s probably just a result of all the weird stuff going on in your mind.”

“My mind skills don’t make me more sapient than others,” He said dismissively until he gave it a little thought. Do they?

Huh, well maybe I’ll have to let her have another bite the next time I level up a couple mind skills to see if that's the case.

“Getting back to the matter at hand,” Pelenia began. “Why exactly are you in Anailia? If it’s that dangerous to go without food then you must have a good reason.”

The queen seemed to have her suspicions and Mercy responded by bowing her head. “For that, I must apologize. As said, I am Mercy, but I also act as the current leader of my people. I’d come to attempt a meeting with you specifically, but we wished to… observe first before acting. Unfortunately, my companion who I’d feed from didn’t return to our room, leaving me in a poor state.”

“Mmh, well unfortunately I can say with almost certainty that your companion is no longer in Anailia if they were the elf staking out my home. As per the nation’s agreement with Alfheimr, he’s been returned there. As for a meeting though, well what exactly were you looking for?”

Mercy seemed disappointed, though not surprised, to learn what became of her companion, but pushed it to the side, hoping that her original goal could still be fulfilled. “Word has made it to me that there’s currently a master enchanter in your nation. I was hoping to be granted an audience so I might beg help for my race.”

Ben’s eyes widened. A master enchanter was the official end point of enchanter jobs, one that could only be gained if one awakened the skill. Though there were technically jobs that could be gained after it, that had more to do with how the job system treated awakened skills than following a set path. He turned to Pelenia, wanting to ask why he’d never heard about someone so exciting nearby but holding back his tongue only because he understood that the conversation going on was of some importance, but as he looked to her, she and everyone in the room was looking at him.

“Um, what?”

Pelenia sighed. “To be clear, there’s no master enchanter in our lands. However, if the person you’re looking for is the creator of the resistance braces then you’ve already been enjoying his company.”

The vampiric leader was startled, though did her best not to show it. While she’d known it was possible she’d been sinking her teeth into the one she’d been looking for, she’d thought it far more likely he’d be a servant or apprentice. The fact that she was already so far in his debt for feeding her, even after attacking him put her in a poor position to bargain, but she had to anyway and quickly prostrated herself before him.

“I know it’s shameless of me to even ask when you’ve done so much for me already, but may I please, please request your help.”

“Well, you’re free to tell me what the matter is, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to do anything. Like Pelenia said, I’m not a master enchanter. Heck, I haven’t even unlocked high enchanter yet.”

Discouraging to hear, but meaningless to her when she considered his past accomplishment. “Still, you’ve managed to solve the issue of passive magics, the one my race goes through is not dissimilar. My people have an unfortunate passive skill of our own, enthrallment. Though it doesn’t pour from our bodies the way the charm of a succubus might, its effect is just as negative to my kind. Whenever we feed, we inject our mana into the bodies of those we eat from, enslaving their minds as a result. While someone with high enough resistance, or who had either the right combination of skills or mental discipline would be fine, there are so few who are willing to take the risk to themselves to let us eat, meaning that none of us ever get our fill. My hope coming here was that you might be able to solve the issue that’s plagued us since our inception, as unlikely as such a result might be.”

She waited with bated breath as Ben thought on what she’d said. There was no guarantee that he’d be able to do anything, but if it was an issue of a passive magic effect presenting itself in a specific way then there was no harm in trying, was there?

“Alright, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to help but I’ll at least try. I just have three conditions. First, I’ll be paid for my work, let’s say the same amount as for the braces. Second, I have a skill that lets me enchant with the skills of others, show me your card later regardless of whether or not I succeed and let me copy any of your skills that catch my eye. Finally, get your people to pray to Myriad. If I’m able to do this at all, it will be because of the skill he gave me.”

She was more than ready to agree to the first two conditions. If it was those alone she’d think she was getting off far easier than she could have ever hoped. It was just the very last one that made her hesitate. Her god had been kind enough to save her ancestors from their conquered world along with the elves, despite being warped by an evil god into their current form. To abandon them would be impossible.

“I have no issue with the other two, but as for getting my race to convert, I don’t think that would be possible.”

Ben held up his hands to stop her. “Woah now, even I don’t expect everyone to convert. I meant exactly what I said, if I succeed then make sure your race remembers it’s thanks to the god Myriad and throw him a few prayers of gratitude every now and then, maybe build a small statue of him, that’s it. You can do that without converting, right?”

“...Is just that really okay?” The terms felt too good to her if that was really all that was needed, but Ben personally thought he was getting the better end of things by far. He would be getting just as much as he would from the braces, a price he’d already considered higher than he expected when he made them, and on top of that, he could get some skills without having to ever so discreetly steal them like he did with all of those he’d made braces for. That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that he’d be able to snag a constant source of additional faith for his god, hopefully keeping him happy for a while.

“I mean, if you don’t think that’s enough you could always do a small festival or something in his honor,” He joked, only to get immediate agreement.

“If that’s what you’d like then I’ll be sure it’s done,” She said, quick to agree. If he failed then there was no harm, but if he succeeded then the cost was far cheaper than she’d expected to pay.

Just remember that next time I do anything questionable.