The forest grew thicker and darker the further Seraph Squad delves in. The creatures within got stranger too, birds as large as the trees they're perched on croak horrible sounds at them before Lavinia tears their guts out. There are more animals than demons here, much to her annoyance. Her blood-soaked strategies only lured the largest of animal predators and the occasional monster. Bears taste good, their meat is chewy and hard to pull apart even with her fangs. Lavinia relished the challenge it gave even after death and her teammates enjoyed the creature’s flesh after a patient moment over a fire, she enjoyed it crunchy too.
Jonn scribbles away at the charts, mapping every new part of the forest they come across with a little drawing of whatever unfortunate animal or monster Lavinia got to slaughter. This section is marked by Dire Wolves. Their encounter with one was brief, it was the latest of a string of monsters falling for Lavinia’s trap but it was a powerful one. It presented as much a challenge as the monsters she faced in the dungeon long ago and to an extent she felt the hunt was worth it. Besides the food its corpse would provide for the squad, it helped Lavinia burn away the growing frustrations she had with the entire mission and journey by putting up a good fight— she even got injured and in several places too.
Seraph let out a long, drawn out yawn as she stretches out her back, arms and legs. Snapping her neck side to side she sighs and looks about the forest for a moment before pointing over at a moderate clearing, “There. We should make camp there and keep up the search tomorrow, still a lot of forest to comb through.”
She marches them over to the small patch of the thickened forest with a wide opening in its canopy. The further they journeyed into the forest, the darker it got and though each of them possessed a keen night vision, Seraph insists it’s always better to have some light over where they lay their heads.
Lavinia growls dissatisfaction as Jonn and Seraph pull away their belongings and start setting up camp for the night. Without looking, Seraph says, “No point in that now, Lavinia, we’re only two days in here and there’s so much ground to cover before we find what we’re looking for.”
She tossed her knapsack onto the ground, kicking it into a roll as Lavinia’s growls become more guttural, “Maybe you don’t need to rest after a whole day of wild search but we do, so take first watch and wake us up when you’re tired. If you see anything dangerous coming our way, kill it, okay?”
Jonn gives a thumbs up as he snuggles into his sack and threw his head under with Seraph following soon afterwards. Their valuables and Lavinia’s knapsack sat in-between as they left her to guard duty tonight. Seraph took the first watch on the other nights, then handed over to Jonn and then Lavinia. But since Jonn was often too lethargic from heaving and charting all day, Lavinia often took up from his half-finished watch.
With a low grunt, Lavinia settles into a perimeter patrol around the camp. Seraph would twist around their camp and keep an eye out for braver animal predators like the Dire Wolves, bears and those large birds that watched over battles to scavenge. Lavinia adopts the same roundabout patrol technique, circling the outline of the light from the canopy but relying on her natural night vision to peer the veil of darkness that grew each day.
The hoots, chittering and cawing of the forest keeps her company as she patrols, staring into the thick mesh of black bark trees and red leaf bushes. It doesn't take long for her to feel idle in her work and so she expands the perimeter just enough so she can pick at the blue berries in the bushes. The fruits don't hold a candle to meat, to raw flesh or the Essence she craves more as the day went, but they have a sweet-sour tang that her idle mouth appreciated each revolution around the camp that brought her to them.
Lavinia smacked her lips in sweet satisfaction, one bush was almost finished as she thought to return to her revolutions. As she raises her head to the circular path her feet wore into the leaves and roots, she catches a set of glowing yellow peepers glaring at her through the thick of the forest. She stifles a gasp of surprise and the chilling instinct to run that crawls up her spine.
Standing completely still Lavinia searches the rest of the forest she can see for more but rounds down to the glare of yellow. Familiar with the colour and effect of those eyes Lavinia takes an easy breath and plucks one more berry— It blinks away, vanishing into the forest. She searches all around her this time, swivelling on point and marching the worn path of her revolutions. But she finds nothing until she makes a complete turn in her path— the yellow returns deeper in the thick of bushes with a clicking growl that silenced the forest of previously excited chittering’s and hoots.
The eerie silence has her skin crawl with excitement; only a large, powerful predator could silence the forest with its presence alone. And seeing as it stalks her, she is certain it will be a demon this time.
Finally.
Essence flooded her thighs and legs as she paces the same few feet, watching as the hidden eyes latches onto her movements. She’d need to be fast in turning the tables on it; a quick burst a speed that will clear the distance between them before it chooses to vanish again. Lavinia spares a look at Seraph and Jonn fast asleep by the campfire— this counts as protecting them.
Resolved, Lavinia thrusts forward as she turns back to her stalkers eyes, catching them widen with surprise as she bounds through and over the bushes towards it. It blinks and vanishes, but this time Lavinia is on hot on its tail— unfortunately for it, it unwittingly smothered with the scent of berries.
A grin plasters itself on Lavinia as she tears through the forest at great speed, splashing through a cutting river after the stalking creature and growling all the way. She throws herself onto the trees, swivelling through their branches with hops, vaults and straight walking and swinging from branch to vine after the nervous stalker.
With her vantage and the shine of a river reflecting what little light the skies provides, her stalkers identity is quickly known to her. An orange tailed, brown furry beast with the same round face and knuckle running as the curly-tailed demons she fought.
{T-2/L-2— Kimpe}
Lavinia let a groan at the result of her {Inspect} and continued stalking the creature; now it looked for her. She refrained from setting upon it for its specie name alone. Belongs to Corym, right? There were the Kimpe, Caldri and Trirax within Corym and all were meant to be off limits to her devouring hunger. But…this isn’t Corym, I can eat that!
Reminding herself where she is her grin grows even larger as she stares down the very tree the Kimpe hugged for safety. She let herself fall, flip and land in front of the creature. It yelps, filling the forest with cries of panic but its too late, Lavinia lurches at its neck, sinking her fangs deep into its neck and draining it of the panic filled blood— the secret sauce to any hunted meal; fear.
The Kimpe fell into her arms, weak from being drained so completely, but it fights back anyway. Essence surges from within it, funnelling into its eyes but Lavinia can't be bothered waiting for its effects and punches her arm through its chest.
Its crystal lights up the blood soaking around it in Lavinia’s palm, she let the dead Kimpe drop at her feet and without a second thought absorbs its crystal for all its worth.
8 ESQ Absorbed! 10 Essence Points Absorbed!
Crystal Essence Level 8—>10!
Crystal Essence Ascended— Crimson Tier!
Vampiric Class Activated! Vampiric…
“Aahhh!!”
A shrill scream brings Lavinia’s ascension to a halt. She snaps her attention towards the scream and immediately curses at how far the weak demon had brought her away from the camp. Leaving the details of her new abilities for later she delves into the significantly larger pool of Essence she now has access to, “Crimson Blink!”
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Lavinia materializes at the camp in a shroud of blood and Essence, her dagger poised ahead of her and eyes darting about for the enemy. Seraph and Jonn are gone, their knapsacks dragged through the dirt and into the forest in a long, undisturbed trail; taken in their sleep. Lavinia’s knapsack and even the dwindling campfire are untouched and there aren't any prints around the trail— their kidnappers must’ve used the knapsacks to clear all signs.
But it won’t be enough. Lavinia sticks her nose in the air and takes a fresh breath of the forest and campsite. Seraph and Jonn’s scents were long since memorized and sniffing them out through the forest will be a simple enough task. But she wasn’t looking for out for their scent, she was searching for the assailants.
Lavinia shifted in her spot, glaring at the trees and bushes for yellow eyes— her nose picks up the scent of multiple Kimpe around the campsite, having had a good sniff of the one that lured her away made it easier to sniff out the presence of the one that remained at the campsite, hidden somewhere in the thick of the forest.
“Grrr!” growling, she takes a step out from the spot she materialized, fixing her gaze on a particularly wide tree with dead fruit and seeds littered around its base. The berry bush where she discovered the yellow eyes sat a few paces away from the where Seraph’s and Jonn’s knapsack trail disappears; eerily close to the wide tree she suspects.
Tightening her grip on the dagger she prepares to ambush when the hidden Kimpe walks out, revealing itself to be twice the size of the one she killed, muscular with a red patch of fur around its torso that stained the midnight black that coated it. It bore the same yellow eyes and had fangs growing into large tusks protruding from its mouth and its knuckles are heathed in a serrated silver glove.
{T-2/L-4— Kimpe}
“Where are they?” Lavinia demands, Essence swirling throughout her being in an excess she saw herself burning through until she found Seraph and Jonn.
The Kimpe smirks and pushes off its knuckles, standing upright and dwarfing Lavinia in an instant. It smashes its fists together, banging the silver gloves for a reverberating high pitch clang that split her vision and multiplied the opponents before her as the whining in her ears went away.
All three Kimpe share the same features without any difference; a huge grin splay over their faces and a tinge of red within their yellow eyes. Lavinia doesn’t wait any longer for an answer and pours Essence through her feet to thrust ahead at the Kimpe in the centre. Twice her size, level and width, Lavinia throws the dagger at it. It deflects the blade with its gloves, sending it clattering to the ground.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Marking that target Lavinia lurches out at it, ignoring the other two as illusions of the centre Kimpe only to earn a metal fist to her cheek. Sent flying through dirt, root and bushes, Lavinia claws herself to a stop, “Inspect!”
{T-2/L-4— Kimpe}
To her amazement all three Kimpe bounding towards her bear the same indicator. But all can’t be real. She licks blood from her lip and sidesteps the Kimpe’s smash, a second comes from the side, pulling its leg back for a kick she vaults over. That’s two I’ve touched…how?
Lavinia hits the ground running, the third stood in wait at the campsite and it screams at her, baring its mouthful of fang and teeth before rushing at her. She sneers, “Wave Shot!”
Summoning the spiralling orb of Essence in her hand takes less than a second now, feeling much appreciated for this, Lavinia turns her back on the charging Kimpe and tosses it at the two hot on her tracks. The orb spirals out in a low hum and collides with the first, obliterating in an explosive shockwave that dissects halfway through the second.
Thick hides. Lavinia notes all the while dodging the final Kimpe’s strike, letting it crush the earth beside her and leave it over extended. She grapples the demons neck and tosses herself up on its back and immediately the Kimpe scrambles to rid itself of the rounded gloves forcing its hand into a fist. But it’s too late, Lavinia snatches its head to the side and sinks her fangs in.
She drains and the effects are immediate. The two she saw as the same Kimpe fade away, leaving an exploded animal corpse and a scaly bipedal monster with a long snout Lavinia can’t recognize. The Kimpe she drains screams and hoots at the scaly monster for help but it shakes its head, bleeding out its guts from the side where Lavinia’s {Wave Shot} smacked into it. Desperation stains its blood as Lavinia forces its head to the side. It tosses itself to the ground hoping to smash Lavinia with it but only ends up releasing her onto its front for her to smite, “Reais Smite!”
The Kimpe surges with Essence, its eyes soaked in it as a free, gloveless hand snatches Lavinia’s feet out from under her. Lavinia rolls away with the fall, coming across her dagger jutting out of the ground. She picks it up and tosses it with all the Essence of her unspent {Reais Smite} and this time it stabs through the Kimpe embedding itself deep in its chest as the demons picks itself up.
Roaring out a challenge the demon smashes the ground with its fist, kicking up dirt as it glares at Lavinia crouched on all fours, ready to pounce upon its neck again. Essence continues to surge in its eyes as it smashes the earth and everything nearby, keeping Lavinia within its sights all the while.
Lavinia floods her feet and claws with Essence as she narrows her sights on the Dagger sticking out of its chest and the blood leaking out of its neck. With a deep breath she lurches after her target and all of a sudden the Kimpe goes entirely still with its arms spread out wide and eyes set out in a baleful, yellow glow that envelops all of Lavinia’s vision. Swirling and spinning and humming with a noise, Lavinia crashes face first with all the momentum of her sprint at its feet.
“Bwahahah!” she hears it laugh through the world spinning on its axis. She’s never felt this way before and the urge to throw up the bounty of blood she’d drained from the damned Kimpe is immense.
The Kimpe snatches Lavinia by her braids, it chortles on and on as it speaks to someone or something. The words wouldn’t make sense to Lavinia and remained warbled amongst everything else that's consumed in yellow.
Desperate to kill it, desperate to stain her tongue with its blood and rip out its offending tongue, Lavinia shut her eyes and ears to the world and focused on the sensations around her. The strain of her hairs keeping her up in the Kimpe’s grip, its hand further ahead and the arm outstretched, keeping her a good distance from it like a trash bag.
Lavinia pushed her senses, taking a short breath of air full of the Kimpe’s musk, adding to the sensation of its arm to map out its body in space. Relaxing her weight in its grip, Lavinia let Essence roll down her body and swell in her feet and waist for a moment before she blindly secures a grip on its arm and swings with Essence propelling her feet into its long reaching arm. A satisfying snap followed by a howl of pain announces her success.
Arm broken near its shoulder, the Kimpe lets Lavinia fall. Disoriented, Lavinia keeps her eyes shut and sniffs the yelling Kimpe out and crawls over to it. It slams its gloved fist down on her head, smashing her face into the earth. Lavinia eats the dirt and snatches the offending hand oppressing her head and crushes its wrist in hers before the Kimpe can pull for another punch.
Pulling the Kimpe towards her by its broken wrist, finding its head in the swirl of yellow is difficult and Lavinia has her hand bitten for her efforts, of course she bites back, sinking her fangs into the nearest thick of flesh without bothering for the neck. She drains the Kimpe of blood until its jaws go slack and release her hand, then she continues to drag it closer, finally peering her eyes open when its head, large as her torso lies between her legs.
1.008862ESQ Absorbed!
Blood dripping from her forehead stains her vision almost immediately as she shifts to address the weakened Kimpe, “Now…. where are they?”
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Name: Lavinia
Race: Demon
Class: Vampiric
Age: Immortal – 84 days.
Crystal Essence: [Crimson]- Lvl.1— 55.01ESQ
[Available Essence Points— 10]
Faith:30
Agility: 25
Intelligence:14
Perk: {Reais Smite}, {Blood Rush}, {Wave Shot}, {Crimson Blink}, {Inspect}, {Blood Art; Kinesis}
Soul Bond: Curse Marked; Master Henry Vanavil
***
With a twist the Kimpe’s neck snaps and Lavinia carves his throat out until the hidden Soul Crystal reveals itself. Her body ached all over from the battle with it, her head has never throbbed and bled so much before but Lavinia wears a smile and licks the blood as she plucked the Soul Crystal for herself.
It was worth the injuries she’d gotten for it and if she were honest, the goblins of Corym gave her a harder time than the Kimpe— it’s manipulative lies and illusions gave her pause but at the end of the day, whether three against one, animals against demon, Lavinia was confident she’d come out on top.
The sensation of renewed power she felt as a Crimson tier went beyond her increased Essence reserves, she felt the change structurally, throughout her being as she changed a little bit with each level. Going from Pink to Crimson meant just about everything about her strength and abilities changed. Her body alone doubled in strength and clearly endurance, had she been a Pink and taken on the Kimpe, Lavinia wouldn’t have come out alive, Vampiric Demon or no.
As she admires the Soul Crystal and rips into the Kimpe’s pouring throat, Lavinia turned her attention inward. Her rise to Crimson had brought about the changes that let her survive and triumph in the encounter but it had also brought about new skills.
Crystal Essence Ascended— Crimson Tier!
Vampiric Class Activated!
Vampiric [INT] Perk {Blood Art; Kinesis} Attained!
Kinesis? Lavinia wasn’t sure what that meant, but understood it was an [INT] Perk just like [Inspect] was and figured it wouldn’t hurt to throw some points toward it now that it had another Perk under it. With a thought, Lavinia applied 6EP to [INT] and felt the changes immediately as well.
Besides the forest becoming brighter, more colourful and Lavinia understanding the semblance of systems that the forest relied on, she could understand herself more and why at all she survived the Kimpe’s brutal onslaught.
Strength. She told herself. Her strength naturally surpassed many demons but the Kimpe would have her beat, especially if she hadn’t levelled or fought well. But there was Strength in other things, namely Blood. Her [Blood Rush] abided by the same logic that empowered her Vampiric being, the more blood there is, the more blood is pouring, the more powerful she is.
Narrowing her gaze at the Perk title it reveals itself; {Blood Art; Kinesis}— One of many Blood Arts acquired by Vampiric’s, permitting the movement of external and internal blood.
It was simple and straight forward enough like all other explanations, but Lavinia knew that this Perk would change how she fought forever. She takes a break from devouring the Kimpe’s neck and replenishing her strength to stare at the pool of blood formed under its corpse. She reached out to command the blood to move, whether up or down or sideways but immediately got confused as the blood merely ripples where she stepped in it.
Growling to herself, the ticking clock on Seraph’s and Jonn’s lives wouldn’t let her settle and understand the Perk and so she stuffs the Kimpe’s Soul Crystal in her boot and sprinted north.
Before she snapped its neck the darn Kimpe gave her the location of its camp and its description— A clearing wider than yours, a camp of many tents and demons, you won’t survive. His words brought on his death more than Lavinia’s thirst of power did. As things stood, she couldn’t absorb the Soul Crystal it provided without falling to the trappings of Essence Fatigue and lethargy. She also didn’t want to spend another 5EP just to assimilate all the new Essence she’d absorbed at a slightly faster pace.
The Essence she got from the first, stalking Kimpe still swirled in plenitude within her Soul Crystal, much of it unabsorbed but soon to be. Once Serpah and Jonn are back, I’ll absorb the other. She made sure to feel the Crystal dig into the back of her foot with each step she took up north.
As their scents grew stronger with her approach, Lavinia climbed up a tree, startling a bird out of its nest as she hops from one branch to another until the clearing the Kimpe spoke of came into view over the canopy— it lied, the camp wasn’t north of theirs but a bit to the west. Following her nose and the tangle of branches and vines that made up the forest, Lavinia kept above ground until she could look down on the camp and see the one part the Kimpe hadn’t lied about— the demons.
There are several walking in, out and in-between the splay of tents. The behaved similarly to Corym or at least one of the settlements in Corym. Among the several lounging Kimpe were familiar grey demons that polished, melted and beat metal into weapons for the demons. Lavinia narrowed her eyes at the grey and mutters, “Inspect.”
Grey skinned, long thin arms and a wild white mane of hair were common attributes of the [Simak]. Nearly all of them hammered away at smithies, their tools glowing with Essence and a clear use of mana, the power Lucy and humans commanded.
{T-2/L-3— Simak}
{T-2/L-1— Simak}
{T-2/L-1— Kimpe}
{T-2/L-5— Kimpe}
{T-2/L-2— Simak}
Amongst the demon camp, one Kimpe stood a head taller than the rest, Lavinia marked this one in her mind as she scoured the camp for any sign of her squad. Their scent was full here and any further would simply bring her back, and unfortunately she couldn’t tell if they were already dead or alive. Would it matter? Lavinia questioned the relevance of retrieving Seraph and Jonn, up till now she’d only come this far out of instinct, because there were demons here. But engaging in a camp full of more than a dozen demons well on the lookout for her didn’t sound like a wise investment of her time and energy, at least not with the purpose of retrieving Seraph and Jonn.
She shakes her head and leaps from one tree branch to another for a better view, more demons came into the light, mostly [Simak]— this was their camp and those few that weren’t smiting away at metals were lounging at one of the bigger tents, leaving the patrols and muscle manning to the Kimpe.
At this moment Lavinia wished she could see through cloth, peer into the tents for a sign of her teammates, find out if they’re dead or alive and decide what she wants to do next, but just then it occurred to her in a flash of brilliance that certainly had to do with her recent investment in [INT]— she had a ring.
She barely took note of the objects than covered her body but the strong shawl, boots and ring Seraph had outfitted her in have all come in useful one way or another. She fingers the ring with her thumb and racked her brain to recall Seraph’s instructions on how to use it; Essence in, voice in and then voice out— that was what she’d boiled it all down to when she explained.
Fuelling the ring with Essence she whispered among the trees, “Seraph, Jonn, are you alive?”