It was a little known fact that the more rural and arboreal regions of Massachusetts had seen an even more dramatic expansion than the state’s more urban areas. As a result, there were numerous enchanted forests, haunted mountains, and wild untamed plains within the state.

Within one of the state’s enchanted forests was a compound. An estate that had been in the clan’s possession since as far back as before the first days of chaos brought by the endless night event.

An isolated magical fortress that had been around since shortly after the first pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock. A massive mansion that would have housed thousands back in its hey-day but now was only home to roughly a dozen souls to.

This estate was now the Wallace clan’s retirement manor. A large communal mansion whose halls were manned by golems in maid uniforms and bound undead attendants.

This estate served as the Wallace Clan’s ancestral hall. A resting place for the handful of old undyings that remained within the mortal world watching over the clan, while they fended off the reaper, and quietly prepared for their ascent into true-immortality. This was where those amongst the Wallace clan’s most talented elders retired to, once they’d handed the day to day issues of clan-life over to the younger generation.

The estate was topped by an ancient bell, and for the first time in over a century, the bell was ringing. It one low and heavy, but oddly energetic in tempo.

Maeve Wallace was the first to be awakened by the ringing of the bell. Not coincidentally, she also happened to be the Wallace family ancestor that was lowest in status. She was the youngest of the magus clan’s undying seniors and thus the person with a room furthest from the ley-node on which the estate had been built. Which naturally meant her quarters were closest to the estate’s surface.

“Bugger...Just what is that noise?!” said Maeve. Scowling. Her gray-green eyes flashing as she was forced to drop the meditative state she’d been holding for the last five months.

Maeve rose from her bed using chantless magic to clothe herself. A one-piece dress, and a mage’s robes crawling over her form. Her hair arranging itself into a tidy bun.

Then she stepped outside her quarters into the hallway of the manor.

“That damned ringing…,” said Maeve. Frowning as the ancient bell’s deafening song continued. Forcing the old woman to shield her ears with a sound dampening spell.

Maeve teleported outside the manor and found the source of the noise. She was tempted to try and stop the ringing forcibly, but centuries of caution made her hesitate. So instead, she returned to the manor and headed towards the quarters of Scevola Wallace. He was the senior closest to her in rank, but also happened to be just enough her senior that he was likely to know why the ancient bell had suddenly elected to ring.

She knocked on his door but had to keep knocking for several minutes before she got an answer. Eventually, the door opened and a diminutive, sleepy-looking, man with gray-streaked red hair stepped out into the hallway. Yawning as he closed the door to his quarters.

“Eh, who the bloody-...Oh, so it’s you? Good thing I didn’t just start hexing. I thought that damn brat Carmine was pranking again.”

“...What?!” said Maeve. Not sure what the man was talking about.

“Carmine? The prankster imp? He used to haunt the manner but...Wait, what year is it again? Oh, now I remember we exorcised him a while ago, didn’t we?” said Scevola. The old man talking almost entirely to himself. Sounding slightly senile despite looking like he’d only recently left the ranks of the middle-aged.

“...I don’t suppose you know what all that ringing is about?” said Maeve. Shaking her head and deciding that she didn’t have time to let herself be confused.

“Ringing? Oh, so that’s what that noise was? I’d heard it and just sort of blocked it out.”

Both Maeve and Scevola teleported back outside the manor so the old man could get a look at the annoyingly energetic bell. Scevola frowned as he listened to the bells song, then suddenly the man’s bushy red eyebrows jumped and he teleported back into the manor.

Maeve followed Scevola and was lead down a series of hallways. Following him took her down to the bottom-most levels of the estate. An area of the estate that she was normally not allowed to enter despite her elevated status in the clan. The place where the estate was closest to the ley-node it was built upon and the aetheric levels were highest.

Maeve took a breath, feeling the aether-rich air fill her lungs, and felt an almost boundless envy. She noted the amount of energy she was taking in merely by breathing and tried to calculate how much quicker she’d have been able to attain a higher level of magical cultivation were allowed to meditate in this part of the estate.

“Breathe a little more shallowly will ya’, kiddo? I’d be careful of disturbing the aether flow down here unless you don’t mind dealing with one of our family's irate ancients.” said Scevola

Maeve exhaled. Clucking her tongue. The old man was right of course, the eldest amongst the clan’s ancestors could be quite...unreasonable. Thus it was best for her to tread lightly. All the same, Maeve couldn’t help wondering how long she’d have to wait for a few of them to either die or ascend so she could claim a room on this level of the manor.

Eventually, Scevola led her to the largest and most ornate of the suites within the estate. The room at the very heart of the manor. Its the door was warded with grand magics and guarded by colossal golems of bone and steel. And on this level, the aether was rich to the point of decadence.

“Uh...Is-, Is this the Ancestor’s room?” said Maeve. Trembling and unsure if it was fear or anticipation making her do so.

“Nh...Yep,” said Scevola. His tone uncommonly somber.

Though there was a hierarchy amongst the Wallace Clan’s ancestors there was only one ancestor that everyone within the clan called Ancestor. This personage changed from time to time, but it was usually the oldest person within the clan.

In the current century, that person was Hanna Elmira Wallace. The old witch might not have been around when the family was founded, but she was certainly around before they made their way to North America, when it was still being called “the new world”.

Not many people had seen her in the past few decades, but everyone knew it was almost solely with her aid and the assistance of her handful of apprentices that the Wallace clan managed to survive the chaos of the ENE.

Scevola short of the door, stepping to the side and picking up a rod covered in cloth. Next to the rod was an old metal gong. He struck it thrice and then stepped back gazing up at the door and the massive undead wardens that stood in front of the door.

Time passed, and Maeve couldn’t be sure if it was hours or days. She only knew that something was happening when the golems stepped aside and the door began to creak open.

Out from the room issued a great deluge of billowing mist. Once the mist cleared, there stood an old woman. Stately and prim. Towering above her two juniors despite her four-foot frame.

As he saw the white-haired, green-eyed, witch, Scevola dropped to his knees. Maeve followed his lead did the same. Feeling a tumultuous mixture of awe and fear at the sight of the clan’s oldest living member.

“Greetings, Ancestor. Congratulations on your success” said Scevola. Shouting out of enthusiasm, and because it was an open secret that the old woman was slightly hard of hearing.

“Success? What success?” said Old Hanna. Her pale ancient brow becoming even more wrinkled as she furrowed it.

“The bell of ascension is ringing...And according to the family annals that can only mean that only your esteemed self or your students have entered the ranks of the true immortals,” said Scevola. Trying not to sound like he was explaining clan tradition to the eldest member of the clan.

“The bell of ascension, huh? Interesting, interesting…” said Hanna.

Maeve simply gaped. Eyes growing wide as she understood the meaning of the bell’s tolling for the first time. She could vaguely remember having read about the matter when she was younger, but the knowledge had clearly been eroded over time.

Hanna moved past her two juniors, gliding past Scevola who remained kneeling, and Maeve who was still trying to figure out which of her seniors had ascended.

Hanna seemed to float like a spirit, her footsteps replaced with the faint whisper of silk gliding over carpeting. The two junior elders of the clan followed behind the living specter, as she led them to a series of rooms.

Hanna’s first stop was the first door, one floor above her own. Instead of knocking, the little old woman used a forceful blast of telekinetic force. The door quickly opened and out came a man who looked more like an old gray wolf. Sharp-eyed, large in the frame, with a figure that still had hints of robustness.”

“Who the devi-?!...Oh!...Greetings, Ancestor,” said the man. His surging aura quickly subsiding as he recognized who was at his door.

“Oi, Ivan...I don’t suppose you broke through recently did you?” said Ancestor Hanna.

“Unfortunately, not, Mistress…” said Ivan Wallace. Sounding confused and then a little downcast.

“Nhm...Alright then, sorry for the interruption,” said Hanna. Quickly turning away and leading Maeve and Scevola to another door.

The next-door she knocked on was all the other way on the other side of the hall. This time when the door opened, an old skeleton in an evening dress and mages robe stepped out.

The Wallaces that made it to the undying state occasionally had setbacks. The unlucky ones died immediately. The luckier ones ended up in a state of half-life, where they transformed into greater-undead. Forced to hurriedly cultivate until they either became true immortals or were unable to resist the call of the nether realm.

Malina Wallace was one of those who’d ended up turning into a dead. After an injury that she’d been afflicted with during WWII lead to a deviation in her magical cultivation, she’d ended up becoming a lich.

Maeve shuddered in revulsion and fear, as she saw the women because she’d nearly fallen to a similar fate. The skeletal witch saw Maeve’s shudder and snorted in derision. Her ghost fire eyes flickering as she focused on the ancestor.

“...Ancestor?” said Malina.

“I don’t suppose you broke through recently?” said Hanna. Frowning because she doubted her great-great-granddaughter would keep her undead appearance if that had been the case.

Despite lacking a face, eyes, or eyebrows, Malina managed to raise a brow at the older woman. Hanna clucked her tongue and shook her head.

“Right...Sorry for bothering you... It’s just that the big arse bell outside’s apparently ringing and besides you, myself, and Ivan. I can’t really think of who might have broken through.”

“Then why don’t you just call a meeting of the clan ancestors, Grandmother?” said Malina.

“Ah, that’s an idea…” said Hanna.

The old ancestor turned around and faced the two juniors that were trailing behind her.

“Alright, I’m going to head back to my room, because I’m too old for this shit, I kind of don’t care as much since it's not Malina or Ivan, my two apprentices, and honestly, this little jaunt has been exhausting. You, boy, are going to turn off that damn bell. And you, girl, are going to call a meeting of the ancestors...and try and figure out which little bastard has gone and done this family proud.” said Hanna.

With that said, the woman was gone. Teleporting away. Likely returning to her room to return to the meditative state that had extended her lifespan for hundreds of years.

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This was the beginning of Maeve’s longest month in several decades. That first meeting of the ancestors took forever to get together and getting all the ancestors to come when she called was like herding cats. Terrifying, morally ambiguous, scarily powerful cats.

What was worse was that the meeting came to nothing. Resulting in nothing. None of the ancestors that dwelt within the estate had ascended to immortality. None of the ancestors who were abroad had ascended to immortality. No one had a clue why the hell that damned bell had started ringing.

A few weeks later, Maeve found that none of the “elders” within the junior generation had ascended either when she called a meeting of the elders. After seeking out both the ancestors and elders and coming up with nothing, Maeve promptly decided to pass the buck to the clan’s current head.

Which is how Evelyn Wallace, the current head of the Wallace Clan’s main branch and their flagship shipping company Five Wind Shipping, found herself with her current headache.

This headache wouldn’t be the first headache that Evelyn would find herself burdened with that year. Her sister and her sister’s husband had just shown up, and their reappearance had created a minor upheaval within the family’s social structure.

Margaret on her own was a headache and a half, because she was strong enough that there were more than a few elders who were chomping at the bit to try and pull her into their schemes. Seeking to weaponize the woman against the family’s enemies and Evelyn the clan head.

The woman’s lack of regard for the clan and the Wallace family as a whole, meant that most attempts at using her for such schemes were either complete non-starters or they ended messily and explosively. And it was Evelyn who had the task of either stop such issues for arising or seeing that they were smoothly cleaned up before the government or the national Magus Guilds tried to put their hand in.

Vergil, Margaret’s husband was also a headache because not only was he just as obnoxiously powerful as his wife, everyone knew that Margaret would go along with whatever he ended up doing. Even more troublesome, he was a lot more approachable when the Wallace clansmen approached him with the prospect of high paying hijinks.

The only mercy was that the ‘independent’ couple thankfully hadn’t found the time to ask where their daughter was and hadn’t thought to look into how the girl had been treated during their absence.

The only dangerous moment came when Evelyn all but outed herself when it came to the fact that she, and by extension, the rest of the family, had lost track of the girl. Fortunately, the couple were so self-involved that they never really thought to pursue the matter beyond informing Evelyn that they’d somehow met up with the girl before they’d returned to the Wallace family’s territory within the suburbs of Massachusetts.

Evelyn had been so worried about having the matter blow up, that she hadn’t dared to ask how, when, or where the girl had been when they’d met her. Naturally, this meant Margot’s name was also never brought up when Evelyn tried to find out which of the clan’s members had managed to ascend and leave behind the realm of mortals.