Delilah Darkbolt.
Fuck.
While she was the closest thing I had to a friend amongst the dark elf nobility, I'd kind of been avoiding her for the past few days. Not for the usual reasons either. I mean the usual reasons why everybody else avoided her.
Delilah na Kinai, Scion of House Darkbolt, Firstborn True Daughter of Dara na Kinai, Heir to the Matriarchy.
Dark elves are born with innate magic, tied to the totem animals of their race, house, and family. It always manifests in the same three ways: sorcery; the application of raw magical power as destructive energy, enchantment; the application of magical power for strengthening one's self or allies and weakening one's foes, and channeling; the act of imbuing one's self with the raw essence of one's patron, gaining their traits and physical aspects.
Delilah was a pure Enchanter, and to compliment their powers of being able to enhance others most enchanters went out and found a fearsome beastie and bound it to them as a loyal protector.
Delilah had tried that. Dozens of times.
See, while Del was next in the line of succession her place was not in any way assured. Dara's sister, Dao-Mai, had been the Matriarch of House Darkbolt before being overthrown by her younger sister. The house spirits apparently adhered to baseball rules, meaning three strikes and you're out.
Dao-Mai had tried and failed three times to wrest the position from Dara, and thus could no longer pursue her sister's place at matriarch. Dara's eldest daughter, on the other hand, was fair game.
All Dao-Mei had to do was wait for Delilah to die. Pretty easy to do, considering the giant, lumbering bitch was a part of the dead but moving shambling corpse society. She was undead, a vampire.
Auntie Dao had used her influence to systematically pick off each and every creature Delilah had attempted to bond with. Every one of them dead before the year and a day span that would permanently secure the bond between the two and allow Delilah to reach her full potential as an Enchantress.
Dao-Mei was Channeler caste and she also had access to Sorcery. So even before adding in the whole vampire thing she had physical and magical superiority on her niece.
Everyone avoided Delilah like the plague, since nobody wanted to become collateral damage the moment Dao-Mai decided to challenge Delilah for her place in the line of succession.
Dark elves have a somewhat weird code of honor that's basically social darwinism made manifest. Whatever you can hold onto is yours, whatever you can takes from others is also yours. You just have to be somewhat subtle and not particularly blatant about it.
So sneak attacks and assassinations were common. Occasionally duels would be fought when accusations were levelled. Delilah couldn't call out her aunt's assassination of her bonded beasts, as that would mean a duel against her aunt over the matter. Wherein she would be crushed like a bug.
Enchanters could also bond with an undead creature, but doing so would mean that their powers would be forever weakened when cast upon a living target. And it wasn't such a good idea to have an undead servant around a powerful vampire, who could seize control of the thing with ease and turn it against its mistress.
So knowing full well the extent of her daughter's own weaknesses, Dara na Kinai had hired my grandmother, a former spy and dwarven master of the combat arts, to educate Delilah on how to survive.
And that of course was where I entered the picture. I was assigned to be Delilah's sparring partner. Well, they called me her sparring partner, but I was more of her punching bag.
While my ancestry wasn't dark elven enough to grant me innate magics, I did have ties to the Metsuki Tahari bloodline. Dara and Dao-Mai's mother, Metsuki na Kinai, known by the honorific Tahari, had been one of final victors of the Hero Wars, and was granted a single wish.
She wished for her bloodline to be immune to all weapons. The closer the blood relation, the more stuff they were immune to. Metsuki herself could literally not be harmed by any sort of weaponry, and her mastery of the forge and of enchanting items made her essentially immune to most forms of offensive magic.
In a rarity for a dark elf, Metsuki Tahari died of natural causes. Meaning of old age, rather than a dagger between the ribs like most dark elves.
As a direct descendant the only weapons that could hurt Delilah were ones that had been crafted by members of her own family with equal or greater blood ties to her grandmother.
As a distant cousin all I got was an immunity to non-magical weapons. It made cutting my hair and trimming my nails rather inconvenient.
What this meant was that I could be thrown around all day by a dark elven princess doing her best to learn how to delivery killing blows, crippling strikes, and agonizing holds. Just because it didn't do damage didn't mean that it didn't hurt.
We'd gotten friendly as I'd been paid to let her kick six kinds of crap out of me. As opposed to the rest of the dark elven race, whom I had to let kick the crap out of me pro bono. Dark elves don't like it when five foot nothing half-breeds beat the snot out of other dark elves who are typically over a foot and a half taller than then.
That was kind of how I ended up getting stuck down in the undercity and put on all sorts of shitty work projects. In some cases literally shitty.
I ground my teeth when Delilah walked in the door a few minutes later, answering the summons from the computer.
"You needed me for a bloodline calibration?" The dark elf asked of the AI, "Don't the maintenance workers usually… oh."
Her reddish-brown eyes found me from her six and a half foot height. During the wars between High Elves and Dark Elves the castes had been severely whittled down to the point where the far more durable Channeler caste had become the most populous.
With several successive generations of channelers having offspring with other channelers, eventually the entire race gained a faint reflection of the channeler's bestial totems.
House Darkbolt's totem beast was the Snow Leopard, claws, fangs, feline ears and tails were pretty much the standard package for a Darkbolt elf, and Delilah was no exception. Though born of a Channeler, Del was a bit more bestial than most.
Though she lacked the fur from the elbows and knees down that a full blooded Darkbolt channeler would have, she did sport the digigrade legs common to the caste. It was completely and utterly unfair. The configuration of her feet added a good six to eight inches to her height, and she was already taller than me to start with.
I tended to keep my hands in my pockets around House Darkbolt dark elves. I had a tendency to absentmindedly pet their tails. Their big, poofy, fluffy, soft, fuzzy tails. Half the time they don't notice until they start purring.
"Finally convinced the computer to let you stop making it explode?" The feline elf asked with a slightly fanged grin.
"Yup. It's only taken two and a half years." I grumbled in reply, eying the doorway and making plans to make a hasty exit.
"So I heard you were registering for some of the knightly orders," Delilah said, jumping right into the reason why I'd been avoiding her.
"Oh, look at the time! Gotta go!" I virtually squeaked and nonchalantly began strolling out the door.
The dark elf sighed, reached down, and grabbed my tail halfway down its length, lifting me up off the floor and having me dangle upside down.
"Kalinda, you've been avoiding me ever since you made your choice. What ridiculous knightly order did you register yourself at?"
I muttered something in the Low Fae tongue. Vowel heavy and pompous, it's basically French with an aversion to cold iron.
Delilah flicked her ears in annoyance. "I didn't quite catch that."
"Ordre des Repas Exotiques." I said through clenched teeth.
I was unceremoniously dropped on my face. "The bloody COMBAT CHEFS?"
"...yes."
"Of all the knightly orders out there you pick the one that involves cooking and eating monsters after you kill them?"
"And after studying them intently for weaknesses! It's the only order that involves my three favorite things; fighting, cooking, and eating!" I protested.
"You are exceptionally silly. Considering you love to use bows and arrows so much, the Acolytes of the Arrow are perfect for you with their innate enchantment. Yuriko's taken the Acolyte oath. She can use that little crossbow she wears on her wrist as a full on shield. I don't know what it would do with a proper bow like you use, but I'm sure it's something interesting!"
"Not really. Mostly they stuff training into your head about bludgeoning people with your bow when they get to close and give you a little enchantment that helps with sniping out in the elements. Heat, cold, wind, rain and such. I don't think I've been above ground in years. If I'm up close and personal with somebody, I'd much rather be using a weapon expressly designed for the purpose, rather than whopping them with a stick." I protested.
"The Lords of the Wheel make you capable of hiding from even supernatural senses! Even telepaths would have to look for you using their eyes, rather than trying to sense your thoughts."
"Delilah, I'm bright blue with fire engine red hair. That is a color combination that lends itself to being sneaky. Plus between Kitty and Spark in a combat situation I've got the world's loudest chatterboxes utterly ruining any capacity I'd ever have for stealth anyway."
"The Resplendent Radiants allow you to summon a magnificent set of indestructible armor made of magic!"
"That's the other way 'round entirely. You shine like a damned spotlight and the code of conduct demands you stride up to whatever you're fighting and issue a challenge like a complete and utter nitwit."
"But a chef! You don't want to be a valiant warrior or an infamous assassin?"
"Not really. I'd rather cook meals and make people happy rather than murder them in the face."
Delilah makes a disgusted sound and lets go of my tail. I'm unceremoniously dumped face first onto the floor, and because Delilah's higher up on the Metsuki Tahari family tree, it actually hurts. I can feel a bruise beginning to form on my cheek.
"Oops. Sorry Kalinda." Delilah says, wincing at the sight of the spot that's begun to form on the side of my face. "You should probably heal that."
"I'll uh… I'll do that later."
"Go ahead and do it now. I promise I won't make fun of you."
I glare at her. "You have your fingers crossed behind your back, as per usual." I said with a harrumph, crossing my arms.
"You are without a doubt the most ridiculous creature I have ever met. Go ahead, do your little bard-y thing and heal yourself!"
"I'm not a bard!" I growl, attempting to be all threatening, but it's hard to sound threatening when you're head, shoulders, and ribcage below most people.
"You're ever so slightly above average at spellcasting, moderately above average in your combat marks, seem to know a great detail about useless and obscure topics, and are a complete and total artsy fartsy type."
"I AM NOT AN ARTSY FARTSY TYPE!" I roared, giving Delilah a good, solid kick to the shins.
"You totally are! Your chosen career involves making things and your primary hobby is being a prissy little chef in a silly hat and apron."
"You lie! I do not wear a silly hat when I cook!" I replied, darting between Delilah's legs as she attempted to grab me, knowing very well what I was going to do next.
Rather peeved with her I proceeded to tie her tail in a knot.
"That is exceptionally mean, Kalinda." Delilah scolded.
"You deserve it!" I countered, sticking my forked tongue out at her.
"I just don't see why you'd join up with a knightly order whose primary boon is made completely redundant by the Tahari Bloodgift." she said, finally getting to the logic behind her protesting.
"Oh, uh..." I winced, "I'm not a direct matrimonial descendant of her like you are, Del. If somebody poisons my food or slips some disgusting disease into my drink and I gulp it down, odds are pretty likely I'm going to die." the Ordre's gift would protect me from a poisoned glass of wine or a dodgy meat pie, but poisons and diseases that came about outside of the digestive system were still in play.
Delilah's face fell. I'm pretty much her only friend in the world outside of her own immediate family, and sometimes she forgets that I don't have all the advantages that her and her sisters do. Most of her prospective bonded beasts had died from being poisoned, so bringing up poisoning was kind of a depressing subject for her.
"Anyway..." I say, trying to bring up the mood. "Provided they don't have contradictory codes of conduct I can always join another one. But none of the other orders that I qualify for had benefits that sounded like they were worth the trouble of adhering to the oath. I was going to look into some of the more obscure ones after I got my Post-Mortum Resources certification. That'd qualify me for some of the Maledictine Orders."
Delilah nods, "True. They are indeed very powerful and offer gifts that some might consider too good to be true. Their oaths, however, are closely guarded and not a matter of public record."
"Via your employment with Carapaced Queen LLC, a licensee of Applied Necrotechnologies Incorporated, you qualify for enrollment in the official company secret society. Very similar to your knightly orders in most ways." the AI said pleasantly.
"This could be very good, or also very bad." I said. If the oath to the order involved a mandatory wearing of a suit and tie I was right out, no matter how impressive the benefits would be.
"Membership in the Beneficent Brotherhood of Bleached Bone is a perk available to all Necrotech and Necrotech equivalent lead positions. The oath involves upholding the corporate policy of Necrotech Industries, to use the power of necromancer to allow the dead to promote the comfort and well being of the living, and to do one's utmost to stop predation of the undead upon the living in order to bring about a peaceful utopia where the living and the dead can work together to achieve harmony and mutual benefit."
My interest is piqued, "That sounds rather interesting. I've never heard of it, though. How many members does it have?"
"Due to the membership rolls being purged due to inactivity, the Beneficent Brotherhood of Bleached Bone currently boasts an enrolled of zero grandmasters, zero chapter masters, zero knights of the skull, and zero knights of the rib."
"Now wait a second, I know that there's a whole hierarchy set up running Carapaced Queen LLC. You're saying in the few hundred years since the dark elves set up shop in here, nobody's bothered to take up a position in the official knighthood of the place?"
"The default settings for individual to computer communication were set to speak when spoken to only by default almost immediately after the new occupancy arrived."
"Presumably they found being pestered with error messages at all hours of the day and night moderately annoying." I grumbled, being Maintenance Lead Subterranean meant I couldn't NOT receive the damned things.
"Enrollment in the order will see you immediately placed in the position of Chapter Master for Tomb-23. Grandmasters are confirmed by a test of skills overseen by at least three other grandmasters. As the AstralNet Communications Network has ceased to be functional beyond Tombs 22, 23, 24, and 25, suitable grandmasters cannot be gathered for confirmation."
With a little bit of magical finagling one could use the magical technology present in one of the Tombs to jump to the previous and next in the series. Tomb-22 was the first to have access restored to it. It was where the vast majority of the dwarves that had arrived with the dark elves way back when had gone. Tomb-24 had something go wrong and everything but the undercity was basically covered in magma that had long since cooled. Tomb-25 was full of crazy monsters and weird plants.
An effort was made to keep the arrival area of Tomb-25 clear of growth and to eliminate any monsters between the arrival bay and the two nearest warehouses of supplies. The really good preserved foodstuffs had been eaten up in Tomb-23 long ago.
I took a trip over there every few weeks to fill up my backpack with cans of orange soda and alphabetti spaghetti.
"Benefits for the chapter master include lodging in the chapter house, access to restricted Necrotech materials, and the personal use of an official Necrotech minor artifact. Benefits for a knight of the…"
"Sold! You had me at chapter house lodging! Goodbye former janitorial closet that still reeks of disinfectant! Just point me in the right direction and tell me where to pick up my artifact!"
The computer gave me directions and I went striding off happily, only to find Delilah hot on my heels.
"What? D'ya want to help me move?"
"No. I merely want to accompany you to find out what ridiculous musical lyrics and tunes you use to summoned up your newly acquired set of spells. Bardy bard bard." She teased.
I'm fine with the hand motions, but the ancient arcane mystical tongue bullshit I've never been able to do properly. In order to cast spells I typically had to tie them in thematically to a tune or some lyrics.
I spent most of my day humming "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" to get a bunch of tools and cleaning supplies animated and working in order to cover the amount of work I'd be assigned generally being meant for about a hundred people.
You get stuff accomplished around her you don't get thanked or rewarded, you just get more stuff dumped on you.
Thankfully I was far better at managing my magically mobile helpers than that damned mouse ever was.
"Ding dong bell…" I began.
"No!" Delilah protested, knowing very well what was coming.
"Pussy's in the… nah, just kidding." I said with a giggle. That was my water summoning spell. Delilah hates it when her big poofy tail gets all wet. I learned that one early on in life, all my introductory, beginner level cantrips like that are nursery rhymes.
"So why are you really following me?"
"It is my hope that upon being able to reanimate the dead that you will allow me practice in fighting them. I am not allowed out of the city, and every time I attempt to purchase some skeletons or zombies to train against, every place I visit mysteriously closes five minutes before I arrive, or inconveniently sells all their product on a phone order immediately before my arrival."
Ouch. Evil auntie strikes again.
Anyway my day was looking up. Which meant there was something lurking around later that was going to end up knocking me back down.
And oh boy was there ever.
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