Shadow Slave

There were two other groups of people that belonged to Gunlaug.

The first of them consisted of Sleepers with useful Utility Abilities and their helpers. These people, known as Artisans, played a very important role in the life of the castle. They were responsible for creating and maintaining various items that were either vital to survival or made existing on the Forgotten shore less unbearable, such as clothes, tools, equipment, utensils, and various gear.

Each Artisan had a small team of less gifted Sleepers helping them craft the necessary items. All in all, there were around a hundred of them in total, with most of that number consisting of the assistants. They were led by a young woman called Kido, who was a talented manager and had an Ability that allowed her to change attributes of certain plants.

The vegetables in Sunny’s stew came from her garden. Since such an Ability was nothing short of priceless on the Forgotten Shore, where food was scarce and mostly homogenous, it wasn’t surprising that she had become one of the lieutenants despite being much younger than the rest of them.

The status of Artisans was somewhat of a tense subject in the Bright Castle. Because they were largely non-combatants, Guards felt that their position should be inferior to that of people actually risking their lives in vicious battles against Nightmare Creatures.

Artisans, on the contrary, believed that the rarity of Utility Aspects and the vital role they played in maintaining the living conditions inside the castle should land them more prestige than the Castle Guard, which basically recruited any random nobody, enjoyed. This conflict had been simmering for a long time, and was not going to be resolved anytime soon.

Funnily enough, Hunters, who risked their lives the most, did not care about the issue one way or another. Their leader Gemma, however, was silently supporting the Artisans and their chief, Kido — which prevented the Guards from being too forceful in their argument.

The last group of people who belonged to Gunlaug was the Handmaidens. These were the young women Sunny had seen quietly performing various chores around the castle, like making sure that windows were properly closed before the onset of the night or preparing and handing out food during mealtime.

They were responsible for maintaining the castle itself, as well as serving the high-ranking members of the Host. There were also around a hundred of them.

From what Sunny knew about the world, these poor girls should have been the prime victims of abuse within the walls of the ancient stronghold, but to his surprise, they were actually strangely revered, and even a little feared. The main reason for this was their leader, a mysterious and strikingly beautiful woman known as Seishan.

Seishan not only took care of her Handmaidens, but also secretly taught them how to defend themselves. The exact extent of their training was unknown, but Sunny clearly saw that members of the Castle Guard were very careful to behave themselves around Handmaidens… most of the time.

The other reason was that, like everything else in the castle, the young women technically belonged to Gunlaug, and Gunlaug was very particular about people laying hands on his belongings without permission. Even if some foolish Guard was brave enough to anger Seishan, no one with a desire to live was willing to get on the bad side of the Bright Lord.

That was the first time someone managed to sense his shadow. One moment, beautiful Seishan was calmly standing with her back to the shaded corner where it was concealed, giving instructions to one of her subordinates, and in the next, she suddenly turned around and looked directly at the hiding shadow.

Not knowing what else to do, Sunny shut his eyes and shifted all of his perception back. He was fairly sure that no one would be able to directly see the shadow — after all, his innate stealth enhancement was even more pronounced when it came to his silent companion.

However, there were a lot of different Aspects. Many Awakened, for example, were able to feel when someone was looking at them. Praying that this was the case here, Sunny waited for a while before cautiously opening one eye.

Luckily, this time, he didn’t cause too much of a commotion. Confirming that Seishan had returned to her conversation, he hurriedly sent the shadow away and made sure to stay away from the mysterious beauty, and her Handmaidens in general, ever since.

The last hundred people in the castle were those who paid tribute, but didn’t serve Gunlaug directly. There was no real name for this group, so Sunny simply called them “tenants” in his mind.

There were two types of tenants: a smaller number of them were those who were able to make a decent living by providing Gunlaug’s men with various services, mostly having to do with craftsmanship and entertainment. For example, the was a man who created something akin to a music lounge, another one who operated a small theatre troupe, and even an entrepreneurial girl who owned a gambling den.

A larger number of tenants were people like Harper — those who had entered the castle through luck and remained there by the skin of their teeth, desperately trying to earn soul shards for tribute by acting as servants and doing various menial jobs.

These poor folks were at the very bottom of the social hierarchy of the castle.

…And on the opposite side of that hierarchy, there was the golden serpent, the master of the castle, Bright Lord Gunlaug himself.

The man who, by Effie’s description, was nearly immortal.

On his fifth day in the ancient stronghold, Sunny had finally laid eyes on this loathsome tyrant.

He didn’t like what he saw at all.