After waiting for two days, I think at least it was two days, letting my undead go out and hunt down any vampire that ventured far from their base to hunt or scout, I’m now facing the middle entrance to the former dwarven home. I just noticed the head of a destroyed statue resembling a dwarf, pointing me towards with even more certainty that it was a home for the dwarves or at least some kind of base of operations in the mountain. It would be weird for them to live in this mountain, but the dwarves are a greedy folk if I learned anything from one of my previous lives in their origin world.
Well, let’s not make the enemy wait, I give the command and the undead surrounding me start their slow and steady march forward into the a bit ruined, but still stable dwarven home filled with the children of the night.
While we are making our way to the big section of the dwarven home, the place makes me kind of nostalgic, even though I was not really fond of the dwarven origin world. Like humans they have very few mages, most of whom are mostly blacksmiths with one or two exception who were actual mages if I recall it correctly. Well I wasn’t long for there after learning that what we sought was not there. But this place for some reason still makes me nostalgic, the ruined statues some standing, some laying in pieces on the floor, the destroyed gate we got through not long ago, the rotting, decaying corpses getting up one by one and starting to march with us. Well the last part less so.
Hmm, seems like the others on the second pathway leading inside have already engaged with the vampires. Hopefully they hold out. I’m not really worried about the lesser vampires, but the mage may tilt the scales in their favour. Well we’re almost there too, so I guess I’ll give the command to the front to rush forward. They are mostly made up of undead beasts, some barghests, the ape-like goblins and a few ogres, three more goblin shamans are with me, while the original I raised myself is with the other group, so I hope that one can engage with the vampire mage until we reach them…
…Seems like my worries for nothing. I’m kind of underestimating my own undead, mostly because this is the first time I raised and took over control over raised ones. Plus it is my first time engaging in a battle with vampires. But so far, thanks to the element of surprise probably my undead managed to take down more than half of the vampires stationed in the first hall of the dwarven home, while the vampire mage guarding this place is screaming orders at the remaining lesser vampires, trying to get them back in line while also casting lightning spells at the undead, with little success thanks to the undead goblin shamans erecting wards, the balls of lightning exploding in a grand flash when hitting the transparent bluish black walls erecting from the nothingness of reality.
I guess there is no point in extending this fight any longer. I start to focus my will, collecting and shaping negative matter into a form of a stake and when it gains enough density, I’ll send it forwards, towards the vampiric mage, hitting him straight in his chest. For a moment he goes silent, looking down to his chest, then looks back up, noticing me then an inhuman high pitch scream escapes his wild open jaws revealing his fangs, then he falls face forward towards the dark stone floors while his eyes start drying up, turning to dust, his teeth cracking and breaking, his slender, well-nurtured body becoming a withered mummy, his handsome human face filled with rage and confusion, turns quite horrific, malnourished, skull like, then as he lands on the floor it breaks into dust, leaving behind only his uniformed dark robe.
I feel a bit of regret, but there is still two more mages left to raise so for now I let the undead who were on standby to finish the remaining lesser vampires in the dark, stone hall. After the last of the vampires is dead, I make the undead stop and check noticing a few corpses on the floor that belonged to us. Well some losses are expected, but the vampires that died are now getting back up as I funnel my negative matter into their corpses, shackling their cursed souls back to their bodies, their souls losing their features they possessed in their lives as I am forcing my will upon them, their reddish glowing souls turns jet black that eats away the fabric of reality around them. Then they slowly start to get up on their feet, their bones creaking, cracks appearing on their bodies, their wounds turning dark as their souls corrupted by my negative matter peek out from within their rotten, decaying bodies. What a weird, funny feeling coursing through my vessel and me, still not used to it.
I feel their hatred towards me, towards their former masters, their sires. But only for a little while, then my will forced on them erases it completely. I look around, and then give the command, the undead starting to march towards the end of the great hall, towards the great stone and metallic double doors still intact and partially open. The ogres and some with still relatively muscular physiques start pushing the dark stone doors opening them until there is enough space for the horde of undead to march through it heading towards the next hall, the one with the last two mages before the last hall of the dwarven home.
Before I start following the undead inside, I call the undead dwarves that are armed and holding shields and spears, two with halberds of dwarven design made from a darkish metal with golden edges and decoration etched into the dark metallic surface, reminding me of both the dwarven and elven origin world’s designs influenced by the Aesir and Vanir each. Their completely decayed faces with some remaining greyish dark beards appearing in the gap of their helmet with a banded crown, exaggerated cheek and flared neck guard, their dark lifeless eyes made of negative matter, staring right at me. I shift my vessel’s head from their creepy stare, and when they are all lined up around me, all four of them we start heading towards the door, the other undead making space for us as we enter the tall corridor heading towards what I assume was a dining hall of sorts, designed after Valhalla’s as the dwarves usually do. Or at least they try to imitate it from what they think it looks like according to their priests and religious books.
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There were a few tall doorways along the way, with some lesser vampires trying to get a surprise attack from there, failing as expected against a superior number of undead. Thanks to the added curse effect, I don’t have to raise them into undeath, it just took a long time to hit in. But this time I won’t stop, I’ll march onwards with the undead, those will catch up later with us.
We arrived to the dining hall, where the battle already started between my undead and the vampires with their last two mages being here. This time I give the undead the command to kill the two mages as cleanly as they can do. So no flame spells or any of that kind.
It looks like the vampires made their own barricades made from some leftover wooden boxes and weapon racks probably from the forge that is a must have in all dwarven homes and outposts. I feel like this place is an outpost on a side note. Well those barricades did not last long against the unnatural strength of the undead ogres who destroyed the barricades with two one punches, the force of it sending some broken wooden pieces straight into the lesser vampires heads and shoulders, some towards the chest but their armour protects them, the pieces bouncing off them back to the dusty old floor. The ones hit in the head die on the other hand. Seems like lesser vampires are not that much different from normal humanoids. Besides being always ugly and thirsting for blood ceaselessly.
In a matter of half an hour my undead manage to take most of the room, including the elevated middle ground with the ruined, elongated dining table with a few stone chair still remaining beside it.
The undead already rushing up the stairs towards the even higher platform with the two vampire mages and some lesser vampires on it. Not the best of tactics if I am going to be honest with myself, the lightning and wind spells of the mages sending and destroying quite the many undead on the stairs, a few reaching up and killing a few lesser vampires, even dragging some down the stairs with them where they get mauled to death by the undead.
Just so that I won’t feel useless after this battle is over, I start raising the corpses left lying around in the dining hall or in this case I guess I mostly just animate their pretty rotten corpses, some orcs, some human and a few dwarves that were probably part of the group that settled down here and died in the failed defence when the vampires took over and were not turned into lesser vampires by the vampire mages.
Speaking of the mages, seems like my undead managed to scratch the face of one of them, the elven mage that is casting air spells sending a few undead back down the stairs and furiously ordering the remaining lesser vampires to act as his shield. The other, human vampire with the lightning affinity is taking a few steps back while ordering the lesser vampires on his side to do the same while also ordering them to push forward if they see an opportunity for that. Feels like he has a bit more faith in the lesser vampires than the other.
It is not like they will actually be able to push back, I spent quite the long time to amass a few hundred extra undead after sending out some to hunt monsters living near our lair. I even managed to leave back some for defence just in case we would lose this battle somehow. Not like it will, especially now that there are bigger intervals between their spells. When I first walked in here, they cast their spells with like a minute or two difference in time, now it takes them at least five to six minutes to cast them. The elven vampiric mage even used his staff now to decapitate one of my elven undead with a pretty strong hit for a mage, but I guess being a vampire has its own benefits.
To be honest, I lost a bit of interest in those mages, I was hoping for some blood mages to begin with, and was even ready to absorb them, but now I just stick with raising them. Gaining that sub aspect of magic will come later I guess. There are plenty of vampires in this world anyways.
The screams of my undead bring me back to reality from my coping. But these are not screams of joy they have from tearing things to pieces, but screams of anger as their undead lives are snuffed out by an elven vampire with long platinum white hair shaved on each side and braided and kept in a ponytail, his eyes just as blood red as the mages, but he possesses a normal elven looking face beside having a pale greyish corpse like skin. A red mist like energy dissipating around his bodies and spears outline, clearly and indicator of him using a Blood Aspect spell. He is also wearing a half armour so to speak, his dark plate only covers the left side of his torso, or more precisely his right chest are is left open, and there seems to be a mark of runes tattooed onto it.
Seems like the mages weren’t the leader of this small force of vampires. Well I should have thought of that, the undead bugs only managed to reach into the dining hall afterall, but in the end it is a welcomed mistake. Now I have someone with the sub-aspect of Blood Magic to absorb.
I order the undead to not kill that one, they can maim him but I’ll need him alive. I start to prepare myself, because I’m probably going to do my dumbest thing so far since my arrival…
Post-Chapter Notes: Vampires I:
* Created by the two subordinate gods of the Ur-Reaper, Ker and Camazotz. They inherited appearance and dependence of darkness and the night from their father Camazotz, their bloodlust and affinity to blood magic from Ker.
* Originally there were only nine of them, but the Ur-Reaper granted them the power to reproduce via essence transfusion, which they can perform while feeding if they decide to do so, during which they infuse their victims soul with their vampiric essence, turning them into what they call nowadays Neonates the lowest intelligent class vampires.
* Lesser vampire or more precisely called Vampire Spawns are a created in the same way, but by draining the victim all of its blood and then infuse the vampiric essence with necrotic energies/negative matter, making them almost undead. Spawns are the lowest of the vampire hierarchy, used mostly as either expendable foot soldiers, or hounds for their hunts. Appearance wise, they have a humanoid body, but their facial features become malformed, taking on bat-like features similar to one of their progenitor gods, Camazotz.
* Even though mentioned above, they are on the bottom of the vampire hierarchy, spawns have their own hierarchy, or to be more precise their evolution line, even though they only evolve if their Master grants some of his or hers essence to the beast, further losing their humanoid features, with what the common people call the Greater Vampire Spawn being an enormous giant bat like monstrosity, even capable of flying which the vampires prefer to use as their aerial mounts.