The Course of a Week

A week has passed since Elizabeth had begun to live in Astur's house. While there was some uncertainty at the start, she has since adjusted well to her new surroundings. Over this time Elizabeth explained to Astur about the Vampires, which she was quite proud to do, but Astur had already known most of what Elizabeth had mentioned. Information such as the common misunderstandings of their weaknesses, rather than being weak or even dying under sunlight, they just get an increase in strength in places that lack sunlight, which makes them seem weaker during the day. Or that Blood isn't a strict requirement for survival, but it will cause a Vampire to feel an unending harsh thirst and make them significantly weaker.

Astur had also put Elizabeth to work the day after the previous incident with her blood. Astur needed someone to clean up her house since she had no motivation to do so, and being a freeloader, who better than Elizabeth. Of course, even though the Vampire race is scattered, Elizabeth was brought up with the upbringing of a Noble and was treated as such by the people around her, so she didn't have the slightest idea of how to do housework. This still didn't stop Astur, as she just reduced the food Elizabeth had each day whenever she made a mistake, causing Elizabeth to at least stop making a worse mess.

During this past week, Astur had also made some more personal progress as she found out she can turn regular recipes of anything else into an alchemy recipe and even gained another 3,500 EXP. A couple of days after Astur put Elizabeth to work, Astur had the bright idea to smoke shrooms again to try and come up with new alchemy ideas. While she isn't entirely clear as to what happened while she was high, having awoken to Elizabeth hanging from the ceiling while tied to a rope with the remains of a pie on her face. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had eyes resembling that of a dead fish as she refused to talk about what happened, but Astur did find a couple of new notes in the journal next to the cauldron. These notes weren't useful for finding out what happened to Elizabeth, they did describe how to turn regular recipes, like for cooking, into an alchemy recipe for the same product, in this case, an apple pie. The process of doing so isn't too complicated, using the original recipe and adding in an appropriate alchemical supplement and a few other alchemical ingredients, doing so will result in creating a new alchemy recipe.

In her sober state, Astur realised she could use this method to convert more than just cooking recipes and could probably convert the recipes of other artisan trades a well. But she had recalled that in her house, as far as recipes go, there are only alchemy one and the few cooking recipes she already knew. Astur realised that she would need to go out again to get more, but her shut-in nature caused her to push this off until the end of the week when she had to go out to get her bank card.

Looking out at the midday sun from her window, Astur sighs, knowing it's the last day of the week and that she needs to go back out to the town today.

"Liz, I'm going to town for a bit. You gonna stay here or come with me?" Astur asks, getting ready to leave.

For a moment, Elizabeth is stunned over the fact that Astur is leaving her house, having not seen her leave once in the past week.

"You're thinking something rude, aren't you?"

Shaking her head, Elizabeth says, "Wait, I'll come with you, let me get my coat."

After a few minutes, the two leave the house and begin following the river down towards the Town of Dawn.

With the long walk to the town from the forest, Elizabeth, not wanting to walk in silence, begins to tell Astur about the Vampires again. Astur only pretends to listen and nod along, having already known much about Vampires and their society from her student days. But once Elizabeth brings the topic to the origin and history of the Vampires, Astur starts to focus more since she is a little interested combined with nothing else to do as they walk to the town.

"Supposedly we Vampires come from a place called the Spirit World, but today we consider it to be a mythological place," Elizabeth says, kicking a pebble into the river.

Hearing this, Astur can't help but have some complex feelings. For her, the Spirit World is her ancestral home and the place where she went to school. And even though she doesn't intend to do anything with her position, she is one of the heirs to the Great Demon Empire, one of the greatest powers of Spirit World.

"I can assure you, Spirit World is a real place," Astur says.

"How can you be so sure?" Elizabeth asks.

"The Infinity Wolves are also from Spirit World."

"That's your race, right? I have told you much about us Vampires, but you have yet to share anything regarding yourself or your race."

"I guess I can," Astur shrugs, "like you Vampires, Infinity Wolves are also apart of the Demon races, and in case you didn't know, Demon is the proper name for what the people of Vopal call Mystic races."

"I was indeed aware of that, most of us Demons do not enjoy being called Mystics. My parents always hated it and so have the other Demons I have met," Elizabeth says as the wind pushes down her hood, revealing Elizabeth's slightly pointed ears and long red hair.

Elizabeth hurriedly puts her hood back up as she looks back up to Astur as she continues, "Infinity Wolves are named such due to their natural immortality and infinite potential. All Infinity Wolves are born with some form of immortality, usually being the weakest form though, unaging and incredibly resistant to toxins and disease, but there are a few rare cases where some were born with a different kind."

"There are multiple kinds of immortality? So you're immortal? How old are you?" Elizabeth asks.

"There is the first which I previously explained, this is the most common and is generally referred to as partial immortality. The next is closer to what most would imagine, it has the benefits of the first, but can't be killed except under very specific and extreme circumstances, this doesn't have a specific name like the others. The last two are the rarest and you can probably count the people who have them on both hands. The first of these two is almost exactly the same as partial immortality but with one added bonus, the people with this perpetually reincarnate with their memories, this is called having an immortal soul. The final one is called true immortality and is exactly what one would expect from the name, under no circumstance can a true immortal die, they can however still suffer from illness and poisons, but it won't ever kill them," Astur explains, feeling a bit winded and brushing her hair aside.

"What about my other questions?" Elizabeth asks as the town comes into view.

"It goes without saying, I'm a partial immortal. As for my age…" Astur pauses for a moment as she thinks about what to say.

For a moment she thought about mimicking her Grandmother, Serabane, and claim that she's seventeen, but this thought didn't last more than a second. After thinking about her Grandmother's embarrassing behaviour she thought back to something her mother once said to her and her sister, "whatever you don't act like your Grandmother, or don't blame me for not recognising you as my daughter".

"I'm one hundred and three years old," Astur says, deciding to just be honest with her age.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were older than my parents," Elizabeth says, causing Astur's face to darken.

Thankfully for her, Elizabeth is quick on the uptake and realises that she is calling Astur old and says, "but considering your immortal, I suppose you are in truth, quite young.

"Hmm, I'll let that pass for now…" Astur says as Elizabeth heaves a sigh of relief, "but your dinner is getting reduced tonight," Astur continues.

"What happened to letting it pass?" Elizabeth thought, but didn't voice, not wanting to step on any more toes.

After a few more minutes, Astur and Elizabeth arrive at the Town of Dawn, to which Elizabeth questions why they came here anyway.

"Why are you only just now asking this? Well, whatever, I came to pick up my debit card from the bank and to buy a few things from the market. I don't want to spend too much time here, so let's hurry."