Name: Lavinia
Race: Demon
Class: Vampiric
Age: Immortal – 154 days.
Crystal Essence: [Crimson]- Lvl.5— 94.76ESQ
[Available Essence Points— 0]
Faith: 44
Agility: 31
Intelligence: 37
Perk: {Reais Smite}, {Blood Rush}, {Wave Shot}, {Crimson Blink}, {Inspect}, {Blood Art; Kinesis}, {Blood Art; MistForm}
Soul Bond: Curse Marked; Master Henry Vanavil Bestowed Commandments: 2/10
***
{T-1/L-4— Inuka}
{T-1/L-3— Inuka}
{T-1/L-7— Inuka}
{T-1/L-5— Inuka}
{T-1/L-9— Inuka}
Lavinia stalks her prey from thick foliage, pressing herself close to dirt and the wet grasses as the pack of [Inuka] feast on two familiar demon corpses. Familiar because she once attempted devouring it herself. The winged, galloping bird demon that darn walking pillar of fire Jonn calls the Vatreni denied her. However, the flames of the Vatreni are not here to steal her prey, no, her prey feasts on the remains of their collaborative hunt, selfishly ripping large chunks of its flesh, crushing its wings and legs all while she hides within the thick, biding her time.
The [Inuka] are six legged demons that bear a passing resemblance to Dire wolves or even the [Kaze-Kuime] monsters. All five feasting on the corpses have a bush worth of fur coating their hides and long, protruding fangs that from her observations, inject a kind of paralytic into their prey. In that case they aren’t too different from she, a Vampiric whose bite drains life and sends demons into a state of lethargy.
As Pink tier demons, there isn’t a lot to be cautious of and if her only purpose is to fill her fangs desires for blood she wouldn’t need to hide at all. Satisfaction is only a secondary goal though, the most important is testing the new limits of her [INT] attribute as well as the Perks related to it, including [Inspect].
Her vision fills with valuable information on their tier, levels and species name. It now also highlights the flow of Essence through their bodies and Pathways, making the locations of their Soul Crystals known as each glow with a throbbing power wherever they lie. Finding Soul Crystals has only been an issue once for Lavinia, coincidentally with the very demon the [Inuka] feast on.
She’s always devours first and finds the Crystal among the corpse, like a little surprise even though she’s entirely expecting it. But the single encounter with the Vatreni has taught her a stern and valuable lesson in knowing beforehand; it angers her still that she lost the Soul Crystal of that demon to it. Besides that, the reason for her hunts is beginning to change as she grows, this one is less for her pleasures and more a test bed of what she ought to be capable of as a demon of her renown.
It’s a convenient thing that she’s found her prey among already spilt blood, she will not have to reveal herself before she mounts her attack. She pictures it in her mind, what she wishes the Blood soaking the dirt to do and with a steady breath, pulls on Essence to bring it to fruition.
Pressing a finger to the nearest blood trail, she seeps Essence into it, channelling it down the crimson stream pouring out of the Inuka’s savaged prey, “Blood Art: Kinesis”
The connection forms, her will subsumes the blood split and as her Essence continues seeping into the corpses more blood falls to her command without the devouring fiends sensing anything.
Three of them share a larger piece of the dismembered demon, while the other two, specifically the strongest at level nine and seven, share the bird demon’s neck and seem to debate over who gets to absorb the Soul Crystal embedded near the base.
Lavinia continues to bide her time even as the Inuka rip and tear sections of the corpse so they each have their own bite, as large as the bird demon was, it isn’t massive enough to keep them fed and idle for long. Still, she waits until her Essence stains every significant pool of blood near, underneath and around each of her dispersing prey.
Eyes lit up with persistent use of [Inspect] Lavinia guides the blood of the unfortunate bird demon to position. Crosschecking one last time for the location of each Inuka’s Soul Crystal, Lavinia lets out a breath with her command.
Instantaneously her pools of blood explode into crystalized spikes and spindles, skewering through neck, ass, chest, head and paw of the [Inuka] pack with precision. Each poke and eject the targeted Soul Crystals from their body, turning them to corpses in an instant. Bursting out of her hiding place, Lavinia quickly inspects her work, finding four Pink Crystals and four dead Inuka staked through with the blood of their own prey.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
All but one lies dead, unknowing of what being brought their swift deaths. The lucky one left alive only breathes because of her failings. She levels a gaze at it and finds it in utter suffering with a blood spike spearing through its jaw and poking out where its nose used to be. She missed its head and Crystal by a fraction but it’s all well as it dares not move.
{T-1/L-9— Inuka}
Blooded eyes gaze up at her in shock, fear burgeoning in them as it sees an inevitable death in her presence. With its mouth skewered it cannot even muster a defiant bark or growl, only blood pours out its jaws.
Lavinia smirks, it wasn’t a perfect annihilation of the pack as she imagined but it’s proof of her Perk’s improvement as well as her understanding of it. She wills the spike skewering it to change shape, refining it from a spear to a thin blade of blood that slides through the last [Inuka] in a single, sundering motion.
Two equal halves of fall parallel each other, exposing its fleshy insides for Lavinia to pluck out the one Soul Crystal she missed. A strong Pink Soul Crystal nearing Crimson tier if it weren’t for her coming its way. Unfortunate thing.
She wills the blood of the thoroughly devoured bird demon to merge with that gushing out of the demons that killed it. Draining each and every corpse so efficiently that all that’s left is their Crystals, gallons of blood and six corpses that now look as they’ve never had fluid in their existence.
Lavinia stares at the giant ball of blood she’s gathered, thinking it a waste to swallow it all at once she commands one tendril to split from the mass. She manages this with ease and quickly adds a second and then a third before finding strain at the fourth.
Her mind wills them each to flail without synergy but each command, including holding the mass above the dirt takes up space in her head. She commands the four to retrieve the jutted Soul Crystals from where they’ve fallen and to her amazement, the tendrils act on her order even without her directing them to the location of each personally.
Simply knowing is enough. Humming to herself as the tendrils of her blood mass present the reaped [Inuka] Soul Crystals as well as the long dead bird demon’s, Lavinia moves her thoughts to what else she can command it to.
A small branch of a larger stream of water flows through some nearby trees, sighing as she’s reminded of times past, she walks over to it and stares at her reflection.
I’ve lost…weight?
It’s the first thing she notices, her slimmed cheeks, pointed nose and blood red lips. A pronounced jawline that trails down her neck to more of Henry’s curse mark and the short recess that begins her sternum. She opens her mouth and finds rows upon rows of tried and tested chompers, none bearing the milky look or feel they once had. Her fangs protrude, sometimes poking her lower lip till blood draws even without prey in sight. Baring them to their full length has her impressed with herself, they’ve grown at least an inch and a half and are thicker than any bone in her body save her claws.
She glances down at those, helmed upon long, slim fingers they used to be of a lighter colour, almost transparent but they've darkened, as though she’s pasted dirt and black mud over them. She extends and retracts them at will, finding they shrink, lengthen and thicken based on how much Essence she commits. If there’s a maximum length of their growth she hasn’t found it but at base, without any Essence or Blood enhancements she finds they’re long enough to rend flesh and scar denser materials.
But of all her changes over hundreds of days since she crawled out of her crevasse, the greatest change of all is herself; her mind and thoughts and feelings. Gazing deep into her reflection she can’t find a trace of the wild, thoughtless demon she used to be, even in the very act of reflection abhors her wild past.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Lavinia commands five blood stakes from the mass hovering behind her. All stab into the water with immense speed and precision and she crouches beside them, studying the effect of the flowing stream on what should be dissolving blood.
Only a sliver of her blood stakes give into the flow of the stream, dying it Crimson. From here she commands the stakes to fluid form, having each meld with the stream before reforging them to solid form once more. She finds mixing the blood under her will with water isn’t the best of ideas as much of the Essence binding each droplet to her washes away, not to mention that with each new manipulation a fraction of her Essence and blood is burnt to maintain whatever form she chooses.
Commanding it from the stream and into the mass, Lavinia opens her mouth and has it all pour down her gullet till there’s not a drop of blood or Essence left out of her. So far she’s found [Blood Art: Kinesis] to be what she believed it to be, a new, far lethal method of hunting and killing. It’s only gripe is the fact that she cannot manipulate her own blood outside of her, but that’s alright, her claws will draw blood aplenty from foes too stubborn to die to a single [Reais Smite] or [Wave Shot].
Satisfied with the results of her research and hunt, Lavinia belches and crushes the six Soul Crystals in hand.
24 ESQ Absorbed!
5 Essence Points Absorbed!
Again she sighs. While she wasn’t expecting a level— as she hasn’t been fortunate of one for sometime now— the paltry sum of EP reaped, even from Pink tier demons, is worth concern. The Crux.
Ulx said she’d meet her Crux at another tier but Lavinia knows something he doesn’t. Her meeting with Lucy in the dungeons, her being named, her latent attributes and Perks being activated while she was a mere Pink...these may be the diminishing returns for the great advance she received in early life.
Along with a great curse…
Before heading back to Corym, Lavinia has a long, hard look at the scars and marks from Henry’s curse. And as Ulx pointed out when she asked, they’ve begun to spread, further down her face to her neck and edging close her cloaked sternum.
The more commandments, the further I slip under his influence, the more I am marked. Lavinia sneers at the scars, wishing her claws would rip them off permanently but no, they won’t. Fortunately, it’s a two-way street— the more commandments, the closer she can feel him, sense his presence and with the right magical tutelage she’ll be using his own damned curse to find and eat him.
For now, Promethus awaits.