Chapter 21

I woke up to the sounds of crying and words I could barely make out. I was still a little groggy. As my mind began to clear I remembered what had just happened to me. I had nearly died to a vampire. The only reason I was here now was because my mother, the goddess of luck, had intervened on my behalf to save me from that gruesome fate. I was still reeling from that bit of information as well. I had always thought I was alone in this world only to find out that I had a mother that hadn’t wanted to abandon me but hadn’t been given much of a choice. The gods had a rule that they had to abandon all of their human children. There were no exceptions. I didn’t know what had caused the need for such a rule. For now I knew that at the very least I did have a mother who had wanted to keep me but hadn’t been allowed. I knew that I needed to keep this a secret. I hadn’t believed in the gods for very long but I now had irrefutable proof of their existence. I did know that there were fanatics out in the world that took their worship of the gods to an insane level. If they heard about me claiming to be the son of a goddess they would surely kill me for being a heretic.

I finally noticed a weight on my chest and the crying sounds I had thought I heard became more clear. It was Sora. She was lying across my chest soaked in my blood. I could hear her mumbling under her breath. “No, this can’t be happening. You can’t be dead. I need you. We had just set out on this adventure together. We were supposed to watch out for each other but I failed you. Because of me not being quick enough you died. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this contract without you. I’ll have to head back to the capital to report our failure as well as reporting your death. I was even coming around to the idea of us being together for a long time. I’ll miss your awkward glances that you thought I couldn’t see. Maybe there had been hope for us to be more than just companions, but now that is all gone.” I was so shocked by what I was hearing. Perhaps even more shocking than learning of my mother. I didn’t want her to feel like that anymore so I finally moved.

Without much thought I wrapped my arms around the crying Sora. I could tell she was startled. She immediately pushed away from me and just stared into my face. She couldn’t believe that I had pretty much just risen from the dead. “What? How? Why are you alive? You’ve not been breathing for a while now as well as having lost more than enough blood to kill you many times over. I killed the vampire and started checking on you immediately. You were dead. How is this possible Alex?” I thought about what I should say. My mother had told me that I couldn’t give away my identity and that I shouldn’t go around telling people about her. So for now I would keep it a secret from her, but I didn’t know for how long I could keep it from her. She was smart and would surely keep pressing me until I gave her the information she wanted. For now I just said, “It was just luck.” If looks could kill I would be dead, but I had pretty much told her the truth. It was up to her to figure out that I meant more than just luck. “Fine, keep your secrets for now. I won’t press you on it anymore today. We need to get out of here for now.” I agreed with her. We really did need to get out of here for now. We had been attacked and I had almost died. These vampires weren’t playing around with us anymore. They were coming after us themselves no longer sending their lackeys. We were in serious trouble. That one vampire had almost been enough to send me to an early grave. We need to come up with a better plan. We had been woefully unprepared to face such an overwhelming force. We now knew for sure that fire was the best way to combat them and the next time we came down we would bring torches. We needed a better plan even with the torches. We had to find a way to fight them without being overwhelmed. We made our way back down the tunnel and into the cavern with the entrance back into town. We went back up and made our way back to the Inn. Many people gave us wild looks as we passed by but we didn’t pay them much attention. We went into the Inn and asked for baths to be prepared. We stood in the lobby so that we didn’t track blood through the building. The maid came back and told us the baths were ready. We each went into our own room that had been prepared for us. I stripped off my clothes and just threw them in the garbage bin. There was no washing the blood out of the clothes. I climbed into the bath and washed the blood off of my body. The attack of the vampire had left no mark on my body. Whatever Magic my mother had used to save me had done even more than I expected. I felt faster and stronger as well as my skin feeling much smoother. It was more than simple healing even though I didn’t understand exactly what had been done. That wasn’t something that I could figure out right now so I just sat back in the bath and enjoyed myself. After the water started to get cold I got out and dried off. I grabbed a fresh set of clothes from my pack and put them on. I went back down into the dining area where Sora was waiting for me at a table. She had already ordered some food and was just sitting there waiting for it to arrive. We sat and ate bread and cheese until the maid came out with heaping piles of food. My appetite was ravenous. I dug into the roasted chicken with gusto. It was quite good and I finished my food quickly. I sat back and let out a contented sigh. I was just happy to have made it out of that bad situation alive. It had been a close one and we still had more that we had to do. We didn’t know how many vampires there were but it only took one to nearly kill us.

We needed to come up with a plan to take out all of the vampires without getting ourselves killed. We knew that the sun was their ultimate nemesis but we didn't really have a good way to get all of them out into the sunlight. We had also confirmed that fire was a great weapon against them. We had already decided that we would be taking torches down with us. Other than that we didn’t have too much of an idea on how to fight them. They should be more vulnerable when the sun is up so we would be heading back down at first light. We also decided that we would research a little more about the vampires from the books we had been allowed to borrow. Maybe we had overlooked some method of fighting with them. After finishing our meals we headed up stairs and started reading through all of the books. After spending hours searching we still hadn’t come up with anything new. We decided that we had done all we could to prepare for the next day so we decided to turn it in for the night. Tomorrow we would head back down into the tunnels to hopefully wipe away the vampire scourge.

We made our way back upstairs and climbed into our beds. Sora hadn’t asked anymore questions about how I had survived but I had seen her glancing at me from time to time. She was obviously still curious about what had happened and hadn’t been satisfied with my answer. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her anymore. Maybe one day I would tell her but I couldn’t risk spreading rumors about my heritage. I climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep. I was met once again by the darkness I had grown so familiar with. Kalastrovax appeared in front of me out of the void. His blood red eyes turned towards me and he said. “So what I thought I felt from you has been confirmed. You are the son of a goddess and were even led by her to me. This is very intriguing. I had felt power coming from you when you first made contact with the necklace but I had no idea that your bloodline was so potent. Never would I have guessed that I had found my way into the possession of a demigod. Luck really does have a way of making things happen doesn’t she? Well that’s enough about that for now. There is nothing either of us can do about who you are or what that means for each of us. We need to work on the things each of us can control. The first thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that the Vampire that was killed had been in contact with one of the artifacts that we are looking for. It is called a blood stone and when used by a vampire it massively improves their powers and even helps with the effects of being awake during the day time. It does not however help with them being under the sun that will still kill them. We definitely need to find that stone. It's one of the things we need to help me escape these bindings. The other thing I want to do is to teach you a basic spell. It will allow you the ability to cast a fireball and is the first of many things that I can teach you. The reason why I am willing to teach you even though you haven’t gathered any of the things we need is that I think you will need this power to have a chance to get the blood stone. I’m sure you noticed how effective the fire from the torch was against that vampire. This fireball will help even the odds for you. I already felt the aptitude in you for magic. I was just waiting for an opportunity to teach you. Most of the magic that I have to teach will take a very long time to learn but it’s not the same with something simple like the fireball. I have something here that will allow you to learn it without any pesky training.We will leave that stuff for the mages to deal with.”

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When he said this a book appeared in front of me. It was bound in leather with a flame imprinted on the cover. “All you need to do is open that book and the information for the spell will be imprinted in your mind. Before you go thinking that you can just use this method to learn all of the magic in the world let me set you straight. These books are exceedingly rare. They are only capable of teaching a certain number of people the spell in the book. Once all of the uses are used up the book will disappear into dust. What I want from you is that when you wake up tomorrow you and the girl will each take a turn reading this book and learning the spell. In case you are wondering. The girl shares your aptitude for magic; she will have no trouble learning the spell. After that you will each need to practice with the spell until you get comfortable. Only after you think you understand the spell to an acceptable degree should you go down into the tunnels to face the vampires. The book has only two charges left so don’t worry about returning it to me. As for the payment I want for this gift just remember to bring me the blood stone once you have taken care of the vampires. Then we can begin some of your training to help you survive in this world. For now go back to sleep. I will be observing what's going on and wish for your success. Now go learn the spell and take down the vampires.”

With that he vanished from in front of me without giving me the opportunity to respond. This spell was sure to help us out a lot. For now I needed to sleep. I drifted further into the darkness and drifted off to sleep. I woke up the next morning and was excited to share the news with Sora. The book had appeared on a little table next to our beds. She said “This is incredible. I have always wanted to learn magic but didn’t know if I had the aptitude for it. If what you're saying is correct then I must at least have some ability. I have seen mages in the palace back at home use magic before and it is something to behold. My mother is also an accomplished mage as many of my race are. Well, let's not waste too much time. You read it first and then I will.” I didn’t need any more prompting. I opened the book and instantly felt knowledge flooding into my mind. It was as if I had been practicing this spell for years. I opened my eyes and found Sora staring at me. “Well? Do you feel any different?” I thought for a moment “I feel as if I’ve been practicing the spell all of my life. You give it a read and then we will discuss.” She took the book from me and opened it. She stared at the book for a moment transfixed and then the book crumbled into dust. After a moment she looked at me and said. “I see what you mean. Do you want to give it a try or should we go somewhere else where we might not cause any mayhem.” I agreed but first we needed to eat. We couldn’t spend all day practicing on an empty stomach.

We made our way down into the dining hall. We sat down at a table and the maid brought us plates piled with eggs and bacon. We ate our meal quickly. We were both excited to try out this new power. We had both always wanted to be able to use magic and now we finally had the opportunity. We made our way into the shop that had an entrance to the tunnels. We went into the old store room under the store. The book said all we needed to do was focus on the idea of flame appearing in our hands and it would appear. We went to the side of the room that was full of old empty barrels that looked to be rotting away. No one would mind us setting these ablaze. I held the thought of flames firmly in my mind. I then held out my hand. I could feel something building up inside of me. I knew from the book that this was my mana. Everyone had mana inside of them but only some people could actually make use of the mana. This mana was what allowed people to use magic. As the mana made its way to my hand I felt the air around my hand heat up. For just a second there was a flickering flame in the palm of my hand. I was so surprised that it had actually worked that my concentration slipped and the flame went out. Sora was standing next to me observing silently. She held out her own hand and a look at concentration passed over her face. A flame that was bigger and more stable than mine appeared in her hand. She looked at me and grinned. I wasn't going to be out done so I started channeling my own mana again. A flame also appeared in my hand. It happened faster and was bigger than the last time. The next step was to compress the flame down into a ball. This part was tricky. You had to maintain a steady flow of mana while also compressing the mana into a ball. As soon as I tried to compress the flame into a ball it went out. I turned to look at Sora and she was having a similar result. As soon as she tried forcing the flame into a ball her flame also went out.

It seemed like more practice was definitely in order. After a few hours of practice we had both managed to make balls of flame appear. We still weren’t able to do it every time but we had gotten a lot more consistent. The final step in creating a fireball was throwing it and feeding enough mana into it that it would cause a small explosion when it hit its target. I took aim at a nearby barrel and threw my fire ball. It let out a small puff and then went out. It didn’t cause the small explosion that it was supposed to. Sora threw hers as well and had a similar result. We each took turns throwing fireballs at the barrels. As time went on we got closer and closer to the type of explosion that the book had told us we should get. I threw a fireball and boom the barrel went up in flames. Sora threw a fireball as well and another barrel disappeared. We kept practicing until every time we threw a fireball we got the effect we wanted. We had even gotten to the point that we could control the size of the fireball. The smaller they were the smaller the explosion. The bigger they were, the bigger the explosion. We tried not to make them too large as we didn’t want to collapse the tunnel. We spent a little more time practicing before calling it a day. We headed back up and to the Inn. We ate dinner and then took a bath. We wanted to get to bed earlier so that we could wake up with the sun. We would be taking on the vampires tomorrow. Armed with a new spell I felt a lot better about our chances. We would still bring torches just in case but for now we would turn in for the night. Tomorrow we would either wipe out the vampire that had been plaguing the town or we would die trying. I didn’t think my mother would be able to step in to save me again. I made it upstairs and climbed into bed. All of this magic practice had drained me. It was as if I had been running all day or had done a hard day's work. I fell asleep to thoughts of victory over the vampires. I only hoped luck was on our side.