Apologies for the wait, these coming chapters [98] [99] and [100] are some of my favorite for the next two years at Hogwarts. So I'm putting some decent effort in writing them and trying to make them entertaining without just veering too much from the story.
Enjoy~
•~~~~~•~~~~~•~~~~~•
Raven smiled slightly cruelly as he stared down at the crying mess of a fae at his feet. A peasant wild fae, according to the basic information he ripped out of his mind.
Fae had a sort of nobility ranking to them.
Peasant, fae who live out in the wild of the realm, typically, though on rare occasions other fae seek to live in solitude for one reason or another, also because they're just broke. Apparently even fae have an economy.
Commoner, fae who live in the equivalent of cities. Basically a normal human city, but much more filled with nature of the fae realm. Trees were used as houses.
Nobles, these are fae who rule over the cities, they don't have any extra rankings, just nobles.
Above the nobles was the Duchess, only a single duchess existed, Morgan Le Fay, who is apparently still alive. Raven wants to meet her someday, if only to get dirt on Artoria. Also for learning magic and other things under her.
Then there was the king and two queens of the fae, they aren't in a relationship with each other, but they are the rulers of all fae.
Oberon, The Warrior, King of The Fae, Lord of Light.
Titania, The Seducer, Queen of The Fae, Lady of Darkness.
Mab, The Decider, Queen of The Fae, Lady of Day and Night.
It was interesting for sure, however what made him curious was why Morgan Le Fay had her own title, was it due to her power? Skills? Her actions in the mortal world?
Now he just needs to find a nearby city and kidnap a local for more information.
So with a single flap of his wings he took to the sky full force sending the little forest fae tumbling about in the aftermath of the sonic booms.
•~~~~~•
"Ok, I've passed this tree twice already, and this is the third time, and I marked it the second time, so that means I'm looping around somehow, which does make some sense if this area is space locked and it's like I'm flying around the earth in a straight line." Raven mused to himself as he looked around in the sky and stared at the giant upside down ocean.
"Do I travel the ocean?" Raven mused before nodding his head and flying towards the ocean, which he also learnt was called, The Deep of Verlin.
An interesting name. Verlin, a male associated name, it's Irish and Old English meaning of "Farthing Coin" and also linked to French origins, referencing the commune of Verlin. Also sometimes associated with the color green symbolizing vitality, though that connection is less established.
He wouldn't put it past fae to name something in relation to money. However perhaps, and most likely, the ocean existed before that word gained its meaning, so most likely, it's just named after someone, or chosen at random.
Raven paused as he landed at the edge of the reversed ocean and paused as he felt a weird fluctuation of space in the area.
"Oh how tricky, you have to actively cross the ocean, you can't just use teleportation. Though this weird feeling, what is it?" Raven raised his hand as strings of dawn energy cascaded down it.
"My dawn energy is much more potent and solid. Is there some relation to the energy and this ocean?" Raven mused before sighing and spreading his wings to take off, however the moment he approached the orange found himself right where he started.
"Hahahaha!" Raven cackled as he realized another effect of the space anomaly. One can't fly across.
"So one must swim or travel across it in a natural manner." Raven nodded his head in understanding before he knelt down and opened his bag of goodies, he started digging through it afterwards.
"Not that, no, I have one of those? Oh hey, I've been looking for that pen. Ah ha! Here it is!" Raven smiled before pulling out a glass bottle.
Inside it was a miniature pirate ship, he had, borrowed, from Hades who had taken it from Poseidon during one of their arguments. The sea god was still annoyed and looking for it thinking the bottle had been misplaced.
With a grin, Raven tossed the bottle, and in a moment the glass vanished, the ship immediately started growing in size until it was a large galleon floating in the air.
Raven leapt onto the ship, which wasn't technically flying, just free falling, and smiled as he ran his hand over the steering wheel, his outfit changing into a more pirate like one.
"Let's get you sea worthy girl." Raven let his energy spread into the ship and cover it in it's entirety.
"First permanently reinforce everything. Enhance the cannons with runic sequences. Add runic heart into the ships center, tie control matrix into Malevolent." Raven spoke aloud as his sword appeared, but in the form of a large elegant saber.
"Done." He grinned as he held the sword up and the ship started moving forward. He idly created a few body doubles to man the cannons. They also took on the form of pirates.
"Oh! I almost forgot the two most important things." Raven grinned as a black and blue pirate hat formed in his hand as he put it on. Then a wave of Malevolent had the sails change completely black and a dark blue skull formed on it with dragon horns and wings.
"Let us set sail men!" Raven yelled as the body doubles raised their hands up in cheer as they started sailing.
Fifteen minutes later he made them vanish as he got a small headache from all the mental partitions he was using combined with his mystic eyes.
•~~~~~•
"Oh hey, people." Raven said pleased, because he had been sailing for three days straight. However he narrowed his eyes as he stared at them, more specifically their garments.
They were wearing older style clothes, usually seen with those in olden times, however it wasn't just one type of garments either. Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse and more.
"When amused, cause others problems." Raven spoke his life moto, besides fuck around and find out, of course.
A wave of his hand had a large portal opening up and sending them right into the sea near Rome, specifically the Tyrrhenian Sea.
He offered a jolly wave to everyone on that ship and continued sailing, after all, who needs directions when you can just find land yourself?
It took another five days to reach land.
Could this have been done in mere minutes, perhaps an hour, if he had just used his wings and flew at max speed? Yes. Did he care for that fact? No. He just wanted to enjoy a nice pirate ship ride for a few days.
"Land ho!" Raven cheered as he leapt off the ship with his wings and held a hand out as the ship shrunk down and back into a bottle, stored away for future use.
"This forest feels much more purer, or perhaps more enriched in the energy of this dimension." Raven mused as he weaved some of the mana in the air into a solid form and smiled at it. "How intriguing. This energy is almost alive, not quite sentient, but definitely alive. It's eager for something happening around.
It was guiding him somewhere he relaized after a moment. Almost like a pointer arrow. It had wrapped around his own energy and was pulling him towards a certain direction, so he choose to follow that direction at a casual pace.
On his way though he paused as he sensed something coming towards him, and then through some weird, but cool, luminous bushes, a large scaled beast appeared.
Raven curiously examined it. Hints of dragon, snake, deer and several animals were present, but yet it was natural, no signs of a force made creature.
"How interesting your origins must be for you to come to life." Raven said as he casually stepped to the side avoiding its rush at him and landed a hard kick to its side.
"KRAAAAARRRGH!" It roared out in anger and pain. Raven only smiled at it and held a hand out as he leapt up a moment later as the beast tried to screwer him with a pair of horns.
"Giddy up boy!" Raven chuckled as a saddle made of dawn energy formed around the beast. He grabbed the reins and smacked its side, in that moment it took off charging, trees falling and being flung away in its rush.
Raven saw several angry forest fae yelling at him and cackled. His shields protected him and the beast from any spells they shot at them.
"Faster." Raven laughed as he reinforced the creature to its limit and gleefully enjoyed the speeds they were moving, it felt like they were traversing continents at such a speed.
"A village!" Raven cheered as he sensed a major group of life, two thosuand and seventy one(2071). "Time to put ol' yeller down." Raven dramatically said as he created a shotgun and fired right into the beast.
Raven leapt off the saddle which faded into motes of energy and dissipated. He raised his foot and stopped the beasts body casually.
"This will be some good material to study chimeras." Raven mused before he shrunk the body of the beast and stored it away. "Now, onto the village." He cheered and walked through the forest, however after five minutes of walking he changed his mind, a single flap of his wings had him soaring into the sky and staring down at the village, or what he had assumed would be a village, but was apparently a giant building. Specifically an auction house.
[Image]
"Welcome to the annual fae auction house, are you a newcomer or a member of our establishment?" The well dressed fae standing at the door asked, he mostly looked human, and his research correlated that to being higher ranking, at least in power.
"Newcomer." Raven stated as the man nodded in understanding.
"I see, then feel free to take one of these guides for the auction house. For future reference, I am Onyx, Servant of The Three Rulers."
"Raven. Wanderer."
"A welcome greeting Raven. You will be located in room 18, third floor, please do enjoy the amenities provided by Lady Mab." Onyx said with a pleasant tone and a small bow and Raven nodded his head before walking off, his eyes narrowed at Onyx for a moment before he shook his head.
The moment Raven was out of sight, Onyx vanished, and soon some other fae appeared with a similar appearance.
•~~~~~•
"His eyes even at this point are scary, not to mention his intuition." Onyx said as he reappeared in a different spot, his form melting away to reveal a different person.
Tanned dark skin fading to pale skin. Orange hair fading to silver-white. Extremely long and pointed ears with small branches on them shortening and looking like normal human ears. From his back butterfly wings appeared, the only nonhuman appearance on him.
"How scary~" the man laughed before vanishing away.
[Images]
•~~~~~•
Raven frowned as he thought back on Onyx in the room as he held the guide booklet up. That fae didn't feel quite right, something was off about him. His words bore complete truth, no attempts at tricking him. However what puzzled him was the odd emotion he felt when they had first met, not from himself, but from Onyx.
Nostalgia, that was a good word to use for it.
It wasn't uncommon for a being to feel nostalgia from seeing another person; even if they've never met, but this felt different, personal.
Raven sighed and then shook his head choosing to focus on the guide.
"Similar to normal auctions, however instead of money, almost anything can be offered as a price, however to beat someone's bet, one must offer a higher prize. The soul of a hero beats out fifty souls of normal people. A normal golden bracelet would lose out to a silver one with lingering touches of powerful magic on it.
It's all about assumed value to the person selling the items. Luckily he was never on low supply of anything.
"Attention valued customers, we will be starting in five minutes! Five minutes!"
Raven hummed softly as he looked to his right and stared at the bottle of wine inside a ice bucket and after a dozen spells checking it for any nasty stuff he popped the quark and poured himself some.
"Powerful." Raven noted pleased as he mentally saved the formula of the wine to create his own for later.
Raven spent the remaining time with his feet kicked up and enjoying the wine. This was probably the closest he could come to being drunk off something that wasn't the best wine brewed by Dionysus.
"Honored guest we thank you for attending The Mab Auction House, for those of you returning to use again, we promise to have the valued items you enjoy, and those of you joining us for the first time, we welcome you and hope you enjoy our fine selection this decade." The announcer spoke happily before pointing up and Raven titled his head up and went slightly wide eye at seeing someone in a throne staring down. Two empty thrones sat besides the lady.
"Today in attendance we have Lady Mab herself! The Decider! Lady of Day and Night! At the end of the auction some items provided by our lady herself shall be auctioned off, please make sure to keep your pockets full for then, now for the first item!"
Raven stopped focusing on the announcer as he stared at Mab, his eyes narrowing slightly, a weird and familiar energy softly radiated off her, a moment later he recognized it as dawn energy, the purity almost equal to his own.
For a moment their eyes locked, and Mab smiled before she winked, then her face returned to a stoic look.
"Well that just happened." He mumbled.
"An the first item is won by Lord Sylvan for a cost of three adult souls!" Raven hummed as he focused on what was just won and hummed appreciatively, a shining sword made enterly of gold and covered in fae runes.
"Next up we have a broken piece of a powerful weapon, its holy energy still radiating after a long time being broken. Dangerous to those with demonic relation. Starting bid at one soul." The announcer, Raven probably should have paid more attention for their name.
"Mevlen." A soft voice chimned in his ear and he frowned as he ran a full scan on his body and found no foreign presence, there was no extra magic in this room or on the auction house besides the standard durability and enhancement type rune work.
"Ten adult souls." Raven said as he stared at the broken fragment deciding the voice could be put off, after all, what was one more voice?
"Do I hear any other bids? Going once. Going twice. Sold to Lord Raven!" Raven hummed pleased as he pulled out a gem and stored ten souls inside of it from the main soul gem attached to his second earring, a change he had made to it earlier during his time on the sea of this realm.
Idly he tossed the gem up and down for a while as a few items were auctioned off.
Knock Knock
"Enter." Raven said as a maid walked in with a tray holding the fragment he bought.
"Lord Raven, the fragment for a cost of ten adult souls."
Raven held the gem up and placed it on the tray as the fae maid cast some spell before nodding her head as she took the gem and set down the tray.
"A good day my lord." She offered and left closing the door behind her:
"Now then, a interesting item brought in by Lord Vivilan of Erland City. Found during a journey of his into a random dimension, the core of a elder elemental, specifically a gravity elemental. The first bid starts at fifteen adult souls." Mevlen announced as he waved his arm revealing a glowing purple orb pulsating.
Raven felt a feral grin form on his face. This is exactly what he needed to do some more work on Project Damocles and Project Cosmos.
Could he make something similar? Quite easily. Would it be easier to have this though? So much so.
"35!"
"37!"
"50!"
"Two hundred fifty adult human souls and one adult dead apostle soul." Raven said as the hall went silent.
"Five hundred adult human souls and ten adult dead apostle souls." Someone countered. She sounded determined.
"One thousand adult human souls and fifty adult dead apostle souls." Raven countered with amusement as he locked eyes with his opponent and grinned like the feral animal he is.
"Two thousand adult human souls, two hundred and fifty dead apostle souls and one dead apostle ancestor soul." The lady countered and Raven heard furious whispering amongst the crowd, and he ferally grinned even harder.
"Ten thousand adult souls of human and dead apostle, each, and three dead apostle ancestor souls." Raven cackled as the lady withdrew her bid.
Raven did actually have all these souls on him, he may have used Zelretch to his advantage before coming here and traded a LOT of metals for souls from different universes. Like a literal mountain of gold was given to the magician of the second.
Raven idly handed off the souls to the maid who came by and was given his gravity core, which he immediately stored away for safe keeping, because he had a feeling he was gonna be jumped after the auction ended.
Jokes on them though, he'll reverse jump them.
•~~~~~•~~~~~•~~~~~•
Only two more chapters to go for the rest of this arc.
I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, I'll keep these notes short since I need to sleep since I have something running and need to wake up before it finishes, so I hope you enjoyed my friends.
Until next time!
Bye~
-Voidy, The Insomniac Writer
P.S. Raven is a baller, boy is broken rich rich. In all regards, well most regards.
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