Chapter 28

Goodbye For Now

Gorgath's people resided in the Abyss, so his directions ended at the base of the tunnel leading to our dungeon exit. His people didn’t know what lay above the Abyss, and because of the thin ambient mana, they weren’t particularly interested in finding out, but Gorgath promised there was a path to the surface. His people could smell that much.

After reaching the top of the tunnel, the lack of directions and human scent led me down several dead ends before we crossed paths with an old human trial. Those detours cost us another ten minutes, but once I had a scent, I easily followed it back to the dungeon fortress.

Fortress alarms bleared as I stepped out of the Deadlands on the gatehouse wall. The teacher in charge of defending the fortress jumped in surprise. Dungeon academies had similar layouts and regulations, so it was easy to find him. The old man was in his nineties, but his second in command was barely twenty. The pair took three steps back as they raised their hands before them, conjuring balls of fire.

“Stand down,” I snapped in my best teaching voice.

“Who are you?” the teacher snapped back before glancing over the wall.

It was understandable that he considered me his second biggest problem. A dracolich flying towards your fortresses is a terrifying experience. A dracolich flying towards your fortress from inside your dungeon is much worse.

“I’m Professor Vincent of Darksmith Academy, and I’m escorting a VIP student to safety.”

Again, he glanced at the dracolich hurtling towards his fortress. “How did you get here?”

“Through the Abyss. Now, order you people to stand down.”

He glanced at the dracolich again, noticed the two people keeping up with it on foot, and then did the math on what level they had to be to do that.

He wisely decided to do as he was told and turned to his second in command. “Tell everyone to stand down.”

“Yes, sir,” his second in command replied before they both ran off in opposite directions, shouting instructions.

A few seconds later, the alarm stopped.

I smiled as I turned and watched my children.

The chaos from the fourth-floor territorial dispute had slowed us down more than anything else on the fourth floor, but it wasn’t the most dangerous part of our journey. Those territories were so stirred up that ambush and stealth predators had hunkered down, waiting for the chaos to settle. After we got beyond the python’s chamber, we began running into those threats.

I’d quickly learned my agility couldn’t keep up. One second, I would be racing ahead of Luke and Davina, clearing the way, and the next, I’d be in someone’s mouth. They’d chew on me a few times before swallowing, and then I’d regenerate inside their stomach and have to cut my way out. This cost us more time, and the dracolich went from being our biggest liability to the safest option. At least, we saw most threats coming when they went after her.

Surviving the fourth floor was a serious accomplishment, and I was proud of them for making it through alive.

Luke leapt as he approached the fortress wall, casting a basic levitation spell to get more lift. He sailed through the air before landing on the wall beside me.

At the same time, the dracolich flared her wings to slow her speed. She collided with the wall, ignoring the startled students, knocking several over as she leapt into the courtyard before galloping for the gate.

“We’re going to lose time,” Luke said, noticing her inability to fly as she folded her wings to squeeze into the gate tunnel.

“It can’t be helped,” I replied, stepping off the wall.

I dropped to the ground and dashed through the courtyard after the dracolich. Luke landed a second later and caught up.

“Do you know where we are, Dad?”

I pointed to the crest above the gate. “That crest belongs to South Murdell’s Soon Academy. We’re about sixty miles from the border and twice that from Darksmith.”

Luke glanced back as we entered the tunnel. “Did you tell them what’s coming?”

I shook my head. “Abandoning the fortress and clearing the tunnel isn’t an order a teacher can give. But a dracolich racing through your tunnel isn’t something an academy can ignore either. There’ll be someone to warn on our way back.”

Up ahead, the dracolich ran over a student, taking my instructions not to slow for any reason to heart. Kathrine leapt off the dracolich’s back and raced ahead to pull people out of the way to save them from being trampled. The poor student Luke and I jumped over had several broken bones, but Davina would have the girl back on her feet when she finished treating those knocked off the wall.

Luke pulled some jerky from his storage pouch and lifted his visor to shove it in his mouth. Despite eating on the go, he’d lost several pounds during our journey. I could smell his fatigue. The moment he stopped running, he would crash.

He offered me a piece of jerky, and I took it, chewing on it as I jogged behind the dracolich. Luke swallowed his mouthful and washed it down with water gathered from a spell.

Luke turned to me. “What’s the plan?”

“When we reach the surface, you and your sister will climb on the dracolich and fly Celest to the Fortress Cathedral of Urk. Once you get there, you convince them to give you sanctuary.”

“That’s the same plan as before.”

“The plan hasn’t changed.”

“We’re stronger.”

“And if you knew how to wield that strength, the plan might be different. But you don’t, so the three of you need sanctuary.”

“I don’t need protection?”

He did, but I wasn’t going to point that out. “Without a divine warning, the church won’t take the threat coming after you seriously unless the fortress is attacked. You need to train your sister and babysit Celest until that happens.”

“And if they’re warned?”

“Nothing changes. You and your sister still have to learn to harness your new abilities. You’ve both got targets on your back, and it won’t be safe to leave the fortress until you can stare down an ancient vampire without flinching.”

“You overestimate our capabilities.”

Without warning, I turned, drew Slaughter, and swung at Luke. He dodged my blade so fast I could barely follow, stepping back to put the wall behind him. I slid Slaughter back into its sheath as we both came to a stop.

His hand dropped to his pommel. “What the fuck was that?”

I looked him in the eye as the dracolich raced off. “That was my best sucker punch, and you just dodged it like I was an angry toddler.”

Luke stopped glaring, but his hand didn’t leave his pommel. “That was your best shot?”

I nodded.

“Your swing looked telegraphed.”

“Only because you’re not used to your agility.”

He huffed out a breath and pulled his hand from his pommel. “You’re right. I need to train.”

“Seeing is believing.”

We both turned and began jogging after the dracolich.

“Why do you want me to train Kathrine? She’s a practitioner, not a fighter.”

“She was a practitioner. That changed when she reacted out of fear and distributed her attributes like a duellist.”

Luke winced. “That was a mistake. Every leader she meets will think she’s an assassin.”

I snorted. “There isn’t a ruler alive who would let either of you inside their capital, let alone their palace walls, so I don’t think you need to be concerned about anyone thinking she’s an assassin.”

Old Monsters were a dime a dozen, but Dragons, those with attributes above 3000, were much rarer. They were one-man armies. Luke and Kathrine lacked the lifetime of training to be true Dragons, but their attributes were now so much higher than the minimum that no one would view them as anything less.

“I didn’t even consider that.”

“That’s because you need time to get used to the changes.”

“I heard you the first time. Are you going collect us when it's safe?”

I shook my head. “Ancient Vampires are most dangerous when they feel threatened, and I don’t want to give them that impression. You need to leave when you’re ready because I’ll be doing everything I can to distance myself from what happened at Darksmith.”

“Will they still want Celest? I thought someone with an aura couldn’t be turned.”

“There are ways of syphoning off experience and reducing someone’s level. Vampires don’t usually bother with those methods, but they’ll go through the trouble for her.”

“Then they’ll still come after you for making Celest your familiar.”

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“They’ll prioritise capturing her. Once they have her, they can use her to find me.”

“Doesn’t that make you a threat?”

“No. They’ll only consider me a threat if I’m actively hunting them. I’ll do everything I can to show them I’m not interested in doing that.”

We exited the fortress and entered the main tunnel to the surface. The tunnel was much narrower than other tunnel I’d seen, so there wasn’t enough room for the dracolich to fly, forcing us all to move at a much slower pace.

“I don’t think they’ll buy it,” Luke said. “You’re running off with their prize.”

“That’s not how vampires think. My prize is back with the other survivors, so it makes perfect sense for me to send them on a wild goose chase after their prize. As far as they’re concerned, making Celest my familiar is just me being spiteful.”

“Are you sure?”

“You have to look at it from their perspective. When they arrived, I’d been at Darksmith for months. The people I had the most contact with were a group of talented young necromancers. These are the kind of people ancient vampires typically use as minions. These are also the sons and daughters of some of the most influential necromancer families in Murdell. From their perspective, I was attempting to influence the next generation of Necropolis and bring the city under my control.”

“And then they barged in.”

“And almost killed me, so now I’m running away and trying to salvage as much of my efforts as I can.”

“Those are surface-level assumptions.”

“The Curse of Sloth will make it hard for them to do more than surface-level examinations, and they’re in a hurry, so they’ll interpret my actions as defensive.”

Luke didn’t sound happy. “What if you’re wrong?”

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it's safe to assume it’s a duck. They won’t treat me as anything other than an ancient vampire until I prove otherwise. And an ancient vampire isn’t a threat to them. It’s not a threat because it will always be willing to negotiate for something as trivial as a familiar’s life. If I escape, they’ll approach me politely like I approached Contessa.”

“You approached Contessa politely so you could backstab her.”

“And I’ll allow them to approach me just as politely so I can backstab them too.”

Luke laughed. “So, get to the fortress, train Kathrine, and come find you when we’re tough enough to protect ourselves. How do we do that last one?”

“Use the dracolich to find Angelica. I won’t be far away.”

“How am I supposed to convince the church to give sanctuary to a dracolich.”

“Claim she’s your noble steed or an emotional support dracolich.”

“I’ll think of something better than that.”

“Suit yourself.”

Luke glanced at me. “Are you going to make it out of this one?”

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask this. “I’m going to try.”

“You don’t sound confident.”

“We have a better chance against four than eight, but it’s still not a good chance.”

“You said there was a chance that they would all follow us.”

“The odds were never in favour of that.”

“Why go back then?”

“Because your sister needs me to, because it’s the right thing to do, and because the survivors have a chance if I do. It’s not a pointless endeavour.”

“You’ll abandon them if it becomes hopeless, right?”

“I’m not going down with the ship.”

“Good. Because we need you. We can’t face this threat alone.”

My children would one day make a very good team. Kathrine was too idealistic, and Luke was too pragmatic. They were going to butt heads a lot until they found a balance, but once they did, they would be a force of good. They needed time for that to happen. Time, they didn’t have.

An army of vampires was a threat that could end the world. Multiple cataclysms were working together, and my children weren’t mentally or physically ready to face that.

“I can’t promise you I’ll get out of this,” I told him honestly. “But I promise you I’ll try my best.”

“You better. But if you don’t make it, can you leave me instructions for what you think I should do?”

That was a very practical suggestion.

“I can do that if you have a blank book I can borrow.”

“Why do you need to borrow a book?”

“My storage pouches need to be repaired.”

“You have six of them.”

“And they all got crushed under the weight of multiple third-floor bosses.”

Luke laughed. “Fine.” He reached into his storage pouch and retrieved his journal and a pen. “I need you to promise you’re not going to fill my journal and love hearts, the princess's name, or other weird shit. Only instructions.”

I chuckled because that was exactly what I’d been planning to do from the moment I saw it. “I promise I’ll only write instructions.”

Luke reluctantly passed me his journal.

“I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

Luke waved that he’d heard as he kept running.

A smile tugged at my lips as I opened his diary and began a step-by-step guide to producing grandchildren.

***

Celest was the last problem I had to solve before I sent my children to safety. Being able to trust her was paramount, but compelling my familiars to serve me faithfully while letting them maintain their free will and independence was a delicate balance that required days of focused effort. I didn’t have enough time to do that, so I stripped her of many of her freedoms, locking her up as tightly as Angelica when we visited Contessa.

When I finished my string of commands, Kathrine made her displeasure known. “Was that-”

I didn’t have enough time to allow her to finish her question as I jogged beside them. “It’s necessary, sweetheart. She’s a seer and the Darklord’s daughter. She might not be her father’s daughter, but I don’t know that, and I can’t take the risk that she is.”

“You could-”

“I don’t have enough time to learn the difference. Letting her live puts hundreds of millions of people at risk, so this is the compromise. Her freedom for her life. I’ll return and fix this later, but nothing you say will change what’s happening.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Then she’ll have to wait. In ten years, my ability to compel her will fade, and she’ll have her freedom back.”

Kathrine pressed her lips together as we exited the tunnel into an open square. She didn’t like my answer but knew we had run out of time to discuss the matter.

Luke had several dozen bruised and unconscious guards lying in rows, so they didn’t interfere. They were students, so they hadn’t put up much of a fight, but there were more than you would usually see.

The surrounding buildings were all awake and talking about a bright light, loud noise, and the magical pressure they’d felt. People were checking their equipment and discussing what they would do if this were the first strike of a new war. I counted the heartbeats and positions of everyone nearby. No one knew we were here, though everyone knew about the spell Gorgath had unleashed.

The city was on high alert.

Angelica stroked her dracolich’s neck one last time and then jumped from her saddle to take over from Luke. He nodded his thanks before blurring to my side and engulfing me in a hug.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I replied, knowing we didn’t have time for this. “Look after your sister for me and teach her how to look after herself.”

“I will. Try not to let this be the last time we see each other.”

“I will.”

I gently pushed him away. We were wasting time. He got the message without me needing to say anything and took his place up front. The dracolich would only let her friends hold the reins, and that was a short list that included Angelica, Luke, and a guy named Burt.

I turned to Kathrine as Luke picked up the reigns. “I love you, Sweetheart.”

Kathrine smiled but didn’t say it back. I might have been someone she cared about, but I wasn’t someone she loved yet. She was still on guard.

Luke turned and gave me a cheese grin as he shouted. “Fly Delilah. Show us the meaning of haste.”

I snorted at his stolen line as the dracolich did a thirty-foot vertical jump and then beat her wings, launching the four of them into the air. Each stroke took them higher and higher as the sorcerers guarding rooftops began throwing orbs of light at the dark blur passing by. The dracolich turned south as the lights approached and accelerated, racing ahead of the spells to remain in the shadow.

I waved goodbye as my children fled to safety, watching them grow smaller as the distance grew larger. Before they were out of sight, they had reached speeds that ensured nothing would catch up to them. The dracolich was much stronger and faster than when we set off, and I was no longer concerned the vampires would catch them. I’d given them enough of a lead.

I watched as they faded into the distance, giving Davina the time she needed to heal the injured guards and put them to sleep.

Angelica walked over, smelling of fear, and squinted in the direction I was looking. “I won’t be able to keep Davina alive like Luke. You better have a different route for the return journey.”

“The fourth floor was a shortcut to buy them extra time to get away. We’re going back through the first and second floors.”

Angelica’s fear was replaced by panic. The thought of returning to the Abyss, even a safer part of the Abyss, was too much for her. “I’m used to you taking me to insane places, but that was insane even for you. Those invisible flying squirrels were the size of Dee and were not the major threats.”

I continued to watch my children fade into the distance. “Davina cast calm on Angelic. She’s panicking.”

A white glow enveloped Angelica.

Her panic was replaced by a wave of deep calm, which immediately began to fade. The spell was essentially an emotional reset, which helped prevent people from spiralling.

I turned to Angelica. “You good?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be good again. That was horrible. And you made me go through it to escape something worse. And now you want us to go back and face that, too.”

“The survivors won’t make it through the third floor without us.”

She scowled. “They might not make it through with us. Give me one good reason to go.”

“I’ll clear your debt.”

Angelica lifted her visor. “All of it?”

“All of it.”

She turned to Davina. “How’s he tricking me?”

Davina placed her hand against an unconscious guard's forehead and cast her spell. “Delilah is taking his Dark Eminence’s children of safety. He’s now happy that he let you feed her those cores, and he’s morally obligated to release you from the debt.”

I scowled at Davina.

She smiled in return.

“I want another one of those cores Dee consumed to help save the survivors,” Angelica replied. “And another one for any ancient vampire I help kill, along with the first choice of loot.”

“Over my dead body.” She was being ridiculous. “You won’t be getting the first choice of loot or any loot. I’ll give you a core to help save the survivors, but you must use it to improve your core. However, any core you receive for helping to kill an ancient vampire can be sold.”

Angelica scowled and gave her counteroffer.

We went back and forth several times and were still negotiating terms when the archsorcerers from the Soon Academy came flying up the tunnel toward us.

Angelica took a defensive stance behind me as I turned to greet our guests. “A thirty-day holiday, the gold equivalent of my share of the loot, and a core for every ancient vampire I help you kill,” she muttered.

“Twenty-five days, and if you help kill more than one, you can’t take the holidays back-to-back,” I countered as Davina joined us.

“Deal.”

I reached behind me, and we shook on it.

My instincts warned me that the elderly woman flying at the front of the formation was a serious threat. The rest were minor annoyances. Their formation broke apart as they approached before flying past to surround us.

No one threw any spells, but I could smell their fear. They knew how we’d reached them.

A younger man with a wispy beard landed beside the guards and checked them over. “They’re asleep,” he yelled. “There are no signs of physical harm. They’ve been healed like the others.”

He rose and walked towards me.

“You’re not the one in charge,” I said.

“But I am the negotiator. Now, why did you come here, and where is the dracolich?”

Talking with him was pointless, so I held out my arms. “Show them what they’re dealing with.”

Angelica smelled happy as she wrapped her staff with deathfire and brought it down on the wrist, delivering a necrotic strike and cutting my hand off. The hand reattached itself as Davina engulfed me with a powerful holy spell.

The young man took several quick steps back, throwing out a barrier to protect himself from an attack that didn’t come.

I raised my voice, turned to the only threat in the group, and showed the elderly woman my fangs. “I am the Vampire Vincent.”

She knew better than to meet my gaze, choosing to look over my head. “We have no quarrel with an ancient vampire.”

“And I have none with you. But as many as eight ancient vampires are chasing the individuals who fled on the dracolich. You, your students, and your city are not their targets, but anyone in their way will die, so I suggest you get out of their way.”

I started walking towards the tunnel.

Davina and Angelica followed me.

“What are you doing?”

“My familiars and I are returning to the Abyss. It is the only safe way to travel tonight. Your country is crawling with vampires.”