Author's corner:

Here is the wednesday chapter. It is a bit longer than I expected it to be. I hope you enjoy it. Also because of a comment under the last chapter I tried to separate the dialogue a bit better to create some clearness. Hope it worked as intended. :)

We made our way through the narrow pathway, only wide enough to allow three people walking side by side. We came across many of the traps that should keep this entrance safe in the case it was discovered. There were spears that were ripped out of there retainer after they hit some of the invaders. This could be seen by the bloodstains that stained them. The corpses couldn’t be found in the near vicinity but that was no surprise considering that orcs have cannibalistic tendencies. There were also a few arrow traps and those that would drop stones from a high place to stop the enemy from advancing. All of them killed a lot of them if one considered the amount of dried blood.

After 5 minutes of walking the pathway opened up a bit and a few meters ahead was a gatehouse made from the grey granite of the mountains with a metal door blocking the path. The metal door was broken open and was hanging crooked in the hinges. The intricate ornaments on the door could still be seen but the orcs did their best to remove my crest from the door and their efforts were successful. The drop with a crown on top was hardly there. It must have been a lot of work to erase that. “Those bastards. Know they no shame?” I spit on the ground. “They will pay for this! Not one of them will leave this valley alive!”

I must have been too loud because the moment I said that two orcs made their way through the open gate and looked surprised to see us here. They were like all orcs around 2,3 meters high and 1 meter wide in the shoulder region and had dark green skin. One was bald and had a scar over his left, empty eye socket and his only tusk was on the right side. He was wearing a hide vest and hide pants that reached his knees. He was armed with a rusty iron sword. The other one had long, black, matted hair. He had both husks and in one of them were three golden rings. He was wearing a battered leather armor and the same kind of hide pants the other was wearing. He was armed with a spear. They looked in our direction and said something in their crude language that reminded me of the sounds of pigs. After that they readied their weapons and made their way towards us.

“Aryana, would you be so kind? Now you can prove yourself and experience what you are capable of now.”

“If you want me to do this I will…” One look in her face told me that she was not convinced that she could win this battle and fear was creeping in her eyes. But nonetheless she made her way towards the orcs. After getting a closer look at her I could see blatant lust in the eyes of the orcs. The one with the sword laughed and made a big step in her direction and wanted to grab her arm but Aryana made a quick sidestep and hit him straight at the solar plexus. What she didn’t anticipated was that she was stronger than before her transformation. Because of that her fist sunk wrist deep into the chest of the orc. The orc looked as surprised as Aryana and then cough out a mouthful of blood over her before sinking on his knees, not really realising what happened.

The other orc roared in anger and stormed towards her and stabbed the spear towards her abdomen. In a daze because of what happened and her hand still in the chest of the orc Aryana was to slow to evade and the spear pierced her abdomen and made his way all the way through her body and protruded even a few centimeters out of her back. Now it was Aryana who coughed out a mouthful of blood. After that the orc lifted the spear with Aryana on one end into the air and made a quick side swing, throwing her of the spear and against the wall. This resulted in her spitting another mouthful of blood and gliding down the wall, blood gushing out of the wound in her abdomen.

The orc didn’t give her a second glance and made his way towards me. He was a bit more cautious than his now dead companion. Nonetheless he attacked me. This time he swept the spear in an attempt to hit my legs. I just jumped up and landed on his shoulder from where I jumped once again, landing 2 meters behind him while he stumbled a few steps forward. “Huh? You want to fight me now? But you fight with her is not over yet. I think it would be unfair to team up against you, don’t you think?”

He turned around to face me once more but his gaze was captured by Aryana who now was kneeling on the ground, her gaze directed towards the ground and her face covered by her long black hair. She slowly heightened her face and the hair slid back, revealing her face contorted in anger. But the most prominent feature in her face where her completely blood red eyes from which blood red lines made their way all over her face. The rest of her face and over all her skin was now a pale white color. Her mouth was filled with long and sharp fangs and her fingers were longer and topped by blood red, 5 cm long claws. She changed her position into a cowering one, like a tiger right before he pounced at his prey. Her gaze penetrated into the eyes of the orc whose eyes opened wide in shock. He made a few steps backward and begun shivering in fear over the immense amount of bloodlust she emitted.

“How dare you hurting me, you ugly creature! I will kill you!” She screamed at him and her voice resembled the sound of chalk screeching on a blackboard. And with these words she pounced in the direction of the orc. She grabbed his right arm and his right tusk, throwing him around and letting loose of the arm but holding onto the tusk, effectively ripping out the tusk and breaking his jaw in the progress. The orc stumbled against the wall and held his jaw, staring in panic at the strange half-elf in front of him who threw away the bloody tusk. Then she opened her mouth wider than humanly, or in this case elvenly, possible and out of her mouth came a screech that made the sound from fingernails on a blackboard sound like a heavenly chorus.

The orc begun to shudder violently and a few bubbling sounds could be heard. A few seconds later the orc collapsed. If one was to examine this orc closely one would find that his blood was frozen in his veins. After killing the orc the screech came to an end and the red in her eyes slowly changed to the normal colors. The red lines also vanished and her skin changed back to the original grey color. The claws also retracted. After the transformation was completed she collapsed and groaned in pain while the wound in her abdomen, which was healed half the way, begun to bleed again.

After a while she calmed down but the healing started to slow down. “It seems like you need blood. Want some?”

“Yes. Please give me some of your blood…” She said with a little pain in her voice. “Oh no. You don’t get my blood. Haha. But look there is enough blood around you. You just have to drink it haha.” I said with an amused look on my face. “B-But it smells disgusting…”

“Oh? Is that so? The only alternative would be to die. So consider your choice wisely.” I told her with a wide grin on my face. “You can’t be serious.”

“Hmm? You think so? You had my blood one time. That is more than most can say. And now make your choice. We don’t have the whole night to idle around there are orcs to kill!”

With a last pleading look that was met by my mocking smile she crawled towards the orc she first killed and let her fangs sink in his neck.

The moment his blood came into contact with her tongue she gagged and almost vomited. This is the only natural reaction to something like that. Orc blood is one of the most disgusting thing I could imagine. It has a rotten and moldy taste that is complemented by an awful smell and I don’t know why but after the death of an orc the blood starts to curdle immediately so you have those lumps once in awhile. I must say she has a strong will. She gulped down two mouthful before letting go and beginning to cough so hard I thought her lung would come out. After 2 minutes she calmed down and spit a few times with a disgusted expression on her face.

“So you decided to live? That’s nice. Now that your wound has healed we can move on, can we?” I said to her with a wide smile on my face. “That was the most disgusting thing I ever tasted!” Once again she spit on the ground. “This taste will haunt me in my dreams!”

“Haha. Your face was priceless~. Alone that made it priceless. Also gratulations for winning your first fight. You did well and even discovered your vampiric form. And the blood drinking part was your punishment for getting wounded. I hope you learn from it.”

With this I went towards the gate and looked behind it. They effectively destroyed every bit of decoration that was in this gatehouse. I sighed and made my way towards the exit to the valley. When we made our way out of the pathway the dawn was now on the verge of the night. The look into the valley was beautiful. In front of us was a river that had its origin by a waterfall on the left and made its way further down the valley back into a mountain wall. To the right was a little forest of red oak trees. I chose them because of the nice blood-red color of their leaves. But by now only a few of them remained. Most of them were logged and used to build some sort of execution device. It locks like a big V and in the middle hung a humanoid figure.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

On the other side of the river was the back of a large mansion. It was four stories high in the middle. On the sides were wings that had a 90° angle to the main part and were three stories high. It would be a nice building if not for the “renovations” the orcs had done to it. They had destroyed all windows that were present. Also they ripped all the decorative ivy that had made it’s way up the walls. With this a lot of the rendering came loose as well and the bricks could be seen.

To the left was a building nicely build out of basalt. This was the quarters for the slaves in the back and for the servants in the front. Also the first floor in the front was occupied by the stables for horses and the like. On the opposite wall from where we were there was the highest building in this valley. This was also made from basalt and was home to my personal guard. The existence of orcs in this valley showed that they were not occupied at the moment. These barracks were 6 stories high and could house the four high ranking officers and 200 soldiers.

“First let us gear up. I hate getting in contact with the blood of those filthy bastards.”

“Yes. That sounds good. But where do we get some weapons without running into orcs? It seems like they occupied the big mansion.” She looked at me with a look on her face that showed her unwillingness to touch even the slightest bit of orc blood ever again. “Don’t worry. The good stuff is not in the mansion. But I don’t know if I have an armor that fits you. But let’s first move. Follow me.” I began walking towards the waterfall. Up close one could see that there was a little space between the waterfall and the wall behind it. I made my way through the gap and stood in a small passage that was blocked by a big and heavy black iron door after 3 meters.

This door filled the whole passage. One could not pass without opening the door. It was adorned with beautiful ornaments that showed a human kneeling in front if a shadowy figure that towered above her. The human figure looked like a defeated warrior with a broken sword in his hand and a full plate armor. The features of the shadowy figure could not be identified. It seems like the real shadows hid them from the eye of the observer. Only one thing could be seen without fail and that were the large fangs in the mouth of the shadow.

With quick steps I made my way towards the door and slightly cut my right thumb with my canines and pressed the bleeding wound against the fangs of the shadowy figure. After a short while a slight rumble could be heard and the door swung inwards. “After you.” I smiled towards Aryana. She walked in and I followed suit. Behind the door was a natural limestone cave with light moss covering the ceiling, bathing the whole cave in a dim light. The cave was almost a hundred meters long and on the widest place fifty meters wide. On the walls and in the middle were all sorts of showcases, cabinets and chests. All filled to the brim with useless and useful artifacts, armor and weapons. “Don’t even think about getting in here without me. There are as many magical traps in here as magical artifacts. Also you can’t open the door. There are just as many security measures on the door as traps in this room.” I said as I looked towards Aryana. Not that I ever thought she would try it. “I would never even think of robbing my master!” She exclaimed with a shocked expression on her face.

“Now come. We still need to give you a new name. This is the second reason I first wanted to come here. Follow me to the back of the cave.” We went through the whole cave towards the far end. There we could see a pond, which was 2 meters in diameter and 1 meter deep, with a red liquid in it.

“This is the essence. I don’t have a better name for this. This is the one of the two I know of. The other is in the castle of my sister at the other end of the continent. I discovered it through accident when I build the mansion in this valley. At first I had no clue what this liquid does but later I found out that it has a strengthening effect on the soul and the body. In itself this is nothing spectacular. The humans have similar wells in their lands. It just takes many years to give a large enough boost to be significant. They are rare but some schools are build at places with those wells. The thing that makes these so special is that if you combine it with a naming ceremony the effect is astronomically. After undergoing the ceremony the soul is strengthened to a degree where you can suppress the hunger for blood for a long duration without going insane. Also you get the ability to think clearly in the vampiristic form. Which is, you know that, normally impossible. The last, and probably biggest, thing you get from this well is that you are capable of using blood rites after being named.” I explained to her while standing next to the pool. “The only negative thing is that we can’t influence the name given during the ceremony.”

“Okay. What is it that I have to do?” Was the answer I got from Aryana. “It is simple. You need to immerse into the liquid. But before we do that you need to clean yourself. Over there, behind the stalagmite, is a pond with clean water. Remove those rags and wash yourself. After that go into the pond with the essence. I will recite the necessary verses to give you your new name.”

“Yes. I will be right back.” With these words she went behind the stalagmite. After a few minutes she came back fully naked and I could get a good look at her body. She had well toned muscles and not a gram of excess fat. She had small and firm breasts and a round butt. All in all perfect proportions. After a last glance in my direction she went straight into the pond with the red liquid.

After she was in the middle of the pond she kneeled down immersed fully into the liquid. After the last bit of her was under the surface I said the ancient words that accompany every namin rite that was ever done in our race.

“From the shadows we came,

In the shadows we live,

In the shadows we hunt,

And shadows we will be when we die.

Today I bring forth this daughter of the shadows,

Her life will now be guided by the shadows,

May the shadows guide her,

May the shadows hide her,

May the shadows protect her,

Because she is the shadow of every existence.

From now on she will be known under a new name,

Given by the shadows can it only be taken by the shadows.”

After I finished reciting those words the surrounding shadows crept towards the pond and entered it. After reaching the middle they encased Aryana only to disperse a few seconds later. After this happened she emerged from the pond, heavy breathing and looking confused around before her view cleared and she focused on me. “What’s your name, daughter of the shadows?”

“My new name is…”

Author’s corner:

Not the most epic cliffhanger in existence but I don’t care! Originally I had planned to only write one chapter about the cleaning of the mansion but then BOOOM 3k words and it hasn’t even started yet. On the other hand you could argue it is still only one chapter because It has yet to start. But you get what I mean :D