“It still hurts,” Draven hissed, clutching at his leg.

“There’s damage in there I can’t heal,” Finnian admitted. “Maybe a higher Tier or a specialist in healing could do more… It’s stabilised, at least. You should be able to walk on it.”

Draven tried it, wincing as he put his weight down. “Should I try a potion?” he asked.

“Won’t do any good,” Finnian told him. “It won’t heal with time either, unless you find someone who can fix it.”

Draven swore while Mel giggled gleefully. “Permanent damage! I love that poison!”

“Eh,” Kelsey said. “I’m still not convinced. I’d be happier if they could use a potion to fix it— they’d be down another potion.”

“But this way, he’s not operating at top form!” Mel protested. “He’s weaker, ripe for the kill!”

“Settle down, killer,” Kelsey said, laughing. “The important stuff starts now.”

The party looked at the hole they’d found. The lightstone, held in Kaelan’s hand, didn’t extend far enough to see what was below. Draven limped forward to take a look.

“About fifty feet down, rough ground,” he said. Everyone looked at Kaelan, who stroked his chin, considering.

“I’ve dropped fifty feet before,” he said.

“On ground like this, you’d likely land badly,” Draven pointed out. “Better get the rope out.”

Kaelan sighed. “Once again, I’m the only one who needs it, right?”

“Once there’s a light down there, I’ll be fine,” Cedric confirmed.

“The blessing of Butin will suffice for me,” Finnian said.

Draven just smirked.

“Fine, fine,” Kaelan said. “Mock the simple mercenary.” He pulled a rope from his backpack, already attached to a steel spike. Not bothering with a hammer, he drove the spike into the cave wall with one hand and tossed the rope down the hole.

“I’ll wait here to retrieve the rope,” Draven said. “Or should we leave it?”

“I doubt the dungeon will let us keep it there once we leave the level,” Kaelan said. “It might be a pain attaching it when we go up, but at least we’ll still have it.”

Hooking the lightstone around his wrist, he started climbing down. Almost immediately though, there was a flurry of screeches and fluttering and yells of pain from the mercenary.

“Ow! Get off! Stop—”

“I can’t make out what’s going on,” Finnian said, looking down into the chaos. Between the fluttering darkness and the wildly swinging light, Kaelan looked as if he were in some kind of black snowstorm.

“Bats,” Cedric said succinctly. “And… some vampire bats.”

“Just ignore them!” he called out to Kaelan. “They’re only Tier 1 and 2, they’re not going to kill you!”

“Easy for you to say, when—” Kaelan managed, just before his own antics dislodged his grip. With a strangled cry, he fell, taking the light with him.

The three stared at their leader, lying still in a small circle of light.

“I don’t think he’s broken his neck,” Finnian said. “I’d better go down and heal him.”

He stepped out and fell through the hole. Even as he started to fall, though, a golden-red light engulfed him and his plummet slowed to a gentle drift. The light seemed to repel the bats as well so his descent was unimpeded. He wasn’t halfway down, though, when the two remaining heard him cry out.

“Can someone get down there faster? There’s something pawing at him!”

“Vampires,” Cedric speculated. He looked at Draven, who scowled.

“Fine,” Draven said and stepped into the darkness. Shortly after, there was a screech from below.

“Let’s go down and take a look,” Kelsey suggested.

To Kelsey and Mel, who could see through the darkness as if it were day, the twelfth floor was a huge open cavern. There was no fake sun to show off the view, which was interrupted by the rough natural towers of stone that formed a maze spreading out in all directions.

There was a large cleared area under the hole, empty except for a few boulders. Kaelan had landed on one of these, and honestly, the boulder had come off worse.

Kaelan, though, was now lying down, the gorget torn from his throat. Blood was dripping down his armour, which quickly stopped as Finnian arrived. The cause, a pale, thin humanoid, had been skewered by Draven’s daggers.

“Vampires,” Draven spat.

“Not too difficult, I hope?” Finnian said, his attention on his patient.

“Nah, Kaelan wouldn’t have had any trouble if he hadn’t knocked himself silly,” Draven replied.

“Oggh, my head,” Kaelan said. “What was I drinking last night?”

“It’s the other way around,” Finnian said wryly. “Something was drinking you.”

“Really?” Kaelan asked. “Eww,” he said, catching sight of the vampire. “Is that going to have any… effects?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Nothing that Butin’s blessing can’t kick the shit out of,” Finnian said cheerfully. “The wound is healed, but if you’re feeling dizzy you might want to take a potion. That will speed up your blood regeneration.”

“I think I might,” Kaelan said. “I have a lot of aches and pains I don’t remember having. But first…” he held the lightstone up high, illuminating the area.

“Are you coming down, or what?” he called up. The only reply was the falling rope, the piton on the end almost hitting him. Then Cedric jumped down, landing gracefully on a boulder next to the others.

“Show-off,” Kaelan muttered. Then he whirled around and drew his sword, as a hissing voice came out of the darkness.

“You’ve been tricked, Kaelan,” the voice said. “There’s no reward for you here, only death.”

The party quickly arranged themselves defensively.

“There,” Draven said, pointing with a dagger at the source of the voice. “It’s another vampire. But also… there, there and there.”

“Tikin lied to you,” the vampire hissed. “The core you seek is already gone.”

“Did you tell them to say that?” Mel asked Kelsey.

“Of course,” Kelsey replied. “Do you know how much mana psychological warfare costs? Nothing!”

“How does it know about Tikin?” Draven whispered urgently. He was trying to keep his voice from carrying, but Mel knew that Kelsey could hear every murmur in his heartbeat. And Mel didn’t need to hear words.

“The dungeon must have heard us talking,” Kaelan muttered. “Tikin said it was intelligent.”

He called out to the vampire. “You’re lying! There’s nowhere for the other core to have gone.”

The vampire made a noise like a hacking cough.

“Mental note,” Kelsey said. “Never order a vampire to laugh.”

“No lies,” the vampire said. “Only death. Core is far, far away.”

“One core is still here, though,” Kaelan said grimly. “We’ll take that one.”

“You will never see it,” the vampire promised.

Then they charged.

It was almost a fair fight, Mel thought. The vampires were close in level, but there was still a gap in the raw stats. Humans almost always had an advantage there. They had magic armour and weapons as well, so even though the vampires had more numbers, they still couldn’t close the gap.

Wondering what the fight was like for them, Mel started filtering out all but the human perspectives. As a mental being, Mel didn’t have any senses of her own. Instead, she shared the perspective of her host, Kelsey. A dungeon’s sensorium was vast, far too complicated for Mel to process, so she had to limit it, filter it. When she first did so, she had realised that she could also share the perspectives of any person or monster in the dungeon.

Now, she limited herself to what the humans could see. Her awareness of the maze faded away, and the darkness encroached, held back only by the lightstones that they carried. She narrowed her focus further, focusing on Finnian. Since he mostly fought in the back line he had a good view of things.

After the first wave had been dealt with, they had to start moving forward. Draven had spotted the castle on his way down, so they had a direction to move in. However, that wasn’t enough. The floor of the cavern was broken up into a maze of ravines that headed in all directions. Draven had to shadowstep up to the peaks to get an idea of where the gulleys led.

And everywhere, there were ambushes. Vampires popped out around corners and out of concealed caves. They dropped down from the ceiling and came out of the floor. They ambushed Draven when he was scouting, and they rolled rocks down on the party when they stopped for a rest.

The bats were particularly annoying. Many of them were normal bats. Too many to count and hardly worth the swing that would kill one. They hid the vampire bats, which were a nasty surprise, but hardly deadly. Just annoying.

Sometimes the bats would swarm around them and just disperse. Sometimes they hid another vampire ambush. Sometimes, one dropped down at just the right moment to block a party member’s view or provide a distraction.

To another party, a lesser party, it would have been hell. Or death. But these invaders took it all in their stride. They endured the lesser wounds, used a healing potion when it got too much, and kept on going.

Finally, they came to the castle of the Vampire Queen. Not a large castle, as these things went, but it had high walls with an impressive door set into a gatehouse. The door was tightly shut.

“Scale the walls?” Draven suggested.

“Nah,” Kaelan said. “Let’s just go straight in. Cedric, you want to try your Frostfire on the door?”

“Sure,” the archer said. He’d pulled out his bow for this floor. The darkness reduced his range, but there had been some opportunities to use it. Now, he shot four arrows at each corner of the door. They burst into flames, which quickly spread across the wooden surface.

This fire was cold, and even as the wood burned, its temperature dropped. The door started to crack, even as its outer surface started turning into ash.

“Have you heard of Frostfire before?” Mel asked. She had to step out of Finnian to address Kelsey, but the mental avatar was still right next to her, as if she’d been there the entire time.

“Can’t say that I have,” Kelsey admitted, her eyes on the party. “Can’t say I like it, but with his strength, he could probably have punched his way through.”

The doors fell with a crash, and Mel quickly stepped back into Finnian. To him, it looked like the whole tower was just one big room, richly furnished and lit with a warm red light. Wooden panels lined the walls and the floor was covered in a variety of red and gold rugs.

Furniture was scattered around the room, an eclectic mixture of tables, divans and comfortable chairs. It looked like the room was used for a variety of purposes, from feasting hall to comfortable sitting room. But rising above it all was the throne.

At the far end of the room, set on a dais, the throne drew every eye toward it. As did the beautiful lady sitting on it. Her skin was darker than that of any noble that the party had ever seen, and her eyes flashed a brilliant ruby red.

Her raven hair flowed down below her shoulders, her cleavage was a dark mystery that the four men found themselves longing to explore.

“Welcome to my Court,” she purred. Her voice was cast low and husky, but they could somehow hear it clearly. “Though you have killed many of my subjects, all can be forgiven if you kneel before me. Sit at my feet and I will show you pleasures you cannot yet imagine.”

“She’s using some kind of mental effect,” Finnian growled. “Cedric, Kaelan, you have the lowest Will, stay strong.”

The party moved forward cautiously. Not to throw themselves at her feet but in battle formation. Kaelan and Draven took the lead, Finnian in the rear, with Cedric hanging back near him. They’d advance this way until their vanguard was in melee range. Cedric was holding back on starting the fight until then.

“If you will not submit,” the Queen said sadly. “Then you must be subdued.”

All around the room, vampires stepped out. They had been hiding behind panels and furniture. About ten of them. These, though, were armed with long, thin swords, and some of them had plate mail strapped to their arms. Good for parrying blows, while retaining maximum mobility.

The party froze, for just an instant. Then—

“Go!” Kaelan yelled, bounding forward. Draven was only a step behind. They both lunged at the queen, lightning crackling over Kaelan’s sword and dark shadows gathering over Draven’s dagger.

The queen burst into a cloud of bats after the first blow. The flock swirled around Draven and Kaelan before dissolving into mist.

Cedric started pumping out arrow after arrow, each one on fire and each one aimed at the heart of a vampire. Finnian readied himself for the charge of the survivors.

Without warning, the vampires, the lush furnishings, and the panelled walls, all started to turn into mist. Finnian felt an iron grip take hold of his face and shoulder from behind. He felt a sharp pain in his neck.

Somehow, even though her mouth was occupied, he could still hear the sultry voice of the Queen.

“Silly mortal,” she said. “Don’t you know that illusions are based against Charisma?”

Mel let the invader’s perspective fade out. Watching Finnian get fooled had been very satisfying. Kelsey must have thought so too, she was watching the fight start with satisfaction.

“Good girl,” she said to Cheryl. Cheryl couldn’t hear her, of course, not with humans in the room, but that had never stopped Kelsey from talking. “Always target the healer.”