Waking up the next day I looked down to find that the girl was sound asleep with no twitching and no look of pain on her face. I smiled at her as I stroked her blood streaked hair. I would have to clean her up soon but there were more pressing things to deal with right now like speaking with the people outside and the body in my bed. First things first I need to ask Gareena a favor.

Getting up I looked around. I was the only other person in the room. The rest must have started the day. Looking over to the window I noticed it was rather sunny outside. I pulled my blackout curtains to make sure my new charge does not have any problems with it. Glancing down at my clothes I saw they were a mess. They were bloody and ripped all over. Walking into my room I pointedly ignored my bed and grabbed some clothes then went and took a scolding shower.

Once I was out I checked in on the girl again seeing she was still fast asleep I made my way down stairs. At the bottom was Stewart. He looked at me and said “Good morning Vivi.”

I nodded and returned the gesture. ‘They must be keeping a guard on my room.’ I thought to myself. “I assume you already are but make sure no one goes up there. Not even Sarah okay.”

He nodded his affirmation and I walked out into the bar. It was bustling with activity. No one noticed me walking in. Taking advantage of that, I snuck my way outside to the dungeon where I saw the twins standing guard at the entrance. They both looked at me pointedly. I knew what they wanted but I wanted to get this part over with as fast as I could.

“I will gather all of you up soon but there is something I must ask the dungeon master and I don't want to do it out here with all the people to see her. I don't think she would appreciate that.”

They shared a look and nodded letting me walk past them. Once I was at the start of the first floor I used Call of the dungeon master. Before me materialized the other worldly form of Gareena. Her blue green astral-like humanoid body with massive antlers protruding from her head.

“Hello Viviana, what can I do for you.” She spoke in her ethereal voice. Shaking off the wonder of what she was, I spoke.

“I know you said you would not permit the building of things on your first floor but I came to ask if we could make a cemetery of those who have died in and around your dungeon.”

She brought up a delicate hand to her face and gently tapped her cheek. “Why?”

It was only one word but I could still feel the power that was being held back. “Simply, we do not have a place right now to do so and sadly my past had come back to take the life of one of my friends among the humans along with a number of young vampires. But the vampires will not be brought here; they are ash by now.”

The astral being stood there thinking for a time before answering. “I will allow it. An area near the entrance will be made for such a purpose. But this is the only thing that will be built on this floor outside of raids and breaks understood?”

I shrank back slightly by the power she let slip into her words and answered. “Understood.”

She nodded her massive antlers moving with the motion. “Now what other business do you have?”

“As of right now that is the only thing I need to speak on. Though as you have surely noticed we started to let people in the dungeon yesterday before things on the surface broke into chaos. That will most likely resume soon.”

“Ashamed that is. Well if that is all there is to speak on I will take my leave good luck to you Viviana.” Then she was gone. I then felt the ground shift and looked over next to the wall that made up the edgy of the floor and the rock wall moved away and an open grassy area with an ornate metal fence was created. I smiled and made my way up to the surface to face the music.

Getting to the top I asked the twins to gather everyone including Eric to the stairs of my home and to also have Eric put some people he trusted in charge of guarding the dungeon entrance. I walked back to my room and started to clean up the young vampire. After changing her clothes with some sweatpants and sweatshirt that were too big for her and cleaning the worst of the blood off of her, I cleaned up my couch as best I could. Putting a clean blank over top of it I laid the girl back down on it.

I walked over to my door and opened it, calling down. “Come on up everyone.” I then took my place with my new charge waiting for everyone to come up. Once everyone was up here and was gathered around with some in chairs, others on the ground and a couple standing I got it moving along.

“To start with, did I miss anything important while I was out.” looking over everyone they all turned to Sarah and Edward who were sitting next to each other. Sarah gestured for Edward to take the lead and he spoke.

“The only major thing was that it was announced that martial law would be taking effect in southern California. Though ours was among the worst it was not an isolated breakout of violence. Police stations were firebombed with system enhancer Molotov. The city council buildings overrun and fires started all over. It was the worst public acts of violence we have ever seen.”

“Did any of it spill out into our area?”

“No, unless Carl was a victim of it but based on your reaction to seeing him I assume not.” Edward said with frost in his voice.

“So mind explaining that?” He continued

I took a deep breath and wilted a bit and creases formed in my normally superhumanly perfect skin. I let them for the first time truly see what some many years does to a person and let go.

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“First there is one person here that needs some background.” I looked over to Eric and said “I am an ancient vampire. No, not everything said about vampires is true. But the important thing for this conversation is that I am immortal.” Eric was surprised but not very much so.

“With that said I have been alive a long long time. Heck there is a chance I meet Jesus Christ. I mean I was in the right area at the time." I joked hollowly. A Couple people’s eyebrows rose at that.

“That is a long time to make mistakes and let them fester without knowing it. One of my greatest of those mistakes is my oldest still living child.” A couple people took sharp intakes.

“Of all the vampires anywhere close to my age I have turned the least amount of humans. The number is less than 20 in over 2000 years. Most would be in the hundreds. Of those still living before last night could be counted on one hand and those that I have a good relationship with are only two of them. While two others simply disowned me their mother though there is no animosity there. The last one is my oldest living child and he hates me for a reason I still do not understand completely. But it does not matter because I hate him as much if not more than him. He is one of the greatest mistakes I let loose on the world.

Last night he killed Carl and made sure I would know who did it to lure me into a trap to kill me.” This time there was an audible gasp in the room.

“I don't know if it is something to do with my rank among the vampires or something special to me but I can if I focus on sensing other vampires nearby it is easier if they are of my lineage. So I did that and found a group of vampires all of which felt to be my descendants. Once I got there I found him and 24 other vampires with him. All of which he had turned. He explained to me he was planning on killing me for some time now. But was not planning on doing so for a few more decades in hopes of having a better chance at succeeding. I will not be going into the details on how and why.

The reason why he decided to move up his plans was as you can guess, the system. There were now more benefits for him to kill me, that not only being the dungeon. The system also helped him overcome the main road blocks he was worried would keep him from killing me. In the end he was right, if he attacked me with what he did and I also did not have the system I would have fallen and you would all be dead or in the process of becoming vampires.” Everyone had a look of total fear now.

“But he overlooked the fact that I too had the system and was right next to a source of easy experience in the dungeon. This was his downfall. After I pointed that out to him and I displayed that I could fight all 24 of his vampires and win, he made all the vampires fight to the death by either my hand or their own. In the end the only one I was able to save was this one.” Everyone looked back at the girl layering on my lap. I hunched a bit more at the memory of all of my kin.

“One thing I would like to explain is how vampire lineage works. All of those that I change are considered my children. Kinda like adopted children but in this case they literally have my blood running through their veins. I can also have children but the only child I gave birth to was murder by my oldest.

That’s besides the point what I am trying to say is I just watched 23 of my grandchildren die in front of me each one of them taking their own life.” Everyone’s features softened at that. The horror of such a thing was beyond words. There was a long stretch of silence after my words. After a bit Sarah got up, walked behind me and hugged me. I leaned into it still keeping a hand on the girl's head. She then leaned her head next to mine and whispered

“There are no words I could say to ever lighten such a horror. Just know if nothing else I am here.”

“Thank you.” After a time Sarah went back to her spot next to Edward. Edward, thinking enough time has passed, spoke.

“So mind explaining the girl.” His voice was impressively neutral.

“She is now my child. She was the only one I was able to save. To do so I had to bite her, making her mine. I don't want to go into the specifics right now just know she is now my child and no longer my son’s.” Edward nodded and moved on.

“What are we to do with Carl's body and what are we going to tell the people outside? Something needs to be said sooner rather than later. It's also not like a small amount of people saw his body. They saw the bit marks and how pale he was. With the fact that dragons were announced to be real it's not much of a stretch to think that vampires are real.” He made a good point, what happened here really messed with my plan of not showing what I was for some time.

“Well I would rather stay as a human in front of everyone. I think everything will break apart if I expose myself.”

“I agree,” Eric said. Everyone turned to him.

“People are terrified right now. There was for all intents and purposes a giant gang fight broke out with their family and friends possibly being in the crossfire. There was a murder of one of the unofficial leaders of this place and it looked like a vampire did it which it was. Now is not the time to drop a bombshell on people.” Everyone nodded to that.

“In that case what do we do?” Todd asked. I sighed

“I don’t know.'' I said. There was silence at that. Deciding to change to the topic I moved on to the other somber topic.

“I spoke with the dungeon master and asked her a favor and she agreed. Next to the entrance of the first floor she has made a place that can be used as a graveyard.” There was a bit of muttering at that.

“Why did you talk to the dungeon master without telling us what if someone had something to ask of the dungeon master.” Samantha accused. I leveled a glare at her and she shrank back.

“First of all you all know how long the cooldown on the skill is. It has been usable for over a week now and no one has come up with any questions or topics. Next I wanted this over with. The sooner this is behind us the better.'' I answered. That's when Cameron stood up and said

“How could you be so callous about this? Our friend just died and not least because of you!” There was total silence at her declaration. Everyone watched as she realized what she just said. Before she could say any words of apology I spoke with ice in my voice.

“Right now it is more than just about us. Do you think I enjoy watching a promising young man die due to my own mistakes? Then in trying to avenge him and not only watch his killer get away but both meet for the first time a whole group of my grandchildren but watch all but one of them take their life with the last of them trying to but failed due to my last second intervention.

Never again speak of me being callous about losing a friend. I have watched more friends die than every person staying at my bar right now put together 5 times over.” Letting that settle over the crowd I moved on.

“We will bury Carl later today. But before that we need to inform any family about it if we can. Should they want to stay with us they will be welcome too as I agreed at the beginning of our current working relationship.

No matter how hard it is, we need to come up with something to say to the crowd. If no one has any ideas in an hour I will come up with it on the fly.

With that said I think it's best if you all get back to what you were doing. Having all of us up here for too long is not a good look.” With that said everyone except Sarah left my home.