The World At Large

Simon and Helen began to coerce Camila into telling them what was in those documents. 

A majority of which were letters to the mysterious benefactor known as the "Queen Maker."

They were a woman able to grant mighty powers upon others, such as gifting Camila with vampirism. 

She was also the one who helped design those guards, all of whom were actually robotic constructs that were made to serve Camila and build the base.

When questioned as to why they were collecting strange items, Camila responded that they were 

the orders of the Queen Maker. 

Apparently some of them were useful in the construction of the robotic servants, although the other uses were still unknown.

Another question was how far did Camila reach in influence and power? Which was to say, nearly the whole underground city was in her pocket.

Ironically, the only thing they have not fully corrupted yet were local public offices, but since gangs such as the Boulderlaires have already done so, there was not much reason to.

Many of the other letters were for smaller things such as shipments, cargo, and travels. 

After that was said and done, Simon stood up, documents still in hand, and walked towards one of the libraries with some nummuns in hand.

"I'm going to do some more research. You two sit tight."

And with that, he left Helen to watch over Camila. 

For the first few minutes, it was just awkward staring, and then looking away, then more awkward staring, and then more looking away.

They really had nothing to do, and it was awkward when the person who jailed you just beat you up a few hours ago.

However, the silence and awkwardness were far too much for Helen, who asked.

"So… you uh, became a vampire… did you like choose it as your class levels or was it automatically granted… I wonder if It's a race or a class, actually…"

Camila stared blankly at Helen, wondering what exactly she was talking about. "…I chose to become a vampire if that's what you are referring to…"

"Oh… uhm, why? They have a lot of weaknesses… you could have been like… a Lich…"

"What's a Lich? And I enjoy vampires for what they represent. A class above the rest of the world, hidden in shadows that controls others." 

She remembered all those times she snuck into libraries to read books.

One of her favorites was about vampires controlling the public and being the supreme beings, far above even the dons in big mafias. 

"A Lich is like, an undead wizard who lives forever by storing their soul in an object. And wow, so you want to control the world? Alright, that's admirable, at least."

Helen could respect that, it's what she wanted to do after all.

"I wanted to control more than myself… before these powers, I was just another street urchin looking for any way to survive in this forsaken world."

She turned to face the windows which have been constantly snowed in. "The coppers aren't going to do anything… you can only rely on the big boys in the gangs to keep you safe for a little bit of coin… it's either that or join up with the army, but they wouldn't want a scrawny thing like me."

Camila sighed and laid her head back on the bed. "Magick is a no go, can't learn that without paying Epithet, so all you can do is just try to be useful around here… you only have yourself because no one is coming."

Helen frowned, leaning in closer and eventually sitting on the bed. "Wait, aren't there like adventuring guilds and quests with stuff like that?"

The Baroness gave Helen a confused look. "What are you going on about? No, none of that here. This ain't no fairy tale, this is the real life. Ain't no wizard to save you now… cause they're all in their ivory towers cooking up the next big Magick to fill their pockets."

"…You are a literal vampire, and I can fly and shoot out lasers. I'm pretty sure this is as close to a fairy tale as I can get. Hmmm, but it's a lot more grim than I realize. I've never been a fan of urban fantasy, but I guess I can make do."

She crossed her arms and grinned. "It looks like I was brought here to fix this broken and despotic world, hah, I get it now! Alright tell me more about this Epithet and these wizards, it sounds like they're a big problem. Gangs and cops are a tale as old as time, and I find them really boring. I wanna hear about the Magick!"

Camila was continually being weirded out by this lady. But she can't really say no now can she?

"How do you not know about them? I never even went to a bloody school and I knew them."

"Ehehe, well y,ou see. I actually came from another world. I fell out from the sky after a goddess plucked me up and sent me here."

"…You're a weird one, aren't you." Camila could not tell if she was pulling her leg or making fun of her, but she seemed to be honest. 

Well, as honest as anyone who makes a deal with a demon would be. 

"Epithet is the biggest company around, one of them anyway. They hold the trademark on most of Magick. Any artifact, incantation, whatever you wish to call it. If it's Magick, they probably have the license to it."

Camila sighed and looked at her hands. "So if you want to do Magick, or well, legal Magick. You're going to have to pay them."

"If you can't, well e,ither they find and arrest you, or you can go ahead and try to somehow make your own Magick."