Chapter 120: Setting A Trap

The stench of blood was so strong Nara did not need Thanatos to tell her it was there. She wanted to gag from nausea, and followed warily after Aliyah, who was similarly disturbed.

The corridor opened up, revealing a stone room that looked like a research lab. Alongside the wall were sleeping forms—creatures of grey, stone flesh. Pulsating, bright red veins shone through the fleshy stone skin of the strange abominations.

“What the Satan’s wrinkly bum hole are those?” Nara whispered over voice chat. She didn’t need to, but reflexively did so.

“Familiars, likely. Of the minion variety,” Aliyah whispered back, already used to Nara’s Earth analogies. The two were unsure if their voices would awaken the strange stone and blood monstrosities, and kept quiet.

They all had different forms; none were uniform. Most were a combination of humanoid and a few other animals, a chimeric corruption of the human form. Others were purely animal, similarly perversions of natural form, more monster than beast.

“We need to destroy them.”

“Can we? They’re bronze rank. At least, not with them waking up.”

Aliyah paced, thinking on her feet. “We can collapse the entire cave. For those that aren’t destroyed, it will take them some time to escape. I’ll set up the runes.”

“I’ll look around a bit more.”

Nara gazed at the research table, not entirely willing to touch anything on there. Most was standard—books on ritual magic that Siyu evidently had not studied enough. Small vials and bottles filled with blood, labeled with the names of their sources. Papers scribbled on and crumpled here and there, tossed onto the floor.

“He’s trying to play researcher, but he doesn’t know how to do it,” Nara observed. The papers were basic topics, abandoned before delving into the subject. Siyu didn’t have the patience to work through the mundane of research, pruning the tree of progress before it borne fruit. “Lucky for us, I guess. There’s something here,” Nara said, gazing at a paper. “This doesn’t look like his handwriting. It’s different from the rest.”

“I’ll take a look,” Aliyah said. She had to wait for the 1 minute cooldown on Rune Trap anyway. Additionally, she was emplacing rituals to weaken the structure of the stone. At iron rank, her ability wasn’t enough to cause large scale damage, and needed a bit of external help. “They’re instructions. Someone told him how to abduct and kill the townsfolk,” She flipped through even further back. “It seems someone convinced him to take the Death Essence. In person, no doubt.”

“Maybe even gave it to him.”

Aliyah nodded, “Death Essences are common for adventurers to find, because of our profession, but not for ordinary people unless they deal with death on a regular basis themselves. Butchers and morticians perhaps, but even a common essence only manifests every five years to a decade in a location.”

“That rare?”

“It’s why beyond iron rank, the importance of looting rituals increases. The most efficient way of generating essence is to loot them.”

“Could this be Church of Undeath activity? Eufemia mentioned they’re big in Nekroz.”

“There’s a good possibility the church of the undeath is involved in this issue. If so, on a larger scale than just Siyu himself. The restriction and punishment for using a Death Essence is well known in cities, but the warning may lose effectiveness in these countryside towns. They could take advantage of hopefuls, promising easy power and giving essences to those who may have had to wait years otherwise.”

Aliyah went back to preparation, while Nara continued her inspection. On the table, a large cube of crystal stood out, around 10 inches for every side. It seemed inert. She Inspected it with her Guide.

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Item: [Crystalline Vampiric Phylactery] (bronze rank, legendary)

Classification: Object, Artifact, Consumable

A delicate phylactery created of crystal that can contain a vampire’s soul. Currently bound to Siyu Hong.

Requirements: Vampiric Bloodline

Effect: Can contain the soul of the vampire after the physical body is destroyed. Will regenerate the body of the vampire, albeit at reduced strength for a recovery period.

Uses: 1/1

You do not meet the requirements to use [Crystalline Vampiric Phylactery].

-------

“Uhhhhh Aliyah? I found something.”

Aliyah looked at the Guide message that appeared in front of her.

“What do we do with it?”

“Can you take it into your inventory?”

“Yeah, probably could?”

There were some restrictions on what Nara could take within her inventory. Generally, any object that was actively touched, affected by an ability, or too close to another person other than herself was impossible to store. Soul bound objects were also a no-go, which she had tested with something of Amara’s. Objects under the effect of other people’s abilities were also off limits. Conjurations generated by abilities, such as John’s camera, were also impossible to store. Objects that were too large could not be directly sent there, requiring Nara to use her false domain to bypass that limitation. Amara speculated the size limitation was a function of rank, and not a true restriction. Apparently, other inventory abilities were similarly restricted in size until higher ranks.

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The final restriction was she could not store anything with a soul or something like a soul directly in her inventory. She could allow others into her Astral Domain with a gate when she received her portal ability, but she could not force anyone inside. The consent of the soul applied here as well. She had managed to store Aliyah’s body, but didn’t know if a lingering soul of a dead body counted towards this restriction, or if Aliyah’s trust in life counted as trust in death.

“I don’t think this phylactery violates any of those limitations… nothing to do but find out.”

The phylactery was bound to Siyu, but that wasn’t the same as a soul bond. As far as Nara has seen, there were three types of equipment or item bonds—no bond, bond, and soul bond. Bondless equipment could be used by anybody and was the standard. Bound equipment could be used by one person at a time, but the owner could be changed, either through death, an unbinding ritual, or other object-dependent means. Soul bound equipment could only ever be used by one person, not even death would change that. Adventurers that wanted more security with their equipment opted for bound equipment, as it prevented enemies from stealing their equipment and using it against them.

Nara touched the cube with a slightly transparent hand, sending it to her inventory. Her inventory was in some ways separate from her astral domain. While she had told the others that her inventory was her soul for simplicity (although she realized that may not have been simpler), her inventory was in certain ways a separate space. Pulling objects directly into her soul could be unsafe (although she had not run into issues yet), the inventory was a ‘safe’ area, separate but still accessible by her soul, with a similar relationship between an astral space and the world they are attached to.

“Well, well, well.”

“It worked?”

“Yup. Almost feel bad for the guy.”

Aliyah gave her a chiding look.

“Alright, I don’t. I kind of feel like gloating.”

“Hopefully, Siyu didn’t notice you did that.”

“It said bound, not soul bound. So, I hope not.”

Their discussion had all been to avoid a room on the far side of the secret lair. The origin of the repulsive smell that the two had ignored so far. There was a room, closed off with a stone door that both Nara and Aliyah didn’t look at nor mention. They didn’t need to. Spatters and trails of blood, and an overwhelming stench leaked from the doorway. They knew what was behind the door, and neither had the stomach to see it.

Well, I don’t have a stomach. Nara thought. But it still felt like overturning its imaginary contents onto the stone floor.

“Nara,” Aliyah finally said, reluctantly bringing up the elephant in the room.

“I don’t want to look. They’re all dead, Aliyah. I get it. That guys a disgusting monster.” Tears of revulsion welled in Nara’s eyes at the throat. “It’s disgusting that Eufemia had to…speak with him for so long.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say that Eufemia had to flirt with him.

“Close to one hundred people, if it’s been five years as John said.” Aliyah said, calling upon her researcher’s clinical calm. “If there are bodies, we should retrieve them.”

“We should,” Nara agreed. She closed her eyes. “I really, really, don’t want to go in there.”

“I have an inventory,” Aliyah said. “It’s alright to leave it to me.”

Aliyah was no more used to dead bodies than Nara was, but Aliyah switched on her analytical mind. The smell was a natural result of decomposition. She distanced herself from the emotional but normal human horror and turned herself into a researcher.

And she was the big sister of the group. Nara didn’t need to see more horrors.

“No,” Nara said softly. “I’ll help.”

Aliyah slowly wrenched open the stone door, burning mana to enhance her power attribute for physical strength. The door had been sealed and enchanted with to prevent as much smell of blood as possible from escaping. Nara didn’t know if the magic had faded or if the blood and rot was that overwhelming, that even the scent of blood diffused outwards through the enchantments.

Nara didn’t want to open her mouth either, lest those particles touch her tongue. She knew it was too late for that. If she could smell it, it was within her nose. Aliyah was spared from this unfortunate knowledge.

Her mind swimming in the overwhelming smell, she temporarily lost perception of herself. She realized she no longer smelled it; her mind having shut down her sense of smell in a protective reflex. It wasn’t something she could control yet. If she went through training like John had for his breathing, she could gain control over it. Most of her senses were more or less replicated with magic, her body no more than a skin covered sack of flesh, bones, nerves, and blood.

An unpleasant thought, under these circumstances.

Aliyah cast a quick ritual, and the room was suffused with the fragrance of spring flowers, temporarily overriding the death stench that permeated the room as permanent stains.

Together with Aliyah, they silently took care of the bodies. On Earth, Nara had never seen a single dead body in her life. Erras was quickly shucking that corn husk of naivety from her. Nara conjured or brought out simple caskets while Aliyah enchanted them with preservation magic. She had done something similar before; the condition of these bodies could hardly be called bodies. Some were bundles of flesh and slop. Others were dried out sacks of skin and bones. On top of being an asshole, Siyu wasn’t even a clean eater. Or respectful of the dead.

There was a bloodied stone operating table at the side, dried scraps of flesh stuck to stone like chewed up gum. Why he operated on bodies, she didn’t care. It was a disgusting butchery, if the butchery had failed all cleanliness inspections and reopened as a horror room instead.

The two exited the room. Nara handed Aliyah a phial of crystal wash, and they both dumped the solution over their heads, cleansing themselves of the rank and sticky death. The blood sloughed off their hands and clothing, chewed away by the crystal wash into glittering sparkles that contrasted the fleshy remnants.

Rune Traps in place, the two left the lair behind.

*****

“Sen, we’ve finished. We found his lair and…a lot of dead bodies.”

“I see,” Sen grimly noted. “I’ll make an excuse to return to town with Eufemia.”

The sun was still out. If Sen wanted to return to town for something, Siyu would let him go without following them, which further solidified his likely vampiric nature. It was well known that magically infused sunlight drove vampires mad, the greatest reason for their danger. Nekroz circumvented this with a wide scale array and permanent cloud cover that greatly reduced the effect of magically infused sunlight, on top of a society primarily active at night.

The town was built on the south side of the stone mountain spire. The shadow cast by the mountain was either to the East or West, never completely encompassing the town. Nara didn’t know if shadows cut the effect of sunlight for vampires, however.

Once they started evacuating the town, Siyu would immediately know. They knew he had some sort of familiar watching the townsfolk, but Nara and the team made no attempts to identify or chase the familiar, letting Siyu find out they knew about them.

Once Sen had returned to town, they notified the mayor.

Sen and the team met the mayor in person and explained the situation.

“Siyu Hong is a death essence user… Are you sure? He’s a fine young man who’s dedicated to improving the lives of his brethren. I can’t believe he’d use a death essence…I had given him a different essence. What could drive him to use a death essence…”

Haoran Jing was in denial. He had already given Siyu a different third essence and had planned to gift him an awakening stone when he married, even if he didn’t want to assume the position of town head. An awakening stone of crystal sat unused within a lockbox beneath Haoran’s desk.

“It’s likely his mother and Tousa Di knew the entire time, hence their unusual behavior.”

Town Head Jing rested his face in his hands, his face pale.

“…Do you have any supporting evidence of this?” He tone wasn’t accusatory but resigned. The town was a few thousand, but Haoran Jing likely knew a lot of the townsfolk by name. Siyu Hong was one of the pillars of the mining community, and someone he once wanted to inherit the position of Town Head.

“We’ve found these papers within a secret stone chamber,” Nara said, removing them from her inventory.

Haoran went over to a bookcase, removing a folder of papers from a shelf.

“It matches his handwriting,” he said after comparing the two papers, his hands shaking. “What do you need me to do?”