Birds of a Feather DxD - The Summoning - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

The summoning of a Devil is not something that takes any actual pomp and ceremony. People like to dress it up as more than it is. In the future during ‘canon’ people would merely have little leaflets to help proliferate the spread of contracts. These days people would set up elaborate rituals with sacrifices and chanting and even special attire.

What’s not known is that you really only need the first step of the ‘ritual’ to actually conjure a Devil.

That being that a sacrifice of some worth needs to be offered up for the Devil. This typically comes in the form of blood, livestock, gold, and on one rare occasion, my father tells me, a virgin girl. I could only conclude that it perhaps said more about the people summoning him that the ‘virgin’ sacrifice was not more common. This however was only to draw the interest of the Devil. Sort of the down payment as it were. Then again perhaps the demonisation of the ritual has yet to occur with people not yet associating virgin sacrifices to calling up the devil.

Then again with this world perhaps there are worse things to call up than Devils. I’d been reading up on some of the other supernatural species that Devils had made contact with in the past and the stories so far were mroe like horror stories with no moral apart from perhaps ‘stay out of the woods’, and always pay your debt to the old hag! The story of Beauty and Beast never got to the Beauty. They only got to the beast being created and loosened. Typically to become the reason you stayed out of the woods.

What I’d been able to read of the Fae race was enough to have me pocketing an iron dagger and a garland of ivy I could use in emergencies. Who wanted to fight someone that used concepts to cut you your skin off you? If I ever had to fight a Fae then something had gone very wrong in my life.

Still, the point was that the ritual for Devil summoning was a bit of a sham.

First what happened was a circle with the set pentagram and an individualised symbol was drawn or laid out on a flat surface and an offering was put forward. Then as soon as the intent to offer was verbalised, from the first word a Devil would gain awareness of the summoning. The Devil got a heads up and could go at any point from there until the next five minutes.

This allowed for the devil to finalise any business they might have first before moving along with their summoning where they were to find a way to get more than what the summoner thought they were offering. For all that the Fae were the worst tricksters, stretching the definition of words and interpretations for agreements was something I had been taught, and was expected to use.

“Odessa, see to my affairs, I am being summoned for the first time,” I said to my maid.

She responded by sucking harder. Her hand worked my shaft. I was caught between wanting to be impressed by her dedication, wanting to swat her for her cheek, or just laying back and letting go. She locked eyes with me and started humming. The sensation was enough to send me over the edge and into her throat which she swallowed.

When I was done she drew back and made a show of swallowing. “All tasks will be handled my Lord,” she said with a sultry tone that practically begged me to bend her over.

But accepting a summon was something I had been interested in for a long while now. I wanted to get away from hell and see earth. Where would I arrive? When was I? These were answers I could only get from earth.

I was about to tap her on the nose and gently chastise her when she burped.

We both stared at each other in surprise. Had she actually just? She blushed furiously and threw her face into her hands to hide. I pat her on the head and chuckled. “Adorable,” I said simply before tugging up my pants and fastening them. I didn’t want to appear before my first summoner with my dick hanging out after all.

I stepped back and nodded once more. “Wish me luck Odessa and tell my family I’m stepping out!” I said as I accepted the summon.

The transition wasn’t instantaneous and I felt my body warp, become less and more and then move through an unknown distance. Throughout the entire experience I could feel the pull of the summons just as I could hear the voices chanting in… hmmm I could make out the words and understanding occurred to me thanks to the Devil trait that every devil possessed of what the Norse would call Allspeak. An ability that let any that hear me speak hear my words as if I was speaking their tongue just as I understood them. Only truly unique or alien languages would not be translated. That or if people were speaking in codes.

Something the Fae delighted in, knowing how reliant supernatural races were of understanding and good communication.

“We call forth the devil in our hour of need! Heed us and we will reward you handsomely!” chanted a chorus of three different voices with a slightly high nasally tone. It made me think of men that were used to speaking down there noses which instantly made me think noble. Or at least the human understanding currently of noble.

I emerged and found myself within a dungeon of sorts. Candles hung all about and the noblemen had formed a triangle around me. One that wasn’t equilateral my mind noted idly as I scanned the room.

Behind each nobleman, a pair of attendants stood. A few of them must have been merely going through the motions thinking this the usual day of employment only for my emergence to cause their eyes to bulge and mouths to drop. I tilted my head and gave a rogueish smile as my hair draped over my shoulder.

“So… you’ve conjured me forth to make a deal with a devil?” I let my words be spoken in a soft but deep baritone that seemed to fill the room. One of the women in the room almost inched forward at the sound of my voice.

While the Nobles got themselves together I continued to mark who and what was in the room with me.

The three men were all nobles and had various affections such as a thin moustache, weasely eyes, or a weak chin that had the misfortune to have an equally weak second chin quivering beneath the first. Each of them had colours draped across themselves and there was tailoring to their work that spoke of them being of some means. Their embroidery heralded an olive fleur-delis encircled, a wheatstalk, and what looked like a boar for the aptly attired double-chin man.

Behind them the attendants all wore robes that covered them from neck to toe in brown cloth. They looked like monks but none of them had crosses, rosary beads or bibles. I got the impression that the nobles had ‘made an effort’ but done little else in truth.

The dungeon itself was cobbled stone underfoot and seemed to be closed off from the elements. Beneath me the summoning circle was a basic affair with salt laid out and a book that looked suitable macabre with the chant written out.

I liked the touch there they had obviously used some stainer to make the book with my summoning instructions look older than the mere two years since I had gotten a personalised summoning sigil.

Double shin coughed and in doing so sent himself jiggling as she shifted from foot to foot. His eyes darted to weasel face and then over to thin moustache who was drawing himself up. “Devil! We summoned you to end the farce that is the current rulership of King Robert!”

I stalled at that. Wait, King Robert? That was the ruler of Game of Thrones at the… I shook myself. Wrong series. The summoning was strong to rip me from a different world aka hell to earth but I wouldn’t have been summoned to another universe… would I?

I suddenly felt a pressing urge to gain a much greater understanding of the precise details of how summoning actually worked. While I would be completely overpowered in the Song of Ice and Fire universe I liked the DxD universe!

It had all my stuff in it! Like my maid! And my family!

“Oh?” I said with a drawl instead of giving voice to any of my current thoughts. The summoners before me shifted from foot to foot.

“Yes! The foul King Robert’s father tricked us when he was elected king! It was never to be a permanent role and should have been turned over when his father died! Instead we have had to suffer under the same family's tyranny!” Weasel face nodded, obviously growing confident in how I had yet to act in any way contrary.

I wanted to point out that ‘them’s the brakes’ but I doubted that would go over well or that they were being very foolish to turn power over to a man that nominally had the strength or skill to gain their confidence and expect said man not to solidify his grasp on power for his heir. It said quite a lot about them that they thought they had a ‘right’ to it not understanding that so much had to be worked for. I hummed thoughtfully.

“For King Robert’s demise and subsequent end of his reign… what do you offer me?” I said with a musing playful tone as if it wouldn’t matter to me. Because it really wouldn’t.

At this point the nobles both surprised me and stuck to the script by reaching behind themselves and grabbing the servants.

“These servants of ours offer their eternal souls!” said double chin with a gleeful look like he’d just played a very clever ploy.

I wanted to sigh at him and point out that… that wasn’t how things actually worked. They had performed part of the summoning but by linking me to the nobles there was a due owed by them. Here was a wonderful example of gaming the system and being proud about it.

They were basically asking me to murder them the instant I got my hands on them.

Although… then I’d be down three patsies that obviously thought themselves clever. Here were a group of people that knew summoning worked. Typically the stories my father told me were how he turned the tables and ripped his summoners apart for his own glee. That however was a self-defeating system.

It was like the health system. How could you expect to have more customers if you killed your customer base? I surveyed the servants. Two men of middle age with wear and tear that made them look older, one had a bald patch in a circle at the top of his head while the other had a large bushy patchwork beard, while the woman that was presented before me was barely a teenager.

I adopted a coy smile as a plan formed in my head. “Very well, swear that you will turn over your souls to me upon my request and the pact shall be made! I shall see to it that Robert’s death is forthcoming!” I mentally patted myself on the back. It sounded imminent but honestly death came for all of us eventually. King Robert could stumble into a fountain of youth and still be guaranteed to die eventually.

You didn’t learn about magic and learn that death wasn’t inevitable. It was written into the weave of all things as the books purported and my own magical experiments had supported.

Thin moustache clapped his hands together with glee. “Very well! Agree to the terms and we shall see no harm comes to any of your families!” said the man as he prodded the man in front of himself.

“I so swear, on the Lord that I shall offer up my soul… t-t-t-t-to the devil before me for the death of King Robert…” said the man with a practised manner. The other two copied him with just as much if not more blubbering and stuttering. When it was done I felt the bargain settle lightly upon me. Their faces however scrunched up as they felt something latch onto their souls.

It must have been deeply disconcerting to only have a metaphorical idea that you had a soul and then to one day feel something that indeed confirmed the existence of said soul. They broke into tears. I didn’t offer them comfort and instead smiled at the Nobles. These poor fools thought they had been clever. They’d literally given me carte-blanche on what I could do as long as it was ostensibly towards ending King Robert’s life. A life who’s days were numbered regardless!

I had no timeframe I was locked into nor did I even need to be the one to kill them! Perhaps it was rules-lawyering but if I’d learnt anything from my last life it was that you should always bent the rules until they may as well have been broken anyway!

“Very well, gentlemen I shall depart now if it is the same to you?” I said magnanimously.

The nobles nodded stiffly watching the former servants with a glint in their eyes. They obviously expected to see something occur. Perhaps they thought the two men and the woman might have shrivelled up or been consumed in hell fire.

At their agreement the circle I had been summoned into dimmed and whatever bindings protected the fools from me vanished.

I didn’t kill them though. Indeed I didn’t do anything to them that would hurt them.

I merely snapped my fingers and the attendants and nobles all crumbled as a sleep spell manifested and shot into them before they could even be aware of it. They crumpled, some I made sure to use a variant of a magic hand spell to catch before they fell to the ground.

The nobles I let fall where they were. Double chin grunted like a pig when he hit the ground. Weasel made a solid thwack and moustache faceplanted.

I then stepped out of the circle and grinned. I was a Devil that had pretty much just gotten free rein on what he wanted to do. I eyed the three former servants and smiled to myself. A flex of magic so platforms of magic scoop them up. I hadn’t spared them the sleep spell, as I didn’t want to overload them. They’d have slowed things up and I wanted to be away.

For that I’d need to clean up the scene of the summoning somewhat.

I turned to the wall of the chamber and with a flourish imprinted a sigil of my summoning onto the wall. Then I formed a paint spell that I set into the sigil to make it imposed on the gray wall with crimson red paint that looked like blood.

Perfect. It was suitably ominous.

Before I left I repositioned a few people so they would have some very awkward awakenings. I stuck to the servants that I had noted looked gleeful as the emn and girl had been called up to act as sacrifices. Holier-than-thou attitudes made me want to tweak their noses. Various men and women were positioned into sixty-nine positions and others were spooning in large body piles.

I giggled like a school boy as I put the last servant into a compromising position before walking off. It delighted me to be so free of expectations for the moment.

While I didn’t need them I wanted them to be greedy and keep summoning me and talk of their ‘success’.  I even stuffed a few ready-made pamphlets into their hands which I had written enchantments into that would compel them to hand off to others like themselves who might one day summon me or to hang onto them for their own children. As a devil you needed a returning ‘customer base’ after all!

I departed with the room suitably rearranged and set up to my liking. I could just imagine their… I paused on the way out the door and tossed another spell back over my head.

Why imagine their expressions when I could observe through magic?!

The nobles would be flustered just from being knocked out and I needed them for now so I left them be.

My own acquisitions floated long like balloons tied behind me, bobbing along at a sedate speed as I walked along the stone tunnels to find myself emerging into a hall that was notably ruined. The roof had caved in and I was interested to note that the structure itself barely stood. It was interesting that it remained standing at all. I rubbed my chin in thought.

So we have a King Robert in what appeared to be the Mediaeval period… So that could be anywhere from the fifth to the thirteenth… or if this was a particular backwater possibly even the fifteenth century.  When I spotted a number of guard sitting around a fire drinking from a gourd I clicked my tongue and conjured up the sleep spell once more.

I was just patting myself on the back when one guard staggered to his feet.

“You… you fiend?! Who’re you?”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise at his resistance to the spell and gave the guard another look over. He was rather clean, handsome, and appeared to have a good deal of muscle to him. He was a prime example of a strong man. Possibly cut from a protagonist mould. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he had a sacred gear as thus far he was a stand out among all the people I had encountered. But then again my sample size was in the lower two digits for earth in this life.

“No one important,” I flicked a ball of wind into his ankles and he flipped over himself at the impact and landed with a heavy crunch that made me wince. He was knocked out but I didn’t like the sound of that landing…

“Urgh… you… you’re attacking us?” I stared at the man as he struggled to stand.

Well now, this was impressive. But ultimately a distraction. There wasn’t a way I could work him into my plans. Instead of replying I sprinted up to him and caught his head in my hands where I pushed the sleep speel through his innate resistance.

“Sleep little man, you’ve impressed me but don’t think I won’t kill you should you get in my way.”

His eyes slid from me to the bobbing figures behind me. His eyes shut slowly as he murmured a name. “... belle… what are you doing with my…” His head lolled to the side and I deposited him on the ground.

Hmmm now I was feeling like I was stepping into a xianxia trope. I had the evil young master, played by myself as a handsome devil. The stalwart guardsman with surprising innate skill and power, and then the young beauty. The story practically wrote itself.

I gave the sky a dubious look. “You’re supposed to be dead you know…” I murmured to myself before shrugging it off. Oh well. If he did remember it he’d just seek me out and I’d get some entertainment I expected.

A small fish in a big pond wasn’t even the right metaphor for this poor lad. But then again the same could be said about myself and a number of other entities in this universe. I’d need to check my pride before I one day found myself crying out ‘you dare!’ unironically.

I slapped my cheeks a little and checked over the possible protagonist. I put a little silver in his purse for his ability and then turned my eyes to the three oxen carts. I stared in disappointment.

Suddenly I was thinking it was closer to the fifth century than the fifteenth in my estimation. That or these nobles were very poor.

What sort of self-respecting noble rode around in an oxen cart?

I sighed and put the three people into the back of the cart before taking the driver's seat.

I then came upon my first real hardship of the night as I stared at the chewing beasts of burden. Then I looked down at the reins before looking back up at the oxen.

“I have no idea how to operate these things,” I said aloud.

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Belle awoke to the rocking of a wagon and immediately sat bolt upright. She shouldn’t be in a nobleman’s wagon! It was wrong! It wasn’t the finest of her Lord’s wagons but the simple matter presented itself that she should not be in the wagon as that would mean her Lord had…

She stopped when she felt no soreness that the other women sometimes described after entertaining their Lord on his trips. She hadn’t travelled with the man before but she had heard the stories the other women spoke of.

When her father had fallen ill she had asked the head maid who she could go to for help when the sickness had claimed the rest of the family. The woman had gotten a conflicted look before leading her to their Lord where the man had listened with the patience of a priest.

Telling her story and hearing how he was moved had almost made her disbelieve all the rumours about the man.

He had told her that sending his healer to her family would cost him a good deal and that the man needed to be ready for any of his own family. It would be too expensive.

Unless…

Unless she had agreed to offer herself up for his needs.

Instantly Belle had understood that the gossip had been right but she’d known that her father, mother and brother depended on seeing a healer. They were too ill. Too weak. Belle had tearfully accepted the deal with what had seemed to be the devil.

Only for the man to sink lower by then leading her and a few others into the night that very evening. His glee seeing him meeting up with a few other Lords that lived nearby. They met at the old ruins of the hall of Lord Champanon… or what the old women referred to it as.

Then they had stripped into robes before each Lord had brought out a servant, her and two older men and they’d cut their hands and drained it into a bowl that they’d slathered into demonic writing while looking at some book.

Then the chanting and then… and then…

Belle looked to the front of the wagon and found herself transfixed.

Then they’d called down him.

Belle knew her bible, as well as any girl could, and she’d been told that the Devil had fallen from Heaven for acting against God but the good book had never spoken about how he’d kept his good looks. He looked so handsome. She’d assumed it would have been like Saul fell out of the tree and brok ehis nose. He wasn’t so pretty to look at after that but it didn’t stop him being popular with some of the girls. But this man… this devil… he was just so… so… So refined. Like the noblest of men she’d ever met.

And when he spoke? His voice did things to her that she barely understood but made her want to approach the man Devil though he may be.

He smiled now as he did then, sitting on the front seat of the wagon while next to him the other man that had been with Belle spoke.

“—a steady hand Milord is all it takes you don’t need to be jerking them around or harassing them. Oxen just need good prodding to stay in line. If they get irritated or spooked they’ll do worse but a good sharp poke sees them on the road more often than not!” said the man before bobbing his head as he glanced furtively at the handsome Ang—devil next to him on the bench.

“I see, well I certainly have learnt something today that I wasn’t expecting. What a wonderful occurrence. The nature of Oxen! Ha!” said the man slapping his knee and throwing his head back to laugh gayly. His golden locks caught in the sun and Belle found herself sighing in delight for simply being close to him.

The man turned and smiled at her! “Ho? Good morning there my dear.”

He called her my dear! Belle’s heart fluttered into her throat and she opened her mouth but nothing emerged. She nodded. “Hu-h-h-h-h…” she stopped trying to talk and dropped her gaze.

“Ah, you’re a shy one are you?” said the man in his measured timbre that made Belle think of freshly fallen timbre that had been honed to a smooth polish. “Well at least you’re better than the other man…”

Belle realised that she was not alone in the wagon and that in the furthest corner and man was hurried whispering prayers.

“Shan’t tempt me…lord is my shepherd…Brookth the… the…” the man seemed to be locked in prayer as his eyes watched the golden man fearfully.

The man sighed and Belle heard him shift. She peeked up at him and found him glancing at her over his shoulder. “Well you may call me Lord Raviel for now.”

“Oh!” Belle only then remembered her manners and she sketched a bow only to realise that it wasn’t proper to bow while seated. She tried to stand only for the oxen to tug the wagon over a rut in the road and cause her to spill backwards. She landed on her bum and then had to scramble to push down her skirts.

Thankfully Lord Raviel had missed it with how was looking forwards at the oxen.

Belle considered standing again only to realise she’d missed her chance to do the right thing. She knocked on her head.

“Oh you silly klutz. Mother was right about you being born with two left feet,” she whispered to herself.

She sat in the back and watched the road amble by. It was almost idyllic in how she didn’t have to walk and her new Lord seemed to be content not to talk.

Still she worried about her family. “Lord Raviel… when are you going to claim our souls?” she said deciding to be brave. The man muttering prayers stopped immediately at that and the man driving likewise looked at the lounging Lord.

“Well you see…” He paused and sat up. “Ah I never got your name did I? I got Charles’ name and backstory with his wanting a good life for his son, and Franco.” He smiled at the praying man. “Who is very very naughty for pretending to be a fake priest with his wife and family of the time. Tut tut!” he said with a small shake of his head as though admonishing the man.

Then the Lord shrugged. “Apart from his insistent prayers at me, he’s otherwise a good man for selling his soul to let his family go free.” He smiled at Franco as the man made a cross at Lord Raviel’s gaze.

The Lord then looked at her. “But I didn’t get yours. What is your name?” he said with a tilt of his head that made Belle look to the skin of his neck.

She wondered if it was as smooth as the rest of him and if she could… She swallowed and coughed out ‘B-belle! My name is Belle milord.”

“Well Belle, you, much like either of these fine gentlemen have agreed to grant me your souls should I ask for them.”

“The lord is my shepherd!” started up Franco only for Lord Raviel to raise a finger and suddenly there was silence apart from the stomping feet of the oxen.

“As I was saying, I have the ownership of your souls but that does not mean I need to take them. Merely owning them is enough for me. For now that is enough for me but should you act against me or mine then I will claim your soul and leave you a husk of your former self have no mistake.”

She felt pale as she swallowed.

“That is not to say it will remain that way though,” he said causing everyone to watch him fixedly.

“Your souls… well right now they are mine certainly, freely given should I ask for them but… they need not remain that way.  I have a plan you see. Right now it’s not important as what I want is not to hurry things along to the end but rather to draw out the time in between. Don’t ask me how things will end because I can tell you now we will all die. What you should be asking is…”

He turned so that his body was facing towards Charles but his eyes were looking straight at Belle. “How can I live?”

He twirled his hand through the air. “How can I live so that each day is enriching? How can I enhance my soul? How can I…” He grinned. “Trick the Devil into releasing my soul back to me?”

Belle’s eyes widened at that and she licked her lips as Lord Raviel got a very pleased smile on his face.

“Entertain me enough now and in the future and I will release my ownership back onto you to do with your immortal souls whatever you wish. For now, however, there is something I wish to try.”

He turned around in his seat so his legs were hanging in the wagon. “Have you ever heard the story of ‘My Fair Lady?” he said with a teasing smile that let Belle know he fully didn’t expect her to have the right answer. Her shake of the head prompted another smile.

“What we’re going to do is play a game to build youtube Belle and I’m going to work you into the local nobility as a foreign noble of far-off lands. Unsure of the local customs but an exotic beauty! You will earn to talk, think, dance, and be a lady! Then we shall represent you at court and set you your task of claiming the very best husband you can for yourself!”

He leaned in. “and you shall in fact be a woman of only common birth!” He leaned back and flickered his eyes to the men.

“You … fine fellows will have a choice, attempt to be nobles yourselves and undergo the same training… or take up positions in Lady Isabella on the house Espanosa! We shall attend balls, and feasts and fairs and win great acclaim such that the people will announce our names before we ever set foot in their homes!”  Raviel’s eyes looked far off as if he could already imagine her in fine gowns and frumping around. He didn’t see Belle squirm at the description.

He looked to Franco and then Charles. “You could pass as a fake priest, and you Charles as her older knight!” Both men sighed with relief, then Franco got an affronted look.

Belle wasn’t surprised but that was probably due the Devil not really caring how heretical it would be to have a man pretend to be a Priest. If they were going to do that… well her dream wouldn’t be that bad… would it?

Belle raised her hand while cringing backwards. Raviel raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

“Can I be a Lady knight if we’re being like mummers?” Belle said deciding that she was already in as far as she could go what with Lord Raviel being the Devil and all. Why not be a Lady knight?

Lord Raviel blinked, tilted his head and then blinked some more. Then he tossed his hands up. “Right! Looks like it’ll be My Fair Lady meets a Knight’s tale because why not! Eat your heart out Henry Higgins!”

The sound of a horse neighing drew everyone’s attention as a pair of men in loose chainmail trotted up with round helmets.

“Haha! Who do we find on our road Gaston! These men don’t know what they have done but we shall tell them!”

Gaston merely grunted and kicked his horse. Lord Raviel gave the approaching men a look over a very wide smile. “And this right here is exactly what we need.”

He vaulted off the side of the wagon and walked up. “Hello there! Fancy dying today?”

Gaston and the other man snorted and drew their blades. For a moment Belle worried for Lord Raviel only to get caught in how silly that was. He was the Devil and she was worried for him? Shouldn’t she be worried for the other men?

She was proven correct as one after the other the men swung down at the Devil only for him to take no injury. Instead, both men’s arms flew up and around and sent them catapulting around like they’d suddenly swung the opposite directions. Only their screams let Belle know they hadn’t meant to do that.

Had… had the devil just hit them so hard and fast as to break their arms before they could hurt him? Or was this a trick like the priests said the Devil was won’t to do? Belle had no idea but she was too far in to care. She watched as Lord Raviel struck both men in the necks which caused a horrible cracking noise and then a few twitches for each man. The horses had run on past and were starting to slow.

Lord Raviel glanced at them and raised his hand. A small white light came from the tip and moments later the horses were turning around and trotting up to the wagon. Belle had no idea what to think of this behaviour from the horses then again as the Devil he was said to commune with the beast wasn’t he? Or had Belle gotten that wrong?

It was obviously right though?

Raviel clapped his hands. “Well friends! This is a promising start for the… Epic adventure of Lord Raviel!” Belle tilted her head. Had she misheard him mutter something about ‘first’?

Franco looked at the two dead men and threw up over the side of the wagon. Charles looked aghast. Belle looked at the dead men.

“Can I have Gaston’s sword? It looks nicer.”

Lord Raviel’s smile only grew. “You can!” he said handing her the sword. She drew it and grinned before toppingly over. She lost her grip when she hit the wagon floor and the sword skittered to the side before skewering the wood near Franco.

“Watch it! Jesus, Mary and Joseph why did you give her a sword?!” said Franco as he tugged his robe off the sword. Belle quickly reclaimed the blade before anyone could try to take it away from her.

“It’s educational, funny, and also because… I’m the devil?” said Lord Raviel. Franco started to pray and Charles joined him.

Belle held up her blade and realised why it felt wrong. She turned to Lord Raviel. "Can I have the other one as well?" He handed that over to her and she held both swords in her hands. 

Now, this!? 

This felt right!

Franco started praying, Charles turned to watch her carefully, and Lord Raviel laughed. Belle wasn’t sure what their problem was. It seemed like things were off to a great start!

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A.N. Some Noble have loosened Raviel onto the Medieval landscape with three hapless fellows.