So, you’re here on Kalimdor’s commission, to take the pulse of Morris?
Annie set down a sweating glass of iced coffee, cool as river shade. Lilith sipped and couldn’t guess the recipe. Good news: milk and sugar piled like snow, perfect for her sweet tooth. The Little White Dragon’s public face was a messenger from Kalimdor, Spuiset’s biggest mercantile city-state, sent into Morris to harvest information like grain. Studying the stellar arts was her own request, and she’d find an Astrologer inside Morris by herself.
“Yes,” she said, voice steady as moonlight on steel. “Lately, only I can cross the undead waste ringing Morris like a bone-white sea. Kalimdor can’t reach the capital. They had to ask me.”
Lilith touched the horns above her brow, crescents like carved jade. As dragonkind, she couldn’t meet the Black Sun Devouring head-on. But at night, she could bear the aftershocks mirrored off the moon like pale surf. She’d planned to come to Morris anyway, so she accepted Kalimdor’s request—probe the city and, if possible, stitch Morris back to the outside world.
“Mm. Before Her Highness took office, the external relay was damaged,” Annie murmured, thoughts drifting like smoke. “After she took over, no one went to fix it. The mechanics were pulled elsewhere.” The girl tilted her head, lips tapping, confused. “I remember residents grumbling back then. Time wore the anger thin.”
“Mechanics?” Lilith frowned, a ripple across calm water. Spuiset ran twin rails of tech and magic; by human measure, just stepping into a Renaissance dawn. There shouldn’t be big machines. In Kalimdor, the comm gear ran on magic, clear as a song she herself could cast—nothing mechanical at all. “Doesn’t Morris use transmission spells? I saw crystal balls in Kalimdor, bright as bottled stars.”
“Oh, right. We Vampires always use transmission magic,” Annie said, hands folding like wings. “Government keeps those repair crews for foundations—sewers, veins under the city.”
“I thought the Tech Park crowd had cracked something new,” she added with a dry laugh, like leaves rubbing. “I even promised to curse them less. Turns out we still lean on the old men at the Magic Academy.”
Annie sighed; her eyes slid to the warm cup, steam curling like mist over ponds. She stirred the cooling drink, slow as dusk.
“By nature, we Vampires move under night,” she said, voice soft as velvet. “And night is when mana pools deep, like black lakes. In old Udis, we lifted our faces to the Star Canvas.”
“No one expected the Cataclysm. To dodge the Black Sun Devouring, we burrowed beneath the inverted shell of old Morris. We live like dwarves now—stone, shadow, and no vampire grace.”
“Under Morris’s shelter, the sky is a sealed book. Blood alchemists who draw moonlight to stir living blood are cut off. Astrologers like you, who steal Star Energy to cast, are stranded too.”
“Our lives fell from a cliff. Because of the Black Sun Devouring, we can’t go out, can’t farm, can’t welcome new life,” she said, words heavy as rain. “We did find a special way to pass generations, but the Udis days were shattered.”
“Her Highness and most people pin hope on the Tech Park,” she went on, gaze clouded like frost. “With magic stalled, they pray for a new road, a lifeline for Vampires.”
“Looking at things now, they’ve likely failed.”
Lilith watched the silver-haired girl sigh, a willow in wind. The Little White Dragon simply sipped her warm coffee, small, quiet mouthfuls. She knew how to comfort; when she was summoned here, her own kingdom hung over a chasm. Thanks to her campaigns and the king’s policies over three winters, they clawed back breath. Only lately has the horizon brightened like dawn.
Still, she felt this was a matter for Vampires to settle—an oar that steers a whole race. A passerby and an innkeeper can’t set that course, and Lilith had no taste for the debate.
She held three thoughts like stones in her palm. First, find Morris’s government, finish Kalimdor’s charge, pass the news, and, if needed, mend their speaking array. Second, find the Astrologers here; even Udis-era collections, dusted like relics, would be treasure to her. Third, claim a room in Annie’s inn, sleep like a cat in sun, then wake and hunt a restaurant for a glorious feast.
Lilith chose the third. The Little White Dragon cut the thread of talk, a neat slice, and asked Annie if there were spare rooms.
“Ah, yes,” Annie said, smile lighting like a lamp. “On the second floor, besides Mr. Nilke’s usual room, two rooms are open.”
“Only the second floor? No empty rooms upstairs?” Lilith glanced at the four-story inn, tall as a lone tower. She wasn’t keen on sharing the first floor with other Vampires—no scorn, just caution. In chatting, she’d learned the second-floor regular was a middle-aged man, hemmed by a tigress at home, who came here to drink off his chains.
Lilith disliked alcohol; the smell crawled like smoke. As an underage girl, she preferred to shield herself, to avoid staying on a rowdy floor.
She had safeguards anyway. The Black Swordsman or Vera would watch her door without being asked, shadows at the threshold. But she disliked draining their scant energy. These days, she only spoke with them when resting in a chair.
“Uh, there are rooms,” Annie said, weighing her with a quick glance. “They haven’t been touched in a while, so they may be dusty and wild. The basics all work. If you truly want one, I’ll tidy it now. You can wait right here.”
Annie seemed to catch the Little White Dragon’s meaning. She offered with a hint of apology, but Lilith waved it away, a breeze over grass.
“No worries. I’ll clean it myself. With magic, it’s easy,” Lilith said, tapping the Astrolabe at her back, pride bright as a star. “I’m an Astrologer, after all.”
“All right, then I won’t take your money,” Annie said, warmth soft as lamplight. “You’re a guest from outside, and my hosting’s been thin. You must be travel-worn. I’ll bring you to your room.”
Annie rose and led Lilith toward the third floor, steps whispering like paper. After a few strides, Annie suddenly remembered something and turned back.
“I just realized,” she said, brow knitting like folded cloth. “Since you’re not a Vampire…”
“Lilith, we might not have any food for you.”
“Huh?”
