I am woke around noon by a thrall. He is wearing some interesting armor I note. It covers all the best places to bite someone. "You better have a good reason to wake me or you're going to need Much better armor."

"Sorry mam, there is a group of gnome women here to see you. They seem interested in opening peace talks."

I sigh and get up, "Noon, not my favorite time of the day to be up and about." I sigh, he looks surprised that I knew the time while inside the relative darkness of the tent. I look at him, "It's a vampire thing, we are acutely aware of where the sun is most of the time.""

He grins and nods, "Well not all are, but if you say so lady."

I shrug, "Well my line is at any rate."

I put on a hat and follow him to the main gate. I step partially out, yawning, "Hello ?"

There are 5 very old, very determined looking gnome women without.

The leader nods at the guard, "How many people you got working for you ?" she ask.

I shrug, "They aren't mine. They work for the Council."

They pale, a younger one (relatively speaking) ask, "What are they doing here ?"

"They are the body guard of one of the Council who is in here with me. The council gave me the towers in gratitude for rescuing over a hundred people from an evil temple. Many of those worked for them apparently."

First one, "It was our understanding Gregory had that job."

I shrug, "He is dead. He pissed me off and I removed his head."

Thrall guard nods, "I was there, it was one of the shortest fights I have ever seen. He attacked her and she just side stepped him and slipped a garrote around his neck and pulled it so tight his head came off."

I grin wolfishly, "Idiot was warned, did not listen, now he is dead. So you all are here to make funeral arrangements for the men ?"

Middle one, "Um, no miss. Hope not to lose any more of our idiot children actually. You have some very impressive magics."

"Thank you, but most of the destruction was non magical. I make some very nice explosives to, I am trained in Alchemy and Chemistry as well as magic. The um, first explosion was an accident. Chemical I was using to neutralize these stuff in those sewer lines did not play nicely with other stuff in there. Never seen blue flames like that before to tell the truth. Was pretty right up till that building blew up."

Gruff woman, "Alkezier, idiot kept trying new stuff. Medicines he calls them. Most of them make you sicker than before. Or dead, and instead of following proper rules for getting rid of such, he just poured them in to the sewer. We are well rid of his laboratory in our opinion."

"Going to need a new place to use as a sewer. I got the front door open and am letting it air out now. Was a very dead giant against the inside. It's body was keeping the door from opening. Otherwise someone cast a freezing spell inside there at some point. Constant cold air rolls out of the place. And gods only know what all that alchemical run off has done to the water table around here not to mention anything that was living in the tower and don't think it was empty. I can tell from the smell that the place is home to Something. Most likely bugs."

I can tell from their faces that none of them ever gave a thought to anything living with in the tower. Or under it. Or the ramifications of what all their years of filth and poisons could be doing to anything living in there. I let them consider that as I return to my tent. I heard what they wanted, but what I want is more sleep.

It's about an hour before dusk when I roll out of bed. There is no sounds of fighting outside, so I take that as a good thing. I get dressed and wander out.

The men look a bit put out, "What's wrong ?" I ask around a yawn.

Young looking thrall, "Someone sneaked in and stole all our food mam."

I nod and then magic up a long table and benches then call forth the Thanksgiving feast from the bracelet. The bread items that came with it this time are cinnamon rolls. As the men sit down to enjoy my impromptu feast I surprise them and snag a roll and slowly eat the sticky sweetness. I grin at them, "Yeah I know I am not normal, but these are my favorite treat and I don't get them very often. Cinnamon Rolls, bread with cinnamon sugar cooked inside and a sugar syrup glazing the outside. mmm" I sigh, lick my fingers and eat my roll. Most of this sort don't much care for the sweetness of the treat, which I learn when there are 4 such rolls left out of the 12 there were to start. (20 men) More for me. I got lots of praise for the food though. "No problem, glad you all liked it."

I wander around and look over the fortifications. Many of which I made on the fly, and while doing so I found an error in my design. I made a long ramp on the Outside of the wall, which is how the food thief got in. I am standing on the inside of the battlement when one such drops in facing away from me. What I see is an underfed human boy.

"Hello" I say, he freezes and slowly turns and looks up at me, "Care for a cinnamon roll ?" I ask, holding out the partially empty tin to him, "They are really good."

He gulps, takes one and tentively nibbles a little of it, "you gonna kill me ?"

"You're not a gnome, so probably not. What you are is hungry from what I can tell. By the way, whichever of you scamps that stole the guards food probably should not go around them. They are mightily miffed about that."

He shrugs, "We could smell the meat, so we know they missed some food." he states as he carefully eats the sticky mess of a treat.

"Yes, well that was from my supply. Cooked up somewhere else and then I just teleported it here." he looks blank.

"Teleport is moving objects or people from one location, one place, to another without having to walk it there. Much faster but you need to know where you're going to or getting stuff from for it to work." he slowly nods. I add, "I am a mage, so I do magic. Which is how I got all the walls. The problem with making walls while fighting is sometimes you make mistakes. That ramp you climbed up, it was supposed to be on the inside, not your side." I explain. He nods, "We thought it was something like that, but till you did something about it, we used it to get in and get stuff we can use, like food and stuff."

I sigh, "Your just a bunch of thieves aren't you ?"

He shrugs and takes another roll.

I grin, "Me to really, I am just better at it than you lot." I let him have the tin, "You can keep the tin to. It's cheaply made but I suppose it can be used again." I then hop up on the wall and look at the strut. I sigh and call forth my dwindling supply of shaping magics to alter it so they can't climb it anymore, reshaping it but not removing it. I make an Arch out of it then make a curved sort of under ceiling to act as a kind of rain shield. I am planning ahead here cause I know these people will slowly move in and against the walls, turning it in to part of their shelters.

Actually as I look over the area the one thing that strikes me is most of the homes here are cheap wood or old tents or a mix there of. I know of some cheap but nice house designs that may help these people live a little better lives. But I am not sure how they would take to such charity.

Some poor will take anything they can get, others have a sort of pride, they will steal everything you own, but won't accept handouts. Weird.

"Tell me boy, how do you think the people here would react if I were to put some more permanent type buildings around this area ?"

He shrugs, climbing back on to the wall and seeing what I had done, "Don't like those much. Hard to escape through walls when the bad people come and take anyone healthy enough to work in their slave camps."

I nod, "May have to do something about that to." I mutter, "I was thinking of large buildings so you would have better protection from rain and such. But it's just a thought at this point."

He shrugs, "You're not going to live long enough. The gnomes will make sure of that."

I grin, "I got allies boy, mages and worse. Besides the gnomes already sent a group seeking to make peace with me."

That bit surprised him, "Really. Rory, he is one of the head gnomes, he said they was going to collect your head and nail it to the wall over the doors of their sewer."

I grin, "Little secret for you boy. I am Immortal. I can't die, believe me many have tried. I just come back later, more powerful and very very dangerous. I killed Gregory two days ago, wiped out dozens of evil priest the day before that, and killed a vampire and it's minions the day before that. Not counting the number of gnomes and such I killed yesterday."

He considers that all and nods, "You are tough, I agree, but Rory will fix you."

I grin at him, "Like this Rory I take it ?"

Boy shrugs, "He is Red Rory greatest and sneakiest of the Gnome warriors. Hundreds of battles and never lost one."

I nod, "Well if I meet him in battle I will make sure to add him to my collection." I nod to the thugs walking around below.

He looks at them, not impressed in the least. Smiling I take over the child's mind without any trouble from him and turn him in to my spy. I get him to tell me everything he knows before 'letting' him steal some cooked chicken and a bag of raw potatoes. I also let him escape out of the side door with a tale to tell. He does not recall talking to me at all. He recalls slipping past me at the wall before I reshaped the ramp and sneaking around the place, watching all the guards and getting inside the cook tent to get the food and get out without getting caught. He recalls climbing up the wall and seeing the ramp is gone and having to find a way out without getting caught and he recalls an army of monsters crawling out of the tower and forming ranks with a 'witch' commanding the horrors.

These people only know of two kinds of magic users, witches and priest. (well charlatans to), but they don't believe in most other types of mages. They believe great mages existed once, in the Olden Times but not anymore. Me they think is a powerful witch I learn from him. Of the monsters, they have stories of the tower holding untold horrors and dangerous monsters and only the gnomes potions keeping the monsters in check. Sounds to me like the gnomes are spinning tales to keep the locals from messing with their sewer lines.

I think the boy will prove very useful to me in the long run. Even after this mess with the Gnomes and their factions. I have no doubt that those women only represent one group in their society but they are smart enough to know I can't tell one group from the rest so I am just as likely to blow the lot of them up unless they can find a reason for me not to remove them from this world.

I study my spells as I wait for Abigale to wake up and tell her all that happened during the day as I know it, including the theft of the food and the catching of one of the thieves and how I turned him to my side without him even knowing it. I then tell her as the tower has aired out since I 'opened' it last night that I am going to do a bit of exploring and find out what, if any, dangers still exist within.

She nods, warns me she and her boys may not be here when I come out. I understand, this is not her fight. I will try not to blow up the tower and the entire Gnome quarter if I can help it.

What I have not told anyone is how impressed I am with myself. I found I can understand spells all the way to the 9th level and hold several more spells in my mind than I could before. This adds to the feeling that my last go round was much longer than previous incarnations and while I don't consciously recall those events my subconscious has kept up with everything and I can now access things I could not before. Interesting that.

I would probably be far more dangerous and arrogant if I Could recall everything I learned the last few times through. So maybe it's good I can't. Anyway…

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The tower, the inside was warmer now. The ice on the walls mostly melted though a cool breeze still waifs from within. I move carefully, staff in hand and fully aware the place can be magically trapped. I cast a spell to detect traps but it is only good for mundane ones and it only works in a 10ft radius. So going slow is best in here as my normal speeds would likely see me dead before the spell could warn me of the danger. As an added step I am slightly out of phase in the shadow realm, this makes the world more black and white but improves my night vision 100% as there are no dark places in the Shadow world. Bright places though can be almost as hard to see in to though as shadows in the dark places normally. I understand this makes my eyes 'freaky beyond belief' as they are solid black with little red dots of burning red at the center. Good for intimidating mortals and younger immortals alike.

The front hall of the place is an open 2 story area maybe 15ft across with a balcony running around the 2cd floor. I can see various doors around that loop and only 1 stair leading up to it. It's a normal size stair speaking of this place being more of an office type complex than a military one. Still despite the frozen air conditioning it's age is showing around the edges. The stairs and most of the structure are stone, but supports are very old wood that likely has not been thawed in the last few centuries. I think I will stick to wall crawling to be on the safe side when I go upstairs. For now I explore the ground floor, using information I got from the guards who once served here. They were iffy on points as it has been a long time since they served here.

The giant though they recalled. He was more a living threat to prisoners than anything. Hill Giant, pretty smart for one of their kind, but that is not saying allot really.

Which explains why he was frozen alive inside the place after everyone else left. He was not smart enough to understand they were closed for business. My opinion as I don't know the truth of the matter.

The main floor had a lot of old rotten furnishings, ones that were not long empty at least. Looks like the last people to leave cleaned out whatever they could carry. Still I find a locked, heavy door with iron fastenings. One punch from me and it falls inward. Within is the old pay office and in a long forgotten corner I find a chest full of gold and silver coins and an old ledger listing out groups to pay for supplies, including interestingly enough a Gnomish Alchemy group who made the air conditioning spells to keep the place cool in the summer. Suddenly I think I know what those gnomes have been pouring in to this place for so long and why my chemicals caused the fire. I made some of the early versions of this stuff. It works really well if it is Contained, but if not then you got to keep adding more and more to keep the effect up. With the doors locked and windows sealed this place would become a frozen hole on the first few floors and a giant mold colony on the upper floors from the constant moisture in the air from the melting ice below.

I find the way down and using my staff and my innate abilities go down. It is still icy down here and the stairs are treacherous. What I find below is actually terrifying. Frozen corpses, prisoners who were locked away and forgotten now all entombed in ice. And that is just the holding cells on the first floor of the underground area. I eventually find the inside of one of those 'sewer lines'. It's actually a stone and ceramic pipe leading down below the floor. No telling how far down from here, but finding the stairs is not all that hard as white clouds billow out from them. Good thing I don't need to breath as this stuff would kill any mortals who breathed it. Even so I have to cast a Warming spell on myself to keep from icing over.

I make it down 2 more floors before I find I cannot go deeper do to the stairwell being flooded with blue and rainbow colored chemicals. I back up and then lay down a thick stone floor over those stairwells and add a 'heat barrier' to them so these upper levels will warm up to more normal levels. Next I find those pipes and seal them at the top. Closing off the 'windows' in the process.

On my way out I collect that chest and ledger, I think some of this was revenge for not getting paid and it just became habit to go on. It's time for it to stop.

Some old part of me has me go back inside and bring out the dead. Being left inside that frozen hell, even I would not want such a fate forever.

I levitate them all out and lay them in neat rows. I figure when they melt they will start to rot properly. But till then I can show the Gnomes what their ancestors ire did to those trapped inside.

Unsurprisingly Abigale is gone. Surprisingly 4 of her guards stayed behind, 2 of them being the old souls who worked here all that time ago. They are all surprised at the dead I bring out and the number of them. 50 bodies all told that I found with news that the 3rd level down is now sealed as it is completely full of the gnomes freezing potions and filth.

I learn that several had been guards or officials, most likely imprisoned down there after the prison fell to outsiders in a long ago war. I go on to learn, as I much suspected, that many of the people here are descendants of people who had either worked here or been prisoners here. They stayed as they had no place to go. The fact that it remained a 'villains stronghold' for this long is more because of the vampires, who control the Council more than any mortal device. It does go a long way in explaining why the locals are so afraid of the Council.

I also learn that Lady Patrick is a low ranking member of the council. She is respected for her wealth and personal army really but Grendle is the Head of the Council. He is an old vampire, who was young when the town first fell. Sure a couple others like Abigale are older than him but he is the one who formed the Council and controls many of the bosses. Or did till Jubilee's rampage changed things so much. I am now a player in their games and giving me the towers was a ploy to control me. Grendle really underestimated my ability to cause chaos and destruction, which amuses these fellows to no end as none of them can stand the man.

As we are talking one of my mind slaves comes over and informs me that the gnomish women are back. They have a prisoner for me to.

Curious I head over and find they have a gnome with shocking red hair and armor, all trussed up and ready for snacking. Snacking … hm, I am getting hungry, not a good thing for prisoners. I invite them in, "Care to come see what all I found ?" I ask as I lead them toward the tower.

"From what I have deduced from evidence I found within the tower some of your ancestors were employed by the keepers to cool the tower. But at the end, when they did not get their final payment, they decided to flood the interior with the cooling compound. The Blue Sludge as it's called in my day. Well with the tower all sealed up it worked wonders. The insides were frozen pretty solidly." I have stopped in front of the bodies of all the frozen dead. The women and even the famed Red Rory look a bit sick. "I imagine no one knew that the people who held the keys to paying them were locked in the cells below. The cells they could not escape from and where they all froze to death. By the way, according to an immortal who was here at that time, this tower originally had 5 lower levels. It's now full of the blue sludge and the other run off all the way to the top of the 3rd level stairs. I sealed that off and closed off the pipes that led to that lower levels where it normally went. So even if you opened the lines again all it would do is pool around the base of the tower creating a massive health hazard. Worse than the one you people were already making."

Rory stutters, "no one, in all the stories, said the monsters were actually people. Only that they stole what was ours and our ancestors sealed them with in the tower to keep their evil in check."

I look at him "From what I can see, the evil was in your ancestors hearts already. By the way, I found your ancestors pay, in the pay office, in a corner with the ledger mentioning the amounts and such along with a chest of coin meant to pay off contractors. I separated out the original amounts promised to them and they are in that leather pouch on the table behind us. I am keeping the rest to help in the restoration of this tower."

One of the women collects the payment and even looks over the ledger. Quietly telling me who the others, still in the area, are. In case I decide to give them that money to.

I nod then add, "Some of your people may ask for Interest. Tell them it went to pay for the burial of all the dead we found frozen with in the tower. Several of whom, you will note, are gnomes."

They have noted it and all leave much quieter and with none of the fire they once had (mostly that is for Rory whom the ladies grabbed when they learned of his insane plot against me).

Rory looks back once, "My vendetta against you is over but I still would have won."

I grin, "I am both warrior and archmage as well as an Ancient Vampire. No you would not, I already knew of your plan Red Rory Garnet-seeker." As a thought with his spirit already broken, I make a point to put a bit of me inside him so I can make sure he keeps his word. I also quietly place a spell on them all so they can't tell anyone about me being a vampire only a Mage of the Old powers (like in the stories).

From the thugs I learn of a nearby grave yard and work out how to get all the bodies moved there and properly buried. From the old guard we learned a few names but most are long forgotten. With that taken care of I can see about getting this place properly renovated and put in to use as more than a disease making monster.

As the bodies are being carted away it occurs to me to ask one of the elder guards, "I was wondering something. How is it a place like this can exist without constant attacks from the outside world ?"

He grins at me, "You really don't remember do you ? Ok. It's like this. This town is part of a larger country, all run by criminal types. An Evil empire if you will. But this town is its own entity as most of the rest of the world thinks all the bosses here are vampires, liches and unique undead with the humans who are here working as a combination of slaves and food for the Undead overlords." I nod and listen. "Ok past that. We got maybe 10 miles of useable land to the east, north and south then it's all swamp and marshes for about 80 to 100 miles. West you got 4 or 5 miles of land, mostly rock and thin top soil, so bad for farming but lots of tree's with the river emptying out in a blind cove the pirates use to come and go from. They are the main source of anything new or fresh here except what the farmers grow. We have no monsters other than the undead, anymore and really things are normally pretty quiet around here. That is till you showed up. You seem to cause Changes. Like the last time which you don't remember. From what I recall you came at the head of an army, across the swamp, had a couple of dragons with you to. Destroyed the prison, rescued a lot of royal and mage types and were badly injured with the warden of the place, who was a powerful, evil, and insane person to. You killed him but everyone thought he killed you to. Your lovers all took you away and put you in a secret tomb. From what accounts I heard your body built a web around it and for some reason that gave your loyal servants hope you would return. To the rest all this is just a legend. But I guess you did return, after you healed from nearly having your head bashed in. Though you were blond last time. Same face though."

I nod, "Never figured that part out. The hair color change. Always seem to come back with different colored hair whenever I go in to torpor. I think Chaos is having what little way with me as it can. I know I have slowly gotten darker in spirit and mentality with each incarnation though. I used to be a really nice monster at one time. Actually did good deeds just cause I could. Now days. Nope mostly just evil, just smart enough to find a way to get along with as little strife as possible."

The two guards nod and grin, "Yeah we understand that. Seen it happening with Miss Abigale to, not that she is as aware of it as you. Hard to age past all the mortal world and keep the human parts intact. Though in truth, neither of us was ever Nice people being Prison guards and all." I grin and nod.