Chapter 3
Everyone believes they can spot the wolf among the sheep, the fox among the chickens, but I made way unnoticed and unrecognised through hallways filled with the most powerful young men and women Murdell had to offer. As I stepped outside Kathrine’s dorm and into the light, I continued to move unseen. Illumination crystals hung from the dungeon ceiling, leaving the campus without shadows, but it didn’t mean anything. I could hear every heartbeat and fell the lifeforce radiating from slumbering flesh, yet Riza and Dilan were the only ones who knew a vampire was here.
I strolled to the entrance, beside the orange crystal gardens that decorated the edge of footpath, listening as the two of them discuss Kathrine’s care. Coercing Dalin into caring for her was the right choice. He knew exactly what they needed to do. I began to think over what I had to do next now that I intended to stay at Darksmith.
Vampires had a strong affinity for death and necrotic magic. These were the same branches necromancers used. These branches of magic were highly destructive and not particularly helpful if you were a vampire with a soul.
The excitement I’d experienced upon discovering I could use magic had vanished as I read the adventurer guild’s library in Hellmouth. All of the most powerful spells I had access to were large area of effect spells and not conducive to keeping my soul.
Necrotic magic was a form of disintegration energy. It broke the bonds between atoms, causing the materials they made to fall apart. Except for the finger of destruction spell, the entire necrotic branch of magic was worthless to me. This one necrotic spell also made all the offensive death magic spells obsolete. So, outside of crafting undead, death magic was almost as useless as necrotic magic. Only the deathlock, deadlands, and deathsight spells had any value to me, and that value wasn’t worth the time it would take to learn these spells.
Until now.
If I could harness magic, I could hide at Darksmith until Kathrine recovered. It was a perfectly good use of time. So, the Curse of Sloth didn’t bother me as I walked through the barrier separating the academy from the rest of the dungeon. The student sitting at the gate monitoring the academy’s protective barrier didn’t comment as I turned and started heading towards the dungeon fortress.
Darksmith and magical academies in general, sat at the edge of the dungeon zone. The high mana environment made it the perfect place for young sorcerers to train their skills, so Darksmith had been carved into the bedrock beside the tunnel, which connected the dungeon fortress to the surface.
Getting through the tunnel and beyond the fortress into the dungeon was a simple matter for an ancient vampire. When I reached the fortress, I climbed the tunnel walls to the ceiling, holding my bodyweight with my fingertips. The students guarding the outer wall were half asleep, safe in the knowledge that they were protected by the enchantments around them, so they didn’t notice me pass above.
The dungeon surge, caused by the ants, hadn’t spread to Murdell yet, so there wasn’t a press of monsters waiting for me when I crossed the cavern ceiling. Groups of students dotted the landscape below, fighting dungeon monsters to gain levels and experience. Lighting bolts and waves of fire were met by monstrous roars, causing enough distraction for no one to notice me.
I silently dropped to the ground the moment I reached a side tunnel and started running, following my nose, searching for the entrance to the Abyss.
I needed to create my core and mana network so I could begin practicing magic and secure my place at Darksmith. The reason I was visiting the Abyss was that it would be much easier to form them there than anywhere else.
Humans had a very low magical affinity from what I’d read, even the ones that could use magic. This low magical affinity meant they didn’t have the natural ability to store mana within themselves like most magical creatures. So, humanity had cheated, creating a spell that allowed them to form a core like a dungeon monster.
Creating your core correctly was important.
The larger and stronger your initial core, the faster and easier it was to make it grow. Most sorcerers established their core hundreds of times before they were happy with it, and some older sorcerers even broke their core to begin again because it was easier than trying to push through a bottleneck with an inferior core.
I didn’t have enough time to do that, so I needed to head deep into the Abyss, where the ambient mana was much higher and forming a core was easier.
Fifteen minutes after I set out, I finally found the entrance of the Abyss. I could tell it was the entrance because of the small pockets of orange crystals surrounded by yellow moss. There was also a clear slope that descended lower into the ground, and the ambient mana saturation was triple what it was in the central dungeon. It would grow ten times stronger before I reached the bottom of the first level of the Abyss.
Where I stood was the point where humans began suffering from mana sickness. Prolonged exposure would cause mana crystals, like the ones on the wall, to form in their circulatory system, which eventually led to death. The creatures that lived down here had an immune system that protected them from this and many of the other threats that existed here.
I didn’t have their protection. But I could out heal any damage the crystals caused. I headed deeper into the earth and began projecting my hunger through my aura to the local monster population. They immediately gave me a wide birth, fleeing before me.
They knew their place.
This satisfied the monster in me.
Halfway down the tunnel, I stopped running because a mild tickling sensation was coming from my chest and stomach. I pulled aside my coat to look at my abs.
They were sparkling.
My body was expelling the crystals that were trying to form in my circulator system. Pushing them through my flesh and skin. The result was a fine layer of millions of tiny glowing crystals.
I stared at my skin for far too long, hoping that this was just a temporary issue. The fine glowing grains continued to appear in an endless crystal dusting.
An unhappy frown creased my face as I accepted it wouldn’t stop. I decided then and there that after today, I was never going to come back to Abyss. I was never going to mention that I had come down here. And if Luke asked me to bring him here to train and help him level, I would refuse.
No one respected a vampire who sparkled.
I would never live this down.
My mind made up, I headed deeper.
Twenty minutes later, I was running through the first floor of the Abyss, trying to find the entrance to the second floor, when a familiar scent caught my attention. It was deep and pungent, with a weight and power that was rare. I changed direction, following my nose, withdrawing my aura.
The monsters immediately reacted, coming out of hiding to hunt.
After another few minutes of running, the tunnel gave way to a cavern five miles wide. Monsters that made the ones in the dungeon look like puppies hunted through the expanse, searching for prey. They flew down from the ceiling and crawled out of cracks. They looked like insects and wolves and everything in between, warped in a way that showed they weren’t natural.
In the centre of the cavern was a giant gorilla-like creature with porcupine spikes covering its back. It sat on a bench carved from orange crystal while a dozen equally large gorillas lay around it, curled over so only their spikes were exposed.
I dashed toward it, ignoring everything around me.
The floor boss watched me approach, giving a loud hoot that woke its companions. They clambered to their feet, surrounding the leader. I stopped just outside their circle, lifting my head to look at the fifty-foot monster’s face. It was smaller than the last one I’d met.
It glowered in my direction. “I am Gorbaron, master of this cavern. Why do the demons of men walk in the monster realm.”
I had a serious set of lungs on me so I could match his volume. “I came down here to form my core and mana network and noticed your scent. Do you have news of the war with the ants?”
Kathrine could be asleep for a long time, and I needed to be prepared to move her if the war reached Murdell.
Gorbaron seemed surprised. “You know of the war.”
I nodded. “I came across one of your kind very far from here. Gorgath told me of the nature of the war, so I spared him.”
He sniffed. “You wear the blackened skin of your kind and carry a curved blade. Gorgath has spoken of this.”
It was my turn to be momentarily surprised. “Gorgath mentioned me?”
“Yes. It was a wonderous tale, shared with all Gor. You offered the least of us food and shelter in our time of need. A debt is owed.”
Leaving all the loot behind after my familiars and I killed the acid worms had been painful, but there was too much to carry and not enough time to harvest, so I’d left it where it was.
I wasn’t going to tell this creature that, though. “Will you repay this debt?”
“The method humans use for making their core is known to us. Is your method similar?”
“It’s the same.”
He nodded. “I will take you to our city, where one of our kind will offer you shelter and the materials you need to grow stronger, like for like, so the debt is repaid.”
That sounded very familiar, almost Mandalorian in nature. “This is the way,” I replied jokingly.
He tilted his head to the side and then nodded all too seriously. “This is the way.
***
Gorgath’s people, the Gor, lived on the ninth floor of the Abyss, but they controlled areas from the first floor all the way down to the fifteenth through a series of tunnels and chambers where they hunted to grow stronger. The higher floors were where they sent their young, making Gorgath and my guide Gorbaron little more than children.
We travelled through the Abyss via a series of well-worn tunnels. When we reached the edge of the first floor, my guide gave a loud, clear hoot that sounded like a bombing going off. Then we waited.
A short time later, a group of larger, stronger members of his species came to us and they escorted us to the bottom of the second floor where the process was repeated.
The Gor were a warlike society from what I could see, but they weren’t willing to spend their lives unnecessarily. Happily playing escort to their weaker members through more dangerous territory. By the fourth floor, the common monsters we passed were as strong as Gorbaron, making them first-floor bosses.
At this point, my guide and his troop of mindless gorillas climbed onto their larger elders for safety, and we went deeper. By the seventh floor, the common monsters concerned me. They were so powerful that I would have difficulty killing them, and if the bosses were as powerful as our escorts, it would be a long fight.
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I briefly considered leaving, but since they couldn’t kill me either, I decided to stay.
The tunnel system connected directly to their city, but without secure tunnels, there would have been no way for the weaker members of their species to reach it. Gorgath must have been cut off by the surge when I met him, which explained why he was so frightened and panicked.
It took eight hours to reach the edge of their city, and the last tunnel came out in the middle of a cavern wall. Massive vines as thick as a thousand-year-old redwoods clung to the ceiling far above me. In places, they were woven together to create hanging nests. I spotted at least one of Gorgath’s people standing guard at each nest, watching the skies for threats.
Titans roamed the floor of the cavern, hunting and being hunted in an endless ballet of death. Orange crystal forests stretched as far as I could see, growing at a speed that was visible. It was being eaten just as quickly.
The cavern was the size of some countries back on Earth. It stretched for thousands of miles in every direction. It was the perfect hunting ground for a race like the Gor.
We followed a path along the cavern wall to a cave guarded by dozens of Gor. A creature that was a cross between a worm and a bat that would have eaten a dragon in a single bite waited at the mouth of the cave. We climbed onto its back, behind the rider, and over the next four hours flew to our destination.
It was nest more than ten miles wide, hanging from the ceiling several miles above the cavern floor. We had passed hundreds like in during our journey, some smaller, some much bigger. Nothing about it stuck out.
Gorbaron got off the wormbat behemoth long enough to explain to the guard why he was there. “The demon has come to collect his debt. He wishes shelter and materials to help form his core, like for like. This is the way.”
The guard who was close to two hundred feet tall, tilted his head to the side, the way all the others had when they heard the phrase. “This is the way.” He turned to me. “Climb onto my shoulder.”
I stared at him. My instincts were telling me that I couldn’t kill him, no matter how hard I tried. Slaughter wouldn’t pierce his hide and his natural defences would make it hard for me to feed on his lifeforce. Even if I could, he had so much lifeforce that I would be like a mosquito. No matter how quickly I ate, I would never be able to take enough to harm him. While I couldn’t kill him, he couldn’t kill me either, so I clambered up his body onto his shoulder.
I was taken through the nest, past rooms formed from twisting vines, and deposited in the middle of what was probably a dining room table. Dead dungeon monsters the size of houses littered the table, as six two-hundred-foot-tall creatures feasted.
The guard lowered his head until it was below the head of the largest one. “The demon has come to collect his debt. He wishes shelter and materials to help form his core, like for like. This is the way.”
I’d spotted Gorgath sitting against the wall, by himself. He’d been drooling over the meal. The moment he heard the announcement, he ran up to the table and peered down at me, hooting happily. He then titled his head to the side and nodded. “This is the way.”
The guard left.
I had a feeling I may have accidentally spread Mandalorian culture to the Gor but didn’t care enough to fix it.
I lift my head to meet the kid’s gaze. “Hello, Gorgath. I am The Vampire Vincent and I have come to claim my debt.”
He bounced happily. “Gorgath greets the demon Vincent and offers his thanks for sparing his life and giving shelter and food in his time of need.”
The other creatures at the table all gave the same loud hoot, forcefully punctuating his point. Then they continued to eat.
“Gorgath looks forward to repaying his debt, so he may return to his training.”
The others hooted again.
“Gorgath will take you to his uncle on the fifteen floor when he knows which cores you desire?”
“Death and Necrotic magic.”
Gorgath turned to the largest individual at the table and hooted. The other ones all had babies suckling, so I took it to mean he was the only male.
The male hooted back and forth with Gorgath for a few seconds before they both nodded.
“My sire recommends the cores of a sharn beast. Gorgath will trade for these cores. None shall harm you while you rest at my sire’s table.” Gorgath climbed to his feet, went over the corner, and collected a large sack, before leaving.
His father turned to me the moment he left. “I am Gormanth. Thank you for sparing my son, demon.” The others hooted to punctuate his point. “And thank you for giving him a chance to repay his debt.” They hooted again. “Without it, he would have remained ostracized by our people.”
I frowned. “Why is he ostracized?”
“We cannot allow one of our people to grow in strength who is indebted to one who is destructive by nature. It will cause disharmony and weaken our people, and the monster realms is no place for weakness.”
There was a very simple logic to his statement that made perfect sense and it explained why I couldn’t sense a hint of demonic activity around here. “How goes the war with the ants?”
Gorbaron hadn’t told me anything.
“Poorly. Their queen resided on the seventeenth floor, controlling much territory in the six floors above and below. Without her leadership, they expand in all directions as their nature dictates. We are but a fraction of their number, formally protected from their appetites by treaty and trade. The treat of extermination kept our people in check, causing us to control our breeding and limit our strength. Now we breed and grow stronger to hold off annihilation.”
That was concerning. “Will you be able to stop them?”
“We hope we will not have to. Civilisations much deeper than our own are dealing with the same issue. If one of them cannot end this war, then I would not bet on our chances of survival.”
Gormanth went back to his meal, and I stayed silent. Every so often he would spit out a monster core the size of a couch, like it was a peach pip, and then continue eating.
Gorgath rushed into the dining room an hour later. “I have returned from my trading for the cores of the sharn beast.”
His family hooted supportively as they continued to eat.
The hooting was clearly a language and a highly complex one that seemed to convey an entire conversation of meaning with a single sound. I was reminded of that one episode of Star Trek where Picard met an alien species who talked through shared stories. I got the impression that this was something similar.
Gorgath walked over to the table and looked down at me. “Demon, I will take you to my uncle on the fifteenth floor and repay me debt.”
“This is the way,” Gormanth stated.
***
Gor society interested me, because it was a society where the very weakest of them could safely travel from one side of their empire to the other without fear or concern for their safety. That was the exact sort of world I wanted to create for my family, so I was taking notes.
The deeper we went the more marvellous the world they’d created became. After the tenth floor, Gorgath’s people lost the spikes on their backs and began using magic. It was an interesting development that confused me.
I sat on Gorgath’s shoulder as he clung to the chest of our most recent guide. We were on the twelfth floor and moving faster than a fighter jet. Our guide had surround us in a sphere of magic, before levitating into the air and flying us through the tunnels like a hypersonic missile.
It was a frightening display of power and had made me curious. “Gorgath, why do your people only use magic on the deeper floors?”
Gorgath turned his massive head to his shoulder to look at me. “The higher floors lack mana. Performing magic is much more difficult there, so my people do not train to use magic until we reach the ninth.”
I didn’t see their logic. “That makes it the perfect place to train. If you can perform magic under those conditions, then you can perform magic anywhere.”
Gorgath frowned and then looked up to the face of our guide, he was clinging to. “Is what the demon says true, elder?”
The behemoth nodded. “The demon speaks the truth. This is the path to true power.”
“Am I indebted to the demon again, elder?”
“No. The demon offered you nothing you could not have gained yourself with no cost to yourself or your troop, however unlikely. There is no debt.”
I looked up at our guide, confused by their exchange. “You don’t instruct your children on how to grow stronger?”
“Threats do not come from above, so we use those floors to discover the character of our children.”
“How?”
“Returning with all their troop alive shows us they are good leaders and protective of their own. Returning with the ability to form spells shows that they are both patient and focused, willing to struggle through difficult tasks. Returning with unique evolutions for their troop shows they are lucky or a careful hunter. Gorgath is one we would consider lucky.”
Gorgath hooted.
I frowned. “Why is he lucky?”
“The acid worms you left for him to eat had very rare peak bloodlines. He and his troop can now spit acid and are resistant to it. They will be immune when he allows them to go through their first evolution.”
“Gorgath is not ready to evolve anymore. Gorgath will hunt and eat a mana crab.”
The elder frowned. “Are you saying, you’re willing to give up your spikes?”
That was a good question. From what I had seen Gor weren’t flexible. They couldn’t reach their backs, so if something latched on, they had no way to remove it. The spikes were their only defence. Without them, Gorgath wouldn’t be able to run from his enemies and would have to face them down every time.
“Gorgath has run. Gorgath does not like the cost of doing so. Gorgath will give up this choice.”
The elder continued to frown. “Yet, you chose to hunt a monster that will both help you develop magic and give you a soft exoskeleton.”
“Gorgath is willing to lose his spikes. Gorgath is not willing to let anything that reaches his back kill him.”
The elder stopped frowning. “You show wisdom. Your honour your sires.”
Gorgath grinned, showing teeth. “This is the way.”
The elder turned his head to the side and then nodded. “This is the way.”
***
Gorgath’s people had only managed to descend a third of the way down the fifteenth floor, but they had a camp near the edge were several thousand of them lived. It was a small fortress, relatively speaking, in the largest cavern they could control. They’d reinforced the walls with magic so nothing could burrow through, and they’d built kill boxes at the tunnel entrances. Unlike in the higher floors, here they wore powerful armour and carried weapons fashioned from the monsters they had killed.
Our new guide took us through the centre.
Everywhere I looked, they sat in groups of four discussing tactics for their next hunt, looking over maps, or lay on their backs sleeping. It was very well organised and kind of reminded me of the adventurer’s guild. There was an area for craftsmen, another for enchanters, one for training, and another for butchering their kills, which were mostly ants. Our guide dropped us off at the edge of the enchanter’s section.
Gorgath sniffed the air and began walking towards his uncle. The air down here was so thick with mana that we moved through a blue haze. I’d read a legend that said on the lowest floor it became a liquid, forming a great ocean of mana. Down there, new creatures would spring into existence only to be gobbled up by something else. Anything that escaped the primordial sea, tended to head as high as it’s biology would allow as quickly as it could.
Gorgath stopped before a truly massive specimen of his species. It would have been over three hundred feet tall when standing, but it was sitting on a stool bent over a knee-high table, etching an enchantment into a bone knife.
His uncle had the power to crush me like an insect. Anything down here did. And I wasn’t entirely sure, I’d survive the experience. Something had fundamental changed when we reached the fifteenth floor. Even Gorgath now felt like a threat to me.
“Uncle Gorak, the demon has entered the Abyss to forge and strengthen his core. I have offered him shelter and materials to repay my debt, like for like. This is the way.”
Gorak put down his tools and turned his massive head towards Gorgath, tilting it to the side, before nodding. “This is the way.” He turned his gaze on me and I felt very much like a mouse standing before a tiger. His leg was twice the size of Gorgath. “Once a human named Tarmis lived among my ancestors. He was born of the surface world but was not of the surface world. He was born with a core and could not live outside of the place you call dungeons. As he aged, the mana grew too thin, and he descended to the Abyss, where he met my ancestor. He was not the first to do so and he will not be the last, but he was kind and caring and offered my ancestors many tales of the surface world and the things you call sun, sky, and magic. He lived among us for the remainder of his days, much loved and cared for. For this he is remembered.” Gorak gave a distinctive hoot unlike any I had heard.
If my guess was right, the appropriate response was to hoot it back, so I did.
Gorak flinched.
I did my best to hide my smirk. “This is the way.”
Gorak got over his shock and nodded. “You learn quickly.” He leaned to the side of his table and opened a leather sack that could have fit a midsized apartment building in it. He removed a bone plate the size of a basketball court and placed it on the table. “This is mana condensing circle. I use it to temper my enchantments. At its centre, it will rain liquid mana. To do this for my own kind would be impossible, but it is a simple matter for one as small as you. You will sit at its centre and forge your core while I empower the circle.”
I’d figured out I was able to create a perfect core with ease by the time we reached the fifth floor. The only reason I hadn’t was I wanted to see what would happen if I did it further down. I hadn’t expected to run into liquid mana though.
Liquid mana was pure theory on the surface. No one to my knowledge had ever seen it first hand, and if they had they hadn’t been able to return and share their story. The legends about the substance were so old no one remembered where they came from or if they were true.
Gorgath held out the sack he’d been carrying. “Gorgath has brought sharn cores from the ninth so the demon Vincent may strengthen his core.”
Gorak reached into the sack beside him and fished out a core that was the size of warehouse. “Trade this for an Ambrax core from the eighteenth. The demon will surpass the ninth with my help.”
Gorgath placed me on the table beside his uncle, and took the core with both hands, before running off. Down here, he truly did look like a child.
I stood on the oversize piece of stone furniture watching Gorak work and weighing my options. Their people had treated me as a guest. Their family had shown me the best hospitality. They’d even been polite.
I needed to be polite in return. My memories told me that. Also, it didn’t hurt to build good will. Being on good terms with monsters this powerful might be helpful at some point.
It was time for a little bureaucratic bull.
“Gorgath will assist you in powering the circle. Too many others have offered him assistance and he will not repay debt like for like without offering aid himself.”
Gorak turned to me and paused. I caught what looked like the briefest of smirks before he nodded. “This is the way.”